Christmas in the Mountains (Mountains Series Book 4)

by Phoebe Alexander

  I really didn’t want to portray it as OMG this is lifestyle is a 100% fuckfest all the time with no feelings, no drama, no strings, no arguments, nothing. Because that’s not the way it works. And it would be a disservice to those of you who don’t know firsthand to portray it in a way that isn’t accurate. So yeah, it’s really like this, though every once in a while the stars align so perfectly you think, “Where have these people BEEN all our lives?” At least for a while. Then you realize those other people have their quirks and idiosyncrasies just like you find with any human.

  Writing James and Sarah again made me realize how much I love these two, and how much I want them to overcome all their obstacles. And though right now I think I’m done centering stories around them, you never know what they might do in the future that requires a written account. I can tell you that I plan to give Garrett Stone from Mountains Climbed his own story sometime late in 2018. I have a lot of other projects ahead of his, but his started whispering to me, and I think you’re going to really be stunned at how deep and nuanced this fiery hot redhead is. As a matter of fact, I’ve included the first chapter of his story (which will likely change with revisions and editing) at the end of this book.

  And, you never know, Abigail may start talking to me again and demand a book of her own. And maybe even Rachel and Jack. It’s never just one mountain, you know. It’s a whole damn range of them – and they all deserve to be climbed, right?

  I could write a separate acknowledgment section, but where’s the fun in that? I’ve already limited myself to 36K words for the story, so I might as well go for broke in this little postscript. A hearty thank you to all of the usual suspects: Jared, my PA; Tina, my proofreader; my Phoebe’s Angels and ARC groups; my Indie Author Support peeps and all the amazing bloggers who spread the word about indie authors like it’s the gospel. I don’t know what I’d do without you guys, not to mention the readers who keep me going, who always want more words. I am happy to oblige!

  I tend to get really sappy when I finish writing a book. It’s just such a relief to have all that STUFF that was bottled up inside you finally outside of you and safely affixed to the page. When it’s inside, you don’t know if you can get it to come out in a way that makes sense, that evokes the feelings you are aiming for. You can only hope you can send your little book baby out into the world, and it will do great things. It might not save the world, but maybe it can at least make it a better place.

  Thanks for all your support xx

  Phoebe

  About the Author

  Phoebe Alexander writes #sexpositive #bodypositive erotic romance featuring compelling plots intertwined with passionate, fiery encounters. She believes that real, relatable characters can have even steamier sex than billionaires, rock stars, and the young and lithe-bodied. She also advocates for ethical non-monogamy through her writing.

  Phoebe lives on the East Coast with her husband, sons, and multiple felines. When she's not writing, she works as an editor and consultant for indie authors. She also volunteers her time running a 3000-member indie author support group. Free time is her single greatest fantasy, and if she happens to have a moment she spends it at the beach, traveling, shopping or...wait, who are we kidding? That's about all she ever gets a chance to do.

  Follow Phoebe on Twitter @EroticPhoebe, on Facebook at www.facebook.com/phoebealexanderauthor, on Instagram @authorphoebealexander, or on BookBub at www.bookbub.com/authors/phoebe-alexander

  See all Phoebe’s books and join her newsletter at phoebe-alexander.com

  Also by Phoebe Alexander

  Mountains Trilogy

  Mountains Wanted

  Mountains Climbed

  Mountains Loved

  Christmas in the Mountains (A Mountains Trilogy Novella)

  The Navigator (A Mountains Trilogy Novel)

  Eastern Shore Swingers

  Fisher of Men

  The Catch

  Siren Call

  Sailors Knot

  The Playground

  Project Paradise (Juniper Court Series)

  Writing as K.L. Montgomery (contemporary romance, women’s fiction and romantic comedy)

  Green Castles

  Given to Fly

  Romance in Rehoboth

  Fat Girl

  The Catch

  Plot Twist

  Badge Bunny

  The Light at Dawn (coming Winter 2019)

  The Navigator – Chapter One

  Six inches. That’s how close he was to jumping off the proverbial ledge.

  But only the proverbial one, for now. It had been three days since he’d gotten an email from the chair of the Political Science department inviting him to a meeting in her office at 3:30 PM on Friday afternoon. Garrett knew from the tone that it was more of a mandatory summons than an invitation, not to mention the common knowledge that nothing good – absolutely nothing – could come from a meeting that late in the day on a Friday.

  Now the time had finally come. Garrett closed his laptop with a sense of resolution. In the three days since he received the email, which said very little in the way of explaining the purpose of the meeting, he had stewed about the possible agenda. It could be something good, he kept telling himself. Maybe a new grant or assistantship. Maybe I’m wanted to co-author a research study. Or to teach a new class.

  But deep in his twisted guts, he knew better. He knew it had to come down to her, the girl who had turned his world upside down that summer. Tucking that fear deep inside, he pressed his size 14 shoes into the worn carpeting in the hallway of the Political Science department and made his way down to Dr. Tiffany’s office.

  Without hesitation, he firmly knocked on the door, which was already ajar. When he heard her give him permission, he pushed it open, plastering a pleasant smile to his face. She did not return it.

  Mallory Tiffany was young for an academic department chair. She wasn’t much older than Garrett at forty-ish, and she tried to make up for her youth by painting a picture of humorless authority on her pinched-up face. She had bleak gray eyes and dishwater blonde hair that hung limply around her shoulders, and her limbs were long and wiry. Garrett suspected she had never been properly laid, but he certainly had no desire to correct the matter.

  “Mr. Stone,” she said formally. She was the only person in the department who insisted on using surnames. Everyone else called her Mallory behind her back, even the administrative assistant, who was the quintessential butt-kisser.

  Garrett didn’t respond, but settled himself in one of the leather chairs across from her. He imagined that many a student had sat in that very chair having heart palpitations about what was going to come next. She continued to glare at him until he looked up at her and forced a confident smile, then managed to hold it, even while running his long fingers through his unkempt fiery red hair. His trademark fiery red hair.

  “Mr. Stone, I have two other people who will be joining us, so we’ll actually be meeting at the table.” She pointed to the round wooden table and chairs on the other side of her spacious office. The windows overlooked a courtyard where dogwoods blew in the breeze, and one giant magnolia tree loomed, its waxy green leaves falling golden-brown on the lawn to mark the start of fall.

  Summer classes had just ended, and Garrett had finished teaching two sections of Poli Sci 101. It was his least favorite course to teach, but as a graduate student, he didn’t get much of a choice. He was near the very bottom rung of the ladder, a rank just above the family of mice that lived in the lower cabinets of the faculty lounge. At least the mice were fed every once in a while.

  Two other people? his mind kept repeating that as he re-situated himself at the table while Dr. Tiffany shuffled through papers in a manilla folder on her desk. She pressed a button on her phone, but said nothing, and in a few seconds two men in suits walked through the door.

  The younger man in a gray suit appeared to be Latino and had dark hair and a well-groomed goatee. The other man was bald with gray around the edges and
wore a navy suit and silver glasses that obscured beady pale green eyes. Garrett knew the older man was Dr. Wilson, the Vice President for Academic Affairs, but he wasn’t sure about the identify of the younger man. He felt his palms begin to sweat as they took chairs alongide Dr. Tiffany around the table. Though the table was a circle, they somehow managed to make him feel like he was on one side, and they were on the other, facing him with scowls twisting their features.

  The suspense had gone on long enough. He could now feel his heartbeat in his throat, even though he made an effort to stay motionless with that same stupid, placid smile painted across his face. He felt like a clown at a circus where everyone hated clowns. Dr. Tiffany looked toward the younger man as if she needed his blessing to continue.

  “Garrett,” she finally spoke, now using his first name, “I think you know Dr. Wilson, and this is special counsel for the university, Diego Hernandez.”

  Garrett nodded at them but remained silent.

  “Do you have any idea why you’ve been called here today?” Dr. Tiffany asked.

  He straightened his spine and cleared his throat before answering, “No, ma’am,” as confidently as possible. Why did it feel like he was approaching the firing squad with a blindfold over his eyes?

  Mr. Hernandez pulled a thick, stapled stack of papers from a folder in front of him. “You might want to take a look at this.”

  With sweaty palms, he took the document and began to run his eyes over the small black font. The first words that struck him were “dismissal” and “sexual harassment.” Then he saw the “victim’s” name as if it appeared in bold: Mara Atkins. But it was in the same weight font as every other word.

  The lump in his throat closed off his larynx as he struggled for a response. He felt the color drain away from his face, and then what happened next felt as though he’d fallen overboard and was struggling back to the surface for his next breath, for salvation. Voices were murky, colors muted, actions fading into the fluid realm of his trance-like, drowning state.

  Thirty minutes later, he was being escorted from the building with the contents of his tiny, closet-like office crammed into a cardboard box. Later, he didn’t even remember driving home.

  Sunlight was already creeping past the blinds when Garrett awoke the next morning. The empty bottle of vodka lying on its side at the foot of the bed was the only clue he needed to know what had transpired the night before. His head was stuffed with cotton balls, yet still managed to pound against his temples like a rat desperate to escape from a cage. Beyond the relentless pounding were faint echoes of the last words he’d heard, which were of the charges filed against him along with his dismissal from the university.

  Mara Atkins.

  Thoughts of her without an accompanying image were impossible. She had long honey-brown hair with golden highlights and the warmest, most expressive eyes he’d ever seen. Her skin was that naturally bronze type, the kind that stays tan even in the winter. Everything about her was like warming up by the fireplace after the first hard frost of the season. She was toasted marshmallows and pumpkin spice lattes, sleeping in on a Sunday morning, and a walk through a gilded autumn forest where the leaves rain down in amber flurries.

  She was a crisp fall day in the blazing heat of summer, and when she first breezed into his classroom in June, he’d felt the whirlwind of change she brought with her.

  She was twenty, staying on campus for the summer for the first time ever. She had a maturity about her, though intermingled with a naïve enthusiasm for her recently granted freedom, which no doubt felt boundless. It was clear on her freshly scrubbed face. The start of the summer stretches like an endless highway before the solstice. But after Independence Day, it never feels quite as free again.

  She had stayed after class to talk to Professor Stone, as she’d called him with a gleam in her eye. She had a conflict for the following Friday’s class, and she wanted to explain her circumstances and beg for a leave of absence without suffering any punishment. The sincerity in her eyes gripped ahold of Garrett. He’d heard plenty of sob stories from students in his years of teaching, but this one seemed profound.

  “My grandmother is having a surprise 75th birthday party on Saturday,” she’d told him. She wasn’t afraid to pierce into his eyes with her own. “She’s like my very favorite person in the whole wide world, so I really want to be there. But to do that I’d need to leave early Friday morning to drive home.”

  If a student was making it up, it was invariably a sick or dead grandparent. Never one in good health. “Where are you from?” he’d asked her, not really caring, but something about the vibe she projected made him want to keep the conversation going.

  “Michigan.” She flipped her long hair behind her shoulder and gave him a smile that revealed a tiny glimpse of pearly white teeth. Then, as he mulled her request over in his mind, her tongue darted out to lick her bottom lip before her top row of teeth sank into it anxiously.

  “You know that summer classes are quite rigorous due to the condensed schedule, and that we have an exam the following Monday, yes? Friday will be the review day, and you would be missing it.”

  Her eyes floated up from the floor to his again as her smile widened, spreading her cheeks as they flushed with a peachy-pink hue. “I do understand that, Professor Stone. I guess that is a risk I will have to assume. But my family is very important to me, and my grandmother would be devastated if I weren’t there.”

  Garrett’s face softened. Hearing the title “professor” come off her lips made him hard. Or maybe it was the smattering of freckles on her nose or the shiny rose gold hoops hanging from her petite ears. She wore a tiny pair of cut-off shorts from which thick, shapely thighs unapologetically curved toward her knees. It was the whole package, he realized as she bounced from one foot to the other, eagerly awaiting his blessing. He could tell by the glint in her eyes that she knew she had won him over.

  “What time are you leaving on Friday?” he asked, still not wanting the interaction to end.

  “Uh, early, probably…it’s a twelve-hour drive.”

  “Would you be available for a review session on Thursday night?”

  “Oh!” she gasped. “You don’t have to move the review session on my account.” Though she tried to appear taken aback, Garrett saw something else too. She actually moved closer to him, leaned forward, far enough he could see her pert breasts pushing against her salmon-colored lace-edged cami.

  “I wouldn’t move it for the whole class; it would be a session just for you,” he explained, trying to make his voice sound neutral, non-commital. He knew he’d failed when her eyes lit up.

  “That’s so generous of you, Professor Stone!”

  “I don’t want you to get behind,” he said without looking up from the stack of papers on the lectern.

  She scribbled something in her notebook, then ripped out the sheet of paper and laid it on the lectern right beneath his eyes. Her phone number.

  And just like that, autumn breezed into his life before summer was even officially underway.

  On Thursday when Garrett met Mara at her off-campus apartment, a book was never cracked open. He kept waiting for her roommates to barge in, but the whole place was dark and quiet. When she invited him to relax on the couch, he let his guard down, settling his 6’3” frame into the sinking cushions.

  After a mere two minutes of silence, during which Mara was in the kitchen fixing them something to drink, she returned to the small living room. She set the two glasses on the end table and then moved to stand directly in front of Garrett. She wore a short, flouncy tiered skirt with a floral print and a cropped off-the-shoulder top. He guessed she was either braless or was wearing a strapless bra. As soon as she swung her leg over his hip and planted herself boldly on his lap, he realized he would soon learn which one.

  “Is this okay?” she asked with a flippant little giggle, as if she could not imagine a world in which it was not okay.

  With his erection straining up t
hrough his cargo shorts, seeking the heat of her core, he didn’t feel obligated to reply. He pulled her toward him until their mouths crashed together, their lips and tongues tangling as they set off on exploratory missions.

  It had been a year since Garrett had two women dump him nearly simultaneously: one, a beautiful sociology professor named Sarah, who taught at College Park; and the other, a pretty young blonde sub he’d met on a fetish site. After that, he was understandably disinclined to start any new relationships. Not to say he had been completely celibate. There had been hook-ups. Mostly men.

  Garrett had discovered long ago, when he was a teen, that he was bisexual. His first experience with another boy had been backstage during his high school’s spring musical. Garrett had learned that season he could effortlessly carry a lead role, plus what it felt like to touch a cock and stroke it until it exploded in his hands.

  But those memories were far away as Mara’s fingers trailed down his chest until she gripped the hem of his shirt, lifting it toward his head. He helped by pulling it the rest of the way off, then went to work on giving her a matching shirtless look. No bra, that question was handily answered.

  He nearly paused to dwell on the curiosity of how Mara knew he was interested. Maybe she just assumed. With a face like hers and a curvy body built for fucking, she likely was not used to rejection. Maybe she had a thing for older men, for seducing professors. In any case, who was he to argue?

  She bit down on his earlobe as she fumbled for the button on his pants. He threw her off his lap, onto the soft, squishy cushion beside him as he scrambled out of his shorts, leaving his clothes in a messy heap on the living room floor. He saw a sleek gray cat slink behind the armchair next to the sofa as he sat back down in his original position. He glanced over to Mara, awaiting her reaction when she saw his cock jutting proudly off his body, curving toward his abdomen and reaching nearly to his navel.