Baby, It's Cold Outside (Romance From a Male POV) (Fire & Ice)

by Genevieve Jourdin

  I looked down at the dash and saw that it was lunchtime; maybe sitting down somewhere and being waited on would be nice for Justine. She had been in the kitchen since she came out of the hospital.

  “Do you want to stop for some lunch?” Hmm. I could take us to that little Italian place that makes that killer linguine. I looked over at Justine since she hadn’t acknowledged my question. “Well?”

  “Oh yeah. I could eat something. Why don’t we just drive through at Wendy’s?” She pointed to the sign at the end of the block as if I didn’t see it.

  A drive-thru burger was not what I had been thinking, but if that’s what she wanted I guess it would do. “Uh, okay.” I pulled into line and stopped in front of the menu board ready to call out the usual.

  “I’ll take a plain baked potato and a side salad, please.” I looked over at her in complete puzzlement. Did amnesia suddenly change her food preferences? She always ate the same thing when we came here and it certainly wasn’t a salad and potato. Maybe she just forgot what she likes. That’s okay; I was here to help her with these kinds of things.

  “Don’t you want the double?”

  She paused as if she actually had to think about it. “Yeah, I guess I’ll take the double. Oh, and a Coke.” She acted like she was doing me a favor. Well excuse me for reminding you what you like. I went ahead and ordered two double cheeseburger meals and rolled up to the window.

  “Here, I’ll pay for this.” She had pulled out her wallet and thrust some bills at me. I took it and handed it over to the kid at the window as she leaned over me and gave the cashier a sexy grin. “Extra ketchup please.” The kid handed me the drinks and a massive handful of ketchup packets which I passed to Juss. That same little prick gave me only two packets when I came here for lunch last week and I had asked for extra ketchup, too.

  We were home in three minutes, and in that time the smell of the food had worked its magic. I was ravenous. I stuffed the bag of asparagus into the bottom of the refrigerator and reached into the cabinets for some plates. Justine had already divvied up the food into two piles so I sat down and started eating. I wanted to ask her if she remembered anything else, but I figured she would volunteer that information without my prodding.

  I started planning out the evening’s “first date” and what I could do to make it as authentic as possible. I wasn’t going to be a dork and try to wear the same clothes or anything, but then, a white button down and jeans wasn’t likely to jolt anyone’s memory. I knew it would be easy enough to get her to make the food, but the Monopoly was another matter. She was terrible at the game. It didn’t matter if she landed on all the best spaces and had the luck of the dice on her side; she lost every time against anyone she played with. She had actually vowed not to play with me again but this might be the one instance where her memory loss would work in my favor.

  I was almost finished with my food when Justine’s voice broke into my planning.

  “Do I have any money?”

  “What do you mean exactly?” I couldn’t understand if she meant she needed to buy something or if she was worried about her medical bills.

  “I need to know how much money I have available. Do you know?”

  “Well, not down to the penny, but I have a pretty good idea. Do you need something? You should have told me.”

  “I was just wondering. I only had fourteen dollars in my wallet, and I wasn’t sure if I had any money in the bank or anything.” Oh, it was just a general question. I guess that might be a worry if you had no clue about your own cash flow situation, but actually her finances had improved a lot in the last year or so.

  “I’m pretty sure you’re quite comfortable.” I saw the money that was coming in, but I wasn’t sure how she would feel about me knowing her personal business at this stage. This was just too strange; I knew more about her life than she did. “Your website is very popular. If you want, you can check your balance online.”

  “Right. Thanks.” She gathered up all the garbage and dumped it in the can before disappearing down the hall and into the office. I sat at the island and sipped on my Coke for a minute before getting up to follow her. I hadn’t even made it to the doorway when I heard her pounding her fist on the desk.

  “What’s wrong?” I walked over and looked at the screen. It was a security lock out message. “What did you do?”

  “I don’t know. It wouldn’t accept my information.”

  Damn, I should have told her to look on the favorites bar. “This isn’t even your bank, Justine.”

  “Yes it is. I’ve always banked here.”

  “Not anymore. You bank at First National now. You have for the past six months. We both have. They opened a branch right around the corner.”

  “Can you help me check?”

  “Sure.” I sat down in the chair she vacated and I pulled her checkbook out of the top desk drawer. I typed in the account number and her password.

  “How do you know my password?”

  “You told me. It’s sexyCarter1.” I couldn’t help the smirk on my face when Justine started blushing.

  “Don’t worry, I picked something equally cheesy.” When we were setting up our online accounts we were playing around and feeling frisky. I picked our secret word for sex, but I didn’t think Justine was ready to hear that.

  “Hmm.” I moved out of her sightline when her banking page popped up. “What is this?”

  “Your checking account.”

  “That can’t be right. That’s too much.”

  “It is. I told you your website is popular. I wasn’t exaggerating. You are doing very well. Once you get the advance for the cookbook, you’ll be doing even better.” She had a huge smile on her face. “Anything else you need to know?”

  “Nah, I’m good.” I was about to get up and let her have the chair back when she looked at me. “Do we have some photos I could look at? I already looked at the book beside the bed. I was hoping something would click, but unfortunately nothing did.” I thought of Justine’s scrapbook full of our couple pictures, disappointed that nothing was familiar to her.

  “There are some on here. Plus, I think you have some on your phone.”

  “Well, let’s look at them. You can tell me when and where and everything.”

  “Okay.” I opened the picture folder and started flipping through the pictures. This was probably a good idea; I could tell her anything she needed to know before she even asked.

  “These are from when we went skiing in Colorado.” Well, I went snowboarding and Juss dressed in a snowsuit and fell down a lot. It was still fun, though. I kept clicking through until Justine stilled my hand with hers. I had stopped on a picture of the two of us at Cheryl and Paulo’s house. Cheryl had taken it when we weren’t looking, so we were unaware of the looks we were giving each other until she emailed us the picture. Seeing it now made my chest tighten. I wanted her to look at me like that again.

  Justine picked up her hand so I went back to flipping through the shots. I had probably gone through about two dozen when she made a sound of frustration. I turned my head and looked into her eyes. The only move she made was to lean in and sniff me. My cock picked that moment to get inappropriately stiff, but even Big C was surprised when Justine spoke.

  “Can we have sex?”

  Chapter Twelve

  I jerked my head back at her question. Where the hell did that come from?

  “What?” She didn’t answer, she just looked at me. Damn. I had to be the voice of reason. “Justine, I don’t think it’s a good idea.” I didn’t think it was a good idea, but Big C was trying to give me another answer. “Not that I don’t want to.” I tacked on that last part because her face had fallen and I didn’t want her to think it was her I was turning down, because I certainly did want to. Yep. It was sounding like a better idea every second that ticked by.

  She tried to stand up but I grabbed her arm to hold her in place. “Uh uh. You’re not going to say something like that and run away. Why do you wa
nt to have sex with me? Right now?” One part of me wanted her to say that she remembered everything and couldn’t wait to reconnect with me, but the other part, the part that I must admit was more dominant at this moment, wanted her to say that she was overcome by my sexiness and all she wanted was my hot body.

  “I just had a flash of memory when I smelled you. I could remember us in bed. I was sniffing you just now and I could see us, naked, in bed,” she repeated. Holy shit, she was remembering sex now? That was so hot that I wanted to drag her into the bedroom, but my mother raised a gentleman.

  “Justine, when we are together like that again, I want you to know it’s me. I need you to know me.” That part was true. I wanted Justine to want me, not just a guy who made her horny.

  She actually stood up this time and took off out of the room. “Wait. Juss, wait.” But she didn’t and a few seconds later I heard the bedroom door close. At least she hadn’t slammed it this time, but I didn’t know if that was better or not.

  I started thinking about what she said; how smelling me made her remember. Hmm. That had some possibilities. Maybe if I let her smell me she would remember more. I mean more than just the sex. I had to cop to the fact that I still had a boner, and it wasn’t likely to be going down very soon. All I could focus on was that Justine wanted to have sex. With me. Right now. What the fuck was I thinking? I was going in that room right now and I was going to make her sniff me until she remembered something. I pulled off my sweater and checked myself for BO before I got up and walked into the bedroom.

  “Please leave, I could use a little time on my own.” She used the same tone as if asking someone at the grocery store to excuse her while she got something off of the shelf in front of them. Polite. Too polite.

  “I’ve got a better idea. You said you smelled me and remembered. Try it again.”

  “What?” She looked at me like I was crazy. Maybe I was, but it was worth a try.

  “Smell me.”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Come on Justine, you know you want to.” I was pulling out all the stops and trying my sexy voice in an effort to convince her. I sat down next to her on the bed.

  “All right. One sniff, then I’m leaving.” She leaned over and smelled my chest. I couldn’t help but tighten up my muscles. This was torture. She closed her eyes and pressed in closer and I moaned. God, it felt good. My hand snaked up to her waist to anchor her as she got up on her knees, throwing one over both of my legs so that she was straddling me. She kept sniffing me, moving her head up from my chest to my neck, but when she started licking my neck and kissing my jaw, I couldn’t take it anymore.

  I grabbed her tight and pushed her down and onto the bed, kissing her like I really wanted to. I wasn’t going to hold back anymore.

  “Justine.” I whispered it, but I might as well have been screaming the way it was reverberating in my head. She put her hands under my shirt and pressed her leg against my cock and I groaned as if something was being torn out of me.

  “Please Carter, please.” I opened my eyes and looked down at her. I wanted to give this woman anything she wanted.

  “Take your shirt off.” I usually didn’t demand she strip for me or anything, but the thought of her pulling off her clothes because I asked her made me feel good. She sat up a little and pulled off her top and I wasted no time in popping the front clasp of her bra, my eyes widening as her breasts sprang free. My hand took the weight of one and my mouth attached to the other, sucking lightly and reveling in the feel of it stiffening in my mouth. I felt like I could do this forever, and her squirming under me was definitely making me harder than ever, but before I could do anything else, the doorbell rang.

  Fuck. Fuck. Fuuuck. I lifted my head and raised myself on my arms to see if whoever was at the door was persistent enough to ring again or was cool enough to get the hell away from our front door. It chimed again. Damn. I pushed off the bed and to my feet.

  “Don’t answer it.” Justine was still lying on the bed shirtless when she hissed out her command.

  “I have to. It might be something important.” I bent down to the floor and handed Justine her shirt and shrugged at her disgusted look. I adjusted myself as I walked down the hallway to the ringing doorbell.

  “Hold on. We’re busy right now,” she bellowed before I could even make it to the front door. I’m sure whoever was there heard it, too.

  Lucy was yapping at the door and when I looked out the peephole, I could see Cheryl standing there looking impatient. I swung the door open.

  “What took you so long?”

  “What business is that of yours?” I asked her kind of rudely. She was my sister and I loved her, but I didn’t feel the need to share everything with her.

  Justine chose that moment to walk into the room. Her shirt was on inside out and her hair was sticking up wildly. I tried to give her a smile as I smoothed down her hair. Nobody said anything for a few seconds, Cheryl looking between Justine and me with upraised brows.

  “Cheryl, did you need something?” I wanted her to go, but now that my blood was cooling, I thought it was probably a good thing we had been interrupted. I needed to be more in control if she was really ready.

  “Not really. I just came to visit with Justine for a while.” She made herself at home on the couch and Justine followed her.

  “I remembered some things today,” Justine told her while she put her feet up on the coffee table.

  “Ooh, like what?” Cheryl was practically clapping her hands.

  “Well, first thing this morning, I remembered Carter loves bacon and mushroom omelets. Then at the farmer’s market, I remembered telling him I loved him for the first time.”

  “Oh, I love your bacon and mushroom omelets.” She paused with a scrunched up face before squealing, “Oh, Justine that’s awesome. See, everything is going to come back, just like they said. And it’s only been two days!” It’s already been two days. It’s been an eternity.

  “I know. I’m finally starting to believe everything is going to be okay.”

  I threw myself down onto the loveseat, I was glad at least someone believed everything was going to be all right. I still couldn’t help the doubts.

  Justine jumped up out of the blue. “I just remembered. I remembered you walking in on us, Cheryl!” Someone please kill me now. Of all the memories that had to come back to her it was that one? She ran over to me and grabbed my arm. “I remembered.” The way she said it made my heart turn over. She was looking at me with real recognition. I smiled at her through my embarrassment.

  When she dropped my arm with a blush and awkwardly walked back to the couch, my smile evaporated. What the fuck was this? She was acting like Cheryl had just walked in on us naked right now. This was almost worse than before. Well no, nothing could beat the humiliation of being caught having sex with your sister’s best friend, by your sister, no less. The fact that we were naked on the couch wasn’t nearly as bad as the fact that Justine hadn’t even told Cheryl that we were together. Cheryl’s screams were from both seeing us in action and the fact that it was me that Justine was with.

  For her to be embarrassed now was not going to fly. I could maybe understand where she was coming from last year, but that was water under the bridge. Cheryl was happy for us now; it didn’t even take her that long to get over it. On the other hand, Justine took some work, but that is another story. I sat there, simmering for less than a minute before I couldn’t take it anymore.

  “Cheryl, I don’t mean to be rude, but could you please leave? I think Justine and I need to talk.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  Justine hopped up again. “Cheryl, you don’t have to leave." Cheryl looked at me and I gave her the “Get the fuck out” look that she seemed to understand instantly.

  “Uh, Justine, I need to be getting home, anyway. You call me. Anytime.” Cheryl was gone in seconds and I sat there until Justine turned around to face me.

  “I am not going to go through all that again.
It was hard enough the first time.”

  “Carter, I don’t know what you are talking about. What have we gone through that was hard? I have amnesia, remember?”

  I took a breath. She had a point. She didn’t remember how it was when we first got together. She didn’t remember how hard I had to work to convince her that everyone would be fine with the two of us. Eventually.

  “What just happened. You being embarrassed about me. I am not going to go through that again. I know you don’t realize how it hurts me, but it does, Justine. I don’t want to be some dirty secret to you. I won’t be.”

  She shook her head. “It’s not like that. I promise. I was just thinking about her walking in on us. It was embarrassing, Carter. You know that. I remember enough to know that. It wasn’t any better for you.”

  Okay, that was embarrassing, but the big question remained. “So you’re not embarrassed to be seen with me? It’s not weird?” I felt small for throwing some of her own words back at her, especially because in her mind she hadn’t actually said them, yet.

  She paused for a second before she answered. “Maybe just a little bit, but it’s not you, it’s me.” I couldn’t believe she was throwing out that old line. I was just about to tell her so when she threw up her hands. “Try to see things from my point of view, please.”

  Shit. This was the same conversation replaying more than a year later. “I’ve already done that. We have had this conversation before. Do you want me to give you a rehash of what happened?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean look around. I live here. With you. You are my girlfriend. You got over it.”

  “I can’t help how I feel, Carter. It’s not fair of you to make me feel bad about it. This is still new to me.” Now I felt like a douche. This was all new to her and I was attacking her over something that happened last year.