Page 284 of Screwged for Christmas

She smiled as he turned his beautiful eyes on her. “And led to our first kiss,” she offered fondly.

Aspen raised a brow at her and brushed the pad of a callused thumb across her cheek. “How could I forget?” He sat there, taking up nearly half the small cabin, exuding a raw power about him that lured her into his circle of energy.

She repositioned herself back in the seat, drawn into his deep brown gaze, but unwilling to fall into the pull. “How did it happen?” She heard the question come out, but she couldn’t focus on anything other than how perfect his lips were or how sexy his hair looked mussed from running his fingers through it.

“The kiss? As far as I remember, it was hot.” He arched a single eyebrow and smiled until a dimple appeared above his turned lip. “Like sexy hot. I had the prettiest cheerleader in the school and the sweetest girl running up to kiss me in the middle of football practice. I was the envy of every guy on the team that year and the next. So I repeat, how could I ever forget the first time our lips touched?”

He drew closer the longer he spoke and she had a hard time not focusing on the way his mouth moved or how much she’d missed the rich smell of pine. It had to be from all the firewood he carried around this morning, right? Wow, when did it get so hot? She cleared her throat. What he may not know was why it happened. She lost a bet with her sister riding to school on one of those ugly buses and the payment was stealing a kiss from the boy you wanted to go to prom with. She got more than she bargained for in the end.

Aspen.

She smiled.

Life was a lot less complicated in her teenage years. “Um. Not what I meant at all.” She laughed lightly. “I meant the bus. Did you design it and do all the work?”

A hooded look shuttered his eyes and a muscle in his jaw ticked like he was considering something. “Yeah. I know. I wanted to see your eyes light up.” His grin grew into a deep smile as he reached out and ran the back of his finger down the length of her cheek.

She needed to remember real-life problems awaited her the second she left Aspen’s company. She had no time for one-time lovers. But he was more than a lover and that fact was hard to ignore.

There went her heart again. Fluttering so hard it felt like it would leave her chest any second.

He killed the engine. “Kade, myself and a couple of the men at the firehouse all chipped in as a thank-you for putting up with our thick-headed ways back in high school. When Ms. Lucille retired, the only thing she wanted as a parting gift for over thirty years on the job was a decommissioned school bus. A few of us decided to help make her dream a reality. Full peace and quiet is all she wanted.

“Very clever. She always did think outside the box.”

“Wait until you see inside. It has everything from a fireplace and A/C to a full bathroom and living room.”

“No way.” The interior decorator in her itched to take down notes and map out every detail. “You think I could snag some pics?”

Ivy pulled the handle on the old-timey Ford and the door creaked open. She slipped from the warmth of the truck when a golden bounding ball of fur nearly took her to the ground.

A scrabbling of paws and joyous barking made her smile and her heart lighten. She scooped up the furry face in her palms and scratched around the squeaky ball he refused to drop.

“Aren’t you a happy puppy. My goodness.” She threw her hands out and laughed at the exuberant licks and a tail that whipped so fast nothing stood a chance against its might.

Damp with globs of snow, her newfound friend pressed cold paws into the material of her jeans and soaked through immediately. His weight almost as much as her own, Ivy didn’t stand a chance at pushing the energetic dog off her before he squished her into the space between the seat and door. And it was all she could do not to land flat on her butt in the mounting snow.

Sloppy wet kisses came like rapid slaps with wet noodles every place their furry greeter could reach and he was a pushy one so that meant everywhere.

Laughing, Aspen took his sweet time walking around the front of his truck. “Think you can help?” She dodged the unruly doggy tongue. “You know, by pulling Old Yeller here off me?”

“Come here, boy.” Aspen, clearly amused by the puppy love, opened the door the rest of the way and eased the golden retriever back so she could stand.

“Charlie McDuffy gets a little excited when new company comes by. Sorry about that. I completely meant to warn you,” he said with a wink.

She didn’t buy Aspen’s playful grin of innocence for an instant. “Sure you are. What a peculiar name for a dog. You threw me out there as a distraction.”

She mentally ran the dog’s name through her mind. McDuffy? Hmm. The name rang a bell. “I was almost a Bonafede sacrifice while you got away from the wet doggy love,” she said, turning her face up to Aspen’s.

Aspen’s gaze softened as he gave his signature smile that made her heart quicken. “A cute one too,” he added, offering her a hand up from the doorjamb where she where Charlie held her captive to his wet kisses.

She gathered the dog’s happy face in her gloved hands and scratched, loving the devoted look in its eyes. How sweet that animals loved so easily.

“They don’t get many visitors outside of myself and Rocco from time to time so she gets a little carried away in showing his appreciation.”

“Who’s Rocco?” She dusted off a few clumps of snow. Just then, the overgrown pup took off for the woods, the squeaky sound of his ball between his teeth like a radar tracker in the distance. He disappeared from sight, barking and creating a ruckus in the newly fallen snow.

“Aspen? Is that you?”

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