CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER THREE
T HE BLIZZARD ABATED but the snow kept falling, a steady sheet of never-ending white.
They stood outside surveying the scene.
He’d washed her stuff so she could get back into her thermals but, rather than don the whole ensemble when she wouldn’t be going anywhere near her skis, Alice had opted to wear some more of Mateo’s clothes. She tugged the sleeves of the jumper to cover her balled fists but, despite all the layers, five seconds outside made her exposed skin pinch with cold. Next to her, she could feel Mateo’s warmth and the unsettling power of his proximity.
The night before seemed like a dream. Had she imagined the frisson that had shimmered between them, tantalising and forbidden? She remembered landing on his doorstep like an unwanted package. She remembered how antagonistic he had been when he’d opened the door and found her outside. He hadn’t been downright hostile, but he’d made it clear that she wasn’t wanted, that he was only taking her in because there was no alternative. On a scale of one to ten, his welcome had scored a paltry four.
His attitude should have got her back up but somehow he’d managed to get under her skin, even though he hadn’t made the slightest effort to charm. She remembered all that.
But had she misremembered the way the evening had progressed? Of course, she’d talked too much; that was just who she was. She’d talked and laughed, wine had been poured and his attitude had relaxed. He’d obviously chosen to go down the pragmatic road of accepting the inevitable with as good a grace as humanly possible Those cool, green eyes had rested on her... and that was when it all got a little blurry. Had she imagined a flicker of heat there? Had she imagined a thread of electricity that had ignited between them, sizzling quietly under the patter of their conversation like a firecracker?
He worked hard and he played hard...
She remembered that and she remembered wondering whether he’d been flirting with her, just for that second. It was all so blurry . What wasn’t blurry was the thought that had followed her to sleep and wakened her in the morning, and that was the realisation that something about the man excited her.
She didn’t know why but he did. She’d woken groggily a couple of hours earlier and had lain perfectly still for a few minutes, indulging in a bout of utter mortification that she might just have made a fool of herself the evening before.
Had she misread signals that hadn’t been there and said anything that could have been misinterpreted? She wasn’t used to alcohol and she couldn’t quite remember how much she’d drunk. On the plus side, she hadn’t fallen off her chair in a drunken stupor. On the minus side, she just might have stared at him a little too avidly, like a star-struck teenager, or worse—a desperate woman craving attention from a good-looking guy, having just recovered from a broken engagement. She might have attempted to flirt, having misinterpreted something said in jest.
By the time she’d dressed and left the room, she’d decided that the best route forward while she was stuck here—because one glance outside her window had killed any hope of heading back to her chalet today—was to pretend that the evening before hadn’t happened. To have no blurry memories of sparks that might or might not have been there. No trying to wade through and analyse whatever conversation they had had. No wondering whether he had flirted with her. And no constant chatting and over-sharing.
She had been unnaturally quiet as they had shared breakfast, and had politely insisted on doing the dishes while he’d dealt with whatever early-morning emails it seemed he had to do. When he had resurfaced an hour later, again with stunning politeness she had agreed that they should check what was happening outside.
It had been draining.
At any rate, here they were now, and she shivered and glanced sideways at him.
Unfairly, he was as devastatingly handsome this morning as he had been the day before. That was one instance where, unfortunately, her imagination had not been playing tricks on her.
‘At least the wind’s died down,’ she said.
‘Still snowing pretty hard, though.’
‘It’s a shame. I’d hoped it might have abated overnight.’ She wondered whether anyone ever spoke like that, using words such as ‘abated’. She certainly didn’t; it felt unnatural. ‘I’d hoped,’ she continued, ‘that I might have been able to ski back to my chalet this morning, and enjoy the rest of my holiday with my friends instead of being cooped up here, but I’m not entirely sure that’s going to happen.’
‘We should head back inside. No point freezing to death out here chit-chatting about how heavy the snow is.’
‘Indeed,’ Alice heard herself say.
He headed in and she followed, watching him as he preceded her and, much as she didn’t want to, appreciating the lithe grace of his body as he cut a path through the snow to his front door, making it easy for her to follow in his footsteps.
He was in black: black roll-neck jumper, black jogging bottoms and a black waterproof which he wore with careless elegance.
If she’d made the mistake of flirting with him the evening before, then Lord knew he’d probably spent the night roaring with laughter in his head. Even if he did something as boring as work in tech, he was so good-looking that women would probably beat a path to his door.
It was wonderfully warm inside and she shed her outer layers with alacrity, stripping down to one of his long-sleeved tee-shirts and some of his jogging bottoms.
Then she stood back and looked at him for a few seconds while he stared back at her.
‘Spit it out.’
‘I beg your pardon?’ Alice said.
‘You’ve been acting a little odd all morning. What’s bothering you? Is it the fact that you’ve realised you have no choice but to stay cooped up here for another day?’
Alice flushed. ‘Sorry, I didn’t mean to sound ungrateful. Cooped up isn’t the right word. I was, yes, just hoping that I might be on my way, so you’ll have to excuse me if I’m not my usual self this morning.’
‘You barely had any breakfast. You must be hungry.’
‘I had more than enough.’ Alice drew herself up to her very unimpressive five-three height and sucked in her stomach.
‘Right. Well, I suppose we should discuss how the day is going to unfold. More coffee?’
He headed off to the kitchen without waiting for an answer and Alice followed him. In the cold light of day, and freed from the aftermath of her near-death experience on the slopes in a blizzard, she had taken the opportunity to really look at the chalet properly.
It was very, very luxurious but in an understated way. There was nothing flash anywhere but she could tell that all the bathroom fittings in her en suite were of the highest standard. There was a lot of marble and the towels were the sort that must have cost the earth. And, again, the bedroom was understated luxury. The linen was soft and silky and probably had the highest possible thread-count. The cupboards were made of solid wood and the rug on the ground, like all the rugs in the lodge, was softly faded, with the sheen of pure silk.
The view from the windows was absolutely staggering: vistas of pristine white, a vision of another world uncluttered by houses, people, restaurants, shops or life at all, come to think of it.
Fixing people’s computers or designing websites obviously paid big-time.
Looking around the kitchen, she could see that everything in it likewise carried the stamp of quality. She sat and smoothed her hand over the table and watched as he made a pot of coffee.
‘So, do you do lots of skiing while you’re here? You must be an excellent skier to tackle these slopes. Where did you learn?’
Mateo turned round, carried the coffee to the table and then sat opposite her, angling his chair so that he could extend his legs to the side, crossed at the ankles.
He’d had a restless night. It had never happened before, not here. Here, he could always bank on some solid, battery-recharging down time. But he’d gone to bed thinking of the woman sitting opposite him and wondering why she’d managed to get to him the way she had.
He’d found himself actively looking forward to seeing her this morning—crazy. And, crazier, the fact that she was off for some reason and that, too, was bugging him. It seemed he’d completely forgotten lessons learnt from past experience, from a tough childhood, an even tougher adolescence and a woman who had done a number on him. He just didn’t get it. He’d could have given a master class on how to avoid the pitfalls of being vulnerable to anything and anyone...and yet this woman ignited something inside him. Uneasily, he knew that it wasn’t just physical.
‘I...have experience of these mountains. I learnt to ski here when I was very young. Start young enough, and you become a master before you hit your teens. Same with every sport.’ He shrugged and was about to change the subject when she interrupted.
‘Agreed. I learnt reasonably young when my class went on a ski trip. I absolutely loved it from the beginning. I just loved the way flying down those slopes made me feel free.’
Momentarily distracted, with a shuttered expression Mateo watched her mobile, expressive heart-shaped face. Her eyes were bright and she was leaning forward, her unruly hair tumbling over her shoulders and her chin propped in one hand. Her natural sunny nature was coming through once again, and it was weird how satisfied that made him feel.
No harm letting the conversation flow, he concluded.
He didn’t want her feeling down while she was here. That was simply because it would make for an uncomfortable atmosphere—not because he, personally, liked to see her smile and hear her laugh.
‘Free from what?’ he probed.
‘Oh, you know, the usual stuff... I adore my parents, but I’m an only child, and even though they always made a big point of letting me do my own thing I still always felt them hovering in the background.’ She laughed. He noticed her laughter rippled like water over stones. ‘You know how parents are—they can be super-protective even when they don’t want to be. What about you—are you an only child?’
‘I am, as it happens.’
‘Then I’ll bet you get what I’m talking about.’
‘Not entirely.’ Mateo flushed darkly as her hazel eyes rested on him, curious but not intrusive, just gently questioning. Then, without thinking, he said in a rough undertone, ‘My mother died when I was young—eight. I was raised by my father.’
‘Oh, my word, Mateo, I’m so sorry. How awful that must have been for you.’
Mateo instinctively made to pull back as she reached out to him, but then he let his hand rest on the table and let his fingers be squeezed by hers.
‘You’re very emotional, aren’t you?’ he said gruffly. ‘I’m not a great believer in all this kumbaya nonsense.’ But, still, her fingers were warm and the feel of them stirred something in him. He remembered what it had felt like to look after his father, to be that amateur boxer fighting for money, to be working life out on his own. To be on a road no kid should have been on from the age of eight. To know, far too young, that the only person who could save him was himself.
‘I’m not emotional, I’m empathetic. It must have been a horrible time for you, and lonely as well. I’m sure your father was wonderful, but sometimes the grief of adults can take over, leaving their kids stranded for a while.’
‘I... I admit something like that did occur, but naturally I rose to the occasion and found a way out. It’s in the past.’ He tugged his hand free but could still feel the warmth of her skin against his. ‘Something else I don’t do that you can add to your list: I don’t dwell. Only reason I mentioned it at all was to say that my experiences as an only child perhaps don’t quite dovetail with yours. But, getting back to what we need to discuss: plans for how today is going to unfold.’
‘How did you cope? Were there other family members around you to help you deal with the situation?’
‘Now you’re beginning to sound like a therapist on a mission,’ Mateo said wryly. ‘For the record, there were no aunts and uncles fretting and clucking. I coped with the situation the way I have always coped with all situations: on my own.’
Alice felt her heart go out to the guy whose face was so unrevealing of the hurt he must have endured as a child. He was so commanding and so tough, yet underneath there surely must be a vulnerability there, a hangover from his childhood experiences?
‘It must have been lonely. How long did your dad hide away, Mateo?’
‘Whoever said anything about hiding away ?’ He clicked his tongue impatiently but her eyes never left his face. ‘A few years,’ he expanded. ‘He took time off for a few years.’
‘And you were left to pick up the pieces all on your own,’ Alice murmured softly.
‘Setbacks always make a person stronger.’
She didn’t say anything. She just continued to gaze at him in silence then she nodded and took a deep breath. ‘Of course, you’re right: setbacks can make you stronger. So, today...’
He was proud. Taking this conversation any further was going to make him shut down and Alice got the feeling that, once Mateo shut down, he would never open up again. Of course, she wasn’t going to be around to have any more deep and meaningful conversations with him about his past, but curiosity about him bit into her with sharp, persistent teeth.
Also, for reasons she couldn’t fathom, she didn’t want him to turn away from her because she was getting too nosey. She didn’t know why it mattered but it did—maybe because they were confined here, so it was best for them to get along. Yes, that was it.
‘About today...’ Mateo drawled, picking up where she had left off and strolling to the coffee pot on the counter to get a refill. ‘I usually catch up on my skiing when I’m here but, considering there’s no chance of that, I will spend my time catching up on work instead.’
‘Really? You can do that computer stuff remotely?’
‘Yes,’ Mateo said gently. ‘That “computer stuff” can all be done remotely.’
‘And I suppose time is money when you’re working for yourself.’
‘Never a truer word has ever been spoken. I have an office off my suite, so you won’t see me for most of the day. Sadly, there’s nothing here I can think of to occupy your time, and in the absence of a spare laptop...’
‘I can do stuff on my phone. I can plan out lessons for the remainder of the term. Do you have any paper—pens, perhaps?’
‘Paper? Pens?’
Alice burst out laughing. ‘Now you’re making me think of some of my children at school,’ she teased. ‘They’re experts when it comes to computers, but show them a pen and tell them to write an essay and suddenly I’m asking them to fly to the moon. I teach eleven-year-olds, and my mission is to remind them that the old school way of doing things is still important.’
Mateo grinned. ‘Technology makes everything quicker.’
‘Which is why it makes our brains lazy. If you can press a button and have all the information you need right there, then how are you ever going to learn the value of research?’
‘The “click of the button” scenario leaves time for other important things to be done instead of sifting through old tomes in a library and highlighting sentences and folding pages...’
‘Both of which would incur a fine for destruction of public property.’ Alice grinned back at him.
‘I stand duly corrected.’
Their eyes tangled, the silence stretched and Mateo was the first to break it.
‘And to answer your question,’ he said gruffly, ‘I happen to have both.’ He stood up, suddenly keen to escape the confines of the kitchen, which now felt suffocating. One minute he’d been backing away from a personal conversation he hadn’t encouraged but seemed to be indulging, and the next minute she was making him laugh.
He was suddenly keen to escape. He needed time-out. He would confine himself to his office and stay put until he got his act together. He left her sitting at the kitchen table and returned five minutes later with a stack of A4 paper and a selection of pens in different colours.
‘You use this stuff?’
‘The paper, yes. The pens were bought as a standby years ago, just in case the broadband went down and I actually had to...work on some designs manually.’
‘Okay.’
‘So...er... I’ll leave these with you. If you need me, I’ll be in my office, but don’t count on me for lunch. Help yourself to whatever you want; the fridge is fully stocked. I’ll grab something at some point. When I’m working I tend to forget the time.’
‘Very bad for you, you know,’ she returned absently.
‘What’s very bad for me?’
‘Too much work.’
‘Like I said, Alice Reynolds, I play as well as work...’
Alice was forcibly reminded of the evening before, when the conversation between them had felt dangerously close to the edge...politeness rubbing shoulders with the sort of sexual undertones she wasn’t used to but which had electrified her.
She felt as though she’d entered a whole new world. Mateo was so different from any man she had ever come into contact with. He might have a boring job but he certainly was far from boring. He was sophisticated, cynical and had the sort of self-assurance that made her tingle all over. But more than that, and more than his stunning looks, there was a sense of complexity about him that had roused her curiosity...and, yes, turned her on .
Compared to this beast, Simon was a boy. It was disloyal, but she wondered what she’d seen in him, aside from safety. Just admitting that made her go hot and cold.
‘So you mentioned,’ she mumbled, thrown back into politeness as words failed her and he burst out laughing.
‘Only bores repeat themselves. Am I sensing an insult in there somewhere?’
‘No!’ Alice reddened and bristled but then grinned sheepishly. ‘You’re teasing, aren’t you?’
‘Guilty as charged.’
Mateo appreciated the delicate bloom in her cheeks. He could have added ‘teasing’ to the list of things he didn’t do. But he enjoyed the way she blushed. He’d forgotten what that looked like.
‘I’ll catch you later,’ he muttered. ‘If the snow starts to lessen, I’ll probably try and do some clearing outside; get it as ready as possible for you to make your escape. There are several rooms towards the back you can use if you want privacy to do whatever you plan on doing...and, like I said, help yourself to whatever you want from the fridge.’
He left before another conversation could commence, luring him in in ways he knew vaguely he shouldn’t really like but did.
But work—the thing that always drove him, the one thing that took priority over everything else—proved difficult as the day wore on. By the time he hit the space he used as his office, it was close to lunchtime. He took only a brief break to rustle up a sandwich some time mid-afternoon, with the sun already on its way to setting and the snow still falling thick and fast with no sign of letting up.
Where was Alice?
Having spent hours in front of his computer with very little to show for it, Mateo had a job not hunting her down. His chalet wasn’t the biggest in the world but there were nooks and crannies to which she could have retreated, including her suite. He held off knocking on any closed doors but, by the time six rolled round and he’d had a shower and was heading downstairs, he was caught in unusual position of restlessly anticipating something, against his better judgement: anticipating seeing her .
She’d lodged in his head and there was no point denying the fact that he wanted her. His formidable self-control had deserted him, all because of a woman who just wasn’t his type and frankly should have got on his nerves... sexy as hell or not . She was as wholesome as apple pie and as sweet as chocolate, and neither of those things were what he looked for in a woman. So what was going on? Was novelty that powerful?
Scowling at a train of thought that refused to go away, Mateo pushed open the kitchen door and then...stopped dead in his tracks. She was there, fridge door open, bending in search of something and offering a sight that made him break out in perspiration. She was in her thermal leggings and they were stretched tight across a peachy rear. The baggy sweater was his but it had ridden up, exposing a sliver of pale skin at her waist.
He was frozen to the spot, and thoughts about why he was so attracted to her were replaced by a series of graphic images that made him feel unsteady. How long had he been standing there staring at her like a horny schoolboy? When she straightened and turned round, he felt as though he’d been caught with his fingers in the till.
Alice hadn’t heard him.
How had he managed that? For a guy who was so big, he moved with the stealth of a jungle cat. She blinked, caught completely off-guard. He’d had a shower. His hair was still slightly damp and he was in a pair of faded jeans and a rugby shirt, the sleeves of which he’d shoved up to the elbows.
How long had he been standing in the doorway looking at her?
She frantically tried to think whether she’d made an idiot of herself somehow, bending over to find something to peck on, something sweet and contraband but very much needed after a day of thinking about the guy standing in front of her and feverishly analysing every word they had exchanged.
‘I—I...’ she stuttered, not moving a muscle. ‘I was just...um...looking for something to eat.’
She shut the fridge door but remained where she was as he strolled towards her. With every step closer, her heart beat a little faster, and the blood in her veins felt a little hotter, because there was something in that lazy, green gaze that was hot .
She licked her lips and stuck her hands behind her back.
‘You shouldn’t do that,’ he ground out shakily.
‘Sorry, you said I could help myself to...’
‘Not that .’
‘Then what are you talking about?’ Alice raised her eyes to look at him. He was so close that with almost no effort she could reach out and flatten her palm on his chest, and right now there was nothing in the world she would rather do. It was confusing and bewildering, but felt stupidly right , as though there was some powerful electrical connection between them that had sprung from nowhere.
‘Bend over like that,’ he returned thickly. ‘Any red-blooded guy would have trouble resisting...’
‘Resisting what?’ Just saying those two words felt like the greatest act of daring she had ever undertaken. The challenge of breaking off her engagement faded in comparison. Alice had never been bold like this. She hadn’t been raised to ask sexually provocative questions.
A rush of liberating self-discovery flooded her. In not so many words, Mateo had laughed at the concept of a cosy relationship with a boring guy, had laughed at the idea of settling down at the tender of age of twenty-four, and naturally she had bristled in angry response. But this felt good. She was daring to stray from the straight and narrow and it felt great.
‘Touching. Want me to spell it out? Touching. Because I stood there at the door and saw you bending over and all I wanted to do was touch you.’
He shook his head, raked his fingers through his dark hair and shot her a frustrated look from under his lashes. ‘Apologies,’ he muttered. ‘Forget I said that.’
‘Maybe I don’t want to,’ Alice returned then, stretching recklessness to the point of no return, she did what she’d been itching to do and rested her hand on his chest.
His chest was all muscle under the sweater. She felt faint.
‘No?’ came a lazy drawl. His hand covered hers. ‘Then tell me, Alice Reynolds, what you do want...’
‘You.’
Had she really said that? Yes, she had, and it was more than liberating...it was empowering!
‘I want you , Mateo Whatever-your-last-name-might-be!’
‘Are you sure, Alice?’ This time his voice was utterly serious, giving her time and space to think, to reconsider, to walk away from something she might rashly have suggested. Alice appreciated that more than she could have said and she gave the question the consideration it deserved.
‘I’m sure.’ She met his eyes steadily, even though her heart was beating madly inside her and every nerve in her body was at breaking point. ‘I’ve never done anything like this before,’ she confessed in a staccato rush. ‘I guess you could say I’ve led a sheltered life.’
‘I think I’d already deduced that, which why I’m telling you right now that, if you want to walk away from this, then you can. I might have to take several cold showers to calm my erection, but so be it.’
‘Erection...’ She rolled that sexy word on her tongue and melted.
‘Would you like to have a feel of what I’m talking about, Alice Reynolds?’
‘You’ve probably slept with way more experienced women...’
‘You mean as the ski-instructor I’m not? You turn me on. And I’m not lying when I say that I can’t remember ever being turned on by any woman like this.’
‘Really?’
‘Too much talking!’ He groaned.
He took her hand and guided it to the bulge under his jeans. Alice closed her eyes and just wanted to pass out. She fumbled with the zip, eventually managed to tug it down, then she hooked her fingers into the waistband and daringly lowered the jeans.
She looked down at the black boxers and then circled his erection through the light cotton. It was thick and impressively big. She was so wet for him that her underwear felt irritating and uncomfortable, but the connection felt too strong to break. She was turned on even more by his groan of pleasure as she reached into his boxers to feel the muscle and sinew of his hardness. Raw instinct and driving desire replaced her lack of experience. She began to stroke him in long, regular slow strokes, watching as she touched, wanting to take him in her mouth so that the connection could get even stronger. Wanting him to do the same to her, to touch her and take her in his mouth.
‘I’m not going to be able to hold off if you keep doing that,’ he said hoarsely and then he scooped her up and began walking towards his bedroom. He carried her as though she weighed nothing. It was downright thrilling. He kicked shut the bedroom door behind them and then gently laid her on his bed as though she were a piece of delicate porcelain.
He pressed a remote and the shutters came down on the scene outside of snowy, grey twilight, leaving them in shadow. She was still fully dressed but now she watched as he shed what remained of his clothes, the jumper and the boxers, to stand completely naked in front of her. He was all gorgeous, rampant alpha male and, for tonight, all hers —a looming, heart-stopping invitation to untold pleasure.
‘Enjoying the view?’ He smiled and moved towards her. ‘My turn now...’