Chapter 3
CHAPTER THREE
“He’s like the polar bear whisperer!”
I don’t know who says that but it’s accurate as fuck.
I push away from the window and the intensity of his gaze in one fell swoop. I take a shaky step back from the window and try to calm my racing heart and the faint feeling that swept over me the second my gaze locked with Mr. Polar Bear.
Okay…Wow.
It’s the only profound word that comes to mind. It sums up the feeling of him as accurately as anything could.
Just wow.
Something shifted in the air, it almost tasted sweet on my tongue, for a brief minute it wasn’t fear that was stirring in my chest, it was something deeper, richer, something I suddenly felt like exploring and it all leads back to those bright blue eyes and promises whispered without words.
Maybe I’m losing my mind from the terror or going from the insane cold air to the heat inside the buggy, but dizziness washes over me in small sensual waves, just beneath the surface of my once cold skin.
For the first time since getting in that buggy, I don’t want to pull my coat tighter—I want to take it off—no, I want to strip.
“Who is he?” Ellie says with barely repressed awe reading my mind.
The door slams open and blue eyes strolls in with his friend, dragging the cold in behind them like they own the weather.
Frost sweeps through the buggy, sharp as an ice storm, but for once?
I don’t care. Not one goosebump. Not one shiver.
The chill licking over my skin has nothing to do with winter and everything to do with him.
I hang back as Grace and her flock swoop in, tripping over themselves to gush about polar bears and “oh my gosh you’re so brave” like it’s a Hallmark blooper reel. Their chatter melts into background static. I don’t hear any of it. I only want one thing.
His voice. Just his. Because you just know it has to be smooth and I swear if it’s high pitched and not gravelly I’m suing.
I can’t even bring myself to fully look at him.
The desire’s there, but something’s holding me back.
I mean… his energy takes up the whole damn space in the buggy.
I wasn’t wrong. He is tall, well over six feet and he’s broad, I can tell he is, even though he’s wearing a snowsuit just like us—but he fills it out as though it was made for him and not the other way around.
He fits in here like it’s natural, not like an intruder out looking for an adventure, he is the adventure.
He’s the tree you climb, not the one climbing, the river you ride, not the rider.
Shit, why in every scenario in my head am I naked?
“Let me get you a drink,” I hear Devon offer kindly.
“Whiskey.” I hear his voice for the first time.
I know it’s his.
It’s deep, raspy, with a hint of an accent I can’t place, but full-bodied masculinity in its prime. I don’t know even know what he looks like besides the color of his eyes, but I’m completely turned on.
Like seriously turned on to the point that I almost let out a low moan—completely out of character and embarrassing is what it is, but it’s like my body can’t help it.
Are they pumping pheromones through the air vents, should I be concerned?
Holy shit is this what rich people pay for?
Near death experiences and a show? Is he an actor?
Is he going to strip? Imagine that… God it sucks to be poor if this is what they’re getting served for the holiday’s— bears with a side of man steak.
“Charlie, come over here,” Grace turns toward me with wide eyes like she’s trying to communicate to me how hot this guy is.
Is she for real?
Like I don’t already know. Does she think I need my readers to see it for myself? The fact that I even have readers makes me want to hide even more.
Again I want to say something, but I’m feeling shy.
Suddenly… shy.
And I don’t know why. Hah, that rhymes. Yeah, they are definitely pumping something through here because none of my thoughts feel strung together or normal and why is it so freaking hot?
Maybe it’s the idea of him seeing me. The real me that’s impossible to hide when I first meet people.
He’ll see my exterior and it’ll make him want to come closer…
and then, boom, he’ll inevitably see the rough that’s just too much for guys.
He’ll see the untamed parts of me that no matter how hard I try to keep hidden away—always find a way to sneak out, whether it’s through my eyes, my energy, or even my essence.
My story always ends the same. With loneliness and a bleeding heart nobody will hold but me.
Sometimes I don’t know how I survived up until this point. It’s the complexity of me.
Of Charlie Lyn Horseman, ladies and gentleman.
I can’t help that I’m an artist at heart any more than I can help breathing. Words are my kryptonite… and I weep and long for love maybe too desperately at times, or maybe it’s just I want to be accepted while also being seen.
For truth. It’s felt like a faraway dream… for forever.
I stare out the window to keep me from looking at him and almost hear my grandmother’s consistent voice—the only consistent in my subconscious other than my self-deprecating talk.
“Charlie… you just need to find that one man. The one that gets you. That feels your torture and can calm the winds and ride the wave with you. The one who’s not afraid of your light.
The one who wants to fan your flame… Just one. ”
Just. One.
I just need one who’s willing to fan! Is that so hard to ask?
I continue to keep my gaze safely away from hot man’s and focus on his friend who’s good looking enough with his brown hair, hazel eyes and super friendly smile.
In any other world he’d be the handsome guy you’d want to get to know, but in a world where a man squares off with a polar bear… there’s no winning for him.
“Jayson,” he says as he holds out his hand in greeting.
He eyes me warmly, ah friend zone, it’s been a hot minute.
“I think I saw you glued to the window,” he says with a laugh that fills the small space.
I nod uncomfortably. That’s some good eyesight.
“That was me,” I say guiltily wanting to raise my hand like I’ve just been caught.
“This is Stetson,” Jayson points at his friend who’s still staring at me in the most toe curling uncomfortable but comfortable way a girl could ask for.
If Jayson’s friend zone, this one’s ‘one night stand it was fun we should do it again zone’.
I knew both well, played in both sand boxes enough to know where the self-burying shovels are, thank you very much.
Stetson? I press my lips together to keep from smiling. Did he try out for Yellowstone? Was Rip taken? His name is Stetson? Holy arctic cowboy fuck… of course it is!
Now that his name has been tossed into the ring, I know I have no choice but to look up at him.
And when I do…
When our eyes lock again—this time with only a foot separating us—the world stops around me.
Everything. Stops.
Time.
Air.
Snow.
Cold.
The tundra.
And I’m just sucked right into the brightest blue eyes I’ve ever seen in my life. Eyes that don’t even feel like they’re from this world. They must be from another planet because what I’m looking at isn’t normal.
No man should look like this.
It should be illegal.
Seriously.
His ruggedly, handsome face, with a chiseled jaw that looks like it was sculpted by one of the masters is the stuff of wet dreams.
Vibrator stuff.
Fantasy worlds.
My God.
He’s even got a clean aristocratic looking short dirty blond beard I’d like to feel between my thighs—yes, I’m thinking that. My thoughts have already gone south in the best and worst of ways. It’s been a while.
I’m thinking all the dirty thoughts because I know this guy is hung and hot in every goddamn way. And he speaks to bears… no, he controls them! Manhandles them, God what would that feel like?
I mean real. Live. Bears! And guess what? They listen to him!
Sweet baby Jesus how can he be real?
I know I’m not the only effected one around because the girlfriends, especially overly eager Ellie are all staring at him like he’s a piece of A-5 Grade Wagyu beef they can’t wait to put their wealthy little mouths on.
Chomp. Chomp.
“Charlie.”
He says my name.
Let me rephrase that—he doesn’t just say it. He claims it. Like he’s said it a thousand years, a million times… like it’s second nature.
It’s his.
And yes, I want him to own it. My name. My body. My soul.
All of me.
Wait—
What the hell is wrong with me?
Does he have some sort of voodoo-magic-energy-pull thing going on?
He must.
I mean, he just stopped a polar bear dead in its tracks.
I wonder if she was female.
Because damn, that would check out, wouldn’t it?
Without missing a beat, he leans over me, all hooded eyes and full lips and whispers my name again. “Charlie.”
I don’t want him to stop. Speaking. Ever.
Like, ever.
I lick my lower lip, nodding. “Yes.”
His eyes glint with something wicked as he leans in, his breath brushing my ear.
“I checked it twice.”
“Huh?”
“Is it so hard…” his voice drops, velvety and dangerous. “…to be nice?”
“C-come again?” I whisper uncertainly. “What did you check?”
His eyes twinkle with some kind of magic light I’ve never seen in my life. Seriously. His eyes twinkle and it’s not the piss poor lighting in the buggy.
“The list.”
What in God’s name is he talking about? What list?
I’m on a list? Is it the poor list? The list of people’s names who can’t afford this trip?
I can’t be the only one… I mean Ellie looks like she’s slept her way into this buggy— so that means she can’t be super rich?
But honestly, even if I am on the poor list, I don’t care.
I’m part of a list I’ll own whole heartedly.
The other thing is this—I realize Stetson doesn’t have to make any sense. He’s too hot for that. He just needs to exist. Walk around in that kind of outfit he has on. Stop polar bears in their tracks. Flex his muscles. Breathe. And everything else is fine.
His electric blue gaze drops to my lips, and he stares so hard my mouth starts to water. As for the other parts of me, I couldn’t even stop what’s happening down south if I tried.
This. Is. Crazy.
“That’s better.” He looks satisfied. Like he can sense I’m so turned on I might orgasm if he just rubs my little pinky finger.
He suddenly turns. “Should we toast surviving the elements?”
Everyone shouts in agreement while I inwardly celebrate surviving something else for the past thirty seconds.
Him.