by Claire Adams
After pulling on my warmest clothes, I made my way downstairs to find Declan all ready to start our digging adventure.
“Even if we just get the path in front of the building cleared, that will help and make it so much easier when we are ready to leave,” Declan said as he handed me a shovel.
“Where did you find these?”
“In that closet,” he said and pointed to the front closet. “I’ve learned that the most obvious location is where everything is at.”
“Yeah, I’m learning to love these previous owners. Their logic is totally on point with mine.”
“I’m not very logical when it comes to my organizational skills,” Declan joked. “I would have put the shovels away and never remembered where they were at.”
“I’ve learned that about you.”
“Let’s get this digging party started,” Declan said with more enthusiasm that either of us should have had after spending three days trapped by a snowstorm.
The snow was between four and five feet tall on this side of the builidng, and the initial problem we had was just getting out the door. We couldn’t exactly shovel the snow into the building to make room, so Declan just pressed his whole body against the pile so we could at least get our shovels into it and throw it over the large pile in front of the house.
Declan would grab a shovel full of snow from the top of the pile, then halfway down, and finally on the ground. It took three full shovels full to clear each section, and then I had to continue scooping behind him as other snow tumbled into the path. After nearly an hour of shoveling, we had cleared a 10-foot path toward the driveway, only about one-fifth of the distance we needed to cover just to get to the driveway. I couldn’t even imagine how long it would take to shovel the actual driveway. We would probably have to wait for someone with a snowplow to take care of that for us.
After our hour of shoveling, we were both sweating and ready for a break. When we turned around to head back inside, the snow pile had literally collapsed back in on itself, and a foot of snow was covering the path we had just shoveled.
We both burst into laughter at the ridiculous amount of snow we were dealing with. Even while I had been in New York, I hadn’t dealt with this level of snow before. It was nonstop snowing still, and the snow wasn’t compacted enough to stay put after we had shoveled it.
“Well, that didn’t work out so well,” Declan laughed. “Maybe a little wider path will work?”
“What? No way. We will just wait until it stops snowing. I’m not going to keep shoveling for the fun of it.”
I started to walk back in with Declan behind me, but as my foot hit the pile of snow in front of me, I slipped on my weak ankle and toppled right into the large pile of snow on the side of our path. The powdery pile wrapped around me and I sunk down into it as if it were a cloud of freezing pillows.
Instantly I burst into laughter and brushed the snow away from my face. Declan reached his hand out to help me up, but instead of using his hand to pull myself up, I pulled him toward me. The unexpected pull had Declan tumbling right next to me into the pile of snow.
“That was low,” he laughed as he stayed lying in the snow with me.
“I’m freezing; we should head back inside.”
I could barely feel my fingers as snow had seeped into my gloves. When we walked into the building, it felt warmer than it had before. The skin on my face and hands worked hard to adjust to the new temperature, but despite feeling warm, my whole body was shivering.
“You look like you’re freezing,” Declan said as he wrapped a blanket around me.
“I seriously can’t stop shivering.”
“It’s just your body adjusting to the rapid change in temperature. Did you get everything that was wet off of you?”
“Yes, but I’m still freezing.”
Declan took his hands and rubbed up and down on my arms in a fast motion in an effort to keep me warm. It was working, but I wasn’t about to tell him that I was getting warm. I was enjoying having his hands on my body way too much.
“You seem to be getting warmer,” Declan said as he moved a step away from me.
“No,” I said. “Stay close. You’re warm.”
My hands reached out and pulled on his shirt to keep him close to me. It was an instinctual motion as he moved back closer to me. My heart raced as I let my hands move up his body and wrap around his neck.
“Emmi, what are you doing?” Declan said as his eyes filled with heat.
“I’m kissing you.”
I got up on my tiptoes and wrapped my arms tight around Declan’s neck as our lips pressed together. This time I wasn’t going to be pulled away from him. His body pressed against mine and warmed me instantly. He throbbed with desire as his hands wrapped around me and held onto me tight. His hold was firm as he moved us toward the wall and used it as leverage as his lips moved from mine to my neck.
The feel of his skin on mine was more than I had fantasized about. My mind numbed with the pleasure he delivered. The small touches were simple, sweet, and delicate forms of his desire.
Our hands explored each other’s bodies. Touching and feeling, moving and pulling clothing out of the way so we could have the other’s skin next to ours. My hands pulled his shirt up and moved slowly up the hard landscape of his abdomen. His muscles like small hills I was climbing higher and higher until I got to his chest.
Declan used his hands to throw my blanket off of me, and wrapped me instead in his body warmth. His slid them under the side of my shirt and pulled my body up against his. The thrust intensified as I felt his bulge move against my leg. He wanted me just as bad as I wanted him, there was no denying it.
The moment lasted only a few minutes as we both gently pulled apart. Our hands locked together and our eyes continued to long for one another as we both took the moment in. This time there were no apologies, though; this time there were no promises that we could keep our relationship professional.
Chapter Fifteen
Declan
Her body tasted like wine to me. It’s not an exaggeration. I’d longed for her for so many days that to finally taste her was perfection. Her sweet skin warmed as my lips pressed against it. Her body melted into mine when my hands moved under her shirt. The power of having her there with me was too much, though; it made me feel out of control.
I only pulled away to reorient myself to her and what was going on. To give myself a moment to decide if I was ready to go down this path of seduction. Emmi wasn’t like the other girls I’d brought home. I knew her, I knew her father. I couldn’t have my way with her and then forget all about it. This was all new territory for me.
“Maybe we should get a fire going to keep you warm,” I offered.
Our hands still held onto each other as we walked to the great room, and she sat down on the couch while I built the fire. The adrenaline rushing through my body had my hands shaking and my brain foggy with ideas of what could be to come between the two of us.
“You know, I’m not going to be your assistant forever,” Emmi said as she smiled at me from the couch.
“I know,” I smiled back.
“We could always revisit this after I find a new job.”
“Sure, I think that would be perfect,” I replied.
I stayed by the fire as my body started to relax from the full-on erection that had been dominating me since I tasted Emmi in the doorway. She hadn’t seemed like she wanted to wait for anything the way she had kissed me. But we should wait. We had to wait. I’d promised her father that nothing was going to happen between the two of us, and I wasn’t the sort of guy who went around breaking promises.
The exact reason I didn’t date women long-term was because I wasn’t the kind of guy who liked breaking their hearts. If I was honest and offered a night or two of fun, I didn’t have a problem getting women to agree. There was no deceit in my behavior, and that’s how I always lived my life. My stomach turned, and I felt queasy just thinking about Teddy and how he m
ight react if he knew how I had just kissed Emmi. He certainly wouldn’t have been alright with it.
She kissed me, though. I was perfectly fine with waiting, and she was the one who wrapped her arms around me and kissed me. My mind swirled with the memory of her as I organized the wood in the fireplace and got it going again.
“I wonder if they have a generator here?” I mused out loud. “It’s possible they have an old gas generator somewhere in the basement. Might make sense so they could keep things running in situations like these. I’m sure they wouldn’t want their guests to have to eat canned foods.”
“How does a generator work? Would it give the whole place electricity?”
I was happy to have successfully changed the subject and moved passed our kissing incident. Anything I could do to keep a little distance between us was all I needed for the time being. It would only be another day or so, and the roads should be getting cleared. The bulk of the storm seemed to have passed, and although it was still snowing heavily, it wasn’t dangerously windy and dark out.
“Usually they just have a generator hooked up to important things. Maybe the kitchen and bathrooms or maybe just the kitchen and one bathroom. I’m not sure. Do you want to go into the basement with me and look?”
“No, I don’t want to go,” she laughed and covered her eyes. “But I’ll go with you so you don’t have to be scared alone.”
“Oh, you think I’ll be scared down in this old basement all by myself?”
“Yes, yes I do.”
“You’re right,” I laughed and closed the fireplace.
We slid our shoes back on and walked toward the door that led downstairs. When I opened the door, we could only see a long, dark stairwell that led into the basement. Without any sort of light, we weren’t going to be able to see a thing.
“I’ll run up and get some candles,” Emmi said.
“I’ll do it. You’ve been on that ankle enough. Wait here, superwoman.”
I took the stairs two at a time as I hurried to our bedroom and grabbed a couple candles and the matches. The king-size bed taunted me as I looked at it and thought of how our evening might go. After that kiss we shared, it was going to be really hard to keep those pillows between the two of us.
“Are you coming, or do I need to get them myself?” Emmi teased from the bottom of the stairs.
“I’m an old man, give me a chance to catch my breath.”
When I reached the top of the stairs, I saw Emmi leaning against the handrail as she looked up at me. Her skin was rosy red and glowing with happiness as her eyes glistened up at me. She was so beautiful. Every inch of this woman was filled with desire and my body throbbed a little as I hurried down the stairs and lit the candles for us.
“I’m scared. I feel like this is the beginning of a horror film.”
“Probably,” I agreed.
“You’re supposed to tell me I’m crazy and we will be fine.”
“Oh, no. I’m not telling you you’re crazy,” I shook my head with my eyes wide as I could get them. “I’m smarter than that.”
She giggled such a sweet laugh that I couldn’t help but smile. My heart raced even more than it had from running up the stairs. Emmi had a way of controlling the beat of my heart like she had a remote control in her pocket. Simply smiling at me raced my pulse higher and higher.
“That’s probably a good idea,” she finally said as we stood at the opening to the stairs. “You go first. I’ll protect your rear.”
“Oh, yeah, that sounds helpful.”
I moved slowly down the steps with one hand on the railing and the other hand holding onto the candle. My hand shook slightly the further we got into the basement. I couldn’t see past the first few feet, which made it hard to determine where we should go.
The basement was unfinished with cement walls. There was a hallway to our right and a big room in front of us. The room seemed to be filled with shelving and storage, but we walked around the edges to get our bearings and see what all was down there. Most of the shelves held hotel supplies like extra sheets, blankets, towels, and soaps. There was one shelving unit that had snowshoes on it and another that had sleds stacked up. Nothing that looked like it would be useful to us in our search for a generator.
“So should we check out the hallway?”
“Sure, go ahead. Ha, I’m kidding. Yes, let’s go. There has to be a furnace room or something like that.”
I held my candle in front of me as we made our way down the dark hallway with several doors on either side of it. I slowly opened each of the doors and walked about a foot into the room as I held my candle up so I could see what was in the room.
We passed several offices and a storage room full of skiing and snowboarding equipment. Finally, we reached the large door at the end of the hall and opened the door to find the furnace room. The equipment was all outdated, but I had suspected that already. We knew our remodel was going to have to include a full overhaul of the heating and cooling systems.
“Is there a generator?” Emmi asked.
Her hands had been tightly gripping the back of my shirt as we walked down the hallway. She never left my side and constantly turned to look behind us, as if someone was going to jump out and attack us. Her fear was making the whole situation scarier than it would have been if I’d come down there alone. But then again, I wouldn’t have gotten to have her so close to me and practically wrapping her arms around me if I’d left her upstairs.
I took a minute to examine the electrical setup as well as the furnace system. My experience in heating and cooling systems was nearly nonexistent, but it did look like there was a system outside that connected to the one inside.
“There is something connected to this panel over here; it’s outside, though and probably covered with 10 feet of snow. But it might be the generator.”
Emmi wrapped her arms around my waist and let her head rest on my back as she exhaled deeply. Neither of us wanted to go back outside in the cold and shoveling had already been exhausting.
“I’m fine with keeping the power off,” she said softly. “I can’t go back into the snow right now.”
“Wait a minute. What kind of stove did they have in the kitchen?”
“I don’t know. A big, industrial-type stove.”
“Look at this. It’s the gas line. It’s off, but I bet it’s still connected.”
“I don’t know what that means,” Emmi said with an exhausted tone in her voice.
“It means that I might be able to get the stove to work even if we don’t have electricity. If it’s a professional stove, it’s likely powered by gas and not electricity. Let’s give this a try.”
I turned the gas line on and grabbed Emmi’s hand as we made our way quickly back upstairs. I pulled her with me into the kitchen and then turned the knob on the stove to light the burner.
Sure enough, the blue flame came through as the stove automatically lit itself. The elation was intense and I grabbed Emmi and pulled her close to me. We could finally make some decent food. Well, decent with the canned goods we had to choose from, but it was better than eating fruit and canned vegetables alone.
“What should we make?” Emmi asked as she jumped out of my arms and went to the pantry.
She grabbed a variety of canned goods and brought them out to me. Unfortunately, I wasn’t the best at thinking about deluxe meals that could be made from the types of foods we had. But we could start off by having some warm baked beans at least.
“I could warm up the beans.”
“Oh, no, no, no. I’ve got an idea.”
“You scare me,” I laughed. “Something good, I hope?”
“I think you’re going to like this,” she said and grabbed two small cans of condensed milk from the cabinet. “Fill a pan with water, please.”
“Warm milk? I don’t know if that’s something I can get as excited about as you are right now,” I joked.
I did as I was told though, and filled a saucepan with water as Emm
i peeled the labels off of the cans. She was still really excited about whatever she was cooking. She kept bouncing up to the balls of her feet and then back down, occasionally even clapping her hands with excitement.
“Okay, this is going to take a little bit to cook. So why don’t you heat up those baked beans while my thing cooks.”
“How long is it going to take?”
“About three hours,” she giggled.
“Wow, okay then,” I grabbed the can opener and poured the beans into another pan. “This is exciting. Warm beans and warm milk for dinner. Mmmmm, a five-star meal.”
“I can’t wait,” Emmi said as she moved close to me and her hand slid around my waist. Her fingers lightly touched my skin as she slipped them under my shirt.
“Emmi.”
“Yes, Declan.”
“I…um…” I fumbled as I tried to figure out what to say.
Just having her hands on me was distracting enough that I couldn’t figure out the right words. But if she was going to be touching me like that, I wasn’t going to be able to keep my hands to myself. And if I didn’t keep my hands to myself, then we certainly weren’t going to be able to wait until she moved onto a new job to explore what was going on between us.
“My dad doesn’t need to know,” she said softly as she pulled me closer to her.
I continued to stir our dinner and refused to move. If I turned toward her, I couldn’t control my urges any longer. No, I had to stand strong.
“Emmi, I’ll hire a new assistant when we get back.”
“Okay,” she said as she grabbed my waist and turned me toward her. “That sounds like a good idea.”
Her hands grabbed my pants by the button as I dropped the spoon into the beans. Her eyes filled with lust and I couldn’t hold back another moment. My body longed to feel hers, and there was nothing I could do but give in to the desire she had because I had the same desires.
“Emmi,” I said softly as I put my hands on her cheeks and looked into her eyes. “You are so beautiful.”
“Kiss me, Declan.”
Without pausing, I listened to her request, and we were quickly locked together in a passionate kiss. This time it wasn’t soft and sensual; instead, we pressed our bodies together roughly as she pulled at my shirt and yanked it up over my head. Her hands grabbed for my pants as the heat between us soared higher.