Page 2 of One Snowy Seduction
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What the hell was she doing here? And what was he going to do now that there were no other chalets, or even rooms for her to stay in at the resort tonight.
Kendrick turned slowly, not looking forward to her reaction to what he was about to tell her. For a moment though, when she hurriedly glanced toward the window as if she hadn’t been staring at him the entire time he was on the call with his assistant, he just watched her. Teesha Palmer. The smartest woman he’d ever met and the baddest programmer on the east coast, if not in the entire country. She was a whiz with computers and had a creative spark that put every project she touched over the top in ingenuity and execution. And she was pretty, too. Funny how that thought had always fallen to the bottom of his list of attributes for Teesha.
Until today.
She wore skin-tight black and white checkered pants with furry black boots that stopped just beneath her calf. Her coat was puffy and white, its hood filled with the fall of her straight black hair. She had the same heavily creamed coffee toned skin, but her cheekbones seemed somehow higher, her chestnut brown eyes a little brighter. Even her lips seemed fuller, more luscious and glazed with champagne toned gloss that he could visualize sliding over…his dick jumped.Shit.
“There’re no other rooms available at this resort,” he blurted out to keep the salacious thoughts in his mind from taking over. “Not at the main building or any of the private chalets.”
“What?” The quick snap to her tone he remembered well. Teesha could be sassy and cutthroat candid. She could also be encouraging and compassionate. She’d been the only one to ever understand how his family dynamics worked for and against him. The only person who’d ever totally gotten why he could never go back to Temptation, the small Virginia town where he’d been born.
“This place is huge. There has to be another chalet or at the very least a room where you can stay.” Digging into her coat pocket she pulled out her phone. “I’ll just call the front desk. Your assistant must be mistaken. Or wait, it’s Christmas Day so they shouldn’t even be working. What’re you some kind of Scrooge? You get to come play in the snow, while your staff works on a holiday.”
She scrunched her face at that last remark, the bridge of her cute little nose wrinkling seconds before she turned away from him to speak into the phone.
He could’ve told her the call she was making was useless, but another thing he recalled about Teesha was that she could be as stubborn as the day was long. Instead, he folded his arms across his chest and waited for her to finish receiving the same news he’d gotten and to turn around and face him again.
Moments later, when she did that very thing, Kendrick found he didn’t like the dejected look on her face. He’d seen it before and a punch of guilt and irritation almost took his breath away.
“There’re no other rooms.” She repeated his exact words and thrust the phone back into her pocket. Next, a strangled, but still cute-sounding disgruntled grumble escaped from her and she stomped a booted foot. “This is my vacation! My trip of a lifetime for the low cost of eight hundred and twenty-three dollars.”
Now it was his turn to frown. “Look, this chalet is big enough—”
“Don’t!” She held up a hand after shouting the one word. “Don’t you dare say it. I am not,” she paused and shook her head. “Wecannot stay here.” She cleared her throat. “Together.”
“Stop being stubborn,” he said. “We’ve stayed in the same room before. Hell, we’ve slept in the same bed.”
Heat soared through his body at the memory, resting in his now growing erection and reminding him that he was only wearing a towel. He silently cursed and attempted to adjust the fluffy material around his waist again. A glance down confirmed his efforts weren’t hiding any parts of his apparent arousal. The sooner he could get upstairs and change, the more comfortable he’d be. He hoped.
“There’s no reason why you can’t take one of the many rooms in this place and I take another. We can co-exist.”
She was shaking her head. “No. We cannot.” On a huff she rolled her eyes skyward. “Why is shit like this always happening to me?”
He took another step closer to her. “Tee. I wish you’d just calm down. We can do this.”
Her head jerked back in his direction, her cool gaze pinning him to the spot where he stood. “Don’t call me that. And don’t tell me what I can do. We’re not those two people who shared a hotel room because we couldn’t afford to pay the full price on our own and still attend all the events at the Essence Festival. And we’re definitely not the people who trusted each other enough to sleep in that small ass bed without anything sexual happening.”
But he’d dreamed. Kendrick remembered that July weekend well. He was certain his dick had never remained so hard for so long without any hint of relief. At one point he’d actually considered going into the bathroom to stroke himself to relief while Teesha had slept in that double bed. But he hadn’t. Somehow, he’d felt like that would be disrespectful as hell to the person he’d cared the most about at the time.
That summer before their senior year in college had been the first time he’d thought of Teesha in a sexual way. Five months later—three weeks before Christmas to be exact—they’d learned about the Maury Yatlig internship. The biggest argument they’d ever had occurred at the end of January and by the time the winner of the internship had been announced just two days before Teesha’s birthday in February, their friendship had ended abruptly.
Trying to clear his mind of that long ago memory, Kendrick realized that trust was the key word in what Teesha had just said. She didn’t trust him. She’d told him so nine years ago on that cold January night as they’d stood outside her apartment building.
“No. We’re not those people anymore.” And that was a good thing, he was certain. “At thirty-one years old now, we should be much more mature. And two mature adults can certainly stay in this big ‘ole chalet for the night or until another room becomes available.”
“This is not how I planned to spend my Christmas vacation,” she said.
He shrugged. “Same.”
She turned away from him again and a huge part of him wondered if she were going for the door. He couldn’t let her go. Not like this, not again. He’d regretted those last words they’d spoken to each other so long ago but had successfully convinced himself that if she wanted to be angry with him for a clear misunderstanding, that he was going to let her. But a lot had happened in those years. The biggest being that a couple years ago, Kendrick had become one of the thirty richest Black men under thirty when he took all that he’d learned from the Yatlig tech startup incubator internship he’d won and used that knowledge to open his own enterprise software startup. Now, Titan Tech was a thriving company. Kendrick lived in London where his company was based and he had everything he ever wanted.
Well, almost everything.
This time, he went after her, closing the space between them before his mind could process a reason why he shouldn’t. “Teesha,” he said, grasping her elbow and easing her around to face him again. “Stay. Please.”
Yeah, he’d decided to come on this trip at the last minute because he hadn’t wanted to spend another night alone in his big house, especially not on Christmas. He also hadn’t wanted to go back to his aunt’s house in Virginia which would surely be packed with other family members. Cousins, uncles, aunts, all who’d have something to say about his recent divorce.
