Total pages in book: 42
Estimated words: 40951 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 205(@200wpm)___ 164(@250wpm)___ 137(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 40951 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 205(@200wpm)___ 164(@250wpm)___ 137(@300wpm)
I want to reach for him so badly my fingers tingle.
“Christmas was a few weeks later,” he says. “We were back at base. Somebody put up tinsel. Somebody played carols on a busted speaker. There was a folding chair where he should’ve been sitting.”
He finally looks at me, eyes darker than the room.
“Holiday lights don’t sit right after that,” he says simply. “You look at a tree and all you can see is the empty space around it.”
My heart cracks cleanly in two.
I don’t offer platitudes. I don’t say you couldn’t have known or you did your best, even though both are probably true. I just let myself move, closing the space between us inch by inch.
“Rhett,” I say softly. “I’m so sorry.”
His jaw flexes. “It was a long time ago.”
“It doesn’t have to stop hurting to be old.”
We’re close now. Our knees almost touch. The fire hums, and the wind outside the walls might as well not exist. It’s just us and the quiet.
I reach out, giving him all the time in the world to pull away.
He doesn’t.
My fingers rest lightly over his hand where it’s fisted on his thigh. Warm. Solid. He untangles his hand slowly, flips it, and threads his fingers through mine.
The simple contact sends a shock through me, hot and fragile and huge.
“I like it here,” I admit, voice barely above the crackle of the fire. “With you. Even with the storm. Even with the axe and the chainsaws and the couch that probably tried to murder you last night.”
His mouth twitches. “It failed.”
“I’m glad,” I whisper.
His thumb brushes over my knuckles. Once. Twice. Each pass is a question.
“Ivy,” he says, and I feel my name in the center of my chest. “You’re going back to Saint Pierce when the road opens.”
“Yes.” My voice wobbles. “That’s the plan.”
“You got a life there.”
“I do.”
He nods slowly, like he’s testing the shape of the truth between us.
“Doesn’t change this,” he murmurs.
“Doesn’t change what?” I ask, and I’m pretty sure I know, but I need to hear it anyway.
“The fact that I’ve been trying not to touch you since you fell into my sleigh,” he says quietly. “And I’m losing that battle.”
Heat floods my face, my chest, my whole body. My pulse trips over itself.
“I—” I start, then laugh breathlessly. “Same. Just…in case that helps.”
The corner of his mouth curves, but his eyes stay serious. “You sure?”
I squeeze his hand. “Yes.”
He shifts closer.
The room narrows to the inch of space between us, charged and crackling. He reaches up, slow enough for me to stop him if I want to, and tucks a strand of hair behind my ear.
His fingers skim my jaw. My skin prickles.
“Ivy,” he says again, softer. A warning. A prayer.
“Yes?” I breathe.
“Gonna kiss you now.”
“Okay,” I whisper. “Good. Yes. Please.”
His hand slides to the back of my neck, fingers threading into my hair, and then his mouth is on mine.
The first brush is gentle—testing, reverent. But the second isn’t. The second is hungry.
Heat slams through me.
I make a sound in the back of my throat—half sigh, half something wilder—and he catches it, deepening the kiss. His thumb strokes the side of my neck, sending sparks down my spine. I lean into him, fingers fisting in the front of his shirt to pull him closer.
He comes willingly.
The world tilts. Our lips move together, slow then faster, like we’ve been kissing in every timeline but this one and we’re just now catching up. His other hand finds my waist, anchoring me as I shift, closing the last of the distance between us.
I end up half in his lap, knees bracketing his thigh, my heart pounding so hard I’m pretty sure he can feel it.
He definitely feels it.
His chest rises and falls under my palms, breath coming rougher now. He angles his head, deepening the kiss again, and I open for him without thinking. Heat blooms everywhere—my mouth, my skin, my bones.
He tastes like tea and something darker. Like winter and fire and all the things I didn’t know I needed.
When he finally breaks the kiss, it’s only by an inch. Our breaths tangle. His forehead rests against mine, eyes closed like he’s holding himself together by sheer force of will.
“Hell,” he murmurs. “That was a mistake.”
My stomach drops.
“Oh,” I say quietly, trying to pull back.
His hand tightens on my waist, keeping me close. “Not that kind of mistake,” he says, voice rough. “The kind you want to make again and know you shouldn’t.”
Something unknots in my chest.
“We’re snowed in on a mountain,” I whisper. “I think the universe is rooting for bad decisions.”
He huffs out something that’s almost a laugh and kisses me again, quick and soft this time.
“We’ll figure it out when the road opens,” he says, thumb brushing my lower lip. “Saint Pierce. All of it.”