Chapter 4
Robin
I couldn’t take my eyes off him.
Before I’d arrived, I’d almost turned around half a dozen times. It had taken me three days to drive all the way to the Ozarks and then another half day on small, winding country roads to make it to Red Oak Mountain.
This place was at the very edge of civilization, and it surprised me that anyone could live here.
But then I’d seen the town square, all decorated for Christmas, and it had reminded me of home. It was cheerful and bright.
Now that I was here, though, actually here at Levi’s place, I knew I’d made a mistake.
“I’ll say it again, woman. What the fuck are you doing on my property?” he growled out as his expression turned stern.
He really was a beast of a man.
He hefted the axe as I studied him, incapable of looking away.
Levi was so tall—at least a foot taller than me — and covered in thick muscles. A sheen of sweat was glistening across his chest, leading my eye straight to it. Then of course I had to sneak a peek lower.
I didn’t know men actually had abs like this.
And why was he chopping wood in his underwear?
Other than the dog tags around his neck all the man had on were beat-up work boots, an old-fashioned Santa hat, and a delicious pair of camo-printed boxer briefs that were likely to live in my dreams for the next decade.
I watched as his briefs grew tighter, his cock firming up under the fabric right in front of my eyes.
My mouth dropped open as I watched him go hard.
“What the fuck? Seriously? Did my sister send you out here? I don’t need whatever you’re selling,” he grunted out at me as he dropped the axe and attempted to shift the big package in his undies around.
As though that could make it any less noticeable. He was hung like a beast.
In fact, he was a beast. A real-life beast. Not like one from my favorite fairy tale.
Levi might have been the hottest man I’d ever seen in my life. But he was also an irritated man. The scowl on his face made me quiver with fear.
Had I thought he’d be excited to have a stranger show up on his doorstep to wish him a Merry Christmas? Sometimes I was so naive.
“Hi. This was probably a mistake. Maybe I should go,” I said in a hushed, rapid blur of words before running away straight to my car.
This was a mistake. This was a mistake. I never should have let Jan talk me into this.
With trembling hands, I started the engine and gripped the wheel.
I had to make a six-point turn to get rotated around in his driveway.
The cabin was old and ramshackle, in need of a paint job or a woman’s touch. And the gravel driveway out here had been long and winding with winter grass poking up in the middle of the road.
Both of those things should have been cues. Danger signs saying, ‘Keep out. A wild man lives here. A wild man with a thick, hungry cock and anger in his heart.’
My heart skittered in my chest as I swung my car around only to discover him standing in the middle of the road, legs spread in a strong stance, arms crossed over his chest, his cock still big and erect in his underwear.
He shook his head and lifted something in his hands. “No ma’am. You’re not dumping a dog on me.”
He has Cocoa!
She must have slipped out of the car before I shut the door. I hadn’t noticed in my panic.
I stared at him with wild, scared eyes.
I wasn’t scared of him.
Despite his rugged appearance and the axe he’d had in his hands earlier, I didn’t get a feeling of danger from him.
No, I was scared of that cock of his.
I’d never seen one in person before, and even though it was hiding in his underwear, I could tell it wanted to come out and say hi to me.
Taking a few deep breaths, I tried to summon my inner Jan. What would she do in this situation?
I drew a blank. But the one thing I knew was I couldn’t leave my little Cocoa here. She was the pride of my life, a special pedigree long-haired Chihuahua. And I loved her more than anything.
I unrolled my window a crack and stammered, “I need my dog back.”
“Sure. After you tell me what you’re doing here.”
He held onto Cocoa tightly, but she wasn’t trying to get away. She’d leaned her head on his bare chest like she was hanging out with an old friend.
That was weird because Cocoa sometimes had small-dog syndrome. She was afraid of strangers and often acted out. But she looked downright happy in his arms.
I glanced at his boxers again. Is it really that big?
Then, I refocused on what actually mattered. “Uh, this will probably sound crazy. But I was just following an adventure. I’m not the adventurous type.”
He cocked his head. “Are you in danger? You running from something?”
“No, nothing like that.”
“Did you get lost? There are about fifty no-trespassing signs as you come down the driveway.”
Yeah, I’d seen them. “Um, look, this was a mistake. I’ll just take my dog and go,” I told him. Now that I was here, I was embarrassed to tell him why I’d come.
My eyes darted back down to his cock, then I noticed the burns on his lower legs for the first time. His thighs and calves were as muscular as the rest of him. But his skin was disfigured from his mid-thighs down, as though the lower half of his body had survived a fire.
He saw me looking, but didn’t do anything to try to hide it from me. I mean, short of going inside and putting on some clothes, there wasn’t much he could do. The scarring was noticeable.
When I looked back up at his face, I saw pain clearly marked in his eyes. As though he thought I was disgusted by him.
Isn’t that exactly what he’d said in his letter?
I needed to convince him somehow that I hadn’t been running away because of his injuries.
On shaking legs, I got out of my car and walked over to him, holding my arms out for Cocoa.
“Look, Levi, I made a mistake. My friend talked me into following an adventure. I tend to live in books and forget to live in the real world. She was just trying to help shake up my life. Um, there was a letter sent to my town a few years ago. I live in North Pole, Minnesota—”
He snorted and cut me off. “You’re from the North Pole, lady?”
Levi obviously didn’t believe me.
I gave him a tiny smile. “It’s an actual place.
If you look it up, you’ll see. Anyway, we get all the Santa letters that are addressed to the North Pole.
You know how post offices are. They’re rather…
literal. And my friend, Jan. Well, she’s a troublemaker for sure.
She handed out all the letters sitting in the dead letter vault this year. And… I got yours.”
His brow furrowed, and that’s when I noticed how nice his eyes were, like dark pools of chocolate.
And underneath his wooly beard, I could make out a strong, sexy jawline.
His hair was kind of wild, like he hadn’t brushed it this morning.
Or maybe not in the past few days. And I suddenly wanted to get closer and see what he smelled like. Probably like wood chips and forest.
“Wait a minute. How do you know my name?” he looked at me suspiciously.
“Like I was saying. I got your letter. It had your name on it. You’re Levi Blacthorne. And I’m Robin. Robin Merryweather. And you’re holding my dog, Hot Cocoa. But everyone calls her Cocoa.”
“Robin Merryweather. With a dog named Hot Cocoa. From the North Pole.”
I could tell he didn’t believe me.
“Not from the North Pole. But from North Pole, Minnesota. If you look it up online, you’ll see that the town really exists.” I’d run into disbelievers before. Our town founders evidently had a sense of humor or a serious love for Christmas.
“Aren’t you cold?” I added when he stood there with the same unbelieving look on his face.
“Uh, no. I like the cold,” he growled out.
“I do, too. It’s pretty cold where I’m from.”
Then he shook his head and barked out a laugh. “Right. Because you’re from the North Pole. Did my friends set you up to do this? Have you been hanging out with Holt? Tell the truth now, hon.”
“Holt? No, I don’t know anyone named Holt.”
He rumbled, “You mean to tell me a gorgeous woman like you traveled from the North Pole with a dog named Hot Cocoa to visit me on Christmas Eve dressed like a sexy, fucking candy cane? Because this sounds like a set-up from someone who thinks he’s too funny.
Holt sent you, didn’t he? Or maybe it was Ryder.
Did Ryder send you? It couldn’t have been Tex. He wouldn’t do this to me.”
Levi’s eyes roamed across me now, and I realized with a shock that he was checking me out. His eyes lingered on the curve of my breasts for entirely too long.
I wasn’t used to having a man look at me like that. There was a raw hunger on his face, and I swear the bulge in his underwear got even bigger.
Normally, I wasn’t the one who got this kind of reaction from a man. I was pleasant enough to look at, If they could overlook my extra pounds. But I was usually the invisible one in a crowd.
I felt a coil of heat shift through my center, and my nipples perked up under his gaze.
Shaking my head, I told him, “None of your friends sent me. It’s the letter you wrote.”
Then I realized what would make him understand. He needed to see the letter. Reaching back into my car, I rummaged around for the letter. “Here it is!”
I handed the envelope to him. “Does this look familiar?”