Frozen Necessity (2 page)

Now that she was relaxed, maybe she could decide what she was going to do about her situation.

She’d stayed with Colt because leaving him would be suicide. With her intolerance for cold and the climate, she was stuck, and running away would be stupid.

Now she was in the village. There were other people and Eternals here, so perhaps she could convince someone to help her. Or…

Oh, my gods!

The thought struck her like lightening. Why hadn’t she thought of it before?

I can contact Athera, Kell, and Dani. They will find a way to help me. I know Scarlet will help me, since I helped her escape.

Angelica was ashamed that she hadn’t thought of it before. In fairness to herself, she had been under stress, freezing, and cowed by a lumbering hulk of a male.

He isn’t lumbering. He may be a hulk, but let’s be honest…he’s fast and gorgeous and you know it.

Angelica let out a huff-like sound. Her subconscious, as always, was right. Colt was all kinds of steamy hot. If she had the guts, she’d admit, it wouldn’t have been so bad to be with him—to create a child with him.

Oh, don’t even go there. You are in this mess because you were trying to avoid that fate.

Right again.

Back to the current problem—how to contact Ath.

Angelica considered her options. She didn’t have a contact mirror, so that was out. There had to be another way.

She was drawing a blank. She opened her eyes and scanned around the room. Her
bed
was a pile of bedding on the floor—no help there. Her eyes lit on the window. She could see snow falling and a gust of wind chose that moment to howl around the corner of the house.

Great, another storm starting up. Isn’t it supposed to be fall here? Focus, Geli.

Angelica gasped aloud. Since when had she started calling herself Geli…She hated that nickname.

“Grr.” She growled and shifted in the tub. The glass in the windowpane caught her attention.

“Glass is reflective,” she mused aloud. No, she didn’t think that would work. She didn’t have the spells and ingredients to turn the glass into a communication mirror.

She continued scanning the room and spotted the fireplace. Angelica chewed on her bottom lip as she weighed her abilities in her natural element, and wondered if she could pull off a fire communication.

There was one big problem with her plan. Even if she could contact Athera via the fire, Ath would have to have an open flame near her to receive her message.

She unconsciously heated the water a bit more.

It was worth a try. Angelica would attempt it in the evening after Colt had gone to sleep, and perhaps Ath would be near a candle flame. That would be her best bet.

With her plan cemented in her mind, she lay back in the water and let the warmth soothe all her aches away.

* * * *

Colt circled around the village, taking his human form behind his cabin. He went to the small shed and retrieved the bag with spare clothes he kept there for emergencies.

He wouldn’t normally bother getting dressed before entering his cabin, but Angelica had seen enough of his naked body. He wouldn’t give her that view again.

The wind howled around the building as he stabbed his legs into his jeans. He should be cold, especially with the fresh snow falling. The storm was fast becoming a blizzard. Anyone who’d grown up in Northern Alaska could tell the signs, and knew the difference between a normal snowstorm brewing, and a blizzard that would white out the world for a while.

He felt exhilarated from his run in bear form, as if the world couldn’t do him any damage. Colt felt as if he could handle Geli and this fake marriage they had forced on him.

None of it mattered to him. His revenge was safe and secure. He’d have to approach it in a different way than he’d planned to, but he could live with that.

Colt didn’t bother with a shirt or shoes. It was a short distance to the cabin, and the pants were enough.

He frowned when he climbed the stoop and saw the door was ajar. He shook his head, bent and scooped up some logs into his arms. He might as well take more wood in. That female got cold for nothing.

He packed the wood by the living room fireplace and looked around the room. The only thing out of place was a plate, washed and in the drying rack by the sink.

Had someone brought Geli food? 

Colt walked over to the door of her room expecting it that Geli had locked it. It was closed, but when he pushed it open and looked into the room, he lost his ability to breathe.

Chapter Two

Colt watched Geli as she sat up in the bathtub, her back toward him. She didn’t see him or hear him, and he stood motionless to make sure she did neither.

She reached up to wind her long, coal, black tresses above her head and he caught a glimpse of the side of her firm breast. His body reacted—his whole frame going taut with need.

She sighed in contentment and stretched.

Gods, what that stretch does to her body should be illegal.

Then she stood up in the tub, water sluicing down her back as she exposed her whole back and body to his hungry gaze.

A lock of that night-colored hair slid down her back and he was helpless. He had to follow it with his eyes. The pair of jeans he was wearing suddenly felt like a vice around his cock. The traitorous body part had gone as hard as titanium.

He watched as that curl slid down her perfect pale skin, past her gently curved waist, and came to rest on the apex of the most beautiful ass he had ever seen.

His fists clenched at his sides. He wanted to take the three steps it would take to get to her. He wanted to spin her around and crush her against the erection her perfect body created, but he wouldn’t do that. No, she wasn’t going to get that from him ever again.

She bent at the waist to reach for something on the floor, exposing the perfect curve of her ass and a glimpse of her sex. He must have groaned aloud because Geli shot up straight, turned, and screeched, trying to cover her whole body with her hands. She took a step back, her foot catching the edge of the tub, and she fell.

Colt reacted, reaching Angelica and pulling her into his arms. He lifted her out the tub and crushed her to his chest.

“Careful, Gelibean, you might fall and hurt yourself.”

His voice sounded hoarse even in his own ears.

“Let go of me, you oaf, and why are you spying on me?” She tried to push away from him, but he held her tighter and rolled his hips, knowing that she’d feel his erection pressing against her belly.

Her eyes shot wide. “Let me go.” 

Had her voice just dropped an octave or two? Were her eyes going half-mast with desire?

Colt drew in a deep breath through his nose. Yes, there was the feint scent of her desire.
Something to use against her.

He could make her want him so much that she’d beg, then leave her unsatisfied, and that would be part of his revenge. He’d use her attraction to him against her.

“What?” He rolled his hips again and pulled her tight, crushing her breasts against his bare chest. “Does my hard-on offend you?”

“I…” She didn’t answer him. She had this look of lost hunger on her face that made him want to drop his head and kiss her.

Oh, yes, part of my vengeance. In all the time she rode me like a stallion, she never kissed me. Maybe she has a problem with kissing men.

He felt the evil smile curl his lips and saw the fear in her eyes.

“Colt, please…”

“Please what?” he sneered. “Please don’t fuck you?”

She blushed and tried to push away from him again.

Colt tightened his grip and let his hand slide down her side. He hooked a thumb under her breast and curved his hand around the outside edge of it, never quite giving her the contact she must be aching to get.

“Colt…”

His name sounded like a plea on her lips and he felt a surge of desire so strong it almost staggered him.

He moved his hand away from her breast and lowered it over the curve of her hip.

Colt heard Angelica’s breath hitch.

He let his hand slide down her thigh and hooked the back of her knee. With one fast movement, he pulled her knee up so she could feel his denim-covered erection close to her sex.

Her head fell back and she gasped, and the sound all but drove him to his knees.

Kiss her now if you are going to, because your plan is backfiring on you.

Colt let go of Geli’s leg and grabbed a fistful of her hair. Forcing her face up, he lowered his mouth to hers. The kiss was savage, the way he intended it to be. He forced her mouth open and attacked her tongue with his. She gasped into his mouth, going motionless. He could almost taste her shock, but then she started kissing him back.

Her kiss was tentative at first, soft as if she was trying to figure out how to do it. If she was trying to work it out, she was a fast learner.

He felt her fingernails bite into his bare shoulders, then push up into his hair. He shuddered with unexpected pleasure, and Geli took full advantage, kissing him back as fiercely as he had been kissing her, both of them panting for oxygen as the feelings of need and want intensified.

He gave up. His plan to seduce Geli and leave her wanting was going to kill him. He’d have to go through with what he’d started here, or suffer more than she would.

Colt reached for her knee again, pulling her leg up without breaking the kiss. He ground his cock against her sex and he moaned from the pleasure. He freed his other hand and slid it between them. His fingers were seeking her wetness, and when he found it, a fresh wave of her scent hit him, making him shudder.

Gods, she smells so hot and wet, so good, so ready.

He dipped his finger just inside her, and Geli tensed.

Colt deepened the kiss. He didn’t understand why she was tensing like a virgin with her first lover. Right then, he didn’t care. He wanted inside this woman, and he wanted to be there now.

He dipped his finger into her sex again, this time pushing a little deeper, and Geli moaned. The sound came from deep inside her, one of pure enjoyment.

The sound was a reminder, and it hit him like a two-ton truck going eighty miles an hour.

Colt shoved her away from him so fast, she stumbled and landed on her ass on the bedding.

He sneered at her in disgust. “Thanks for reminding me who you are and what you did. I should never have touched you.”

She gaped at him, shock clear in her expression.

“I don’t understand.”

“Fuck that! You know exactly what I’m talking about.”

“If you shouldn’t have touched me, why the hell did you?”

He could see the anger spark to life in her eyes as she pushed herself up, getting to her feet and standing straight and proud, either unaware or not caring that she was naked. In his mind, though, he could hear the bitch moaning as she raped him in that tiny cell. He could hear her moans intensify as she got close to climax.

Colt felt the bile rise in his throat. He had to get out of there. “Get dressed. You have a wedding to go to.”

He turned and left the room, slamming the door on his way out.

“What wedding?”

He had heard her yell after him through the closed door. A slow smile of satisfaction curled his lips. She’d just have to wait and see, now wouldn’t she?

* * * *

Angelica didn’t know if she should laugh, cry, or kill someone. She was leaning towards the last one on the list, and Colt would make a great subject for eternacide.

He'd walked into her room, and when she'd seen him, she'd nearly lost it. If he was rugged before, he was downright divine with his beard shaved and the lines of his features fully visible.

Gah, don't get sidetracked by how hot he is.

She snatched the first piece of clothing she could find. It was a long white dress. She held it up and peered at it. It was simple in cut, with long sleeves that belled out at the wrist.

Are these people serious? They live in one of the coldest parts of the world and they give me a frigging dress to wear? I’m going to die of exposure.

She pulled the dress on over her head and shivered, then grabbed the rest of the clothes that she'd been given.

The distraction lasted only as long as it took her to put her clothes on. Then she was back to fuming about Colt and what he’d done.

He gave you pleasure.

“He pushed me flat on my ass,” Angelica told her inner voice.

Her inner voice had a point. Gods, when he’d pulled her against him and she’d felt that hardness, she’d all but melted for him.

When he’d kissed her, she’d been shocked at first, then…wow! She never thought a simple kiss could be so good, making her blood so hot, never wanting Colt to stop.

She felt a blush heated her cheeks as she remembered the rest of it. His finger sliding down her wet warmth, and by then, she’d been so wet and ready, she would have let him take her right there, right on the floor, and she would have been a willing participant in all that pleasure.

She’d just worked up the courage to reach out for all that steel hardness he was grinding into her when he’d shoved her, pushing her away as a toy he could throw away at will.

“He doesn’t want you, Angelica. He wants to play with you, torture you.” Michael’s voice appeared by the fireplace.

Angelica gasped. “How long have you been here?”

“You take my honor into question, ma’am.” He sounded affronted.

She wasn’t going to take that at face value. “How long have you been here, Michael?” 

“I didn’t see anything…untoward,” he hedged.

“Why don’t I believe you?”

“Why would you doubt me? Have I done anything unkind to you, ma’am?”

His form flickered, vanishing, then reappearing as if there were a glitch in her eyes, as if she’d blinked him gone, blinked, and he was back again. He moved close to her.