by Ember Flint
I swallow hard. “A few months?”
“Yeah, and we said nothing because we wanted to surprise them.”
“And how did we manage to date with me in New York and you back home?”
“That’s easy: I’ve been all over the States for the last couple of months to pick up art pieces my boss and his wife were interested in, so I can easily make up something about me being in New York, us meeting, sparks flying, you know, the works… and then we can say we kept on meeting there… oh, I almost forgot: let’s say you proposed even! It would totally blow their minds! What do you think?”
I can’t even process this. My brain is stuck on sparks flying between us and me proposing to her.
“Um…” I start to say, but she interrupts me, talking a mile a minute.
“Please, please, say you’ll play along. It would be fun…”
“I don’t think so,” I mumble.
She huffs. “It would get our parents off our backs…”
“And what are we gonna do after the holiday?” I ask.
“That’s easy. We’ll just wait for January to come up and then tell them it didn’t work out and we decided to go back to be friends.”
“That ought to go over nicely with them.”
“Well, that’s gonna be future Hope’s and future Christopher’s problem.”
I chuckle. “You’re crazy…”
“But definitely onto something. Say it.”
“Fine!”
She squeals. “So, you’ll do it?”
I’m pretty sure, I’m going to regret this, but I love her too much to refuse her anything, besides, I know her: this can’t be stopped, if this deal of hers is at the forefront of her mind and she thinks this is the only way to avoid the moms’ badgering about our lack of significant others, she’s gonna find a way to do this even if I don’t go along.
She loves Christmas and she’ll do just about anything to finally enjoy the holiday in peace.
She might even show up with some son of a bitch to play the part in my stead, she knows plenty of ‘artistic’ types and everybody knows those crazy fuckers would go along with anything, especially if it’s a pretty girl like her who’s doing the asking.
No way I could survive a week in close quarters with some motherfucker mauling her in front of me, I’d end up doing twenty to life.
The only reason why I’m not in the pen already for having beaten up some boyfriend of hers is because I keep pretty insulated from her life and almost never ever step foot in San Fran these days.
“Chris?”
I sigh. An entire week of her pretending to be my girlfriend and then retiring to my cold lonely bed every night?
So not pretty. This is going to be even more painful than usual, but at least saying yes to this crazy deal would mean being able to live out a fantasy I’ve been holding in my heart for years and I’m pretty sure she’s right: though it’s probably gonna end up in a mess after the holidays, it would keep the moms from attempting to pair us off 24/7.
“You there?”
Then again, this could be the only way to finally get to see if maybe she could—
“Christopher? Don’t think so hard.”
“Fine, Hope. I’ll do it.”
Oh, fucking hell, I’m so totally screwed.
Chapter 3
HOPE
It’s December twenty-two and I’m in a rented SUV with Christopher as we drive down the snowy roads of Colorado headed toward Aspen.
He flew from New York to meet me back in San Francisco this morning so that we could then fly to Denver together and then surprise our families by showing up at the Frosted Ridge at the same time.
We have been driving for almost three hours now and we’ll be at the resort soon.
I feel myself blush as I think back to our meeting at the airport.
It’s possible he has grown even bigger since last year. Maybe he’s been working out or something.
He was never small to begin with, having always easily topped 6’5, but I nevertheless did a double take when I saw him standing there in all his gigantic glory.
Perhaps it was the dark beard on his face that made me falter a bit.
I’ve seen him with a stubble, but never with a full beard before.
Still, I was sure it was him; he was still as handsome as I remembered, and his eyes were the same deep shade of ocean blue that I’ve grown to love over the years.
For a moment we just stood there, looking at each other and then he walked up to me and we hugged. It felt amazing and it brought me back in time.
I hadn’t realized how much I really missed him until that moment, but our exchange was very awkward.
He held himself stiffly while we hugged, like he couldn’t wait to pull away from me.
It made me feel so incredibly sad, I almost burst into tears there and then.
Years ago, he would have scooped me up into his strong arms for a long bear hug, my feet dangling off the floor as we laughed and goofed around. Not anymore, I guess.
I steal another peek at him and frown. He looks serious and cranky and there’s not even a hint of the laidback guy he used to be when we were kids in his present demeanor.
This is something I’ve noticed over the course of our stays in Aspen and it almost seems like he gets more brooding and forbidding with every passing year, but this time there’s more. He looks royally pissed.
“Do you have a headache?” I ask and he jumps at the sound of my voice, turning his intense glare at me.
“What did you say?”
I frown. “Are you feeling okay?”
He sighs. “Of course. I was just thinking about this plan of yours.”
I huff out a breath. “Don’t tell me you want to back out, Chris.”
“No.”
He offers nothing more and begins to tap his fingers on the steering wheel’s controller, lowering the volume of the music that’s blasting from the radio just as the last strains of ‘Last Christmas’ by Wham! turn into ‘White Christmas’ by The Drifters.
I look ahead and when I see a parking area, I point at it and ask him to stop.
“Why?”
“Well, we’re almost there, Christopher, and it just occurred to me we don’t look very much like a couple who’s madly in love, not by a long shot.”
Chris grunts. “So?”
I roll my eyes. “So, do you think our moms are going to buy our little play-acting if we look this stilted and awkward? Do you realize you haven’t said a word to me aside from growled instructions sine we deplaned?”
He shakes his head but slows the SUV into a stop.
“And what do you propose we do about it?” he asks.
I smile up at him. “We need to practice, you know: rehearse a bit.”
“Our story? I know that stuff by heart now, you’ve been yapping about it for days now.”
I glare at him and punch his arm. “I don’t yap!”
He smirks. “Sorry, you nag… just like your mom and my own, I never would have guessed.”
I punch his arm again and he just chuckles, not even flinching.
“Couldn’t you at least pretend I’m hurting you?”
Something passes over his eyes and they darken for a moment. “Why?” he asks.
“Because it’s the gentlemanly thing to do.”
He combs one hand through the dark, cropped curls on his head and puffs out his cheeks. “Fine… ouch. Happy?”
I shake my head, freeing myself from the seat belt.
I know what I’m about to do. I’m the one who planned this after all, but my heart is inexplicably pounding away in my chest.
“Thank you. Now, can you cooperate at least a bit?”
I try to tell myself it’s just nerves and a little bit of performance anxiety, but it feels like there’s more I’m not fully grasping going on here, both inside of me and in Mr. Grumpy over there.
Now he’s the one rolling his eyes at me. “What do you want us to rehearse?”
I take a big breath. “Our kiss.”
I need to get this over with.
I’ve never been kissed and even if this is just a farce it’s better doing it here than having our parents and about thirty more people gawk at us while it happens.
“Our kiss?”
His eyes widen and he gives me a look I don’t quite understand as his hands clutch hard around the steering wheel.
What’s his problem?
I should be the one losing it right about now since it’s my first kiss ever.
I nod, trying to look all matter-of-factly about it. “Yeah. Otherwise they will know.”
He frowns. “And how would they know exactly?”
“Well, I don’t know. We could have like zero chemistry or the worst kind of timing.”
He gives me an incredulous look. “Chemistry, I understand, but what does timing have to do with anything?”
I turn to the side so I can look at him and I start to explain my reasoning, ticking off things in my list on the tips of my fingers as I go.
“For one thing, we looked like two stiff boards while we hugged. We haven’t seen each other in a year, and we have zero familiarity. For another, you’re like a yeti and with my short ass I can barely reach your shoulder let alone your face with mine. We would end up with you probably kissing my eye and me your chin or something: hence the timing issue.”
Then there’s the fact I’ve never done this before. I mentally add, but no way I’m telling him.
Play it cool, Hope.
He stares at me intently for a while, until his smoldering makes me even more nervous and I start to fidget in my seat.
“Could you turn the dead glare off, please? You’re supposed to adore me…”
He covers his face with both hands and sighs. “And you mean for us to… practice in here?” he asks dubiously.
“Well, yes. We’ll be at the resort in about an hour and as soon as we get there, the moms will pounce on us, you know that…”
“I guess…”
I rummage through the glove compartment until I find what I put there early while he stepped outside for a coffee.
“Ta-da.”
He smiles a little. “Mistletoe?”
“I figured they’re gonna make us kiss under it all over the place, so this way we get the whole experience beforehand.”
I expect him to drag his feet a bit, but instead he is on me faster than I can blink. His mouth descends on mine hard, trapping my heart and my breath in my throat and I freeze in surprise, trying to focus on the way I should move my lips and tongue to make sure he doesn’t realize we are practicing for more than a reason here.
I’m trying to hide my inexperience, but it isn’t easy when my body is trembling all over and my brain is about ready to turn into slush.
A little whimper escapes my lips as he pushes his tongue deeper into my mouth, chasing mine.
Chris is definitely better at faking lust and passion that I would have thought him capable of, considering how cold he has been with me since we met this morning.
He cups my face in his large palm, wrapping his other hand in my hair and I just let myself feel for once.
Suddenly play-acting is the farthest thing from my mind as the mistletoe drops from my limp hand into my lap and I feel my core clench onto nothingness as I respond to the pressure of his lips on mine and to the way he is holding me so tight to his barrel of a chest as his scent surrounds me.
Maybe I’m not so defective after all.
Oh, holly jolly crap!
This, I didn’t expect.
I’m so in trouble right now.
Chapter 4
CHRISTOPHER
“Are you ready?” Hope asks as we step on the porch off the cabin our parents rented out. They always pick one of the biggest one available at the resort and share it so that we can all gather there and be comfy during meals.
I look down into her upturned, beautiful face and clear my throat, nodding.
Ready. Right.
Ready to make a fool of myself.
My stupid cock hasn’t gone down since I first spotted her, getting here was the hottest form of torture ever conceived and then after that kiss we shared, I totally lost my fucking mind. I don’t even know how I managed to drive us here.
And now she wants us to kiss in front of other people, namely our matchmaking mothers, our fathers, our siblings, and an entire fleet of kids.
Just fucking peachy.
Normally, I spend the entirety of our time here keeping as far away from her as I can.
I distract myself by playing with all my nephews and nieces in the snow, by skiing and hanging out with all the guys, trying to spend as little time as possible in the house where only the pain of unfulfilled arousal in her presence or my brain exploding because of my mother’s never-ending nagging await.
When I can’t manage to escape, major hiding behind tall pieces of furniture and looking outside of windows with my back to the room are worked into my routine.
And this year because of this stupid deal, I’ll have no way to hide from my feelings, no way to keep Hope at arm’s length.
Back in New York, before I knew what tasting her sugary, plump lips was like, all in all, it sounded like a totally plausible thing to do.
I thought it would be definitely better than having to be the designated victim of all of my mom’s and Noelle’s attempts at matchmaking; plus, there would have been no way I could restrain myself from killing whatever poor bastard Hope could have showed up with.
But now, damn, now I don’t even know how the fuck am I going to keep it together with her teasing me and pressing her sweet little curvy body into my own.
I’ve been in a haze of lust and love since we got into the car, with a diehard erection that wouldn’t quit butting against the crotch of my jeans all the way here and that was before she asked me to ‘practice’ under the mistletoe.
I felt how nervous and unpracticed she was as my lips touched hers. It didn’t make any sense.
I can’t see how could she be inexperienced: she’s too damn beautiful to be that innocent, in fact, I’ve spent the last fourteen years of my life awake almost every night torturing myself as I thought of some piece of shit putting his hands on her, thank God according to my mom, she doesn’t date much or by now I would be in prison and my little secret would have been out for a long time already.
I figured she was nervous and stilted during our exchange at first because she was forcing herself to do it, to act like she loved it.
The thought was so painful it was almost unbearable, considering I felt like I was in heaven while she struggled with it.
I let myself just feel, I didn’t want for our reality to intrude in that moment and spoil it and that’s how I found myself pushing things too far.
Before I had time to form another conscious thought, I was cupping her face with one hand, had wrapped her long wavy main of silky locks in the other, like I’ve imagined countless times I would do if I ever got the chance to pound my pent-up passion between her thick thighs, and my tongue was as deep down her throat as it would go; the taste of her pulling all of my blood south.
And then she started to respond in kind, giving me all I’ve ever dreamed of finding on her lips and in her kiss, and making me feel even more confused.
I never knew a kiss could really be like that, I only have that one hazy memory of my single attempt of putting my love for her to rest by kissing someone else to compare it with, and damn, it didn’t hold a candle to the things I felt with Hope as our tongues danced together and our lips clashed hard.
It took everything in me not to maul her right there and then and maybe it was the shock at the wonderful sensations rushing through my body that actually kept me from plucking her from her seat and drop her right into my lap.
My cock je
rks painfully in my too-tight pants at the thought of Hope’s delicious heat and ass pressed that closely to me and I feel pre-cum leak out of my tip.
Just great.
I rip my eyes from the flare of her hourglass-shaped hips and clear my head from the vision of my hands gripping her there as I fuck my cock into her hard and deep.
I discreetly reach down to adjust myself, but it does nothing to help my condition.
There will be no relief for me, not as long as I’m surrounded by her sweet fresh scent of mint and honey.
How the fuck does she manage to smell this fucking amazing I will never know.
Hope has been using the same fragrance since she turned about sixteen and has been driving me up the wall with it ever since.
She reaches for my hand and I nearly jump out of my skin.
She frowns, looking up at me. “You okay? Why are you so nervous?” she asks worriedly, and I feel her lilting delicate voice wrap around my balls and tighten them up further.
Thank God for my coat.
“Christopher?”
I look down at her and sigh, fisting my hands at both sides of my body to keep myself from reaching out to cup her face. The chill in the air has turned her cheeks an adorable shade of rosy pink and I’d give all my millions, down to the last cent, to kiss all over her smooth jaw and then down to the hollow of her silky throat.
Fuck, her skin looks so creamy and perfect.
Like vanilla ice cream and strawberry syrup.
My dick hardens even further, and I have to bite back a growl.
Her large light green eyes grow even bigger as she stares up at me from her diminutive 5’5 point of view, clearly puzzled.
Fuck, even the fact that she’s so small, I could put her in my pocket, fucking turns me on.
I don’t think there’s a single thing about her that doesn’t get me going.
Great. Could I look more like a total idiot aside from a pervert right now?
Dammit, Chris. Stop the fucking leering right this instant!
I shake myself and force a smile.
God help me, I’m going to rupture something important down there or have a fucking heart attack before the day is out.