Tempted by a Dangerous Man by Cleo Peitsche Read Free Book Online Page B

underneath.
    The logs scratched at my buttocks, thighs, knees. This was one of Corbin’s twisted sex punishments. So many ways to hurt me.
    Even more paths to pleasure.
    He pushed himself up, then gently pulled free from my mouth. His hands cradled the back of my head, giving my aching neck relief.
    Smiling, he bent over and brushed his lips against mine. He tasted and smelled like me.  
    Mine. Somehow, inexplicably.  

    ~~~

    Corbin walked me back to the cabin. He hadn’t needed to, but I appreciated it. Little things like that were the reason I was completely addicted to him.  
    “I’ll be back in a bit,” he said, leaning against the door frame like he had walked me home. It charmed me. “Make yourself comfortable.” He walked away, boots crunching through the snow.  
    I slumped on the creaky bench and clumsily attacked my bootlaces with frozen fingers. I hadn’t felt the cold while we were in the shed, but I sure did now.  
    After I worked the boots off my feet, I scrunched up my toes, flexed them. These socks had kept my feet warm and dry. Really not bad for pink.
    I stretched my arms, then my cramped hamstrings, and felt pleasurably sore all over. Wouldn’t need to go to the gym for a month.
    Because it was too cold to just sit in one place, I made a slow exploration, starting with the small recreational area. Old TV, deeper than it was tall, dust like a velour blanket along the top. Dartboard, the cork looking like it had been chewed up. A chess board ready for a game, but a third of the pieces missing. I opened one of the nearest closet doors and found more board games, puzzles, an honest-to-goodness VCR, and some tapes. I looked through them. The Shining. The Evil Dead. Friday the 13 th . Never would have taken Corbin for a horror buff, but then I didn’t know if this was his cabin.
    Next was the bedroom, at the end of a small hallway that was lined with closets. The bed was large, and when I tentatively sat on it, quite comfortable. It felt like heaven to my aching butt. The solid blue flannel sheets were clean and soft—not at all mothbally.
    An absurdly large clock, three times the size it needed to be, hung crookedly on the wall.
    I closed my eyes and lay back. Despite being sore and exhausted, I felt good. Really good. Strong. Healthy. And I couldn’t be sure if it was from the exercise and fresh air or the orgasms.
    Rolling over, I got to my feet and continued exploring the bedroom. I found a stack of folded blankets in a closet that smelled like sawdust. The closet also contained a minuscule flat screen TV and an enormous DVD player, probably the first model ever produced.
    I stuck my head in the bathroom—small but it included a tub—then exited the bedroom and made my way back to the kitchen. Poor Corbin. Though maybe he would see the lack of luxury appliances as a challenge rather than a hindrance. Turning, I surveyed the cabin from this angle and realized that playing darts would mean throwing them from the kitchen. Or, more likely, standing so close that there wasn’t any challenge. No wonder the board was chewed up.  
    And where was Corbin, anyway? It had been almost half an hour. I grabbed a battered Steinbeck paperback and fell onto one of the couches. Wind thrashed the trees outside, but the cabin seemed well insulated.  
    Corbin came in on a gust of Arctic air, his arms full of logs and long twigs of various colors. “Temperature’s falling fast,” he said, dumping his haul next to the potbelly stove. “Cold night tonight, I bet.”
    I let the book rest on my chest. “We gonna be ok?”
    He smiled and raised a cocky eyebrow. “Baby, I’m a protector and a provider. So long as I’m around, you’ll never want for anything.”  
    And even though he hadn’t managed to say it with a straight face, his words made me think of that moment in the forest, when I’d wanted to see him on one knee. “Forget I asked,” I said too loudly. I could feel that my face had turned red.