10. Lee
Chapter 10
Lee
W as there anything better than waking up with a gorgeous woman with delicious curves in your arms? If there was, I couldn’t think of it, not with Nix’s warmth and the way she buried her face in my chest in her sleep as if she couldn’t get enough of me. It was a damned addictive feeling, being wanted so completely. Maybe it was because she didn’t want to want me but she did anyway, that kept me feeling off-center. Maybe it was that she’d taken the time to get to know me even though she disliked me.
This can’t last. I knew it and I had a feeling she did too, but for the past three days we’d been in this little bubble while the storm raged outside. But this morning the wind wasn’t quite as loud and obnoxious and it looked as if the sun was trying to peek between the clouds, both sure signs the storm was raging with a lot less ferocity than the previous three days.
I closed my eyes, determined to luxuriate in the feel of her arms wrapped around me and the way she pressed little kisses to my chest while she slept. It had been three days of bliss. Three days of getting lost in her beautiful body and getting to know each other.
Three days of perfect.
When she woke up, Nix smiled at me as if she was happy to see me, which wasn’t a look I received often. “Good morning.”
“Good morning, Nix.” I smiled when she shivered at my greeting, or maybe it was the way my fingertips danced along her spine. “Sleep well?”
She nodded. “Incredibly well. You wore me out last night in the best way possible.” She stretched her muscles and moaned, the sound and the sight of her body had me hard already.
“I can’t believe the power is still out.” Not that I was in a hurry to leave, quite the opposite, but it made me wonder about the viability of my resort in a town with such poor infrastructure.
“Missing out on meetings and more world conquering?” Her tone was teasing but there was a bite to it.
“I’m sure there’s plenty I’ve missed with no phone or electricity, but isn’t it odd that the streets haven’t been plowed yet?”
She shrugged. “Not really, no. This is a small town and our emergency services consist of four patrol units, two fire trucks and one plow driven by one of our off-duty firefighters or his elderly father. It happens when it happens. That’s small town living for you.”
“But what if someone really needs to get out?”
“They shovel or they wait. I’m sure the Holiday Grove FD had plenty of other things to worry about during the storm. Knocked down power lines, car accidents and probably a few space heater emergencies. That takes precedence.” She sat up and stared at me. “You’re thinking about business aren’t you?”
Her tone was accusatory so I didn’t bother to deny it.
“Let me ask you a question.” Nix stood, stark naked with her arms folded, as if I could possibly concentrate when she stood like that.
“Ask away.” I motioned my hand between us in a flourish.
“What’s your ultimate goal with your business? I mean when will you feel like it’s enough? Is it money? Five billion? One hundred billion? Or is it about properties? One in every state? Every country? When will it end?” There was no accusation in her tone but I was offended nonetheless.
“Why is your goal more noble than mine?” I stood too so we were eye to eye.
She scoffed. “I’m trying to help people. Buying local, sustainably sourced ingredients means I help local farmers and other vendors while also not adding to the harming of the planet!”
“I employ people, thousands of them!”
“You don’t care about those people though, at least not more than giving them a job that helps make you more money. Your job, your goals are only about one thing, the bottom line.”
“I don’t have to care about them but I do, dammit. I pay my employees well, provide excellent benefits packages and my job allows them to feed their families, shelter them and send them to college. Is your bakery doing that?”
“Yes. I have two part-timers who are saving up for college, which they won’t be able to do when your resort puts all of us out of business. So hooray for your thousands of employees and screw the thousands of citizens of Holiday Grove, right?”
“You are so damn infuriating,” I growled.
“Yeah, well so are you,” she shouted back, breathing heavy, her eyes glazed with anger.
Beautiful. A low growl escaped when I stepped forward and held her face in my hands, devouring her mouth not to shut her up and stop the argument but because I just couldn’t help myself. She was so damn fiery, so beautiful when she was all riled up.
She didn’t push me away, she kissed me back with all of the raw need that I possessed too. It was a hot kiss and it took nothing more than a few flicks of my tongue for her to jump in my arms, skin to skin, as we made out like teenagers.
Soon, it wasn’t enough and I dropped to my knees and lowered Nix to her back before I slid into her hot, wet center. “Fuck,” I growled and pulled out, sinking in even deeper the second time around.
She didn’t look away while we came together, almost daring me to break eye contact first but I couldn’t. I wouldn’t. She was too beautiful and I wanted her too much to look away. We didn’t agree on important things, this couldn’t last, but I wasn’t ready for it to end and I pounded into her in deep, possessive strokes that brought us both to the edge lightning quick. “Lee!”
She squeezed tight around me as her orgasm hit, her heels dug into the muscles of my ass as she rode out her pleasure, so beautiful as she chased down every last tremor. It was a sight to behold and I slammed into her over and over until she came again and took me with her.
Pleasure started at the base of my spine and rose until it exploded out of me in a powerful storm of want and need. I couldn’t stop moving within her even though we were both at the tail end of our pleasure. She felt too good. Together we were too good, explosive. My body sagged against hers and she took my weight. “Nix,” I whispered in her ear.
“Lee,” she whispered in response. “I wish…,” she began but she didn’t finish the sentence.
She didn’t need to. “Yeah, me too.”
We laid together for several silent minutes, catching our breath and deep in thought. The lights flickered a few times before they came back on.
It was good news but it was also the beginning of the end of whatever this was, whatever it could’ve been.
Those thoughts were front and center in my mind when I woke up the next day and heard a vaguely familiar scrapping sound outside. I knew what it was almost instinctively but I stayed as still as I could, unwilling to wake Nix and bring this—whatever it was—to an end.
“You hear that?” Her words are muffled against my chest, an edge of excitement to them that I couldn’t find within myself.
“I hear…something.”
“Sounds like JB or his son JT, have finally gotten around to plowing the roads on this side of town.” She moved in slow motion, removing her face from my chest to look at me. “You got your early Christmas wish. Freedom.”
Freedom was overrated. That was the first thought that came to mind at her words. “That wasn’t my wish Nix.”
“Wasn’t it?” One brow arched slightly higher than the other but there was an inquisitiveness in her gaze that told me my answer mattered to her.
“No. It was just curiosity.” Both personal and professional. “I could do with a few more days in here with you,” I admitted.
Her cheeks flushed prettily as she sat up and put some distance between us. “These few days have been great Lee. Really fucking great if I’m being honest. I didn’t know things could be like this.”
My heart pounded in my chest. “Hell neither did I.”
“Yeah?”
I nodded. “But it sounds like you’re saying goodbye. Why?” Probably because she realized the same thing I did after last night’s fight.
“Because you are who you are and I am who I am, and neither of those things will change anytime soon.” She wore a sad smile as she rolled her eyes. “The first guy I like and it’s impossible.”
“I don’t think it’s impossible.”
“That’s because you’re still on a sex high. But how long will one or both of us get tired of having the same argument over and over? It’ll become exhausting and eventually we’ll hate each other.” She sounded sad about it, which gave me some hope.
“Or we morph into mature adults who can talk out their differences?”
Her smile was so torn I felt my own heart rip in half. “What can we talk about? I love Holiday Grove. I am Holiday Grove and there’s a real chance that your big, wonderful resort will put me and my friends out of business.”
She was right, of course. But that wasn’t what I wanted to hear from her lush lips. “I reserve the right to prove you wrong.”
“I really wish you could but I fear it’s impossible.” She gasped at the sound of the harsh knock on the front door. “I’ll get that.” She wiped her eyes and stepped into the discarded pajamas on the sofa. “JB,” she smiled wide. “Thanks for getting around to this side of town. I’m sure you’ve been busy the last twenty-four hours.”
“More than busy. I plan to sleep for a week once all the powder is cleared. You all right in here? I found an abandoned car up the road.”
I stepped behind Nix and extended my arm to the silver haired man. “That would be mine. The snow caught me coming back from the airport and I swung it into a ditch.”
The old man was sharp, taking in our clothes and overall appearance with a smirk. “If you want I can give you a ride to town. I’ve already called the tow truck.”
“You did? Thanks, I’d love a ride.” This town really was too good to be true.
“All right, then. I need to plow up another mile or so and I’ll swing back around for you. Ten minutes. Be ready.” He eyed me closely, nodded and then trekked back down the stairs.
“I guess this is it,” Nix said as she turned to me with a sad smile. “Thank you for keeping me company, Lee.”
“It was my pleasure, Nix. I’ll see you around. That’s a promise.”
“Don’t make promises you can’t keep, Mr. Lancaster.”
When she called me that, I wanted to prove her wrong. “I don’t. Not ever.” Our gazes connected for a long moment and I hoped she saw how sincere I was in my desire to see her again.
With no time to waste, I changed into my own clothes, packed the others to wash and headed to the door. I waited for Nix to appear, certain she’d want a proper goodbye but she never reappeared and when JB honked his horn I knew I was out of time.
It was goodbye for now, no matter what she thought.