Total pages in book: 25
Estimated words: 26056 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 130(@200wpm)___ 104(@250wpm)___ 87(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 26056 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 130(@200wpm)___ 104(@250wpm)___ 87(@300wpm)
Big-city interior designer Noel Hart doesn’t believe in silence, solitude, or “rustic charm”—but she does believe in prize money. If she can transform a crusty mountain man’s fishing cabin into a winter wonderland, she’ll win the $250,000 grand prize for Mountain Holiday Edition. There’s just one the actual mountain man still lives there.
Nash Hollis is a flannel-wrapped, beard-wearing, wood-chopping grump with a permanent scowl and a serious mistrust of tinsel. He didn’t agree to any holiday decorating. He definitely didn’t agree to a pink-lipsticked tornado of chaos marching into his cabin—and his life. But now they’re snowed in together, and the tension is heating up faster than the fireplace.
She wants mistletoe, garland, and glitter.
He wants her gone.
But when holiday foreplay turns into spin-the-mistletoe, strip-truth-or-dare, and very naughty cookie baking… neither of them wants it to end.
Full of dirty talk, playful bickering, heart-melting slow burn, and blizzard-fueled lust, Mistletoe and Mayhem is a wildly steamy, laugh-out-loud enemies-to-lovers holiday novella with a rugged hero, a chaotic heroine, and enough seasonal spice to melt the ice off Devil’s Peak.
He’s cold.
She’s chaos.
Together, they’re Christmas mayhem
*************FULL BOOK START HERE*************
Chapter 1
Noel
It’s snowing sideways and I’m five minutes away from committing a felony.
My combat boots crunch over ice as I hike up the front steps of the crusty cabin the bartender at The Devil’s Brew sent me to. “Nash Hollis’s place,” he’d said with a smirk that should’ve warned me. “Up the ridge. Big wood cabin. Can’t miss it.”
And now here I am. Frozen, out of breath, and fueled by half a cup of lukewarm gas station coffee and a highly questionable life plan. Answering a mail-order bride ad…what the hell was I thinking?
But hey—Mountain Makeovers: Holiday Edition said go big or go home. So I went big.
Specifically, I answered a fake mail-order bride ad. As a joke. As a strategy. Depends who you ask.
The network said they wanted “the most festive holiday transformation in the Rockies.” I said, sure—I'll give you mistletoe, magic, and marital mayhem. If I find a rugged bachelor with a beard, a cabin, and a soul in need of saving.
I knock. Loud. Twice.
No answer.
I fish the skeleton key out of my pocket—the one the bartender told me I’d find under a gnome statue by the woodpile—and unlock the front door.
“Hello?” I call out.
The air inside is warm. Pine-scented. Definitely inhabited. My boots scuff across a threadbare rug as I step inside.
That’s when I hear it.
A deep, guttural thud from somewhere down the hall.
Then a voice. Gravel and thunder.
“Who the hell—”
I spin toward the hallway just in time to see him.
Nash Hollis.
Towel. Body. Dripping. Steam curling off his broad, tattooed shoulders as he rounds the corner, bare feet silent on the floorboards.
He stops dead when he sees me.
So do I.
Because holy. Actual. Shit.
He’s a bear. A bear with abs. Salt-and-pepper beard, chest like a slab of marble, towel clinging low on his hips like it’s seconds from surrender. He’s not built for Christmas. He’s built for sin.
And currently glaring at me like I’m the intruder.
Which, okay, technically I am.
“What the f—” he rumbles, voice still sleep-rough, “—are you doing in my house?”
I blink, trying not to stare at the droplet racing down the center of his chest. It veers around a scar over his ribs and disappears into the towel.
Don’t follow it, Noel.
“I’m your bride.”
He blinks.
“You’re my what?”
“Bride. Sort of. Mail-order. It’s not legally binding or anything.” I gesture vaguely to my oversized tote. “I come bearing ornaments.”
He doesn’t move. Just glares.
“You answered my ad?” he growls.
“Technically. It was part of a reality show application. Think HGTV meets Bachelor in the Boondocks.”
Nothing.
“I’m Noel Hart,” I try again, stepping forward, hand extended. “Interior designer. Reality show finalist. Here to turn this cozy—” I look around at the cabin’s violently beige aesthetic, “—potential-filled rustic hellscape into a holiday fantasy.”
His eyes narrow. “You broke into my house.”
“Your bartender said the key was under the gnome.”
“Jesus,” he mutters, rubbing a hand down his beard. “Rick’s a dead man.”
“Not if I win,” I chirp. “There’s a two-hundred-and-fifty-thousand-dollar cash prize for best decorated holiday cabin. I keep half. You get the other half. I leave. You never see me again. I tried to call first but the call kept going to voicemail. Didn’t you check your messages?”
“Not if I can help it.” He crosses his arms.
Which just flexes his chest.
Which, frankly, feels like a personal attack.
“No.”
“Excuse me?”
“I said no.” He stalks past me to the fireplace, snatches a flannel shirt off the arm of a chair, and shrugs it on—but doesn’t button it. Just lets it hang open like he’s allergic to modesty. “I didn’t agree to a damn thing. You’re not staying here.”
“Kind of late for that. Snow’s coming down like a cocaine Christmas outside. No one’s getting back down the mountain tonight.”
“Then you’ll sleep in your car.”
“I drive a Prius.”
“Then you’ll freeze in your car.”
I blink. “Wow. You really are the Grinch.”
He grabs a log from the basket and tosses it onto the fire like it personally insulted him. “I don’t do guests. I don’t do cameras. And I sure as hell don’t do mistletoe.”
I toss my coat over the banister and march past him toward the fireplace, pulling out a roll of garland from my bag like I’m about to go to war. “Then it’s a good thing you don’t have to do anything except stay out of my way and cash a check when this is over.”
He watches me kneel in front of the mantel, garland in hand, eyes dark and unreadable.
“You think you’re just gonna roll in here and turn my place into a damn catalog page?”
“Yes.”
He stalks forward. Slowly. Steps measured. Deliberate.
“Put the garland down.”
I arch a brow. “Or what?”
His voice drops. “You don’t wanna know.”
A shiver slides down my spine. Not from fear. From interest.
Which is dumb.
So dumb.
But the way he’s looking at me—like he could peel me open and feast on every part I’ve been trying to hide—it short circuits my brain.