To Alaska, With Love: A Touch of Silk

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KAY FREEMONT CASUALLY TOOK a compact from her purse.

Okay, maybe it wasn’t so casually. Maybe she wanted another peek at Paul Bunyon back there without turning around and giving him the satisfaction of knowing she was interested.

Not interested in a serious way, of course. She was trying to untangle herself from an unsatisfactory relationship, not get into a new one. She merely wanted to confirm that the broad-shouldered man clad in flannel and denim was indeed as ruggedly cute as she thought.

Kay might have worried her bottom lip with her teeth, so curious was she about this man, but many years of her mother’s nagging stopped her. Mustn’t smear one’s lipstick. Freemonts had a certain image to maintain.

She feigned using the compact mirror to pat her unmussed hair into place, but she angled it so she could see him. Secretly she’d always been sexually attracted to burly, outdoorsy men. Strong, physical men who played contact sports and repaired their own cars. Men who chopped wood and roasted raw meat over fire pits. Men who’d fight to the death to protect their women.

The fact that her boyfriend Lloyd was a slender, brainy, pacifistic vegetarian who didn’t even own a car, much less know how to work on one, did not escape her. But just because she daydreamed about extremely manly men didn’t mean she coveted a relationship with one. It was simply a sexual fantasy.

Besides some things were more important than sex. Companionship, for instance.

And Lloyd is such a great companion? He works eighty-hour weeks. And when was the last time he made love to you? Seven, eight weeks ago?

That wasn’t fair. She couldn’t lay blame solely at his feet. She was as busy as Lloyd.

And is it your fault that Lloyd has never satisfied you in bed?

Maybe it was her fault. Even though she spent a lot of time researching and writing how-to-improve-your-sex-life articles like “How to Achieve Multiple Orgasms” and “Tantric Sex, The New Revolution in Intimacy,” for the hottest women’s magazine in the country, Kay had yet to experience such lofty sensations herself.

Yes, she read and she read and she read. From classics like The Hite Report and The Story of O to the most up-to-date literature on the subject, she knew them all by heart. Kay understood the mechanics of sex, and she kept thinking that if she just gathered enough knowledge on the subject, one day she’d be able to scale her way to the stars.

Maybe she should see a counselor, instead.

Or maybe you should just have a wild, uninhibited fling. I bet Paul Bunyon’s got what it takes to please a woman. Did you get a load of those hands? If it’s true what they say about the size of a man’s hands and the size of his...

Kay tilted the mirror to the right to get a better look.

Paul Bunyon’s upper arms were as big as her thighs. For some illogical reason, this thought made her shiver. He was so very large and seemed to be constructed of pure steel. He was tall and muscular and solid. She imagined he could toss her over his shoulder more easily than she could pick up a tea bag. He possessed hair the color of aged whiskey and sultry gray eyes that snapped with surprising intelligence.

His shirt was a comforting shade of blue, and he had the sleeves rolled up a quarter turn, giving her a peek of sexy forearms offset by a thick, leather-banded watch. Nice. Very nice. Just the right amount of hair. Kay had a weakness for sexy forearms.

She licked her lips, forgetting all about smearing her lipstick. A weighted feeling settled over her and made her blood flow hot and sluggish as the erotic sensation drifted down to wedge heavily between her legs. She wondered what would happen if she stood up and walked toward him. What would he do if she bent down to his ear and with a seductive whisper invited him to become a member of the mile-high club with her? Tingles dove down her spine.

If she pivoted on her heel and sashayed to the lavatory, would he follow?

She swallowed hard past the lump in her throat. What a tight fit! The two of them crammed into an airplane lavatory. It would require some maneuvering. Kay stared so hard into the mirror of her compact that her vision blurred and she was transported.

He lifts her up on the counter; his eyes fill with heated desire. He takes one of those big hands and, starting at her right ankle, he oh-so-slowly moves it up her leg, past the curve of her calf, to the bend of her knee. She gasps at his touch. His callused fingertips snag her stockings, tearing them until she resembles a lady of the evening after a long night of selling pleasure.

Then his other hand starts its journey up her left leg. He moves closer, and she wraps her legs around his waist. The top of her head is resting against the rest-room mirror, and her back is arched. He stares into her eyes, captivated. Clearly he thinks she is the most exquisite creature on the face of the earth.

His right hand goes farther. Moving up her knee inch by inch. Her skirt hikes high. The sensations are incredible. His rough fingers sliding over her bare skin, the cold sink beneath her bottom, the feel of his hard waist against the inside of her legs. She feels a million things at once, and they are all good.

He’s still looking at her, but not saying a single word. He smells delicious, like Christmas trees and woodsmoke and leather. She feels herself moisten with desire. She wants him like a lion wants a lamb.

“Kiss me,” she commands him in a bossy voice.

He dips his head. His hands are on her thighs, palms splayed. He’s so close, but he doesn’t lower his lips to hers. He’s teasing. There’s a naughty gleam in his eye.

“What will you give me for a kiss?” he asks.

His voice is heart-stoppingly sexy. A resonant sound that fills her ears like the loveliest bass instrument. Her pulse throbs at her throat. She’s hot all over. Hot and wet and desperate.

“I’ll give you whatever you want,” she whimpers.

“I want you to touch me,” he says. “Here.”

And then he takes her hand and guides it to the bulge straining against the zipper of his blue jeans. She eases down the zipper, slips her hand inside. He’s going commando, no underwear. She touches him.

It’s so big. So hard. So hot. Scalding. He smells of musky male, and her excitement escalates. He groans and closes his eyes.

At the same time as she’s touching him, his hand is busy snaking up her thigh to hook a finger around the waistband of her panties.

She moans. He crushes his mouth to hers.

He tastes too good to be true. Not the finest caviar in her mother’s pantry, not even the most expensive bottle of French champagne in her father’s cellar can compete with his flavor.

Her palm is pressed hard against his erection, which seems to keep growing and growing and growing. His tongue is a menace, dazzling her with moves she never thought possible.

“I want you inside me.”

“No. Not yet. First, I’m going to make you beg.”

She whimpers again.

“That’s right.” He nods. “This has been a long time coming.”

Her nipples tighten. She wriggles her hips. Her panties are whisked off.

“What are you doing?”

“Hush, woman,” he growls. “Hush and enjoy. You deserve everything I’m going to give you and so much more. You drive me wild.”

She glows at his words. Men have told her she’s beautiful before, but no one has ever told her she drives him wild. He’s telling her exactly what she needs to hear, and she loves him for it. She feels incredibly powerful that she’s controlling such a big man with her sexuality.

Then he goes to work with his fingers.

He’s stroking her inner thigh, and then he trails his fingertips inward. He’s doing something that makes her eyes roll back in her head with sheer ecstasy.

Oh, gawd, what that intoxicating hand is doing at the apex of her womanhood!

She writhes against him, clutches his shoulders with both hands, digs her fingers into his flesh through the soft flannel of his shirt.

His movements are gentle but firm. The pressure builds. No man has ever caressed her in quite this way. It’s as if he knows exactly how to make her cry out for more. She’s never been this excited, this desperate, this famished for a man’s body.