Winter Love

by Kennedy Fox

“You seem to have that effect on people.” She glances over at me with a popped brow, then continues, “I haven’t celebrated this holiday in years. I usually do the news the next morning, so I tend to go to sleep early,” she tells me.

  I laugh. “All I know is you deserve to be kissed at midnight. Sets the foundation for the entire year,” I say matter-of-factly as we park on the street.

  When we walk inside, music floats through the air from a band playing on the small stage. It’s an intimate setting, the lights are low, but people are packed in the room. We go to the bar, where I pull out a stool for Sarah, then sit next to her.

  “Want a drink?” I ask as the bartender sets down napkins in front of us.

  “Vodka and tonic with lime,” she says, and I order a beer. Moments later, our drinks are placed in front of us, and I pick mine up and take a sip.

  Sarah turns and smiles at me, placing her hand on my thigh. I think about the past week we’ve spent together and grin. “I kinda want to dance,” she admits, biting her bottom lip. “After I finish my drink.”

  “Deal.” I finish my beer at the same speed as she does, then pay our check. Sarah stands and reaches out her hand, pulling me toward the crowded dance floor.

  We mosey in, and I place my hands on her hips, and she wraps her arms around my neck. Not able to hold it back any longer, I dip down and slip my tongue inside her mouth. Our bodies keep moving to the beat, but all I want to do is leave and be alone with her until the clock strikes midnight.

  As if she reads my mind, she whispers, “Let’s get out of here.”

  I create some space between us so I can meet her emerald green eyes. “Yeah?”

  “I don’t want to waste the remaining time I have with you, Cole.”

  She doesn’t have to tell me twice. I interlock my fingers with hers, and we climb inside the truck. Moments later, Sarah’s moving closer to me, and before I realize what’s happening, she’s straddling me with her fingers threaded through my hair.

  “Fuck, baby,” I whisper as she grinds hard against me. I feel like ravenous teenagers again.

  “I need you right now, Cole,” she demands, and I slip my finger under the fabric of her dress, immediately feeling her pussy.

  “No panties?” My eyes widen, and I grin. “You little vixen.”

  “Just takes more time to remove them,” she says before she nips and pulls my earlobe into her mouth. Sarah’s hands slide down to my pants to undo the top button, then she unzips them and pulls out my dick. I’m hard as a goddamn rock.

  Moments later, I’m inside her and we’re fucking as if our lives depend on it. As she bounces on my cock, I adjust the top of her dress and take her nipple in my mouth. The windows grow foggy, and I grab her hips, slamming my dick inside her.

  “Yes, yes, yes,” she moans. Her hair flies in her face as she desperately cries out, begging for relief.

  “I love you, Sarah,” I admit as she rides me hard. I grab her ass cheeks, and she pants out her response.

  “I love you too,” she says, then groans. I place my thumb on her clit and gently rub circles. It takes no time before she rides her release, and I spill inside her.

  “Fuck, baby,” I whisper.

  “And just think, we have three more hours until midnight,” she says, pressing her lips against mine. “Now take me to your house, and let’s make the last hours of the year count.”

  “Don’t have to tell me twice,” I say.

  The mood on the way to the airport is somber, but I try to keep the conversation light because I can tell she’s upset too. It was never easy watching her leave, and this time is no different. We knew it wouldn’t be.

  “I’m going to miss the fuck out of you,” I tell her as we make the final turn.

  Sarah lets out a calm breath. “I know. Me too. But I’ll be back in two weeks for my interview.”

  There’s a weight on my shoulders so heavy that when I pull into the drop-off area, I feel as if I can’t breathe. It brings back too many memories, and while I know it’s different now, there’s still the chance she may not get the job. Though they’d be stupid as hell not to hire her.

  I park, and we sit there in silence for a few seconds.

  “I love you, Sarah. I love you so damn much,” I admit, and she leans over and presses her soft ruby lips against mine.

  “I love you too,” she whispers into my mouth when she pushes away.

  I instantly miss her being so close. Threading my fingers through the loose strands of hair that fall in her eyes, I tuck them behind her ear.

  “I’m going to get the job. I just know it,” she encourages. “Then we can make up for lost time.”

  “I’m taking that as a promise, sweetheart,” I say with a smirk.

  “A promise wrapped with a guarantee. And if—for some reason—I don’t, we’ll make it work. I’ve realized that what we have is so damn special that it can’t be replicated. I’m yours, Cole. Always have been and always will be,” she says, then looks down at her phone to check the time. “I should get going, even if I don’t want to.”

  “I know, baby. Please travel safe and text or call me when you land,” I remind her.

  “I will,” she confirms, then reaches for the handle. I grab her suitcase from the back seat of my truck and walk inside with her. When we make it to security, Sarah turns, wraps her arms around my neck, and twists her tongue with mine.

  “Spending Christmas with you was the best time I’ve had in years. I love you,” she repeats. “I can’t say it enough.”

  “It’s a Christmas I’ll never forget. I love you, too. This isn’t goodbye, it’s a see you again soon,” I say, brushing my lips across hers one last time.

  “Not soon enough.” With a grin, she takes her suitcase, and I watch until she fades out of sight.

  On the way back to my truck, I replay all the memories we’ve shared. We’ve grown so much, but the one thing that hasn’t changed is the way I feel about her. Once I’m inside and crank the engine, I reach inside my jacket pocket and pull out the black velvet box. Popping open the lid, I look at the ring that I’ll hopefully be slipping on her finger the next time she’s in town.

  While I have some planning to do to make sure she gets the proposal she’s always deserved, I can’t wait. Sarah Rose will eventually be my wife, and I can’t wait to start my forever with her. I have no doubt she’ll say yes.

  About the Author

  Brooke Cumberland and Lyra Parish are a duo of romance authors who teamed up under the USA Today pseudonym, Kennedy Fox. They share a love of Hallmark movies, overpriced coffee, and making TikToks. When they aren’t bonding over romantic comedies, they like to brainstorm new book ideas. One day in 2016, they decided to collaborate under a pseudonym and have some fun creating new characters that’ll make you blush and your heart melt. Happily ever afters guaranteed! View our full reading order here.

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  Chapter One

  I dream of open skies.

  The factory floor where I work is so massive that it’s possible to believe a sky is up there, somewhere. The lights that shine down from on high are specially calibrated not to interfere with the personal lights at our workstation, so if you squint your eyes and hope, you could mistake the ceiling for endless open blue.

  I know it’s not, obviously. I haven’t lost my mind. And when I came here, I came here knowing that the mountain is a fortress. The sky can’t get in. The man who owns it—who, as legend says, carved this place from the rock through sheer force of will—hates the sky. Or at least he’s come to a standing truce with it. The sky will not bother him here, and he can pretend it doesn’t exist. He can rule over his own kingdom.

  I envy him, a little.

&n
bsp; Only a little.

  My tweezers make it easy to sort through the small collection of diamonds at my workspace today. I’m fashioning them into equally tiny settings of metal that gleams in the lamplight. Sparkle and shine, wrap it in metal, send it away. It’s not my business to know where the diamonds go once I’m done with them, and that’s part of what gives me peace.

  I know—impossible, you’re thinking. Impossible that anyone in Hades’ mountain could have such a thing as peace, when he is so dangerous, when the threat of him is close by like a heart that always beats. And yes, he is a dangerous man, the most dangerous anyone here has ever or will ever meet. But we’re under no threat from him unless—

  There’s always an unless.

  Unless we step out of line in some way. People make mistakes. Of course they do. That’s the human condition. But the big mistakes—a rape in the shadows of the mines, an egregious theft—well, those are the things that bring Hades to mete out justice.

  That guy likes justice.

  I’ve seen him come through here more than once, on a mission to elsewhere in the mountain. He’s the kind of man that can be sensed even when he is not trying to attract attention. The dark pull of him can’t be ignored, like a cold breeze on the back of your neck. A person doesn’t have to turn and witness to know it’s there. You feel it.

  I twine the last length of metal around the last diamond of the day and put my tools back in their places.

  No Hades on the factory floor tonight. No telling where he’s been today. Not for someone like me. Except on the rare occasions when he comes down to the floor or through the rest of the mountain, he might as well be as far as the moon.

  And me, at the bottom of a crater.

  It’s not so bad. I’m making it seem awful. Like a prison sentence.

  The truth is that I came here of my own free will. I signed a contract with him in that big glassed-in office and heaved a huge sigh of relief. Steady work. That’s what I wanted. A chance to save my mother from the bills that have dogged her all her life. Medical debt is hard to get out of. There’s one way to leave it behind, though, and she’s taken that exit, flown off into the sky. Finally free.

  I let out a sigh.

  It’s been a long time coming, but it’s hard, with the holidays.

  With Christmas.

  I almost wish it was any other day on the mountain. I’d get to work longer, for one, and my mind would be occupied. I wouldn’t have to think about the fact that my mother is dead, I have no other family, I have nothing but this work stretching out in front of me forever and ever.

  But the small dish where the diamonds wait for me each morning is empty, the last length of metal has been twisted into its place, and it’s time for the company party.

  I let out a bitter laugh and survey my perfect workstation. Company—that’s what people think it is. In reality, there’s a whole community of people who stay here on the mountain. They come and go as their contracts expire, some of them returning, some of them not. He’s made us a street down here. Three blocks long. Apartments. Cafés. Stores, even. A hidden home within his massive fortress. The weather down here is always comfortable, if not perfect—again, no interference from the sky.

  “Lee-Lee!” The voice turns my head with all its joy. Only one person calls me that—Lee-Lee—and I’m pretty sure she does it just to get under my skin. “You coming?”

  “I wouldn’t miss it.” My best friend hovers at the end of the row of workstations, already changed into something bright red and knitted. Sarah loves the holidays with all the enthusiasm of someone who’s never had a bad one, though I know she has. I meet her at the end of the row and she takes my hand and squeezes, the kind of easy affection that still takes me by surprise even after—what is it now, three years? “I have to change, though. I can’t sit next to you in this.”

  Sarah releases my hand and nudges me with an elbow. “You mean you can’t sit next to Cole wearing that.”

  My cheeks flush. “I’m not sitting with him.” You know when you’re trying to sound casual and fail? Yeah. That’s me, now.

  “Doesn’t mean he won’t sit with you. Your place or mine?” She’s asking if I want to get dressed in my tiny apartment or hers, two spaces across a narrow hall from another. We live in a building halfway down the street above the tiny salon where Sarah cuts people’s hair all day.

  “Yours.”

  She’s sly, that Sarah. Now all I can think about on the way home is Cole. Cole, the mysterious man who works below, in the mines. Cole, who I’ve only met the once, even though we’ve both lived on the mountain as long as Sarah has. Maybe longer, in his case. The day I met him he was coming up from work, moving down the street with hands dirty and coveralls equally as stained, the top unzipped to display a white t-shirt over that body—

  That body. Sarah opens the door to her apartment and ushers me in. “Something bright,” she says. “We have to perk you up for Christmas.”

  Chapter Two

  I was too fixated on Cole and his dirty hands to pay attention to the holiday decorations on the street, but when Sarah and I step out into the temperature-controlled space, they take my breath away.

  For a handful of days at the end of the year, someone—it can’t be Hades himself, because I can’t imagine him hanging up glass ornaments and twisting tinsel around the lampposts—transforms the street into a holiday wonderland bursting with silver and red. A long table takes up most of the empty space on the flat cobblestones. It’s huge and solid and everyone who works on the mountain can sit around it. Not everyone stays for the holidays. Some people get on the train and go back to the families they came from.

  Sarah has never talked about why she doesn’t leave the mountain.

  I used to leave, but that was before.

  This is now.

  This is my new life, and today it sparkles and shines in the calibrated evening light that’s meant to mimic sunrise and sunset, though there’s something about the quality of it—the light, I mean—that isn’t the same. I don’t think it would cure you of seasonal depression or anything. Just different. Like everything on the mountain.

  Sarah and I take two seats next to one another and she reaches out a hand to touch the low centerpieces, made to look like ivy and berries. They are ivy and berries, I realize—none of it is plastic. All of it seems crisp, like it’s just come in from outside, and scented candles give the table a light scent, like open fields in winter.

  “Nice touch.” Sarah’s eyes are alight with the centerpieces—the centerpieces—and I try to summon the simple joy she has at all the holiday fanfare when all I can feel is a painful anticipation. It will be the first Christmas dinner without my mother.

  And where is Cole?

  The atmosphere in the room cools, the candles guttering, and they catch their breath.

  “Oh,” says Sarah. “They’re here.”

  Hades and Persephone have appeared at the end of the long table, the two of them looking like something out of a magazine. Persephone wears a deep red dress the same color as the berries in the centerpieces, her hair loose over her back, and she’s beaming, absolutely beaming, color high in her cheeks and her hand in Hades’ like he’s not the most dangerous god ever to have walked the earth. He bends to hear what she says as she points out the table, the snow-white table runner, the people gathering.

  She greets them by name. Like a queen.

  Hades’ dog, a huge black thing that I know is named Conor because I heard him call it once, stays close by Persephone’s feet. My stomach twists at the sight of her. Stolen, happy, and pregnant. Her belly is round beneath the red dress. It suits her, being pregnant, and Hades—

  Well. In the same way the street is transformed by the holiday, he is transformed by her. His eyes are still strange. That dark pull around him hasn’t gone away. But there’s an ease to his expression, almost a smile, and he never stops touching her. His hand in hers. A palm on her back. I used to think that the mountain revolv
ed around him like a small solar system, but the truth is that he revolves around her.

  Tears sting the corners of my eyes and I have to look away.

  Facts are facts. I’ve spent my life with my mom at the center, and now that she’s gone, I’m a planet in search of a sun.

  I can’t sit here.

  I can’t pretend that this is fine, that everything is fine, when I’m not sure which direction I should be traveling. “I need a minute,” I tell Sarah, and over her protests I leave the table. My path back to my apartment is blocked by two men carrying an enormous Christmas tree and I go around, around the other side of the table, blinded by unshed tears and feeling like an idiot. It’s Christmas dinner, that’s all, a really good dinner prepared by the mountain chefs, the best food most of us will ever have, and I’m rushing away to—

  “Are you all right?” To stop just short of Persephone, who cocks her head to the side and looks up at me, a basket balanced in petite hands. She’s distributing gifts, I see, the same gift that we always get. A single diamond, cut and glittering. “If you’re worried about the food,” she mentions conspiratorially, “I can have something else sent to your place.”

  The servers are already coming around, putting shared dishes in the center and dinner plates in front of each chair. “The food is always perfect,” I say, face flushing hot, my center of balance off. It’s like coming face-to-face with a movie star in the grocery store, only I should have been prepared for this. “I’m the one who’s a total mess right now.”

  Which is the wrong thing to say to your boss’s wife. What is the conversation they’re going to have after this? I saw one of the workers in tears at the dinner and she told me she’s a mess. Are you sure she should be handling diamonds? My stomach turns. “Obviously, what I meant was—”

  She puts her hand on my arm. “What’s your name?”

  “Leona.” God damn it. Another mistake. There’s no hiding my identity down here, but I could have said something fake, thrown her off the scent. “I didn’t mean I was a mess, in the way that you should worry about me, not that you would worry about me, but—”