Free Money Shot by Susan Sey Page A

rebuke to the pansy-assed appliance posing as a water heater back in her Minneapolis condo.
    She pulled the towel from her head, wiped a clear space into the foggy bathroom mirror and gave her reflection a critical once-over. Same face as always. Long and angular. Strong cheekbones. Pointed chin. Quizzical, slanting eyebrows.
    Decent raw materials, she supposed. Decent enough to produce—with the application of time, effort and a lot of good cosmetics—the illusion of beauty.
    Her mouth, though. She allowed herself a frown in the privacy of the bathroom. Her mouth was an off-note in an otherwise mannerly symphony. Full rather than fine, inclined to bray out great barks of laughter rather than silver bell chuckles, it was a Botticelli mouth in a Picasso face. Slicking it the deep red of ripe cherries helped, though. Civilized it a little while owning—maybe even playing up—the basic sexuality of it. Not ideal but she made it work.
    Her hair was a different story. It sprang directly—stubbornly—from that same dangerous wellspring of unruly desire that ran through her character. That wild propensity to want that Rush spoke to so unexpectedly and mercilessly.
    It tumbled dark and tangled to her collarbones, where, if left to its own devices, it would dry into a riot of fat, touch-me curls that didn’t suggest innocent exuberance so much as recent hot sex. The rest of her features could be interpreted through a civilized lens, but her hair was her scarlet letter. Keeping it under control required daily, intensive intervention. Especially with temptation so near at hand and Rush’s stubborn unwillingness to help her defuse it.
    She picked up a thermal flat brush, plugged in a professional-grade blow-dryer and prayed that Rush’s wiring was as accommodating as his hot-water heater.
     
    RUSH PUT his cooling coffee into the microwave, clicked the door shut and punched the quick-minute button. The cottage plunged into darkness, and all the friendly morning sounds—the burble of the coffeemaker, the hum of the microwave, the blast of Goose’s blow-dryer behind the bathroom door—dwindled into a sudden, electricity-free silence.
    “Rush!” The bathroom door slapped open and he cursed the predawn darkness. If this had happened an hour from now—even half an hour—he might have caught a glimpse of Goose in nothing but a towel. A sight well worth seeing if that brief, blessed moment he’d spent with his hand up her shirt a few days back was anything to go on. But sons of Norwegian fisher folk did not sleep in, so here he was, faced with nothing but a vague shadow.
    “What happened?” she asked, her voice tight. Anxious. Was this laughing, polished woman afraid of the dark?
    “Blew a fuse, probably.” Rush reached for the flashlight he kept in the cupboard for just such emergencies. Norwegian fisher folk did not believe in unpreparedness any more than they believed in sleeping in. He flicked it on and beamed it toward the bathroom.
    She stood there, hair dark and clinging to her neck like tangled vines, fists twisted between her breasts into the towel that swathed her from shoulders to knees. His towel, he realized. Desire was a swift clench in his stomach as he took in the long, clean lines of her limbs, the way her collarbones spread like delicate wings from the vulnerable hollow at the base of her throat.
    “Can you fix it?” she asked.
    “Fix what?” He had the insane urge to lick that shallow dent. Just put his tongue right there against all the warm silk of her skin. Would it taste as sweet as her mouth had? he wondered. Could anything possibly taste that good? Even her skin?
    There was really only one way to find out.
    “The fuse.”
    The fuse? Oh, the fuse.
    He took a step toward her. “You in a hurry all of a sudden?”
    She edged behind the door. “I’m cold.”
    “Heat’s from the woodstove.” He swung the flashlight to the ancient iron stove squatting in the corner of the living room. She