Page 44 of Because You Loved Me

Before she could stop herself, Noa bent down and formed a perfect snowball. She took aim and hurled it toward the back of Asher’s head, where it hit its mark perfectly.

“Shit.” His hand flew up to rub his head and he turned, startled. “What the?—”

Maybe she shouldn’t have done it, but both the sound of it hitting his head and the response it garnered made her feel better instantly.

“Did you…”

She shrugged and, before he could process the shock, bent and scooped up another snowball that she threw in his direction.

Asher dodged the second one and recovered quickly. It was his turn to scoop up snow to attack, but Noa grew up with a big brother. There was no way she was going to wait around for him to retaliate. She charged through the snow toward him, wrapped her arms around his waist, and knocked him backward into a giant snowdrift.

“Noa! What the?—”

She straddled his body, pinning his arms next to him, filled her hands with snow and held them over his head. “I don’t need to be rescued.”

“What?”

She repeated herself. “You didn’t rescue me, Asher.”

He looked up at her and laughed.

Noa let some of the snow drop onto his face.

“Okay, okay.”

“I mean it.” She still didn’t lower her snow-filled hands. “You happened to be in the right place at the right time. That’s it. I was leaving that wedding with or without you. It just so happened that you got lucky.”

“Lucky?” His lips twisted into a very sexy grin.

“Yeah.” She dropped her hands and dumped the snow next to his head. “Pretty damn lucky that you happened to be driving by at the exact right time.”

He appeared to think about it for a minute. “I can’t disagree with that.”

“You can’t?”

He wiggled enough to free his arms and rested his hands on her hips. “I sure can’t.”

Something about the way he looked up at her warmed her inside. Again, Noa reminded herself that nothing about what they were doing in the little cabin in the woods meant anything. But it didn’t matter. For the moment, it made her feel good.

She bent and kissed him thoroughly on the lips until finally, Asher groaned and insisted if they didn’t get inside, they would end up melting the snow altogether.

* * *

Even as a child, Asher hadn’t been one to get very excited over the Christmas tree. When he was young, it had been Chase and their father’s tradition to pick out the family tree. And then when they were older, his sisters would take over the decorating, leaving very little for him to do at all.

After a while, he would take for granted the fact that they had a family Christmas tree at all. It just sort of happened.

In only one afternoon, Noa had changed his mind about Christmas trees altogether. After lugging the fir tree through the snow, he’d stopped in the shed to construct a rustic type of stand that would hold the tree in place and brought it inside.

Noa decided the perfect place was in the corner by the window, with the fireplace nearby. Once it was in position, even Asher had to admit, it did look pretty good.

With no actual decorations, they got creative and made paper snowflakes and strung popcorn with string. Noa found some red yarn in one of the kitchen drawers and wove long braids with it to use as garland.

“I like it.” She finished placing the last paper snowflake and stepped back to admire her work. Asher caught her in his arms and held her tight. “I think we did a pretty good job.” She looked up at him, and Asher had to force himself to look away.

It was too easy to fall into something comfortable with this woman. And that was saying something, considering Asher had never had anything longer than a night or two withanywoman, let alone anythingcomfortable.

It had only been a few days since they’d been together in the little cabin. Maybe it was the forced proximity, or the super-hot sex—but whatever it was, Asher found himself more and more thinking about what happened next. And those weren’t safe thoughts to be having. Not for a man who preferred to live life alone and a woman who’d onlyveryrecently run away from her fiancé and her entire family.

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