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The Donnelly

Bed & Breakfast

Crashing through the front doors of the old building, they looked like a pair of snow-monsters. Every surface of their bodies was covered in sleet and ice. The other guests, sitting comfortably in the living area, rushed to take their coats. They were given towels to dry off, and told to stand by the fire. They were even handed hot mugs of steaming coffee.

Arriving there like that, actually making it through the storm? It was Kara’s favorite part of the whole damned trip.

Their hosts, a charming old couple wearing matching Christmas sweaters, informed them there was a single vacancy left. “But it’s a little pricey,” the woman leaned in confidentially, “because it’s the honeymoon suite.”

Of course it is, Kara laughed inwardly.

Jeremy pulled out a thick wad of bills — large enough that it actually seemed to alarm the old couple — and paid. He turned to Kara and shrugged.

“The honeymoon suite,” he chuckled. “Xiomara would shit.”

“Yeah,” she agreed. “But I think that’s what I like most about it.”

It was about then, as they thawed themselves before the roaring fire, that they realized they were absolutely famished. Since breakfast they’d subsisted on nothing but stale candy bars and reconstituted hot chocolate.

Food was brought out to them — leftovers from the hosts’ own dinner. They tore into it as politely as possible, then spent another hour just sitting around, listening to the other guests. Jeremy probed a few times, asking questions about the Averoigne, but no one really had anything interesting to say. Not even the Donnelly’s, if that’s who these people actually were.

In the end their retired to their room, which was a cozy master suite at the very top of the house. A small wood-burning stove sat in one corner. It was already stoked and running. Windows looked out over three different directions, all of them giving an identical view of the swirling darkness.

“Comfy,” said Jeremy.

Kara didn’t reply. She walked straight past him, into a quaint little bathroom, and turned on the shower.

“OH MY GOD…”

The water was hot. Scalding hot. Just the way she loved it.

Jeremy looked semi-alarmed. “What?”

“I haven’t had a hot shower in days.” She began stripping off her still-damp clothes and handing them to Jeremy, completely oblivious of his gaping stare. “Hang these by the stove?” she asked.

“Uh, sure.”

Kara was down to her underwear by the time she pulled the shower curtain back. She took that off also and held it at arm’s length through the open doorway.

“These too.”

Thirty-Two

The shower was nothing short of orgasmic.

Kara spent twenty minutes standing beneath the super-heated spray, not caring whether she drained the little hotel’s entire hot water tank. She could feel the cold leaving her body, replaced by a spreading warmth that seeped into her very bones. It made her happy. Ecstatic, even. By the time she stepped out of the stall she was sighing with pleasure and totally re-energized.

And beneath the steam… Kara’s mind wandered.

Initially her thoughts were of Logan. She wondered if he were worried about them, of whether or not they’d been caught out in the storm. None of their phones had any service. There was no way to access their messages or voice-mails at all.

But as the water ran in hot streams down her naked body… her thoughts turned to Jeremy.

They had a long history together — one filled with more good memories than bad. Still, Kara hadn’t given him a chance to tell her what really happened between them. Right now, she wasn’t sure it even mattered anymore. Those things that were so important back then seemed suddenly inconsequential. Especially when compared with the here and now.

And then there was the kiss…

Kara’s mind kept returning to the kiss they shared in the hotel lounge. It had been so sudden, so unexpected. But at the same time, so enjoyable. For a brief shining instant they’d been back at the Manor house together, rolling around in the gardens. Kissing each other again and again, passionately, beneath the sun and the moon and the—