by Amanda Rose
“And we figured since you fucked me and Aspen that you might be interested,” Frost says, and I sit up suddenly, flicking water into his face. He just squints and lets it drip down the sculpted perfection on his cheekbones and jaw, off the tip of his perfectly straight nose.
“So … let me get this straight,” I say as I scoot out of the hot tub and onto the edge, leaving my legs dangling in the water. “You four … are occasional lovers … who want to date the same girl because you're all such good bros you can't stand the thought of losing each other?”
“We'd rather put all our effort and love and focus into one woman together because none of us has the time to be a proper partner otherwise,” Aspen says, sighing deeply and looking me straight in the face. Between his sapphire eyes, Frost's emerald ones, Crispin's dark chocolate gaze, and Vale's golden stare, I'm completely lost. Sitting in a hot tub with three half-naked men … one naked man … and all of these hormones?
Not good.
“Why are you telling me this?” I ask, and Aspen's eyes lock on mine. His stare is … it's uncomfortable. I feel like I'd need to be at peace with myself, inside and out, in order to meet that gaze and not want to run like hell. “We met like three days ago.”
“Yeah, but …” Aspen smiles, shrugs, lets his face get tainted with a bit of that cocky edge. “We like you, Cyan.”
“So … you want to date me?” I ask, swinging my legs outside of the hot tub and tapping my feet around, searching frantically for my slippers.
“We want to fuck you,” Frost says as my toes finally find them and slip inside. I'm getting the expensive wool all wet, but screw it—I just need to get the hell out of here.
“Goddamn it, Frost,” Aspen snaps, but I'm already making a beeline for the back doors, slipping inside, and running like hell for my room.
The question is … why?
CHAPTER SIX
This house is swarming with cousins and siblings and a mother on a rampage—as soon as the blizzard hit, she decided she needed to get back to DC for some big anti-piracy case and is now pissed that she can barely make it to the sidewalk to get the mail.
Well, if there were any mail to actually get; USPS has suspended service for a few days, until the snow clears.
I do my best to avoid the inked up bastards, but they manage to track me down the next morning, sitting in the sunroom with a cup of coffee and staring at several pages of words that have somehow … just flown right the hell out of me. I sat down to write and for once, I didn't have any trouble coming up with the story.
My fingers flew across the keys as I wrote about Frost in the bus bathroom, Aspen in the kitchen, and … all the things I wanted to do with Crispin and Vale in the hot tub. And the next scene, the one that was currently being fueled by my caffeine addiction … it was a hot and heavy foursome.
“Do you want to bake with us?” Aspen asks, coming to stand next to the bistro table and folding his arms over his … Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer apron. Huh. Okay. And I know that did not come from my father's apron collection.
“You keep aprons on your tour bus?” I ask and Aspen flicks his tongue across his lower lip, letting his blue eyes slide to the side, like he's embarrassed and unwilling to admit it.
“We like Christmas,” he says, nostrils flaring, turning his attention back to me as the other three boys mill around the room, staring at my dad's vast collection of expensive holiday décor. I don't miss the fact that they're also all wearing aprons. “Well, I like Christmas,” he amends with a long sigh. “I didn't exactly have any as a child, so … I'm making up for it now.”
He looks down at his apron and plucks the fabric as I close my laptop, carefully but purposefully. I do not want these guys knowing the fantasies I'm entertaining about them.
“If you don't like these,” he says, lifting his head back up and pulling a rumpled piece of fabric from one of the large pockets at the same time. “I saw that your dad has a whole bunch with glass beads and shit in a kitchen cabinet.”
Aspen tosses me a white apron … which turns out to be a very curvy and tacky looking Mrs. Claus in a bikini silhouette. I narrow my eyes at him and he smiles, this self-assured expression that makes my heart hurt and does weird things to my body. As long as I live, I don't think I'll ever forget hearing him singing and fucking me at the same time.
Oh holy snowball son of a bitch.
“Let's bake,” he says again, and Crispin moves over next to us, grinning, dressed in an apron covered in … trailers with Christmas lights wrapped around them. Redneck Christmas is what it says. That's … nice. But also kind of funny, especially paired with his nice jeans, boots, and the tight red long-sleeved shirt he's wearing; he looks beyond polished. Hell, my mother would be less embarrassed dragging him around DC with her than she would me.
“Why?” I ask, but I'm already standing up and pausing as Frost moves over to us with that fucking intensity of his. It puts me on edge at the same time it makes me want to tear my clothes off and go rut with him in the snow. No wonder we ended up doing it in the bathroom … Just looking at him, smelling him when he stands close to me, is enough to light my body up like the fire roaring in the nearby fireplace.
“Because,” Frost says, taking the apron from me and hooking it around my neck. He trails his fingers across my skin with purpose, making me shiver, causing my nipples to pebble beneath the gold fabric of my party dress. Technically, none of Dad's famous parties are happening because of the storm, but I know if I wear ratty jeans around the house, both he and Mom will nag me to death so … wearing an expensive designer dress to write sex scenes in seems appropriate. “I saw your family cooking yesterday, but I didn't see you. I figured we chased you off, and I wanted to make up for it. Your sister, Tina, told me you like to bake.”
My heart goes cold, even as Frost ties the apron strings tight around my waist, getting far too close to my back to be anything but a come-on. He's warm, and he feels good, and he smells like fucking Balsam Fir incense, but …
“You didn't chase me away,” I say as I take a deep breath and glance over at Vale, leaning against the wall of windows, ankles crossed, as he watches me casually through golden eyes, his apron green with a red belt and little bells all over it, like he's an elf or some shit. “They forgot to invite me.”
I weave between the members of Inked Pages and head through the double doors of the kitchen, making my way to a lower cabinet near the massive industrial stainless steel refrigerator. There are cookbooks lined up in here as well as in iPad and charge cord for looking up recipes online. I ignore it all and snatch the tattered, hideous tome from the corner, covered in grease stains and flour, pages falling out and browning at the edges.
It's my grandmother's cookbook, all the recipes she collected over a lifetime. There's an entire section on Christmas, too. When we moved, I asked to take it with us, but she said she'd like to leave it here, just in case my mother or siblings ever got the urge to use it.
I think she was hoping it'd serve as a reminder that the two of us still existed—not once did anyone come to visit us in San Francisco—but looking at it now, covered in a fine layer of dust, I realize that was a bit of a pipe dream.
“Whatever you want to make,” I tell the boys as I toss the heavy book onto the kitchen island and flip through to the holiday section, the intro page decorated in glitter, metallic stickers, and green and red craft pom-poms. “It's in here.”
Frost moves over to me wearing … a fucking Jack Frost apron with the character from Rise of the Guardians on the front. Wow. If my dad walks in here and sees all these hideous aprons, he'll probably have a heart attack and die.
“I'm surprised you agreed to this so easily,” he says, leaning his hip against the counter, green eyes sparkling. I wonder if his eyes are like the trees outside, frosty and cold on the exterior … the majesty of their towering heights hidden underneath all that snow. Or maybe he's just an asshole. Yeah, probably just a dickhead. “I was convinced you were go
ing to tell us to fuck off.”
“Why?” I ask as I turn to face him, putting my right hand on my hip, the one that's covered in inked stars, tattoos etched into my flesh for each month I kept the bookstore open. Guess I won't be adding anymore. “Because that's what you'd do? Frankly, I'm flattered that you guys asked to bake with me. It's the most considerate thing anyone's done for me since I got here.”
I turn back to the book and flip open to my grandma's absolute favorite recipe: big soft ginger cookies. My dad hates them because they're boring and brown and ugly, but honestly, they taste about a million times better than anything he can whip up.
Sometimes … things are prettier on the inside than they are on the outside.
Except for the men from Inked Pages. They're just pretty period.
Frost comes up behind me, positioning himself against back, and presses a kiss to the side of my neck that makes me shiver. It's a far too familiar gesture for our level of acquaintance, but … I don't stop him. Instead, I encourage him to keep going by pushing my ass into his crotch.
“Just tell us how to help,” Aspen says, watching me carefully, his sapphire eyes locked onto Frost's hands as they slide around my waist. He just confessed he has a … a crush or something? … on me and yet, he doesn't look at all jealous to see another man hold me like this.
He does, however, look horny and hungry and desperate. There's a bulge in his pants and he keeps swallowing, like he's trying to fight past a surge of desire. Fuck. And did these guys—all of these guys—seriously ask me out yesterday?
It feels like a dream … or a nightmare? No, just a wicked hot truth. That is exactly what happened.
Why did I run away again? Because their offer sounds way too good to be true? Yup, that's probably it. I'm not one of those stubborn idiots who refuse to acknowledge a good thing, but come on? I'm a challenge and these guys are bored and they're stuck in my parents' house with nothing else to do. Why not take turns bagging the only eligible girl on the premises, right?
“We need flour, ginger, baking soda”—I start, listing off ingredients—“cinnamon, cloves, salt, butter, orange juice, brown and white sugar, eggs, water, and molasses.”
“Oh, is that it?” Frost whispers in my ear and I shiver.
“You remind me of my uncle,” Crispin laughs, which should be a weird thing to say, but he says it with such genuine warmth that I just want to know more. “He raised me and my three brothers,” he tells me, grinning big and moving to the fridge to grab the butter, eggs, and juice. “And he could bake, broil, or barbecue any damn thing. He knew what he was doing in the kitchen, and he let you know it, too.”
I smile as I step away from Frost, and move over to the spice cabinet, pulling the rolling drawer out and peering at the glass bottles. Vale manages to find the sugar and flour and puts the bags on the center island, watching me the entire time. I notice he rarely speaks, but his face—and his body language—say a whole hell of a lot.
“What about you?” I ask, trying to prompt Vale into talking. He watches me as I put the spices on the counter and dig out some cookie sheets, mixing bowls, measuring spoons and measuring cups. “What do you think about all this? You haven't said a word.”
“I try not to talk unless there's something I really want to say,” he tells me, an angel with his pale hair and cream cashmere sweater, black jeans and white snow boots. He looks almost ethereal, a Christmas spirit dressed in a pop rocker's body. “I'd rather watch you, instead.”
“How about you start creaming that sugar and butter,” I say as I dole out the rest of the instructions for the cookie making party.
“I'd rather cream you,” is what I think I hear Vale say as he moves over to the microwave to soften the butter, but I'm not entirely sure. I decide to ignore him and focus on the cookies; just the process of preparing the ingredients for these babies make me think of my grandma and that brightens my mood considerably. Sometimes, I feel overwhelming sadness when I think of her. But at times like these, when all the best parts of her come to mind, I smile.
After a few minutes of working in silence, I snap my fingers.
“Ah, I forgot the music!”
I head over to the iPhone dock in the corner and switch out my dad's music for my own. If I were baking by myself—my usual routine—I'd put on Inked Pages. But it seems a little weird to play their own music with them in the room, so I land on another playlist with some pop rock Christmas tunes. We start off with This Christmas (I'll Burn It To The Ground) by Set it Off. Next up is There Will Be No Christmas by Crown the Empire.
“Excellent choice,” Vale says, sticking a finger between his lips and sucking off the butter, nice and slow. Clearly, he's baiting me. Is it sad that it's almost working?
“Thank you,” I say as I direct the boys through the steps of my grandma's favorite recipe, enjoying the way they take direction from me. Not like when I cook with my family and everyone ignores me, regardless of the fact that I'm the one with the most experience.
“Have you thought about our proposal?” Aspen asks after we finish making the dough and start to roll little brown balls across the sugar covered counter to coat them. The room smells like cinnamon and cloves, butter and sugar. I can't get enough of it. It feels so … homey and cozy in here, baking with these four guys I just met.
How weird is that? Why should I be more comfortable with strangers than my own family? I can even hear my cousins and siblings playing charades in the living room. But for the first time in a long time, I don't feel lonely and distant. Whatever their motives, Inked Pages came to seek me out this morning. They were interested in hanging out with me.
“The dating thing?” I ask as we place cookies on the sheet and my hand bumps Vale's, sending a shiver of pleasure through me. Our eyes meet and I wonder what he sees in my brown ones, if I'm as interesting to him as he is to me. “I don't even … how would that work?”
“Well, Crispin was telling us about your bookstore …” Aspen says, looking up at the Southern charmer standing on my right, across the counter from Vale. Frost is on my left with Aspen directly across from me.
“My bookstore,” I say softly, listening to Nothing For Christmas by New Found Glory, slowly rolling a cookie against my palm, my eyes focused on Aspen's apron, but my mind far away. “Yeah, well.” I sigh and shake my head, trying not to think of the front door bell ringing, Grandma waltzing in with coffee, looking around and smiling at what I'd accomplished … We decorated the hell out of that place for Christmas, too. It was fucking magical. “At least I had the sense to sell it and walk away before I lost it to the bank.” I put my cookie on the tray and scrape some more of the sticky dough from the bowl. “Well, it's not sold yet … it's still for sale, but … that doesn't matter anymore.”
I smile at the guys and roll the little ball in the sugar.
“Crispin said you were planning on moving in here?” Aspen continues, like he's aiming for something with a gentle, subtle sort of approach.
“You should consider dating us,” Frost blurts and Aspen tosses a piece of dough at his face. “What? Why dance around the subject? We only have two concerts left this year and then we're off the road, staying in San Francisco which is where you happen to live. So why not?”
“Got a taste of something you liked?” I ask which is supposed to be a joke, but just heats up the air between me and Frost instead. “I put our apartment up for sale, too, the place I shared with my grandma. I'm not going back.”
“Why not, Cherry Pie? Take a chance. Frost here, he really likes you. And Aspen? He's smitten as a puppy.” Crispin grins and pushes some hair off his forehead, smearing flour across his skin. “You said yourself you hate it here?”
“I'm not moving back to San Francisco to date some random guys who'll drop me like a hot potato as soon as they get bored. My shit's already boxed up and I've paid to have it shipped out here after the holidays.”
I wipe my hands on my apron and grab two of the finished trays, transferri
ng them to the upper of the two ovens built into the wall. Vale is right behind me with the other two, and I scoot side to let him slip them into the bottom oven.
“Hey,” Donner says, moving into the kitchen and punching through the door so hard I'm surprised she didn't break my nose when she made me bleed at the rest stop. “Boss lady needs to see Aspen and Frost.”
“We'll clean this shit up,” Crispin says with a nod and the other boys exchange glances, rinsing their hands at the sink and slipping their aprons off as they leave the room with their badass bodyguard … who's wearing a sweater with a baby polar bear on the front? 'Kay.
“You guys don't have to help me with this stuff,” I say as I gesture at the mess. “I'm sure getting stuck here really fucked with your plans. If you need to join Aspen and Frost, you can go.”
Vale steps up to me as I turn, standing in front of me, so close that I lean back, the edge of the counter digging into my ass.
“You're used to being alone, aren't you?” he asks me, reaching out and brushing some hair from my forehead. The motion makes me swallow hard. I am used to being alone, but why should I tell him that? I don't even know this guy. But as soon as he touches me … words flood my brain, like Vale is my muse or something.
He lifts me up and sets me on the four and sugar mess of the countertop, sliding his hands up the sides of my thighs, dipping his fingers underneath the gold of my party dress. If he goes any further, he'll know I'm not wearing panties.
Crap.
That's good. That's really good. I need to write that shit down.
“Does it matter?” I ask as Vale presses even closer, smelling like sugar and butter, the faintest hint of sweat from the warm kitchen. Oh my god.
“Why wouldn't it matter? You don't want to be alone and … there are four of us.” He puts his hands on my shoulders, sneaking his tattooed fingers to the apron strings tied around my neck. I close my eyes as he unties them, switching to the ones on my waist.
