“No?”
“Nope.” Never had. Never would.
He furrowed his brows. “You aren’t from around here, are you?”
“Ha. No. What gave me away?”
He smirked. “Just a hunch.”
“A hunch?”
“Are you saying I’m wrong?”
“No.” Looking down at the bottle in her lap, she picked at the label with her thumb. “I grew up outside of Denver, actually.”
He whistled under his breath. “And you gave that up to come here?”
“As far away as I could get,” she said, unable to keep the twist of bitterness from her tone. She put on a fake smile. “And it’s not so bad. Upstate New York is…growing on me.”
“Like a fungus.” He laughed and swiped the bottle back, taking a swig before putting it down on the blanket between them. “You know, most people spend their whole lives trying to get out of this place.”
She knew well enough what that was like, even if it hadn’t been a burned-out old factory town like this that she’d been running from. She gave him an appraising stare. “Is that what you’re doing?”
“I sure wouldn’t turn down an opportunity to go. But it’s…”
“Complicated?”
“Cliché, I know, but yeah. Basically.” He nudged the bottle toward her again. “Don’t think I’m letting you change the subject, though. Why do you stay in this hellhole when you could be out there? Reminding yourself that there’s a sun? Skiing?”
Sun and skiing were not the things she remembered about growing up there. She had to bite back bile at the memories that did come surging forth. “I just…” And yeah, the allure of that terrible alcohol was getting stronger as he needled. “I don’t talk to my folks.” She took a pull on the vodka and shuddered at the burn.
“Not at all?” His tone dipped as he spoke, going serious all of a sudden. Like he actually wanted to know.
And for the first time…well, ever, she almost wanted to tell him. Wanted to tell someone.
She swallowed the impulse down with another, smaller sip and shrugged. “Not in three years.”
Two years and three hundred sixty-three days, to be precise.
He narrowed his eyes. “You’re a junior, right?”
“Yup.”
“Did you start college early?”
“Nope.” The math wasn’t hard. He could figure this out.
Figure out that she’d walked out of that man’s house on Christmas Day when she was seventeen. When he’d gone too far and she couldn’t take it for another minute, another second.
His eyes softened as he said, quietly, “Oh.”
“Yeah.”
“What—” He stopped himself, and she wanted desperately to change the subject. But she also didn’t. She bit down hard on the inside of her lip as something hot and uncomfortable churned in her gut.
He was looking at her in a way that should have made her angry, because she hated pity. It was why she never told people any of this, not if she could help it.
Only…only it wasn’t pity he was examining her with. Not quite. It was…understanding?
An understanding that echoed all the more brilliantly in her heart when his expression shifted, his smile retaining that softness, but his eyes filling with an entirely different kind of light.
His throat made the most gorgeous bobbing motion as he swallowed.
“What do you say we go find out what other crap Margie has squirreled away in that office of hers?”
Her whole body shivered with her sigh of relief. As he bounded to his feet, somehow managing to look graceful as he did it, he held out a hand to her.
She took it, feeling the smooth warmth of his skin against her palm as she let him help her up. It put her too close to him again, their chests just inches apart. The proximity—the intimacy of it—didn’t feel as terrifying as it had before, though.
Her voice only shook a little as she ran her fingers through her hair. Let the tips of them drag against her throat.
“I thought you’d never ask.”
Chapter Three
Holly hovered, shoulder pressed against the wall as Sam put the key into the lock. He had to bend to do it, and not for the first time, she mentally praised and cursed the cut of his jeans.
“You ever been in here before?” he asked as he turned the knob.
She shook her head slightly, jerking her gaze up. “Not since my interview.”
Chuckling, he pushed open the door and held his arm out in an after you motion. “Well, safe to say I don’t think anything’s changed.”
“Why? Just because she hasn’t changed her wardrobe since the eighties?” She stepped forward with only a little bit of hesitance, like she were sneaking into her principal’s office in high school or something. Putting her hand on the doorframe, she poked her head through and took a quick glance around.
And really, yeah, it was about the same as she remembered from way back when. Same dusty pink walls, same ugly flowered couch, same stale scent of cigarettes. And the worst thing? Same computer. Ugh. Just the sight of the ancient beige tower gave her hives.
Taking a deep breath, she planted one foot over the threshold and then the other. Nothing happened, and she relaxed. It didn’t make any sense, really, why she would be this jumpy, but apart from her daughter and her prospective hires, Margie never invited anybody to her inner sanctum. Ever.
A hot brush of breath beside her ear almost made her jump out of her skin. “Boo!”
“You asshole!” Holly whirled around, and Sam was lucky she pulled her punch and only shoved him instead of decking him.
As it was, he tipped his head back and laughed, then reached out and mock-slugged her in the shoulder in retaliation. “Calm down. What do you think is going to happen here?”
“I don’t know. I’m not the sneaking around type, okay?”
“Who’s sneaking?” As if to prove his point, he flopped down on the couch, spreading his arms out to either side of him, taking up as much space as he could.
“Not you, apparently.” She shrugged. “I know we’re not going to get caught, just…”
He rolled his eyes. “Of course we’re going to get caught. Or you think she’s not going to notice her bottle of booze is missing in the morning?”
“Please. As if we’re going to go through that entire thing. I like my stomach lining the way it is, thank you very much.” Turning, she eyed Margie’s desk, scanning it without any real purpose. It was covered in knickknacks and photos, and photos in knickknack-y frames—seriously, though, who needed a ceramic cat picture frame? It was all oddly disappointing, honestly. She ran her finger along the edge of the clunky old keyboard with a sigh. “Next time we break into a place together, we should at least break into somewhere interesting.”
He chuckled. “Duly noted.”
“Where’d you find the hooch, anyway?”
“Right on the desk.”
“Wow, subtle, Margie.”
“Tell me about it.” With a little sound of disgust, he pushed himself up off the couch. “I’d say we could sleep in here, but that couch smells like it smoked a pack of Parliaments today.”
“It probably did.”
He came up behind her, entirely too close again, and she stiffened. When he reached past her to grab a photo off Margie’s desk, his chest brushed against her spine. She shivered all the way down.
Then she saw which picture he’d decided was worth his attention. Her stomach sank.
“She’s pretty,” she said, looking away from the image of Rebecca in a bathing suit.
“She’s hot,” he corrected, and there were those lips beside her ear again. “You’re pretty.”
Clenching her hands around the edge of the desk, she closed her eyes. Fuck this whole beating-around-the-bush thing. Fuck her chart and fuck obsessing, when she could just ask him already. She took a deep breath and worked against the tightness in her throat. “Are you sleeping with her?”
T
hat made him pause. He pulled away all at once, letting the picture clatter as he put it down. “Excuse me?”
“It’s a valid question.”
“You think—” He stopped himself. Got his hand on her arm and tugged, and she didn’t want to turn around for this. “Holly. Seriously?”
“Well, how the hell should I know?” she asked, ducking out from under his grip and taking a few steps away from him. “You flirt and you stare at her ass.”
For a minute, there was only silence, and a part of her heard confirmation in its depths. In her head, she tore up the fucking-or-not-fucking chart. Stupid chart.
Stupid her.
Only, then he gave this dark little chuckle. “Wow. Well, at least that explains a couple things.”
“Oh?” She tried so damn hard to sound disinterested, but there was no covering the way her voice lilted up.
“Sure clears up why, every time I get anywhere near you, you run for the other side of the store.”
She swallowed hard but didn’t turn around, because her heart was in her throat, and he couldn’t be saying what it kind of sounded like he might be saying. What she’d been secretly imagining him saying for ages now. “I didn’t think you were really interested in me.”
“Interested? Interested?” The sound of his breathing filled the air, followed by a ruffling she could see in her mind as him raking his hands through his hair, the way he did sometimes when he was flustered. When he spoke again, his voice was measured, but an ocean of frustration bled into it. “I come over and talk to you, like, a dozen times a day when we’re working the same shifts.”
“Yeah…”
“She comes over and talks to me. Never the other way around. She’s hot, sure, and I don’t mind looking, and yeah, maybe I humor her. She’s my boss’s daughter. It’s not like I can just ignore her.” He gave another exaggerated huff. “But that doesn’t mean I sleep with her. Believe it or not, I don’t stick my dick in every willing thing with a pair of tits.”
Her eyebrows felt like they leapt into her hairline. “I—”
He didn’t let her get more than a word out, his voice climbing. “If I go to bed with a girl, I want to go to bed with the pretty girl. The smart one who likes all these crazy TV shows, and has this secret smile when she’s reading. The one who tells all these jokes that go over my head, and who looks at me across the store like—like I matter. Or like I’m worth her time.”
“Sam.” She grasped her left hand with her right one, digging the nail of her thumb into her palm to try to keep the sparks erupting inside of her from shooting off into the sky. With her lip between her teeth, she turned around, biting at her smile, because of course he mattered. He mattered to her, probably more than he should, and she’d tell him that.
The words stopped in her throat.
Because his expression was guarded, but his eyes were raw, speaking volumes she didn’t know how to read. Fathomless and wounded, and she wanted to know who’d made them look that way.
She was terrified it was her.
And maybe it was, because he shook his head. “But the smart girl doesn’t seem to have any interest in the guy who dropped out of college and got kicked out of his parents’ house and helps manage a shitty-ass bookstore. Hell. The smart girl thinks he’s even dumber than that, because not only is he fucking an airhead in her mind, he’s fucking an airhead he’d probably get fired for going anywhere near because she’s his boss’s daughter.”
“Sam!”
“So, yeah. Sure. Explains a lot.”
“It explains nothing. I don’t think—”
“Save it, college girl.”
“No!” The vehemence behind her protest made the both of them pause. Made him finally stop talking, and she needed a second, because that was a lot of information to process. She swiped a hand over her face, tugging off her glasses to rub at her eyes for a second before shoving them back on and looking over at him. She raised her chin and squared her shoulders.
Then let both of them fall. “Sam, I thought you were sleeping with her because she’s cute, and you seem good with girls, and because…” This was not a flattering truth. “Because thinking that gave me an excuse to keep my distance and not get my hopes up. Because the hot, charming guy who’s fun to talk to and easy to work with and just…fucking gorgeous doesn’t pick the dweeby girl with the glasses who keeps her nose in a book.”
And because after everything else that had happened in her life, she’d learned not to open up to people. Not to let them in.
Not to trust.
Her smile wobbled as he boggled at her, and suddenly it felt too warm in the confines of that tiny office, the air between them too heavy. So she forced a smile, echoing her own words as she said, “He doesn’t.” Then she pointed at her chest, trying to keep herself from sounding too fragile as she joked, “No matter how awesome her rack is.”
The silence held for a second, and then another. But then he laughed, and her own smile cracked. The air seemed to part, and he took a step forward. She mirrored it, until somehow all the space was eaten up. He stood right in front of her, close enough to touch or grab or fucking kiss already.
He was the first to move, reaching out a still-tentative hand to stroke the backs of his knuckles over her cheek. When he got to her jaw, he spread his fingers out, dragging the tips of them down her neck, right over her pulse, until his palm rested just above her heart.
“Hi there, pretty girl,” he said.
“Hey, yourself, hot guy.”
His gaze dipped to her mouth, and God was she ever ready. She licked her lips. But his gaze kept sliding down, and there was a twitch to his lips. “Your rack is sort of awesome.”
“Sort of?” She raised her brows in mock offense.
“Really awesome,” he corrected. He didn’t go to touch them, though, which was…weird. She didn’t sleep with a lot of guys. She hovered on the maddening edge of not quite making out with them in her boss’s office with even fewer, but in general, dudes were drawn to her tits like magpies to shiny things, so for him to just stand there with his hand not quite touching made her heart flutter with way more than lust. It set her off balance, and made her feel all twisted up inside.
“Knew I had something going for me,” she said breathlessly.
His smile was small but real, and he was looking at her eyes now, not her chest. “You got a lot more than that going for you.”
And she thought about all the other things he’d said when he’d been going off on her. Things about himself and his family, and she hated how he’d phrased all of it—how he’d sounded like he believed it. Screwing up her courage, she lifted her own hand to graze the stubble on his jaw. Made sure he was focusing on her as she said, “So do you.”
Maybe he knew what she meant and maybe he didn’t, but his eyes went even softer, and finally—finally, finally—he tilted forward, leaning down as she drew herself up.
His lips were plush and warm against hers, parting slightly with the first brush of their mouths. Rather than pressing or deepening, he retreated a fraction, looking at her as if he half expected her to push him off.
Hardly.
Before he could ask if she was sure, she moved her hand to the nape of his neck, twisting her fingers in the scruff there and tugging him down, leaving him no room to doubt. God, she’d only wanted this for months, and she’d been holding back all night. No way she was letting another minute go by before she sucked his tongue and got the whole length of his body pressed against her.
She closed her eyes and opened her mouth, and just like that, everything went hot and electric, and yes, hell yes, this was how she’d imagined he would kiss, all hard and messy and confident as he took charge. He tasted like cheap vodka and cookies and sex, and the slick caress of his tongue made everything flash to liquid in her bones. She made a noise in the rear of her throat that should have been embarrassing except that his own groan echoed hers. The hand on her chest slid to her hip, his other arm wrapping
around her waist. She rose onto her toes, but it wasn’t close enough. With a little whine, she hauled herself up, and he was right there with her, getting a hand on her ass to steady her as she hopped and wrapped her legs around his waist and Hello, there.
Fuck, the hard ridge of him through those jeans was hitting her exactly where she needed it to, sending a bloom of pleasure reeling out through her spine and all the way to her toes. The way he was holding her, like she barely weighed anything at all, just made her hotter, and when she ground her hips into his, he practically choked on his tongue, fingers stuttering against her waist and thigh. Her breasts were pressed up tight against the solid muscle of his chest, her nipples stiff points of sensation, and she wanted his hands on them. His mouth and his teeth, and—
Somehow they were staggering backward. Her ass hit the edge of Margie’s couch, and he dropped to his knees in front of her, palms sliding over her legs, and her glasses were smudged and askew, and she didn’t care. This was too fast—too much and probably a terrible idea, but everything about it seemed right. He felt so good and he kissed like he’d been made for it, for making a woman go to pieces around him and under him and on top of him, and she wanted to know. To get inside of him and get him inside of her.
Heart pounding, she dropped a trembling hand to the hem of his shirt, tugging it upward, revealing skin and abs and that tawny trail of hair that pointed straight toward the bulging of his jeans. With her gaze, she followed it down, down, down.
Until all of it was eclipsed in darkness as the lights went out.
Chapter Four
“Shit.” Holly fumbled in her pocket for her phone, tugging it out and firing up the screen. The only other light in the room was the pale glow from behind the curtains, and then the answering glow as Sam’s phone, too, came to life.
She flicked through until she got to her flashlight app, and wow was that ever bright. It made Sam’s features look oddly stark, all cast in shadow and harsh white, and he squinted against it, reaching out to adjust her hand so it wasn’t shining in his eyes.
Let It Snow Page 3
