Page 168 of Screwged for Christmas

See what I meant about my kind of luck?

Gabriel gripping my ass was going to show up on Instagram later, and damned if that wasn’t a screwed up way to spend Christmas.

He swung the door open to a black SUV with blacker windows and deposited me in the front seat. Blasts of heat hit me. Thank you, sweet Jesus.

I basically threw myself across the vents like a window cling.

“Are you crazy? Who takes a person out in zero degrees weather in a bathing suit?”

He didn’t say a word as he got behind the wheel and drove us away. He peeled off his jacket and wrapped it around me. And I won’t lie. Another hit of his cologne had a different kind of heat rumbling through me.

I grabbed it with both hands. “Is this your form of an apology?”

A pure white blanket of snow covered every inch of the world around us and more swept across the windshield. It looked as cold as the man sitting beside me. But he sure felt hot a minute ago.

He slowed around a tricky curve, gripping the wheel when the wind picked up, whiting out the road in front of us.

I sat up. “Whoa. Maybe we should go back.”

“Relax. And you need to know I don’t apologize for much, Ice Princess. This is another case where you won’t be getting one from me. I have a job to do and I intend on doing it.”

“I’m just a job, huh? Makes sense. It’s all I’ve ever been to anyone. A job.”

His scowl slipped.

“Wow, so you do have another expression in your arsenal. Is that pity or irritation I see this time?” I twirled in the seat, brought my leg up, and his eyes flashed to my thighs for half a second.

I grabbed his jacket and slipped it over my shoulders. “Forget it. Don’t answer. I don’t really care. The second you deposit me on my father’s doorstep I'll just leave again. He won’t be there anyway. He never is.”

We quickly reached the main road but visibility wasn’t any better. The roads were largely deserted and he kept driving while I filled him in on what I thought of him, my father, plus Marine brutes in general.

He finally spoke when I paused for breath.

“I’ve got a gag, Ice Princess, and I’m not afraid to use it. It’s going to be a long ride back to New York.”

As if the cuffs weren’t bad enough he thought he was going to gag me?

“In your dreams, gopher,” I snapped.

Just then we passed a flashing road sign that read “Blizzard Warning. Total whiteout. Seek shelter immediately.”

“Fuck,” we said at the same time.

“Take me back to the hotel. I’ll be fine there. Just tell my father you couldn’t find me. You can even wait out the storm in my room with me.”

“That’s not happening,” Gabriel bit out. “We would never make it and I’m not going to let you freeze to death in my truck because ice sent us into a ditch. There’s a small town ahead I know pretty well, Ice Princess.”

“Stop calling me that.”

He smiled that smug grin again. “Why? It suits you.”

I ignored his taunting and went with another question he was more likely to answer. “Small town, huh? It’s Christmas Eve and my dad wants me home tonight. What are you going to do? Sprout wings and fly us home?” My tone was snotty but I didn’t care.

He took a second to look at me, brow arched. “What the sign says. Take shelter. I don’t think we’ll make it to the town after all. Either way, you need to trust me. I won’t let anything happen to the Ice Princess,” he rumbled in that low voice that dripped natural confidence other people pay thousands for in therapy.

My mouth snapped open. “Trust? After what you did?” I slapped his shoulder but it didn’t seem to faze him.

Brute. “I’m not staying with you!”

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