Chapter 15
It’s two in the morning, and I’m wrapped around Alexander like he’s the only solid thing in the universe.
We’re both naked under the blankets, my back pressed to his chest, his warmth bleeding into my skin.
Snow falls outside the window in soft, relentless drifts, the kind that turn Silverbell Hollow into a Christmas card.
The room is dark except for the faint glow from the neighbor's Christmas lights outside filtering through the curtains, just enough light to make out our reflection in the mirror across from the bed—and the pillow on the floor, the one I’d screamed into for the past three hours because my parents are asleep down the hall.
His fingers play with mine—threading through, separating, tracing the lines of my palm in idle patterns that should be soothing but somehow aren’t. There’s something deliberate about the touch, something possessive in the way he holds my hand like he’s memorizing the shape of it.
I’ve noticed this about him. When he’s idle, he touches me. A hand on my waist when we’re standing together. Fingers brushing my hair back. His thumb stroking circles on my hip while he reads. Like he can’t help himself. Like he needs the contact to breathe.
I like it more than I should.
My eyes drift to the mirror, and I catch sight of us—his body curled protectively around mine, his dark hair falling across his forehead, my skin flushed—And the marks. God, the marks. They’re everywhere. My neck, my shoulders, the curve of my breast visible above the blanket.
“You need to stop leaving marks on me,” I say, my voice rough from screaming his name.
His fingers still themselves on mine. “I can’t promise that.” The words are grave, weighted with something that makes my stomach flip. It’s not playful. It’s absolute.
I tilt my head back to look at him, demanding answers even though the angle is awkward. “And why not?”
His gray eyes meet mine, dark and intense even in the dim light. “Because I like marking you as mine.”
Before I can respond—before I can even process the possessive rasp in his voice—his hand moves to one of the marks on my shoulder, touching it with his thumb in a gesture that’s both tender and claiming.
Then his fingers slide to my jaw, gripping firmly, angling my face up as his mouth descends on mine.
The kiss is immediately demanding. His tongue sweeps into my mouth with the confidence of a man who knows exactly what he’s doing, and I arch back into him, my hand coming up to grip his hair. His other hand starts traveling south from underneath me, fingers skating over my ribs, my hip—
I catch his wrist, breaking the kiss with a gasp. “No.”
He freezes. “Olivia—”
“If you touch me again,” I say, my voice shaking slightly, “I will actually kill you. You haven’t let me rest for three hours, Alexander. Three. Hours.”
He makes a rueful face, something almost boyish in the way his mouth quirks. “Fine.”
“You have some audacity,” I say, twisting in his arms so I can glare at him properly, “looking upset when you’ve had your way with me nonstop.”
“It’s not my fault you’re so addictive.” His hand moves to my hip, holding me in place. “And I have six years of making up to do.”
My heart is a mess. It trips over itself in my chest, stumbling in a way that should terrify me more than it does. Because I know what this is. I know what’s happening.
I’m falling for him.
I always thought love was supposed to unfold slowly, like pages turning in a book you’re meant to savor. But with Alexander, there’s no slow build. I’m just falling and falling, with no idea when I’ll hit the ground.
Now that everything is out in the open—now that I know he’s wanted me for six years, that every cold dismissal and professional distance was him trying not to cross a line—I feel lighter. Like I’ve been carrying a weight I didn’t know existed.
But I’m also terrified. My heart is unsteady, and he’s all I can think about. When I wake up, when I fall asleep, in every moment between. Alexander with his devastating smile and his careful hands and his absolute certainty that I belong to him.
He kisses my cheek, soft and almost sweet. “I need to discuss something with you.”
I blink, trying to shift gears from the emotional chaos in my chest to actual conversation. “What?”
His hand stills on my hip, his expression going serious. “It’s not a tasteful topic, but I don’t want to surprise you.”
I look at him suspiciously, searching his face. “Okay...”
“The party at your uncle’s house,” he says carefully, watching me. “It’s Amber’s proposal party.”
I stiffen against him. “What?”
“They’ve kept it hush-hush, but that’s why Amber was so desperate to get you back to town. She wants to—” He pauses, his jaw tightening. “She wants to make a spectacle of it. To humiliate you.”
For a moment, I don’t feel anything. Just a strange, hollow numbness where hurt should be. Then anger floods in, hot and sharp.
“I’m not surprised,” I say flatly. “That sounds exactly like something Amber would do. The grand proposal in front of everyone, and I’m supposed to stand there and watch.
Let the whole town see if I’ll crack.” I shake my head, disgust curling through me.
“It’s pathetic. She’s still so obsessed with proving she won that she can’t even enjoy her own engagement without making it about me. ”
“Olivia—”
“I can’t get out of it,” I continue, my voice hardening. “It’s not just the town. Half my family is coming. My cousins, my aunts and uncles. If I skip it, everyone will think she got to me. That I care.”
“I’m not going to let her humiliate you.”
I twist to look at him properly, frowning. “Alexander—”
“I have something planned.”
My frown deepens. “I told you I don’t want to waste energy on them. They’re irrelevant. I don’t want to give them the satisfaction of thinking they matter enough to react to.”
“You’re right,” he says calmly. “But I’m not going to sit by and watch my girl get humiliated, even if she doesn’t care. Amber and Chase have hurt you repeatedly. They’re still trying to hurt you. So I intend to take revenge.”
My girl.
The words hit me straight in the chest, fierce and protective and everything I shouldn’t want but desperately do.
“What do you have planned?” I ask warily.
His mouth curves slightly. “I want to tell you. But I also want to surprise you.” He studies my face, his thumb stroking my cheekbone. “It’s your choice.”
I think about it. Part of me wants to demand answers, to know exactly what he’s going to do so I can prepare.
But another part—a bigger part—trusts him.
Trusts that whatever he has planned, it won’t make things worse.
That he’ll protect me the way he’s been protecting me since the moment we arrived in Silverbell Hollow.
“I want to be surprised,” I say finally.
His eyebrows rise slightly, like he wasn’t expecting that answer.
“But,” I add, narrowing my eyes, “will it be a bad surprise?”
“When the time comes,” he says carefully, “you can decide.” He pauses, searching my face. “If you’re worried, I can tell you now.”
I look at him—really look at him. At the intensity in his eyes, the set of his jaw, the way he’s watching me like I’m the only thing that matters in the world. “No,” I say softly. “I trust you.”
Then I kiss him.
It’s meant to be brief, a simple press of lips to seal my decision. But the moment our mouths meet, something shifts. His hand tightens on my hip, and I feel the rumble of a growl in his chest.
“Olivia,” he warns, his voice dropping to that dark register that makes my thighs clench.
I smile against his mouth, kissing him deeper, letting my tongue sweep against his. “What?”
“You’re playing with fire.”
“Maybe I like the burn.”
He growls—actually growls—and flips me onto my back in one smooth motion. I laugh, the sound breathless and surprised, because I’d known exactly what would happen. I’d wanted to break his self-restraint, to push him past that careful control.
“You think this is funny?” he murmurs, settling between my thighs, his mouth finding my neck.
“I think,” I gasp as his teeth graze my pulse point, “that you’re very predictable.”
His laugh is dark, dangerous. “Predictable. We’ll see about that.”
His mouth moves lower, kissing and nipping its way down my body. When he reaches my hip, he pauses, looking up at me with eyes gone dark with intent.
“Alexander—”
“You broke my self-restraint,” he says, his voice silk and sin. “Now you get to deal with the consequences.” His gaze flicks to the pillow on the floor, then back to me, wicked and knowing. “And there’s no pillow to muffle your screams now. Better use your hand, darling, or your parents will hear.”
Then his mouth is on me, and I arch off the bed with a cry that I have to immediately smother with my palm. His hands grip my thighs, holding them open, and his tongue does absolutely devastating things that make coherent thought impossible.
“Alexander,” I whimper against my hand, my other hand fisting in the bed sheet beside me.
He hums against me, the vibration making me gasp. His fingers join his mouth, and I’m lost, drowning in sensation, in the skilled, relentless way he takes me apart.
When I come, it’s with his name muffled against my palm and stars behind my eyes.
He doesn’t stop. Just gentles his touch, drawing out my orgasm until I’m trembling and oversensitive. Then he moves up my body, kissing every inch of skin he can reach, until his mouth finds mine in a kiss that tastes like me and him and us.
“I could live like this,” I whisper against his lips, my body still shaking with aftershocks.
His arms tighten around me. “Good.”
And as I drift toward sleep an hour later, with his heart beating steady beneath my ear, I don't fight the contentment that settles over me like a blanket.
* * *
The next couple of days pass in a blur of happiness I didn’t know I was capable of feeling.