by Ember Flint
My God, has she always smelled like this?
Like Gingerbread, with a hint of oranges. Can someone as sour as her have such a sweet, Christmassy scent lingering onto every little soft inch of herself?
Now I’m going to get a hard-on for the rest of my life every time I sink my teeth in a damn French toast, or I smell gingerbread cookies. I fucking love that stuff and, of course, she had to ruin it for me too!
Why can’t she stop tormenting me?
Why does she have to stay at the forefront of my mind?
Why the fuck do I have to want her this fucking much when it seems she can’t forget fast enough about what happened yesterday?
I hear a knock on the door and my stupid dick, which was already at half-mast as I thought of her, goes the extra-mile just to fuck with me more, since it ‘knows’ it can’t be but her on the other side of my bedroom door.
I get up and for a moment I just stand there like an idiot.
How am I supposed to open the door in such state?
I glower down at my misbehaving appendage and groan.
Fuck it, she might have pinned the whole kiss-thing onto a temporary madness, but she felt my cock yesterday when she rubbed herself against me, she knows already what she does to me, so I’m not going to hide this.
“Yes?” I ask, throwing the door open.
Natalie takes a step back and when her eyes drop on the monstrous bulge in my pants, she shakes her head.
She looks up at me, a delicate brow arched perfectly up into her smooth forehead and a delicious blush that makes me wonder about things I shouldn’t think about –like the color of her pussy’s lips or of her nipples– spreads over her pretty face.
She pretends to fix her glasses and then she squares her shoulders and I see her usual panache flash in her eyes. “Put that thing away, Silver. I made hot cocoa and re-heated some cinnamon rolls…”
“And you thought of sharing with me? I’m deeply touched.”
“Yeah right, don’t go getting any crazy ideas, pal, I still loathe your ass: I simply thought you might need the sustenance after that last instructor used your face to wipe the floor’s gym.”
I glare down at her. “I’m 6’5 and he still had almost a foot and what felt like 100 pounds of muscles on me, give me a break. Besides, it’s not like you fared much better with that Pilates instructor…”
“No normal human being could keep up with that Barbie on steroids, Tristan. I honestly don’t think she was human…”
I chuckle.
“Let’s go get that cocoa you made, before it turns cold and then maybe after the rolls, you can give me something else that smells like cinnamon, what do you think?” I ask her, caging her against the wall.
Grounds of temporary insanity my ass!
I’m gonna turn her to my way of thinking, no matter how long it takes me.
She’s convinced we’re wrong for each other, but nothing really wrong can’t hide the kind of passion I felt in that kiss.
I’m starting to think maybe we’re anything but wrong for each other.
One thing was keeping my attraction to myself when I thought there was no chance in hell she’d go for it, entirely another is to pretend ‘it didn’t happen’ like she wants me to after I felt the sweetness of her lips when she kissed me back.
Natalie pushes me off of her and crosses her arms under her breasts, straining under yet another one of her flirty, flimsy sweaters. I almost like her T-shirts better.
“It depends, Tristan, do you think a kick in the balls could short-circuit your brain enough to make you smell cinnamon?”
Chapter 6
NATALIE
Christmas Eve
I catch myself staring off into the distance like a ninny, my glance that was mere seconds ago studying the blizzard, now unfocused as my mind wonders in direction it shouldn’t take and reliving something that I’d better forget.
“Grounds of insanity,” I murmur like a mantra. “Focus, girl.”
Why can’t I stop having these stupid strange thoughts about Tristan?
This is all his fault, of course.
Why does he have to be this impossibly hot?
I glower at the frost on the window.
Did I say ‘hot’?
It doesn’t matter, I still meant ‘asshat’.
A stupid, large, muscular, handsome asshat.
And why does he have to smell that damn good?
My body shivers as I hug myself.
How can I remember his scent down to the last note?
Am I freaking losing it?
Is that it?
Woodsmoke, fresh pine and dark chocolate.
Damn him. Why does he have to smell like things that stuff?
I happen to like those things, dammit it!
“Stop it,” I murmur to myself.
I need to get going.
We’re getting ready to leave in a bit to go spend Christmas Eve with our families and our employees down at the main hotel and our dads are sending someone to pick us up on a truck, because there’s no way we could use a ski lift in this weather, and going on foot would be even more crazy even though it’s ‘only’ a fifteen minutes hike that we have had to take before during our stay here since that damn relationship coach spawn of Satan forced us to actually walk down and then climb back up the mountain to ‘learn how to work as a team’ and ‘bond’.
She wouldn’t get through her thick head that we’re from freaking California, for heaven’s sake!
The ranger who called us however said they couldn’t get a truck to come all the way up to the location of our hermit chalet nestled up high on this damn mountain, so we’ll have to walk a little bit and meet them halfway.
I’m sure that evil Grinchette of Alice is probably in tears at the idea of Tristan and myself being ‘pampered’ and chauffeured down the slope, but with such freezing conditions there was no way we could go completely ‘outdoorsy’ today, so she was outnumbered, and she’ll have to stuff it.
I sigh when my mind shifts once more from the task of getting ready back to the ‘event’ and I grow even more uncomfortable when my lips starts to tingle, and my heart picks up its pace.
Dammit!
I don’t need this.
I don’t!
Why can’t my idiot brain give me a break!
It’s not like I’m not confused enough as it is.
Why did it have to feel so stupidly good?
Why couldn’t it be sloppy and creep me out?
I mean, I freaking loathe that sexy giant bastard…
I grimace… no, not sexy, not sexy at all.
Not sexy with those damn glasses and stupid suspenders and freaking idiotic bowties.
Not sexy with that panty-dropping half smile of his.
Not sexy with that maddening stubble and those full lips.
Nope.
Not sexy.
I’m not attracted to him.
I am not.
I need to get dressed and get out of here pronto.
I pull a funny red and white Christmas sweater over my thermal undershirt, it has the picture of an old-fashioned computer on the front and the words ‘Error 404: Christmas Sweater not found’ on top of it.
Then I throw on a Christmas-tree green jumper, zip it up and finally I put on a red snowboard jacket, a large fluffy scarf and a hat.
By the time I’m done with my layers, I can barely breathe and I feel like a robot, but I’m toasty and ready to face the cold wind and the heavy flurries of snow.
Chapter 7
TRISTAN
We are more than halfway to the meeting point when the snow starts to fall faster and harder, the flurries so tightly woven together and so powdery now, that the visibility hits zero before we can blink and suddenly I cannot tell anymore where we’re going.
“Tristan?” Natalie asks and there’s a note of worry in her voice.
I sigh
, reaching back to clasp her gloved hand in mine. “I know…”
“I don’t know where we’re going, my glasses are frozen over,” she says.
I turn to look at her and when I talk I have to raise my voice to be heard over the loud howling of the wind. “I don’t either. There’s no way we can go any further, Nat.”
“Dammit!”
“We’re gonna have to head back, we have no choice.”
“Okay,” she sighs and nods, taking off her glasses and cleaning them on the wetness spreading on her jacket’s sleeve and then puts them on again.
I try to do the same with mine, but the layer of frost on them won’t budge, so I just give up and put them in my pocket.
She slips her hand from my grasp and I just glower down at her.
“What?” she asks, also screaming to be heard.
I shake my head and simply reach out for her hand again. “Don’t be like this, Nat. I don’t wanna lose you in the middle of this. It’s freezing cold and I can’t see for shit as it is with this damn snow bursting on my face and no glasses on. You’re gonna keep your little stubborn ass stuck to my side and you won’t argue about it.”
She takes a full breath and opens her mouth to do exactly what I’m vetoing.
I know there’s only one thing I can do to stop her tirade and I do it.
“You’re not the boss of me and I can go back on my own, thank you very much! In fact, I’m just going to—”
I kiss her hard and she gasps into my mouth as I press her into my body. She melts against me for a second, but then she starts to pull away, beating her little fists against my chest.
I simply hold both of her hands between us and once again capture her lips, until she’s not struggling anymore.
When she calms down, I take a step back and cup her chin in my head. “Let’s go…”
Natalie gulps and nods and this time she’s the one reaching for my hand.
I smirk to myself, feeling more pleased about it than I probably should.
I start to walk, following the same path we took to get here backward but after a while she stops trudging along.
“You sure you know where are we going? You don’t have your glasses on.”
I roll my eyes at her. “It’s not like it would make a difference in this freaking whiteout.”
“What are we going to do?”
I smile down at her, realizing for once she’s not trying to antagonize me, she’s just a bit scared.
“Don’t worry, babe.”
Natalie opens her mouth as if to scold me for calling her that, but then she says nothing.
I reach down to stroke her face.
“We walked on a straight line and it was only for about ten minutes, we can get back just fine, trust me” I reassure her.
“I do,” Natalie says, sounding almost as surprised as I am at her words.
She sighs and presses herself even more to my side, her body trembling.
Damn, she hates when the air gets barely cool, she must be freezing right now.
I’m pretty tolerant to cold temperatures, despite being a Californian boy because I take skiing trips every winter, but it’s so fucking cold even my teeth are starting to chatter, and my balls want to crawl up and hide right now.
We walk back to the chalet slowly, holding onto each other and hindered all the way by the unforgiving wind and the harshness of the snowstorm surrounding us.
I can barely make out the shapes of the tall fires and pines in the forest now and there’s no sign of the stupid cabin.
Fucking hell.
By my calculations, we should have reached it by now.
Did we take a wrong turn, blinded by the snow, without realizing it, even though we thought we were walking on a straight line?
Or maybe is just that we’re progressing too damn slowly?
I look down at Natalie and I can’t see her face hidden under her hood, but her body is shaking even harder now.
I clutch her to me and squint, trying to make out something, anything, a landmark that could guide us, but there’s nothing.
Natalie stumbles backward when an even stronger gust of wind hits us, but I manage to break her fall before she hits the snowy ground.
“Th-th-thank you,” she stutters.
I turn toward her and pick her up, cradling her to my chest.
She’s so tiny compared to me, she would be tired keeping up with my strides any day, let alone in these conditions.
Natalie starts to protest but I shush her.
“We’re almost there, baby, let me carry you,” I tell her, even though I have no idea if it’s true or not.
A few minutes later, just when I’m about to lose hope I finally catch sight of the dark silhouette of the chalet.
I squint my burning eyes against the cold to make sure I’m not just seeing things, but Natalie’s voice dispels every doubts.
“Th-the ch-chalet, l-look!”
I smile, kissing her forehead. Thank God!
I jog a little to reach the entrance faster, no longer worried about saving my energies to see us through and I only put Natalie down when we’re inside.
I look her up and down and grimace. Her clothes are frosted over and wet in spots, her lips are lilac, just on this side of turning blue, while her cheeks are red and wind-burned an her lashes are completely white under a dusting of icy snow.
Her body, smaller than mine in every sense, has been steadily losing heat at a faster rate than my own.
“Baby, take this stuff off and throw on a blanket before you go into hypothermia. I’ll be right back.”
I begin to turn around and she stops me, putting a hand over my arm.
“Wh-where are you g-going?”
“Into the woodshed. We need to build a fire fast so we can warm up.”
She nods and starts to follow me outside.
I turn, huffing at her. Such a stubborn little thing she is!
I glower down at her. “What are you doing?”
“I… I w-w-want to help.”
“It will only take me a minute, babe. If you want to help me, take care of yourself, I’m worried about you.”
She just looks up at me and says nothing, her eyes big with something I don’t understand.
I kiss her again and then head back out.
Twenty minutes later, we’ve managed to restart the fire in the main stone fireplace in the living room, Natalie is still shivering, but her lips are pink again and I’m trying very, very hard not to focus on the fact that her little curvy body is all naked under the blanket she has wrapped around it.
We tried to call our parents and the reception at the hotel to tell them we are stuck here and couldn’t make the hike, but we could get no signal, then we heard a crackling coming from the radio sitting on a desk just under the bay window.
It was one of the park rangers.
She told us to stay put, since an even bigger blizzard is heading our way over the night. No one can come collect us until the snowstorm lets up a bit.
So basically we’re stranded here for Christmas.
I sigh. At least the place is stoked up, and the woodshed is full and there’s a gasoline generator, so we’ll have power all through this.
All in all, we are pretty safe, if cold.
Not that I couldn’t think of a way or two to keep warm.
I feel a powerful tug south and groan low in my throat.
Not now.
Natalie yanks at my T-shirt. “You should take this stuff off…”
My cock swells even more.
Fuck this.
I look down at her, eyebrows raised, and she blushes fire-engine-red. “Should I?”
“That’s not what I meant, Tristan.”
I throw caution to the wind, tired of the way we’ve been dancing around this, and cocking an eyebrow, I pull her back into my arms, back where she belongs, and I finally ask: “You sure?”
Chapter 8
NATALIE
Am I sure?
Yes, I am.
But how can I be?
This is too strange and too new, so why does it feel like it’s exactly what I want, what I need?
Why am I sure?
Why do I know so deeply that there’s no other place I’d rather be right now?
I’m freezing, but there’s a silly grin on my face as I stare up at him, barely moving in the circle of his strong arms.
I’ve been held before, but it has never felt remotely close to this.
He makes it different; my Co-CEO, my enemy, the biggest thorn in my side, but maybe he’s something more, something else for me.
We stand in front of the now blazing hearth, both shivering.
I’m buck naked under the soft blanket, now slightly damp, and he’s still all wet because of the melting snow that soaked through most of his clothes as we rushed to light the fire.
I see the flames dance on his glasses and in his brown eyes and I gulp, my hands starting to shake from something more than the cold.
There’s something else shining hot in those dark pools of his.
Something nameless that calls to me, something that I’ve been seeing there since we got here, something that maybe has always been sizzling in them and I just missed.
Something I want. Something I feel too.
As per my will, we dismissed that first maddening kiss we shared on grounds on temporary insanity, but now I’m starting to think that was the sanest moment I’ve had since I met him, or maybe I’m crazy right now, I know a part of me has to be crazy to want this, maybe it’s my heart.
I could stand right here, attempting to make sense of this, trying to find an explanation for that kiss and the other ones we have shared, trying to reconcile my loathing for Tristan, with the other, deeper feelings I have for him, the feelings that keep me awake at night, that always have, despite the excuses I made.