White Hot Holidays: Ice On Her Wings

  An Ellora’s Cave Romantica Publication

  www.ellorascave.com

  Ice on Her Wings

  ISBN # 1-4199-0467-1

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

  Ice on Her Wings Copyright© 2005 Leda Swann

  Edited by Briana St. James.

  Cover design by Syneca. Photography by Dennis Roliff.

  Electronic book Publication: December 2005

  This book may not be reproduced or used in whole or in part by any means existing without written permission from the publisher, Ellora’s Cave Publishing, Inc.® 1056 Home Avenue, Akron OH 44310-3502.

  This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, events or locales is purely coincidental. The characters are productions of the authors’ imagination and used fictitiously.

  Warning:

  The following material contains graphic sexual content meant for mature readers. Ice on Her Wings has been rated E–rotic by a minimum of three independent reviewers.

  Ellora’s Cave Publishing offers three levels of Romantica™ reading entertainment: S (S-ensuous), E (E-rotic), and X (X-treme).

  S-ensuous love scenes are explicit and leave nothing to the imagination.

  E-rotic love scenes are explicit, leave nothing to the imagination, and are high in volume per the overall word count. In addition, some E-rated titles might contain fantasy material that some readers find objectionable, such as bondage, submission, same sex encounters, forced seductions, and so forth. E-rated titles are the most graphic titles we carry; it is common, for instance, for an author to use words such as “fucking”, “cock”, “pussy”, and such within their work of literature.

  X-treme titles differ from E-rated titles only in plot premise and storyline execution. Unlike E-rated titles, stories designated with the letter X tend to contain controversial subject matter not for the faint of heart.

  ICE ON HER WINGS

  Leda Swann

  Chapter One

  Bonny Eagle, Beagle to her friends, smoothed her hands down her black leggings to wipe off the slippery film of sweat. Her black gym shoes squeaked as she stepped forward and she winced at the loudness of the noise in the night. To her hypersensitive ears, it was as loud as a gunshot. She knew she should have broken them in a bit before she went off to play cat burglar.

  Taking another step forward she suddenly found herself bathed in a harsh yellow light as all around her automatic security lights flickered to life.

  Instantly she froze, hardly daring to breathe, expecting every second to be challenged, to be ordered off the grounds, or worse, to be held until police arrived to arrest her.

  Damn it all. Why on earth had she forgotten about the risk of such a basic security measure? A man like Robert Barron was unlikely to leave his castle completely undefended, especially in his absence.

  She moved carefully on the balls of her feet, ready to take off running as fast as she could. As an ex-champion sprinter, that was pretty damn fast when the occasion demanded.

  Nobody came to confront her, no burly security guard with a gun holstered at his side and a mean temper to match came storming up to her demanding to know what she was doing on Robert Barron’s estate in the middle of the night. Dressed as she was, in black from head to toe, with her black hair tied up in a ponytail, she could hardly pretend she was here on business. Or on entertainment, either.

  Maybe she should have worn a cocktail dress and a pair of high heels instead, slip-on heels that she could have kicked off if she needed to run. That way she wouldn’t look quite so obviously like a thief, but like someone who’d just left a Christmas party. And if she got caught, she could have made up some story about being a friend of Robert’s and that he was expecting her. She was good at reporting stories. After all, that’s what she did for a living.

  If she got caught breaking and entering, she’d have to come up with a pretty damn good story, or her job was history for sure. No editor of a respectable daily paper would tolerate one of his junior reporters getting into trouble with the cops for burglary.

  Although the motto of the paper was to get the story come hell or high water, if you got caught, it was well known that you were on your own. The paper washed its hands of you.

  Getting away with murder, the editor had always said, was the mark of a truly great reporter.

  Her breath slowly returned to normal as she realized that no one was coming to challenge her. Slowly she crept into the shadows by the side of the wall, moving out of range of the security lights, needing to get inside before someone decided they were worth investigating after all.

  An unlocked door or window was all she needed, and she would be inside.

  Before she had crept more than partway around the house she found exactly what she had been looking for. High up on one wall was a partly open window, small enough and set high enough off the ground to deter the casual intruder, but not her. Lean, lithe and athletic, she could get through such a window with ease.

  Well, maybe not with ease, she admitted fifteen minutes later when, exhausted, sweating and scratched to pieces, she finally wriggled through the window and found herself in a tiled bathroom. She knew it was a bathroom even without the lights on—she’d damn near fallen head first into the toilet on her first attempt to get through the window. And the tiles made her gym shoes squeak even louder than before.

  At least it was warmer inside out of the cold. Flicking on the flashlight she carried, she stole through the bathroom and into the adjoining bedroom. With any luck she would find the papers she needed right away and be out of there, the tantalizing prospect of a promotion to senior reporter measurably closer, before Robert Barron or any of his staff were any the wiser.

  Robert Barron brought his red sports car to a growling halt in the basement garage. Not in the mood for celebrations, he’d left the Christmas party given by one of his business associates as early as he decently could. Though it had been five years ago now, the death of his wife, Lisa, seemed to hurt twice as badly at Christmastime as at any other time of the year. He was tired of drinking endless Christmas toasts with businessmen he barely knew, and with pretty women whose baby blue eyes could not hide the avarice in their hearts.

  He took the stairs two at a time, not bothering with the lights. He knew his house so well that he didn’t need them to know where he was going.

  Reaching his bedroom, he flicked the lights on and headed for his dressing room, eager to throw off his formal attire and sit back down in front of the computer in his study. One of the spreadsheets from the financial analyst this morning hadn’t looked quite right and he wanted to go through the figures himself…

  A startled gasp sounded in the silence, breaking his train of thought completely.

  He whirled around, his hands still fumbling with the knot of his tie. Who the hell was in his bedroom?

  A figure in black, a woman by the shape of her, stood bent over guiltily at his desk, a sheaf of papers in her hands.

  He stalked towards her, his natural sense of caution giving way to anger. “What the hell are you doing here?”

  The figure in black did not stop to answer. Dropping the papers she was rifling though, she darted to the side, making a surprisingly fast run for the bedroom door and for her freedom.

  Acting on instinct rather than on thought, he made a wild grab for her.

  His wild grab was more successful than he had expected. His fist tangled around her swinging ponytail, stopping her dead with a jerk.

  “Owwww,” she yelped, dancing up and down on her black-sneakered feet. “Let go off my hair, you…you caveman.”

  Her tone of offended dignity struck him as so ludicrous
he very nearly laughed out loud. Here he was, half expecting to have a gun thrust against his temple for his rashness in tackling her, and instead she was complaining about having her hair pulled.

  Gun or no gun, he wasn’t going to let her go now that he had caught her. She’d had the temerity to break into his house. No one, but no one, messed with Robert Barron and got away scot-free. Not even a young woman with silky black hair and the lithe, lean body of a dancer. Or of a professional thief. “So you can escape down the stairs and make off with whatever of mine you have stolen?” he inquired silkily, leaving his fist tangled in her hair. It seemed the easiest way of keeping hold of her. “It may be nearly Christmas, but I’m not feeling that generous.”

  “I haven’t stolen anything.” When she wasn’t squealing in indignation, her voice matched her body—slightly husky and naturally seductive.

  “I interrupted you too soon, did I?” It was just as well he’d left that blasted party early, or he would have come home to a burgled house and missed the satisfaction of catching the thief. “My apologies, but you will forgive me if I check before I let you go.”

  “You are going to let me go?” The surprise in her voice was a dead giveaway. Whether or not she had stolen anything yet, she had come here to make mischief. Her clothing alone would have told him that much. No one paid social calls wearing skintight black leggings. Even though they certainly showed off a woman’s legs to advantage.

  “Is there any reason why I shouldn’t?” He was not above tormenting the little thief with a sense of false hope. “After all, you claim not to have stolen anything.”

  She started to shake her head vigorously, and then stopped, wincing with pain, as she realized her hair was still tangled around his hand. “No reason at all. It’s just that I thought…” Her voice trailed off into silence.

  “You thought what?”

  “I thought you would, uh, want to talk to me or something,” she finished lamely. “But seeing that you don’t,” she continued in a determinedly chirpy voice, “I’ll just have my hair back, if I may, and I shall be on my way.”

  She was way too naïve to be a professional thief. There was so little cynicism, so few hard edges on her. Which simply raised another question—what the hell had she been doing in his house rifling through his papers? “I don’t think so.”

  “What do you mean?” That startled look again, like a frightened sparrow.

  “I intend to let you go. Eventually. Once I have called the police and informed them that I caught an intruder in my bedroom and they have come to take you away. I will be perfectly happy to let you go into their custody.” He felt like a complete heel threatening her with the police, but he wanted to get to the bottom of the story.

  “The police?” Her eyes widened with horror. They were, he noted, rather beautiful deep brown eyes fringed with long, dark eyelashes. Gorgeous eyes, in fact. The sort of eyes a man would lose his head over. “You can’t call the police.”

  “It’s the customary thing to do when you discover a burglar in your house.”

  “I swear I haven’t stolen anything.” Her voice was high, almost panicked, whether it was from fear of the police or fear of being caught in her lies, he couldn’t tell.

  “Ah, yes. The body search. Thank you for reminding me.” He pulled her over to the door, closed it and stood with his back against it. He wasn’t going to let her get away without first making sure she hadn’t swiped anything that mattered.

  Now that there was no way out except through him, he released her hair.

  She stepped back a few paces and shook it free with an exclamation of relief. That done, he saw her eyes flicker around the room, clearly looking for an alternate escape route. He saw her hesitate for a fraction of a second as she looked towards the bathroom and then dismiss her momentary thought with a tiny shake of her head. There was no other way out.

  He eyed her slim silhouette. Not many possible hiding places that he could see. “Turn out your pockets.”

  “I don’t have any pockets to turn out,” she said defiantly, her hands on her hips.

  “Come here and let me check.”

  She shook her head. “I don’t think so.”

  “Fine.” Reaching into his pocket, he dug out his mobile phone. “I’ll just call the police right away and give them the pleasure of searching you.”

  Her face visibly paled. “Not the police. Please.”

  “You have a problem with the police? A prior record, by any chance?”

  “I already told you, I’m not a damn burglar.”

  “Then come here and prove it to me.”

  She inched a step closer.

  “I don’t have all night.”

  Swallowing her nerves, she stalked up to him and stood nose to nose. “Fine then,” she spat at him. “Search me all you like. A deviant like you would no doubt enjoy humiliating me like that. I don’t care. As long as you promise to let me go when you’re finished.”

  “A deviant?” Her accusation touched his pride. “I am not a deviant.” He was simply defending his property, nothing more.

  She shrugged. “Whatever.”

  A sudden suspicion crossed his mind. “This wasn’t an accident, you being here in my bedroom. You know who I am, don’t you?”

  “Who doesn’t?” Her defiance was back again in full swing. “Your face is on the cover of every sleazy tabloid in town.”

  “You knew this was my house.”

  “It’s hardly a state secret that you live here.”

  “You knew I’d be at that Christmas party tonight.”

  “A lucky guess.”

  So he wasn’t imagining things. He had been deliberately targeted. “Who sent you?”

  “Nobody sent me. I came here on my own.” She sounded decidedly miffed that he thought she had been sent by someone else. Interesting.

  “What were you looking for?”

  She shrugged again, refusing to answer.

  “I can see I will just have to look for myself.” He was really angry now. Angry that she thought she could break into his house and use her gorgeous body and the promise in her deep brown eyes to get away with it. “Take off your sweater.”

  Stretching her arms above her head, she pulled off her sweater, revealing a tight black T-shirt underneath. Really, the woman ought to buy clothes that were big enough for her, not T-shirts that strained over her breasts like that. It wasn’t even that her breasts were particularly large, the T-shirt was definitely too small. “You like black?”

  “It doesn’t show the dirt,” she replied, in an offhand manner.

  “Give me your sweater.”

  She tossed it to him. “Catch.”

  The warmth of her body lingered in the soft wool and he had to resist the temptation to take it to his face and inhale the scent of her. She would definitely think he was a deviant if he did that. Instead he gave it a brief inspection to make sure nothing was hiding in its folds and then tossed it in the corner.

  “Now your shoes.”

  With a glare of irritation, she kicked off both her trainers. “Nothing in them but my feet.”

  “And your socks.”

  Hands on her hips, she simply looked at him. “Aren’t you taking this a bit far?”

  “I can always call the cops instead if you prefer.”

  “What on earth do you think I would be hiding in my socks?”

  “Beats me. I don’t know what you’ve stolen.”

  “For the third time already, I am not a thief.” Her fists were clenched at her sides as if she was ready to strike him for the insult.

  “I beg your pardon,” he said with mock courtesy. “I don’t know what you were trying to borrow then.”

  She heaved an irritated sigh. “Nothing that I would be able to slip into my socks, that’s for sure.” Bending over at the waist she pulled off first one sock and then the other and tossed them on top of her shoes.

  They weren’t the sort of socks he would expect a cat burglar to wear
. Not that he had much idea what the run-of-the-mill cat burglar wore on her feet, but it sure wasn’t these. “Glittery Christmas tree socks?”

  “I happen to like Christmas trees. And they were hidden by my leggings anyway so nobody was going to see them. Have you finished humiliating me yet?”

  “Humiliating you? Yes. Searching you? No.”

  “I’m not taking off any more of my clothes, so don’t even think of asking me to,” she warned. “I haven’t got anything of yours on me. I swear.”

  “Do you really think I would take the word of a cat burglar? Come over here.”

  She stepped a fraction closer.

  It was close enough for his purposes. Kneeling down in front of her, he ran his hands first over one ankle and then the other.

  “What are you doing?” she asked, trying to shuffle backwards out of his way.

  He held her ankles so she could not move away. “Patting you down.” Finding nothing out of the ordinary on her ankles or calves, he moved his hands to her knees. “What does it feel like to you?”

  “It feels like you’re groping me,” she said in an accusatory tone.

  He shot a glance up at her face, which had started to redden around the edges. “Now then, why would I do that?”

  “Because you’re a deviant.”

  “For a cat burglar who has been caught red-handed, you’re not very polite. Shouldn’t you be on your knees in front of me, instead of the other way around? Shouldn’t you be begging for mercy right now, promising me whatever it takes to let you go?” He wouldn’t at all mind having this little cat burglar on her knees in front of him.

  That thought brought an image to his brain of her kneeling in front of him, sucking his cock in exchange for him letting her go. His cock leapt to life at the thought of her soft black hair falling over him as she suckled him with her mouth and tongue.

  He tamped down the inappropriate image, doing his best to encourage his cock to behave more circumspectly. Hell, she’d never believe he was innocently patting her down if he got a huge erection.