The Inn at Blue Hollow Falls

by Donna Kauffman

  He pulled her back against his chest and wrapped his arms around her waist, and she thought, well, there might be one or two other things.

  “When I designed my quarters I had two must-haves,” he told her, leaning down to kiss her shoulder. “A bed I could instantly fall asleep in, and a shower that would make me forget how long any day might have been and get me geared up to start the next one.”

  She tipped her head back to look up at him. “Well, if this is any indication of your version of goal fulfillment, I can’t wait to see the bedroom.”

  He grinned and turned her around in his arms, and she found herself looking up into his handsome face and thinking how normal this all felt. If her past were any indication, she should barely be able to pay attention to what he was saying. She’d be too anxious about getting naked with him, and overthinking the other gazillion little things that go through a girl’s mind when a relationship moved in this direction. She was big on overthinking, a Class A am-I-making-a-big-mistaker, an is-this-just-lust-talking worrier. No one was better at sabotaging intimacy than she was. All because she was so worried about getting hurt, about spending time with the wrong man, setting herself up for heartache.

  A broken heart isn’t fatal, Noah had said, and he was right. But she wasn’t in the habit of repeating her mistakes, so maybe she’d overcorrected a little bit. You think?

  The thing was, none of that was happening here, not with Noah. She was truly enjoying the moment, enjoying him, reveling in the thrill, indulging in the lust, the want, the anticipation, and the delicious slow climb toward fulfillment. That was a first for her, and it felt . . . good. Really, really good.

  “I know you’ve spent the better part of your vacation thus far getting wet, so we can skip this if you—”

  “Don’t go showing me your shower porn, then whisking it away. Nobody likes a shower tease.”

  His smile deepened. “Well, no, of course they don’t. That would be cruel.”

  “Right?”

  He leaned in and turned the showerheads on, then withdrew and closed the door. “It’ll take a few to warm up.”

  She slowly started unbuttoning his shirt, liking it when she heard his swift intake of breath. “That’s good. Because this time I was thinking maybe I’d get wet without my clothes on.”

  “Good plan,” he said, tugging on the drawstrings of her hoodie. “Except I haven’t the first clue how to get you out of this thing in any way that could be considered remotely sexy.”

  “Novice,” she told him, then laughed when he raised his hand and said, “Guilty. Keep that in mind.”

  She stopped unbuttoning his shirt and reached for the hem of her hoodie and the shirt she wore underneath it. She slowly pulled them up over her torso, then past her breasts, and finally up over her head and off. She wore a functional, stretchy black sports bra. Not exactly femme fatale material, but judging from the look in his dark eyes, that didn’t matter. She smiled. “I thought I was just going to be hanging out with Sunny and the plants today. I do own nicer bras.”

  “Don’t go getting all lacy for me,” he told her, shrugging out of his unbuttoned shirt, then pulling his T-shirt off over his head and tossing it and the shirt toward the bench by the door. “I’m not much of a lingerie guy.” He stepped closer and started to slide the straps of her sports bra over her shoulders. “I’m more of a the-fewer-barriers-the-better kind of guy.”

  She was too busy looking at the marvel that was a half-naked Noah to fully hear what he was saying. “Mm-hm,” she murmured, then gave in to temptation and put her hands on his surprisingly sculpted chest and traced them down over the ridges of all six sections of his equally defined abdominals. He’d told her during one of their many conversations that day that he chopped all the inn’s firewood by himself, that it was a kind of therapy that let him work through any of his daily frustrations. She’d laughingly told him about her lumberjack fantasies, and he’d just wiggled his eyebrows at her in silent promise.

  All she could say now was that she was deeply appreciative of the results of his labors. “Maybe I should give up yoga and take up chopping wood,” she murmured.

  “As long as you keep touching me like that, you can take up anything you’d like,” he said on a half groan, half growl when she reached the button of his pants.

  He pulled her hands back up to his chest and took care of unzipping his pants and shucking them and his boxer briefs. “I’m feeling remarkably overdressed,” she told him, running her hands down his arms, the bunched biceps, the hard curve of his triceps, working her gaze downward slowly, wanting to revel in every part of him.

  “That much I think I can help you with,” he said, and slowly sank to his knees, depriving her of getting a look at him in all his glory. He pulled open the button of her jeans . . . with his teeth.

  She gasped. “You’ve been holding out on me,” she said, already breathless even before he cupped her behind with both broad palms and continued his clever ministrations, tugging the zipper all the way down. “Rusty, my—oh!” She arched back as he pressed his tongue down inside the bottom edge of the zipper, catching her right at her most sensitive spot. The shock of pleasure was almost too much, and she trembled, hard, thankful he had a firm grip on her.

  He urged her closer, used his palms to skim down her pants, leaving her panties behind. “Maybe I do like a little lace after all,” he murmured against her now heated and damp flesh.

  A little hum of pleasure was all she could manage as he nuzzled against the damp silk panel. She gripped his head, more to help herself remain upright than because he needed any guidance. At all. He was doing a damn fine job all by himself.

  He teased her, sliding his hands back up her thighs, urging her closer, slowly lowering the skinny elastic bands over her hips until he could finally, mercifully, mate his tongue directly with her now throbbing bud of need, making her groan long, and loud, as the climax built with such ferocity she wasn’t sure her legs would hold her upright.

  He must have felt her trembling and nudged her back a step, then another, until she rested against the pedestal sink. A moment later she thanked the gods for the support because he teased a fingertip around her thigh and slowly pressed it inside of her as he suckled that tight, needy little bud between his lips, and she shouted her way through what was undeniably the strongest orgasm she’d ever felt in her life.

  She was trembling so hard as the waves of pleasure wrenched at her core that he rose to a stand and pulled her up against him, right off her feet. She kicked free of boots and jeans and panties, heedless of the fact that she still wore the damn sports bra, and clung to him, wrapping her legs weakly around his waist as he carried her into the shower and under the hot, steaming spray.

  “My turn,” she insisted, tilting her head back and letting the spray push her hair from her face. She blinked open her eyes and found his gaze had gone all molten chocolate hot, and she swore she almost climaxed again, just on seeing the ferocity there. Her sweet, funny, teasing innkeeper was all hot, sexy lumberjack now, and damn if she didn’t want him to take her in every way he possibly could. Then start all over again from the beginning.

  He turned and slid down until they were both seated on the deep bench, with her straddling his lap, her ankles still hooked around his back. He leaned back and motioned to her bra. “You’re still clothed.”

  “I guess we’ll have to keep doing this until I get that part right,” she said, and pulled the bra off.

  “I—okay,” he said, and she smiled, because now he was the distracted one, and it made her feel gloriously feminine and not a little sexy. “You’re beautiful,” he said, then leaned forward and took one nipple in his mouth, so gently, so perfectly, it sent a jolt right to her core, and she wriggled against him.

  “I thought it was my turn.”

  “It is,” he told her, then moved to her other nipple and made her arch her back and press into him, anything to keep him doing exactly what he was doing.

  �
��But—”

  “It can’t be my turn until we get to the bedroom,” he told her.

  It took her a second, but she understood what he was saying. Protection. She shifted back, took his face in her hands, lifted his gaze to hers. “I’m on the pill,” she told him. “And I’m safe. Annual checkups. And I haven’t been with anyone in—”

  “Stevie—”

  “No, let me. I . . . It’s been two years, and before, I always—always—demanded protection. No chances. I just . . . I don’t take chances.”

  “It’s okay, I understand,” he said, his gaze as sincere as his words. “I wouldn’t have expected otherwise. I’ve only been with one person since, well, since college.” Carolyn had tried the pill and had suffered some side effects that made her uncomfortable, so he’d willingly done whatever was needed. “I’ve been safe, too. Always.”

  She gripped his face a little more firmly and lowered her head so she could block the spray of the shower and look him directly in those beautiful eyes of his. “What I’m saying is . . . it’s okay. With you. The fewer barriers, the better,” she said, trying for an insouciant smile, and failing, she was sure, by a mile. She wasn’t even sure why she was saying this, doing this, but it was important that he know tonight was different for her. He was different for her. To her.

  “Stevie—”

  “You don’t have to; if you’d be more comfortable not, I understand. It’s just—this is . . .” She trailed off, searched his gaze, and found everything she’d ever wanted looking right back at her. “I think this is that thing worth fighting for. And I want to do it right. From the start.”

  His gaze sharpened on hers, searching her eyes right back, and she held her breath, hoping he saw in her the same thing she saw in him. “You’ve been it right from the start,” he said. “But if we’re doing this the right way, it’s not going to be here.” He tried for a playful grin and failed. “Not this time.”

  She trembled in anticipation at the fierce hunger that freely shone now in his dark eyes. “Okay,” she whispered.

  He flipped off the water, then turned drying off into the most exquisite form of foreplay she’d ever experienced. Alternately gasping and moaning, she was bracing her hands against his broad, hard shoulders as he first toweled, then licked one specific part very gently, until she finally begged him to please take her to bed.

  He scooped her up against him, nuzzling between her breasts as she ducked her head so he could shuffle them both down the dark hall to his bed. The room glowed an unearthly, pale white, and she gasped, realizing the wall facing the bed was all glass. The snow-blanketed landscape beyond, topped by the reemergence of the moon as the clouds had finally begun parting, lit the room in a way a dozen candles never could have, and it was so much better.

  “In the meadow we can build a snowman,” she sang under her breath, remembering his first words to her. “It’s beautiful,” she said, turning to face him as he let her slide down until her feet touched the floor.

  “Yes, it most certainly is.”

  Her eyes had adjusted to the dark now, and she saw the white flash of his smile when she looked at him and realized he wasn’t looking at the snow, but at her.

  He pulled her into his arms; then she was sinking back into a cloud of downy, pillowy softness, followed very quickly by the warm, and very hard pressure of his body stretching out on top of hers. “Ah, bed,” she said, blissfully, never so thankful to be off her feet. “I love bed.”

  “Bed is good,” he said, leaning down to nuzzle her neck. “I can think of only one place that would feel even better right now.”

  She smiled up at him. “Hmm . . . Whatever could that be?”

  He settled between her thighs and arched into her as she slipped her legs up around his hips. She sank her head back into the pillow, reveling in the feeling of him, pressing against her, nudging just inside, going so slowly she wanted to growl; but at the same time, she was so caught up in every sensation she didn’t dare rush any part of it.

  “Stevie,” he said, and she opened eyes she hadn’t even realized were closed. “You’re sure?”

  She nodded without hesitation. So this is what it feels like, when you know it’s right. “I am. You?”

  In answer, he pushed slowly inside of her, watching her as he did. Her growl of pleasure was low and guttural, as she took him, lifting her hips to accept all of him. He was exquisite. And he was hers.

  That was the thought that stayed with her as they began to find their rhythm, sometimes fast and fierce, other times a slow, sweet glide. He took her over the edge once, then slowly got her there again, before finally letting her take him the rest of the way, until he, too, groaned through a shuddering climax.

  * * *

  They turned to each other again at some point in the wee hours of the morning; then she slept so deeply she didn’t even hear him get up and leave the bed the following morning. She wasn’t sure what time it was when she finally opened her eyes, but she quickly closed them again under the glaring white blaze of light that was the combination of white snow and bright sunlight.

  She rolled over and felt something crumple under her face. Lifting her head and squinting her eyes open, she saw a folded note tucked under the side of her pillow. Smiling, she opened it and read out loud the words he’d written in a dark, masculine scrawl across the white paper. “Merry Christmas Eve, Ladybug. Meet me in the shower at ten.”

  She rolled to her side and found a digital clock on the nightstand. Quarter till. She gaped. She’d never slept this late in her life. Of course, she hadn’t exactly spent the whole night sleeping, so she could cut herself a little slack. She started to yawn and stretch, thinking she did not even want to see what her hair must look like at that moment, when another thought struck her. “Sunny!” She sat bolt upright, then almost screamed when she saw someone looking in the window. A second later, her hand still clasped over her racing heart, she burst out laughing. Noah had built her a snowman, complete with a dorky mukluk hat, wooly scarf, big carrot nose, and what looked like a coffee bean smile.

  She shook her head, already plotting what she could do to return the favor. Then she remembered Sunny and went looking for her phone. She also fulfilled her unabashed curiosity and poked her nose in the other rooms that made up his personal quarters. It was gorgeous, but she hadn’t expected anything less after seeing that shower. The floors were a combination of wood and stone, as were the walls. There were exposed beams, a small potbelly stove, big, overstuffed furniture, and a small but incredibly thoroughly decked-out kitchen.

  She knew he’d started on his journey toward being an innkeeper as a ski resort chef, that he’d changed his major in school to resort management in his sophomore year. She also knew his first intent had been to buy a place to renovate and turn into a restaurant, but somewhere along the way that had morphed to a bed and breakfast; then when he’d found the old gristmill property, the B&B had become an inn, with full dining room service, to give him the best of both worlds. But looking at the kitchen with its soapstone counters and big center work island, she knew he was still a chef at heart.

  She found her phone, had enough signal to get a call out to Sunny, and the two made plans to meet up at the greenhouse that afternoon. The winds had died down completely, and the plows had made good headway overnight. Stevie reiterated her offer to handle Christmas Day, and Sunny hadn’t put up too much of a fight. Stevie had considered whether to tell her best friend that she was calling that morning from Noah’s bedroom, while wearing the shirt she’d taken off of him the night before, but decided that could wait until they saw each other later.

  She had a shower date to get to, and only a few minutes to tame the mop on her head and finger scrub her teeth with Noah’s toothpaste.

  “Merry Christmas Eve,” she heard herself say to Sunny, natural as you please, before they hung up. “Well, look at you,” she murmured to herself as she hotfooted it to the bathroom. “All holiday spirity.” And so what, she thought
with a private grin, maybe I am.

  Chapter Eight

  Christmas Eve went far more smoothly than the day prior, thanks to the power’s having been restored during the night, a fabulous breakfast show put on by the dauntless Hudson, and the snowplows freeing the guests from being snowbound by midafternoon.

  They also freed Stevie up to drive her SUV out to the greenhouse. Sawyer had taken the industrial snowblower to clear a path along the trail, and Sunny was already there, hard at work. Stevie had promised to be back at the inn by dinner, and Noah had begun missing her before she’d pulled out of the parking lot.

  “You’ve got it bad, mate,” Hud said, observing his new boss staring out the window as the sun started down that evening. “You’ve spent more time at that window than you have in your office. She’s coming back.”

  Noah grinned, looking over his shoulder. “Why, because her suitcase is here?”

  “No, mate, because I saw the way she looked at you before she hiked out into the frozen tundra.” Hud grinned his broad, toothy smile. “She’s got it bad, too.”

  “God, I hope so,” Noah said, and they both shared a laugh. He marched resolutely back into his office, knowing he had a few phone calls he had to make. The deliveries couldn’t be rescheduled until Monday, and even that was a holiday, so he’d had to pull some strings and do more than a little begging to make it happen. In the meantime, he had been calling the local markets to see what stock he could source that way. Local to him being anything within an hour’s drive, and that was without three feet of snow on the ground making everyone drive like a Sunday school teacher. Earlier that morning, Hud had offered to take the inn’s van and head out after lunch service to pick up whatever Noah could order, and Noah had taken him up on the offer.