Like long enough for my fucking dick to stop slamming into my zipper like a dog lunging for a steak.
Once again, the picture’s I’m bringing up in my head are not very damn romantic. Not that surprising. I’m a big, rough guy. Not a romantic. I don’t know a damn thing about being soft and sweet for a vulnerable, pretty little thing. I don’t want to hurt her. It would kill me.
I nod my head at her and then open the door, stepping out into the swirling, whirling world of white. It sucks the breath right out of my lungs.
Gasping for breath, I stomp up to the covered wood on the porch, noting that I could use a little extra but for now I’ve got plenty. I turn my face back to the cabin and unable to resist, I make my way back to the window of the cabin. Looking through, she’s still staring there, her shoulders slumped. Basically every piece of her is limp and dejected-looking.
What did I do? Have I already broken her? I mean, what the hell is wrong with me? The woman just got here and I’ve already broken her spirit.
Or at least it looks that way.
But then she seems to shake herself out of whatever spell she’s under and she finishes pulling her wet outerwear off. Glancing around, she spies my rudimentary hooks on the wall and moves towards them. She hangs up her coat and hat and gloves and I grin when she almost has to jump up until she spotsa stepstool and drags it over. She’s a tiny little woman. My eyes drag down her strong back and shoulders and down to her lush ass.
My dick knocks at my zipper again. She’s so lovely that it’s hard to look away from her. And then add in the buxom curves that she’s rockin’ and it’s a wonder that I can even walk with how hard I fucking am!
She finally wanders off and I’m assuming that she found the bathroom because after she disappears down the hallway, she doesn’t immediately come back out.
I push my way through the door again and stand by it for a moment, surprised how different my cabin already feels. It’s like she’s not just lit up my body and soul, she’s lit up my whole cabin. It almost feels like a real holiday in here.
It’s been a long time since I celebrated Christmas. A long time since I’ve even been interested in celebrating.
But for her…I’d do a helluva lot for her. Iwilldo a helluva lot for her. She looks like a woman that likes traditions. Likes to be treated like a queen and receive gifts and love.
I shake myself. How do you love a woman you just met? I don’t know. I really don’t know. But as soon as I saw her, I knew. I knew that she was going to be the most important thing to me. In my world.
Not even Cord really knows who I am. I don’t advertise it. Mainly because I’ve had so much trouble for such a long time.
I’m an author. Or I was an author. Until the absolute shit-show that was the release of my first book. A thriller romance that took off even before it was officially out. The damn thing went viral as soon as it was sent to reviewers.
And then it all went to hell in a hand basket and I found myself being stalked by crazy-ass women everywhere I went that thought I was just too damn sexy for words. Because I wrote a book.
And once it came out, you couldn’t put that shit back in the bottle. I was a catch. Rich beyond my imaginings. It was all too much. I didn’t want the damn fame or the money. I just loved to write.
I grew up in a household with very little money. We didn’t have extras. What we had stretched to food and bills. That was it. So I got hand-me-downs from garage sales and I was happy with it. Because I couldn’t not be.
What was I going to tell my poor mom? That I wanted new? My sister didn’t get new.
My mother worked her ass off to get us a clean, relatively safe home and neighborhood.
But it broke her when my sister hit her eighteenth birthday and took off running. To marry some guy. She died from pneumonia the next year at Christmas, broken-hearted. We never heard from Bethany again.
I shake myself out of my stupor. It doesn’t matter anymore. Bethany’s probably dead and buried somewhere and there’s not a damn thing I can do about it.
But I have a chance at happiness right here, right now. I just have to convince this woman that although we just met…there’s something here. Something worth staying to find out what it is. Something real and lasting and perfect.
Just like she is.
CHAPTER 6
Ashleigh
Idon’t know that I’ve ever been in a cabin before. I didn’t know that they could be this nice. And this bathroom? Oh my god! There’s a huge soaker tub with clawed feet sitting in the middle of the room and then there’s a huge, glass-enclosed shower with a rainfall head.
But that tub is calling my name and I can’t resist the lure of a long, hot soak. My fingers are so cold I can’t feel a damn thing. And my toes are little blue piggies.
There’s a shelf off to the side with towels and soap and stuff and it takes me less than a minute to get things set up and to start tugging off my soaking-wet clothes. I drop them in a little pile on the floor and then start the water running. Steam rises from the porcelain monster and I sigh when it’s high enough for me to step into it. Hot water swirls around me and I sink into it with a sigh.
“Oh my god…so good.”