by Maisey Yates
“No,” she said angrily.
“It’s almost like Jack Frost is plotting against us specifically?”
“Romantic,” Chloe said. “It’s almost romantic.”
The word slugged him in the gut, the breath in his lungs rushing into the frigid air on a cloud.
“I didn’t mean with you,” she said. “I just meant that if it were with anyone else, being snowed in at a nice little lodge and forced to share a room and carting around cheeseburgers that we had to go eat back at the hotel would be romantic.”
“Huh,” he said.
“I imagine being trapped indoors is nice when you actually want to get cozy with someone.”
“Probably,” he said stiffly.
“But that doesn’t apply to us.”
“Nope.”
Silence lapsed between them and they tromped up the front steps and back into the inn, which was now loud and overfull of people, sitting on every available surface in the lobby, talking on their cell phones and clearly explaining to family members why they wouldn’t be arriving at their intended destination.
“Want to eat upstairs?” she asked.
“Why not?” Because for fuck’s sake it was just past the point of lunacy right now. Down at the diner, in the lobby. In his body.
“It’ll be quiet, at least,” she pointed out.
Yeah, but he wasn’t sure that quiet or privacy was his aim. Not at this point.
He was feeling more than aggrieved by the time they got back up the stairs and into the room.
The bed loomed large, and he gritted his teeth. And he definitely didn’t allow himself to think what it might be like to spend some time with Chloe in that bed.
Just the very idea was laughable. Because whatever their relationship was, and it was definitely a complex one, it wasn’t complicated to the rest of the family.
Jackson and Calder had made it clear that they had always only ever thought of Chloe as a sister. And he knew that Chloe’s mother thought of him as one of her children. That right there made everything impossible.
Anyway, for all he knew Chloe saw him totally and completely as a brother.
Chloe flung herself onto the bed, taking the bag of French fries with her and sitting cross-legged on the quilt, holding the bag with one hand as she peeled off her coat, first slowly tugging her arm out of one side, then transferring the bag and peeling herself out of the other side.
“Don’t eat all the French fries,” he said, passing her one of the hamburgers.
“I can’t help it,” she said. “This weather is making me want carbs.” But she took the hamburger and passed the French fries over to him as she unwrapped it slowly.
He put the fries on the nightstand, sitting his own ass on the ground and turning his full attention to his food, so that he didn’t have to pay any more to Chloe.
“It’s going to be nice to have the whole family together,” Chloe said.
“Yep,” he said, taking a big bite of hamburger and giving all his focus to that.
“I mean, my mom. We see Jackson and Savannah and Calder and Lauren all the time.”
“Yes, we do.”
“But it’s kind of nice to be here with the two of us.”
He paused and looked up in spite of himself. “Yeah,” he said.
He didn’t agree, but saying no wouldn’t have gone over very well. He’d have had to explain himself, and he didn’t want to. Not even a little.
“I... I have something to tell you.” She set her hamburger down, scrambling to the edge of the bed and looking at him. “And I would never have said anything, but we are stuck here. We’re stuck here overnight, and... Savannah asked me what I wanted for Christmas. And I made myself a little Christmas wish, which I haven’t done since I was a kid. I used to wish for things that I knew I could never have.”
“I’m not sure I follow you.”
“You know when I was a kid we didn’t have any money. I thought it was easier to wish for things I knew I couldn’t get. A pony. A trip to Paris. Well, if there is no hope in hell of even getting a doll, you might as well dream big, right?”
“I...guess so.” He’d never thought of it that way. In truth, Christmas in his house had been a pretty sparse affair. Chores had to get done on a ranch whether it was a holiday or not. But they’d always had a tree, and their father, for his sins, had always gotten them something. Even if it was a new pocketknife or a new pair of work boots.
“So this year Savannah asked me what I wanted,” Chloe continued, “and I played that game in my mind. The one that I used to play. Where I wish for something outrageous, something I knew I could never have. But now we’re here, and I swear, Tanner, it’s like my crazy Christmas wish is trying to force itself to come true.”
Her eyes were luminous as she stared at him. Large and full of meaning he couldn’t quite divine. “What was your wish?”
He regretted asking. He regretted asking and he didn’t even know why. Except that on some level, he knew. He knew, and he also knew that if she said the words he wasn’t going to have the strength to turn her away.
“I’ve always had a fantasy,” she said slowly. “About the two of us together. And it doesn’t have to be romance, Tanner. It really doesn’t. But maybe what happens in a snowy lodge can just stay in the lodge.”
CHAPTER FOUR
CHLOE DIDN’T KNOW what was inspiring her to be so brave. Except maybe it wasn’t bravery. It was just that maybe something had broken inside of her that moment Tanner had swept her into his arms and down into the snowbank. It had been almost a perfect representative of their relationship in general.
They’d spent so much time together over the years. Racing horses through a field. Tanner deciding to spray her with the hose on a hot day and laughing his ass off when she screamed. Tanner getting angry and railing about one of her teachers when she got a bad report card.
She and Tanner sitting on separate pieces of furniture in the living room when they watched TV. As if they were being careful to never touch.
Playful. Protective.
Tense.
The act had been playful, but it had been completely overtaken by tension toward the end. And then he had been cool and remote once he let her go. The more she thought about that, the more she realized it couldn’t simply be because he was irritated at her.
There was no reason for him to be. He had instigated the snowball fight, and he was the one that had tackled her. And the only thing that made sense in all the world for why he was annoyed was that he had felt the same thing she had. That he was feeling that tension that had overtaken her, too.
And if he was feeling it, then why couldn’t they have it?
She didn’t expect Tanner to randomly fall in love with her, to upend their entire family dynamic just because she had a crush on him. But she also knew that her feelings weren’t going away anytime soon. And maybe at the end of the day in order to move on from him she needed to have experienced him.
He had taught her a lot of things.
He had taught her how to ride a horse.
Maybe he could teach her this? And why not?
“Chloe...”
“If you’re horrified by that then of course... I’m obviously not asking you to do something that disgusts you.”
“What exactly are you asking me to do?” His face looked carved from stone, each line etched deep and hard into his skin.
“I want you to... I...”
She couldn’t get the words out. It was too difficult.
Too humiliating.
Particularly if he didn’t feel the same way that she did.
So she launched herself off the edge of the mattress and down to the floor in front of him, where he eyed her like she might be a poisonous snake.
She reached out slowly, pressing her hand to his th
igh, the heat of his body burning her through the thick denim. She was so very, very aware of him. She didn’t know how it could be possible that he didn’t feel this, too. Not because she was so confident in herself and her appeal, but because this thing felt too big to be contained in one person. It simply seemed impossible.
She licked her lips, and watched, glimpsing that same fire that she had seen in his eyes right when they had opened the hotel room door and seen that there was one bed.
No, she wasn’t imagining this. She wasn’t.
She leaned in slowly, and he didn’t pull away.
And when their lips touched, she caught fire.
As if the heat from his eyes were burning right through her, like they were sharing it. And hell, they were sharing breath, so it didn’t seem quite so crazy. His lips were firm and glorious, and she felt like she had thrown herself into the deep end for sure, but she didn’t feel like she was drowning.
No. Instead, she felt like she was breathing for the first time. She had wanted this, fantasized about it, ever since she knew what the tightening in her stomach when he was around meant. What the racing in her heart signified. She had seen too much to believe in happily-ever-afters. Even her mother’s marriage to Tanner’s father had been far from perfect. It had been a lot of fighting, a lot of work and a lot of stubborn grit on the part of her mother, who mostly had differentiated herself from his past wives by her refusal to leave.
Chloe didn’t fancy herself above any of that. She didn’t think that she was destined for something greater than her mother in terms of romance. But that didn’t mean she couldn’t want this. Couldn’t want pleasure and fantasy, and a moment to get a little taste of everything that she had always wanted.
She had wished and wished for a pony. It had seemed out of this world, and ultimately, she had become a girl who had learned to ride, who made her living riding horses. So maybe things weren’t so far-fetched after all.
He pulled away, his dark eyes grim. “Do you know what you’re doing?”
She laughed. “No,” she said. “Not at all. But I don’t understand why this can’t stay here. Why you and I can’t... Can’t just be this. This whole thing has been surreal. And look at it. The snow falling outside, the entire inn is full. The town is full. And we’re stuck. You and me, and that bed. And I just think... You could go downstairs and sleep in that crowd. You could sleep here angrily on the floor. Or you could... You could sleep with me, Tanner. You could sleep with me.”
“Chloe... What will this do to us? To the family?”
“Nothing,” she said quickly. “It doesn’t have to do anything. Tanner, if you don’t want me then I’ll go sleep downstairs myself. Or sleep on the floor. Or in the bathtub. Whatever you want. But if there’s even the smallest chance that you do...”
He growled suddenly, his arm wrapped around her waist, and he propelled them backward, pinning her down onto the floor, his eyes intense as he stared down at her. “I’ve wanted you for so long. It’s been driving me crazy. Chloe, if I’d had any idea that you wanted me...”
“What?”
He shook his head. “Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Because how can I do anything? You’re my stepsister, Chloe. But that’s not the most important thing. The most important thing is our family. And how they feel.”
“They don’t have to know.”
“And that’s why even if I had known that you wanted this we couldn’t have done anything then. But here...”
“Blame it on the blizzard,” she said softly. “On this bed. On the fact that no one is around. But there’s a boundary.”
“Yes there is,” he said roughly. “Maybe it’s that boundary that will make crossing the others not quite so bad.”
“Tell me,” she whispered, feeling a growing hardness between them, satisfaction roaring through her. “Tell me when you first started to want me.”
“It’s the damn way you ride those horses,” he said. “The way that you move with them. It’s like nothing I’ve ever seen. Once I noticed how good you look doing it...”
“So it’s not just that you think I’m pretty.”
“Does that matter?”
“Yes,” she said softly. “It does. Because I know that you’ve slept with a lot of women. And I want to know if I’m different than that. If I’m more than just pretty.”
“If it’s for a night, does it matter?”
“Yes. It matters to me.”
“It’s not just that you’re pretty. Though you are. It’s that you glow. I’ve never seen anything like it.”
After that, he kissed her, his mouth rough over hers, his hold intense and masculine, and everything she had ever fantasized that it might be.
When they parted, she was breathless, her heart threatening to thunder right out of her chest. She had to tell him. She wasn’t scared, not really. But if he hadn’t guessed already, she really, really needed him to know.
“I’m a virgin,” she said softly.
He stopped, his head rolling back, his eyes closing. “You don’t want to do this.” The words sounded like pain. Like they’d been scraped raw on their way out, and it was how she knew he did want to do this.
It made her even more sure of her decisions.
“I do,” she said.
“You want to have a one-night stand for your first time?”
Tanner had been an essential part of her life for so long. A sounding board, a protector. Something never quite like a brother. But someone she trusted.
Had trusted from the moment she’d met him.
There was no other way she would have ever gotten up on a horse if she hadn’t. He was strong. Dependable. Capable.
Sexy.
The only man she’d ever wanted.
The only man she could ever see having this conversation with.
“Yes. I want to be with somebody that I trust. I want to... Tanner, there are not very many people in the world that know me better than you do. There might not be any. But I want you. I want this to be my first time. And it’s okay if it can never happen again. I mean... It’s been hard for me. To go out and find a relationship. Especially after my mom’s experience. The last thing I ever wanted was to be left with a child to raise on my own. To be betrayed the way that she was over and over again. But it’s not enough to be alone anymore. I don’t like an empty bed. But now I’m twenty-five and I’m desperately inexperienced. And... It’s going to have to be with you. I’m afraid it’ll never be with anyone.”
“Do you want me?” The words were low and surprisingly intense.
“Yes,” she said. “I do. What made you think I didn’t?”
“If all you want to do is lose your virginity, then that’s not the same thing.”
“That’s not all. I’ve wanted you forever. And don’t... Don’t make that weird. Or anything like that. But it’s like... You know when you dream of something. When you have fantasies of it for a long time, and you kind of need to know... If it’s going to live up to the hype, if it’s going to be what you want, or if it’s just going to disappoint you. Well, I need to know. If you’re going to live up to the hype.”
“I have to live up to the hype,” he said.
“Yes,” she said.
“What hype, exactly? Do I have a reputation?”
“No. It’s hype that I’ve built up in my mind. Based on very little. I’ve never actually done this before, so...”
“What have you done?”
“Nothing,” she said.
He swore, and slid his hands down her back, holding her hips. “Sweetheart,” he said. “Nothing?”
“Nothing.”
He shook his head, then leaned in, pressing a slow, lingering kiss to her neck. “That should scare the hell out of me.”
“It should?”
“Instead it turns me on,” he said, the words
rough. Sending an illicit thrill through her.
“Well,” she said, “if this is a fantasy, if we are just living things out, why can’t it turn you on?”
“It works for me, too.”
“Just tonight,” she whispered.
He kissed her again, and they quit talking. And she quit thinking. About what might happen next. About the fact that this moment couldn’t last any longer than the snow outside. Less even.
She had one night to extinguish the flame that had been burning for years. One night. That was it.
She grabbed hold of him, rocking against him, relishing the feeling of his hard length against her. He did want her. He did. Tanner. Her Tanner, who had been the object of her desire for so long. She had been convinced that she was being silly, wanting him like that. That there was no way it wasn’t anything more than all in her head. But he wanted her. He did. He wanted this.
She reached down and pushed her hands beneath his T-shirt, the breath hissing through her teeth when her skin came into contact with his. So hot and hard and beautifully muscled. Then she ran out of patience, and she didn’t care if she was being too bold or if she was revealing the fact that her feelings went deeper than lust. She just didn’t care. Not right now. She ran her hands over his body, his muscular back, down his chest, covered with dark hair and so outrageously sexy in ways she couldn’t begin to describe.
It was those contrasts between them. The differences. The ways in which he was rough, and so very much a man. Something different and fascinating and glorious in her eyes. But then, it was his turn. His movements were rough and uncontrolled as he stripped her shirt up over her head. “I’ve been waiting a long time to do this,” he said. “So long.”
“You have?”
He pulled his shirt off, and Chloe basked in the glory of all those muscles. “I’ve wanted you since you were eighteen years old,” he said. “And I knew that I was sick to want it then. I knew it. I’m even sicker to want it now. To have it. Just once.” He chuckled, lowering his head and brushing his lips against the soft, curved part of her breast. And then he tasted her. The flat of his tongue was hot and wet and it made her tremble inside and out to have him touch her like that.
