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White Christmas - A 6 Book BWWM & BBW Holiday Romance Collection Of Billionaires, Alpha Males, SEALs, Tycoons & More!

Page 8

by Cherry Kay


  The End

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  Should only take a moment!

  Also By Susan Westwood....

  The White Cowboy Trilogy

  Two Strangers from two totally different walks of life are brought together in a story that shows that love can have a funny way of surprising you...

  Gemma is a talented African American girl who dreams of becoming a professional musician. Her road trip to a gig in California runs into trouble when her car breaks down in the middle of a snow storm.

  Lost and desperate, she has no choice but to knock at a nearby ranch to ask for help. Little does she know, her destiny is standing on the other side of the door and her destiny wears a cowboy hat.....

  GET THIS NOW!

  Book 2

  SEX IN THE SNOW

  TASHA BLUE

  About This Story

  Ted and Tina are in the midst of a secret, steamy affair and can not keep their hands off each other. With Christmas approaching they head off to a cabin in the mountains to get away from it all. A weekend full of sex and champagne amongst the snowy setting is just what the couple wanted.

  So when the couple find themselves snowed in with no contact to the outside world they consider it an opportunity for more champagne and even more sex. However, a stranger who shows up needing help has other ideas....

  Ted and Tina had been seeing each other for a few months. Their relationship was one of the more functional ones each of them had —they communicated and listened to each other, and they both were very secure in the relationship. The only monkey wrench in the works was their parents. Both Ted and Tina grew up in Alabama, but they had very different experiences. Ted was raised in a struggling, working class family of lower middle class white people--he'd eventually done a short stint in the army to pay for college. Tina’s family was an educated, and well-to-do, black family of lawyers. They met during the last semester of college when they'd both been assigned to the same project. Their instructor was new, so all of his assignments seemed to be a little off the wall, but neither of them had complained. Later they found out that they both had a secret crush on the other, but at the time each had put on a front of apathy towards the team they'd formed. They'd aced the assignment, and along with the 'A' Ted had managed to get Tina to say yes to a date.

  That had been the start, and everything after had gone well, too. The only thing that they struggled with were their parents. Ted's parents were in and out of factories, groceries stores, or any other place that would hire them. Invariably, though, they would either be laid off because of seasons changing, or something dumb would happen and they'd get fired. Sometimes Ted's parents would claim it wasn't their fault that the world and its many facets were set against them. When he was young Ted used to believe that everyone was out to get him and his parents, like they said, but now when he heard them say these things, they just sounded like feeble excuses from losers without enough sense to get a decent job and just do what they were told. The bitterness his parents felt toward the world had long ago transformed into overt racism. Ted wasn't sure how he hadn't grown up racist, considering how his parents never hesitated to use a slur when they saw someone who wasn't white walking down the street. But he'd managed and was thankful for that, because he now considered Tina to be the love of his life.

  Tina, on the other hand, had parents that were extremely educated and affluent. Both of her parents had grown up poor and worked their way through college, then law school. They both practiced at the same firm that specialized in cases involving impoverished black people, and had worked there for years. They didn't have a problem with white people, despite having experienced so much racism in the south, but they did have a problem with people who were racist. Tina had tried to explain that Ted wasn't racist but his parents were, and her parents had understood, but had also said that they had no intention or desire to see Ted's parents.

  So Christmas presented a special obstacle to them because both of them wanted to have the traditional big family get together, but neither family wanted to see the other. Well, Ted assumed that his parents would pass on the opportunity to get to know the parents of the black woman he was dating, and Tina didn't feel like trying to convince her parents to have what would most likely turn out to be a bad time. It left them in a hard spot, because they wanted to celebrate Christmas together, but they certainly would have a hard time doing that if they stuck around Alabama.

  Then, one night around Halloween, Ted had an idea. What if, instead of hanging around the south waiting for racial tensions to simmer down, they headed out west for the holiday and stayed in a cabin in the mountains. Colorado seemed like a great place to visit. It wasn't as far away as some of the other mountains they could visit, there would be plenty of snow, weed was legal there, and Ted doubted they would run into any overtly racial issues during their stay. When he had asked Tina what she thought she'd responded by letting out an elated yelp and jumping into his arms. So the deal had been sealed.

  The flight into Denver International Airport had been decent, and the trip deep into the mountains in their rental car had gone smoothly. When they got to the cabin they found it to be smaller than they expected, but not too small. Now Ted was in the kitchen making something for dinner and Tina was in the bathroom trying to wash off the smell of airplane upholstery.

  “Hey, honey,” Ted called. “How many pieces of bacon do you want?”

  Ted was a good looking guy, standing a little over six feet tall with broad shoulders, brown hair, and blue eyes. He didn't have to raise his voice very much to be sure that it carried through the small cabin.

  “Just a couple,” Tina replied as she washed her long, black hair.

  Tina ran her hands up and down her curvaceous body. Her caramel skin glowed in the bathroom's low lighting. She couldn't help but think of her parents as she enjoyed the brief minutes of alone time in the shower. Both of them seemed taken aback that she and Ted were going to the mountains for Christmas. She remembered the look on their faces, how their expressions had been shocked enough to sober her good spirits.

  “Don't be mad,” she had said. “Ted and I just want to be together this Christmas, in a place that we haven't been before that is beautiful.”

  “We aren't mad,” her father had said. “Just surprised, is all. We didn't know that you two had been that serious.”

  “Leave her be,” her mother had said. “Let them be young and in love without old people spoiling it for them.”

  That had pretty much been the extent of the conversations. Now it seemed like so little, and made Tina feel like her parents hadn't been willing to address any of the issues that manifested themselves as invisible elephants in the room every time Ted’s name was mentioned. Maybe someday they would be more disposed to the idea of working through some really deep seated issues, but evidently the day she'd told them about the trip hadn't been the day.

  “Are you sure you don't want any more, than just two?” Ted's voice came again from the kitchen. “I mean, a couple of eggs, slices of bacon, toast, and some milk might sound like a lot, but you'll be hungry again before you know it.”

  Tina ducked her head under the shower stream to rinse her hair about before answering.

  “I'll be all right,” she said. “There is plenty of food in the fridge. You don't have to worry about me, sweetie.”

  She heard Ted chuckle as he flipped the sizzling bacon over in the pan. Tina was so lucky to have a guy like Ted in her life and she knew it. Maybe they were getting serious and she just hadn't wanted to talk to her parents about it. They always got strange about the men in her life, even when they were super upstanding. Ted was the most clean-cut guy she'd ever been with, as well as the first white pe
rson. To her, Ted being white had never been anything to give thought to, but living in Alabama had reminded her daily that everyone else gave thought to it, whether she liked it or not.

  The knob for hot water squeaked as she twisted it off. The whole cabin seemed from a different decade to Tina. It was only a little bigger than a large economy apartment, with the roof hidden from eyesight with a thin sheet of particle board laid across the rafters above them.

  She was happy with the cabin, very much so. It was tucked away in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado, near a small mountain town called Nederland, just northwest of Denver. As she dried her hair, Tina thought about how long it would take people to get out here if there was an emergency, and realized that if it snowed hard they would be completely cut off from the world. Tina liked the idea of that, although she didn't know how much she would like it if it actually happened. As she toweled her hair she remembered the radio's weather forecast that she and Ted had listened to earlier. There was supposed to be a very heavy snowfall overnight that could last as long as a few days. Denver's weather was known for its extreme swings, but she still had a hard time imagining the countryside outside of her window that was thus far just lightly dusted with snow, getting a foot or more over night.

  “You ready to come and eat?” Ted called. “Because food is ready!”

  “I'm ready, just hang on a second,” Tina replied as she quickly got dressed and hung up the towel. “You might want to wait a little bit to shower. The towel is soaked. Sorry, dear, but this place only seems to have one.”

  “Don't worry about it,” Ted said. “While you were in there I poked around above the rafters a little bit and found some more blankets and towels. It seems like we are all set for the snow, especially with the candles. Good thing both of our jobs are cool with us taking time off, because if it snows really heavily tonight we might be here tomorrow and the next day before we see any snow plows roll through.”

  “I don't mind that at all, actually,” Tina said. “Don't you think we need a little time away from everyone?”

  “I wasn't complaining at all,” Ted said with his back to her as he tended the bacon. “I'm looking forward to it. I was just letting you know.”

  Ted scooped some of the contents of the pan onto a plate and set it down in front of Tina.

  “You've really outdone yourself,” she said. “I'm not used to you being able to do anything in the kitchen.”

  “Hey now,” Ted said with a laugh as he set down across from her with his plate. “I know that I rely on you a lot of the time to cook, but I can start cooking more if you want. I know that sometimes it can be a little bit tedious to always be the one responsible for food.”

  Tina just laughed and winked at him. Ted was so cute about being domesticated. She'd had a suspicion for a long time that he knew his way around the kitchen but just kept it to himself because she was a better cook. Tina popped one of the pieces of bacon into her mouth and let out a low moan.

  “God, this is so good!” she said. “Well, now that I know that you are at least somewhat capable in the kitchen you can start cooking some of the meals!”

  “I'm not that good, though!” Ted said. “You are a way, way better chef than me. All I know how to do is throw things in a pan!”

  “That's all you need to know!” Tina replied.

  The rest of the conversation drifted to the mountains and how beautiful things were in Colorado. Ted talked a little about how the local counties had more control over their citizens than the federal government because they had existed as governing bodies longer and were recognized as having their authority grandfathered in. It all sounded so complicated and convoluted to Tina, who normally cared about politics, but found it hard to tune in to a conversation about the politics of a state she didn't even live in.

  “When did they legalize weed here?” she asked.

  “Start of 2014,” Ted said.

  “Maybe we should have stopped by a place to buy some,” Tina said.

  “I thought about that, but wanted to settle in here since we only have a day or two at most,” Ted said. “Unless it snows.”

  “I kind of hope it snows,” Tina said, mopping the egg yolk off her plate with bread. “I'll probably feel badly about leaving my coworkers high and dry to deal with the holiday rush, but at the same time I put in so many hours a week that none of the other staff does, that maybe it would do them some good.”

  “How are things going at the firm?” Ted asked. “Are you still thinking of going to law school?”

  Tina took a moment to wash down food with some orange juice before replying.

  “I'm back and forth on it. Some days it seems like the best thing in the world, but other days it just seems like a waste of time. It does help me to understand how my parents ended up so jaded.”

  “I'll bet,” Ted said. “When you decide, just let me know. I'll support you either way.”

  Tina couldn't believe how sweet Ted was, and told him so. He was always encouraging her to do what made her happy.

  After the meal they both went out for a hike. They climbed a peak that wasn't too far from them. Maybe it wasn't an actual peak, but that's what they planned on telling everyone. The rock formation they climbed didn't rise to near the height of the mountains surrounding them, but when they got to the top Tina realized that if they fell they would most likely die.

  “What do you think created this?” Tina asked.

  “That's a really good question,” Ted said. “And I'm not really sure. I guess maybe when these mountains were formed, it was in a circumstance of such duress that the rock was really hot, to the point of malleability.”

  They started their descent, one painstaking hand hold at a time.

  “How are things at your work?” Tina asked while she climbed.

  “Pretty all right,” Ted said. “I mean, all we do right now is write grant applications for people. It's all right sometimes when a client that really deserves it gets the grant money. But a lot of the time a total douche bag will get it because of some excellent proposal I wrote and I'll kind of feel bad.”

  “You actually feel bad?” Tina asked. Her wrists and hands were starting to hurt. She was ready to be on the ground.

  “Well, of course,” Ted said in a strained voice as his feet searched for a foothold. “I mean, how wouldn't I? For every asshole who wins grant money, there are deserving people that won't get it.”

  “What makes someone who wants grant money an asshole?” Tina asked to distract herself from how tired her legs were.

  “You know, basically the kind of people who don't need the money,” Ted said. “A lot of people with money have it because they never spend any money of their own. Just last week some trust fund kid came into the office and I wrote him up something that got him a full ride to an Ivy League school. The kicker is that there is no way he actually needed the money. I think he just wanted to impress his dad.”

  “He wanted to impress his dad by getting a full ride when he didn't need it?”

  “I guess,” Ted said. “He probably told his dad that he didn't need his money because he could do it himself or something. I have no idea. But that was the general impression I got—that the kid didn't really need the money, he just wanted it.”

  “So why didn't you tell him to get lost?”

  “For the same reason that you don't tell clients to get lost,” Ted said as he feet touched the ground that Tina was already standing on. “I need to get paid and the kid paid well.”

  They hugged each other for a second, then started walking back to the cabin not too far away.

  “Oh! I almost forgot,” Ted said. “You have to wait outside the cabin while I set up!”

  “What?” Tina said. “You are going to set up what?”

  “Don't you worry about a thing, beautiful girl of my dreams,” Ted said. “I know exactly what I'm doing. Well, kind of.”

  “Just tell me!” Tina said laughing.

  “I want us to have a roma
ntic evening,” Ted said. “Listen, I know you think we are going to get snowed in, but the forecast is wrong all the time here and no one cares because they know at some point it's going to snow a foot and eventually they'll have to deal with it. So we might not have two or three days here. We might just have tonight.”

  “So what are you getting at?” Tina asked with an ornery grin.

  “I want us to have a romantic evening tonight because we might not have one otherwise. And in order to have it be the way I want I'll need you to wait outside while I slip in and do some stuff real quick. It'll only take a second. You won't even have time enough to miss me.”

  “But maybe I want to miss you for a second,” Tina said biting her lip. “Maybe waiting makes it better.”

 

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