Christmas at Mistletoe Lodge: New Holiday Romances to Benefit St. Jude Hospital

by Sabrina York

  “That’s about as good as it’s going to get.” Colton stood in front of the bar and poured himself another glass of wine. Nothing beat a full-bodied cab on a cold Alaskan night.

  Except maybe a hot brunette with her long legs wrapped around his waist in his bed.

  No. Fuck. Having her this close was going to drive him crazy.

  Trying to make himself comfortable in the recliner, he snagged his tablet and brought up the local newspaper, skimming the headlines, determined to go through his evening routine as if the scent of lavender shampoo wasn’t filling the air in his cabin.

  Hannah groaned and rolled to her side. At least he got to keep his dog nearby.

  “I need this to go through tonight.” Setting the computer to the side, she stood and stretched. Her shirt tugged from her pants and showed off her milky skin. “It says it’s got fifteen percent left, so hopefully it goes through.”

  “Why can’t you just email it as an attachment?” Acting as if he didn’t care, he scrolled to the next article. Not that he knew what the first one had been about. “Or we have a fax machine in the office at the hotel that works fine.”

  “It has to be through the portal so my client can access the information and résumés.” She breezed past him and filled her glass, finishing off the bottle.

  “That’s your third one.”

  “What are you, the wine police?” she asked with a fair amount of snark.

  He chuckled. “Just wouldn’t want you to be hungover tomorrow.”

  He had a point, so she’d make sure to sip and drink lots of water. Her computer dinged.

  “Shit,” she mumbled. “Just fucking great.”

  “I take it your files didn’t upload.”

  “Nope. And that means I have to refill out all the parameters, and that’s going to take me a half hour. I’ve told my boss a hundred times he needs to fix the site when this crap happens, but nooooo, does he listen to me? Of course not. He thinks that anyone who has a problem with the portal outside of the office is on them, and to quote him, they need to suck it up and deal.”

  “Your boss sounds like my first staff sergeant. He expected us to take full responsibility for him and his mistakes. He actually said that was our duty. We decided it was our honor to make sure he got nailed for his incompetence.”

  “I should have gotten these résumés and portfolio profiles loaded yesterday, and I didn’t.” Flynn leaned against the back of the sofa and folded her free arm across her middle. She stared out the window. The moonlight caught her dark hair, making it shimmer in its soft glow. “If I had followed proper protocol and completed this in the office, I wouldn’t have to do it remotely, and I wouldn’t be in this situation. So, the only incompetent staff sergeant here is me.”

  Why did she have to make it impossible for him to dislike her? “Grab your computer and come on.”

  “Where are we going?”

  “My bedroom.”

  She coughed, nearly spitting out her wine. “Like hell.”

  “Relax. I have the internet hardwire coming in through there. It might work over the Wi-Fi connection.” He snagged her computer and headed up the stairs, trying to remember the last time he’d had a woman over.

  Last October. Halloween to be exact. A short-lived affair with a woman who worked at one of the booking huts up the road. It had been perfect because she wouldn’t be returning. A nice clean break and until this moment, he hadn’t given her a second thought.

  Yet Flynn had consumed his mind for years.

  “I hope this works,” Flynn said.

  “It should. The connection is always more powerful since it’s direct.”

  “Shit,” she said under her breath. “My laptop doesn’t have an input for a hardwire.”

  “Ah, she forgets what I did for a living.”

  “I didn’t forget; I never really knew,” Flynn said. “Other than you worked in Intelligence for Delta Force.”

  “Specifically, IT and communications.” He pushed open the master bedroom door. Hannah raced through the threshold and leapt onto the king-size bed, circling three times before she made herself comfortable on one of the pillows.

  “Oh, my God.” Flynn set her wine glass on his mahogany chest and ran her fingertips across the wood. “This is amazing. Does it take up the entire top floor?”

  He nodded. “My folks let me remodel when I moved back home. The plan is to do the downstairs and make this place the honeymoon suite.”

  “Where would you live?”

  “I’m hoping at the end of this summer season, they move to California, and I’ll move into the main house.” He led the way into his office, setting her computer on his desk and hooking it up to the internet wire and his big monitor. “Otherwise, I’m moving into a room at the hotel.” His mother would prefer him to live in the house with them, but she had a tendency to mother the hell out of him.

  And he didn’t dare bring a woman home for a one-night stand under those conditions. Not that he did that often, but still, he liked to keep his options open.

  “You’re going to run this place? Permanently?” Flynn stared at him with unblinking eyes. “You left Delta Force, a career you said you loved, to return to a place you said you’d never live again, because of your father’s heart attack? That’s noble but shocking that you’d do it long term.”

  “You’re surprised that I’m an honorable man?”

  She reached out and palmed his cheek. “I can see you taking an extended leave of absence to help nurse your father back to health and to maybe talk them into selling this place. But running it? You told me that while you loved growing up here, you didn’t ever want to live here again.”

  “Nearly dying at the hands of the enemy in a hostile territory tends to change a man’s perspective.” Curling his fingers around her dainty wrist, he searched her eyes for anything that told him a kiss would not be welcome. He licked his lips in anticipation of tasting her sweet strawberry flavor. Everything about her sent his senses into overdrive. Three years ago, he found it nearly impossible to keep his hands to himself.

  Tonight would no different.

  Only this time, he would show some self-restraint, starting right now. He pressed his lips against the palm of her hand. “Why don’t you sit down and get your work done. I’m going to go take a shower.” He snagged his glass of wine and turned on his heels. He would not make the first move. Hell, if she made a move, he’d protest. He might not fend off her advances for very long, but he’d at least make it a legit attempt.

  That said, he wasn’t about to lock the bathroom door.

  As a matter of fact, he left the door slightly ajar, letting all the steam float out into the office, carrying with it his musky scent.

  Christ. He had to be the most pathetic man in all of Alaska, and there were a lot of them, considering the ratio of men to women was more than lopsided.

  He took his time in the shower, sipping his wine and washing his body, half hoping Flynn would waltz into his oversized shower, her naked body in need of lathering. He glanced down. Something else was thinking the same thing. He willed that away as he took a huge chug of his adult beverage. He twisted the shower knob, shutting off the water. His fingers wrinkled like prunes.

  She wasn’t coming.

  Now all he could hope for was she would be long gone from his room and that he could climb between the sheets, watch a little news, scratch his dog’s belly, and pass out until his alarm went off at six in the morning.

  Mildly disappointed, he wrapped a towel around his waist and made his way back to the bedroom where he found sleeping beauty.

  Damn.

  Flynn spooned his dog in the middle of his bed. Her raven hair pooled around her angelic face. Her lips were slightly parted, and her chest rose methodically with each breath. His heart beat frantically behind his ribcage.

  He planted his hands on his hips and contemplated picking her up and carrying her down the stairs and to her own room. She couldn’t weigh more tha
n a hundred and thirty pounds, so he could easily handle it. But he was tired, and all he wanted to do was climb between the sheets, close his eyes, and sleep.

  He’d also had three glasses of wine. He’d blame it on the alcohol.

  Gently, he tugged at the sheets. Hannah popped her head up and moaned.

  “Shhhhh, girl.” Colton pulled the covers over both woman and beast before climbing in behind Flynn. He remembered the last time he’d shared a bed with her; she took up the entire thing and practically slept on top of him.

  He rolled to his back, put one hand behind his head, closed his eyes, and waited.

  Either sleep would overtake him, or she would.

  Flynn blinked her eyes open. “Shit,” she mumbled. She’d only planned on snuggling with the dog for a few minutes after her files had finally uploaded. Brushing her eyes from her face, she glanced around the room, surprised by the utter darkness that surrounded her. She reached for Hannah but instead found bare skin.

  “What the…?” She yanked her hand back.

  “Something wrong?” a familiar throaty voice asked.

  “Colton?”

  “Yes?”

  She bolted upright, clutching the sheet to her chin. With panic building in her gut, she patted her body, feeling her clothing cling to her body. She let out a sigh of relief.

  Hannah yelped, shifting on the bed, shoving Flynn ever closer to Colton.

  “What the hell is going on?” she asked.

  “I got out of the shower, and you were sound asleep in my bed. I was too tired to carry you down the stairs and didn’t want to disturb you or Hannah, so I went to bed. Now why don’t you lie back down. We’ve got about an hour before my alarm goes off.” He threaded his fingers through her hair and tugged.

  She had no fight in her, so she rested her head on his chest and inhaled his rich outdoorsy scent. Every nerve ending in her body ignited in a fiery explosion. “Keep your hands to yourself.”

  “Kind of hard to do when you’ve got one arm around me and the rest of you is generating the kind of heat that makes a man crazy.”

  “I’d move, but your dog is taking up the entire other side of the bed and is spooning me now.”

  Colton let out a hearty laugh. “Neither one of you left me much space.”

  “Hey. You could have asked me to leave or gone to sleep somewhere else, so that’s on you.”

  “True.” He shifted, wrapping both his arms around her body. He rested his chin on the top of her head.

  She should protest. She should get out of his bed. Out of his room. Hell, she should get on the next plane back to the Big Apple. She should do a lot of things, but right now, all she could manage was a few deep breaths. God, she loved how he smelled like a mix of fresh pine with a dash of mint. For days after she’d blown him off, she’d slept in the T-shirt he’d left at her place so she could get a whiff of his rich scent. Back then it made her dizzy with desire.

  This morning, it made her delirious because she found herself running her hand across his bare chest. Her fingers grazed his nipple, and he hissed.

  “I should warn you I’m not wearing pajamas,” he said.

  “You climbed in this bed with me naked?” She closed her eyes and held her body as still as she possibly could.

  “I had been hoping you were going to join me in the shower, naked, earlier, but you didn’t. So I figure, if you wanted to attack me, I’d make it easy for you.”

  “You’re incorrigible.”

  “Among other things.” Tenderly, he stroked her arm. It wasn’t overtly sexual, but a tingle crawled across her skin, kissing each erogenous zone.

  “I never expected to see you here,” she whispered.

  He tensed. “Have I ruined your trip?”

  “I didn’t mean it that way, and no, not at all. It’s actually nice to have you here.”

  His warm lips brushed against her forehead.

  She found herself snuggling in closer. Her hand caressing his taut stomach. She fingered the outline of his six-pack abs. He had the body of a Greek god. The mind of Einstein. And a heart of gold. “I’m sorry I blew you off.”

  “It was for the best, and we both know it,” he said.

  Boldly, she sat up, lifting her shirt over her head, showing off her black lacy bra. Sleeping with him had been a huge mistake three years ago, but only because it messed with her head and her heart.

  She didn’t regret the time she spent in his arms. He’d showed her more love and respect than any other man she’d ever dated. He didn’t judge her work habits, nor her nightly need for wine. Of course, how could he criticize her, considering they only spent a few nights together. However, their stint together seemed like a lifetime.

  “I’m not ever going to say no to having sex with you, but—”

  She interrupted him with the wave of her hand. “Let’s not state the obvious, and let’s also make sure your parents and my father never get wind of this because we will never hear the end of it.”

  “Amen to that. Hannah, to your own damn bed. Now.”

  The dog whined but did as instructed.

  “She’s well trained. You must have a lot of women up here.” Flynn wiggled out of her bottoms, tossing them to the floor.

  He turned on the lamp on the nightstand. “Honestly, since I moved back here, I’ve had one woman stay over, and I was dating her for about five months.”

  “Oh. That sounds serious. What happened?”

  “What always happens in Alaska. She left when winter hit and didn’t come back.”

  Suddenly feeling shy, Flynn clutched the sheet over her body. “Did you love her?”

  “No. And I don’t want to talk about my past girlfriends or your past lovers while we’re in bed together, okay?”

  “Fair enough.”

  “Now, come here.” He pulled her tight, his deft fingers unhooking her bra in a half a second. His hands kneaded her breasts, and his hot velvet tongue slipped between her lips, probing the inside of her mouth. He didn’t leave any part untouched.

  She swallowed a groan. Her body shuddered in pure delight. Kissing him was like having the finest chocolate melt in her mouth.

  Her blood ignited with the kind of passion that happened only once in a lifetime, if at all. He kissed her as if she were the last woman he’d ever hold again. It was as if she were the center of his universe.

  A tinge of jealousy bubbled up from her gut. If he was this way with her, he was probably this way with every other woman he’d ever been with.

  She wasn’t anything special. Just another notch on his belt.

  He cupped her cheeks. “Hey. What’s wrong?” He stared at her with his loving dark eyes.

  “Huh?”

  “You went from sixty to zero in one second. Did I do something wrong? Are you upset about something?”

  She covered herself with a pillow and let out a long breath. “Are you like this with everyone?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “All your women. Do you treat them all like this?”

  “With kindness and respect?” He fluffed the other pillow and leaned back. “Yes. But if you’re asking me if my level of enthusiasm is this high, well, then no. You excite me like no one else ever has. Every time I’ve been with you, I worry I’m going to be like a twelve-year-old boy, and it’s going to be over before it starts.”

  She laughed while heat rose to her cheeks. “You’re sweet to say so.”

  “It’s the truth.”

  “You’ve always been really good with the lines.”

  He laughed. “I actually suck with those, but around you, they just come out naturally.”

  “I’m sorry I got weird. Seeing you again has thrown me for a loop.” She rested her head against his shoulder. “I thought about reaching out to you before I flew out here, but I wasn’t sure if your number was the same and if you’d even take my call since you never responded to my blow-off text.”

  “My number is the same, and I have no idea what I would hav
e done. I suspect I might have begged my parents to let me take a vacation.”

  “To avoid me.”

  “Not you, but this.” He turned his head and caught her gaze.

  She gasped, coughing on her own breath. “This?” She cleared her throat. “What does that mean?”

  “I told you when we met that women have come and gone in my life. That I had no desire to settle down. Have a relationship. A family. Then I spent a week with you, and my entire world turned upside down. I found myself thinking about things like what it would be like to leave the military. To have a normal nine-to-five job. After you blew me off, my first thought was thank God.”

  “That’s not going to get me to remove these panties anytime soon,” she said with an arched brow.

  “At least I still have a chance.” He winked. “But you know what I meant. We’re not the kind of people who give up careers for—”

  “You gave up yours for your parents.”

  He reached across her and flicked on the other light. “You were right when you said I would have taken a leave of absence.” He lowered the sheets and sat up. “Had I not been captured behind enemy lines, that’s exactly what I would have done. I would have come home, helped out my folks for a few months, done my best to talk them into selling this place, and then gone back to Delta Force. But this happened.” He turned his back.

  She gasped. “Oh, my God.” She glided her hand over five thick, long jagged scars on his back. Two of them from his shoulder blades to the top of his ass. One of them crisscrossed from the center of his neck, down his spine, and ended on the right side of his waist. The rest took out small pieces of his back, leaving indentations in his body.

  “You’ve seen the ones on my chest, and there are more on my legs,” he said matter-of-factly. “I have a couple metal pins in my right knee and hip. “I also need another surgery on my shoulder, which is scheduled for the middle of February, and that is totally going to suck because my mother is going to treat me like I’m a small child, and then she’s not going to want to move, but they need to.”

  “When did these happen? How did these happen?” Her lips quivered as she pressed them against the raised skin. She wanted to feel whatever pain he’d endured. She needed to experience a small sliver of his anguish.