Corbin
Chapter Twelve
The Valley, Canada
I ’d been awake for what felt like hours when I finally felt Shelby stir, the feel of her sprawled across my back like a weighted hot water bottle.
She’d offered me Blake’s room, which I’d firmly refused given he was due back in two days and I couldn’t be sure the last time he’d changed his sheets.
But the only other option was exactly where I was. Where I wanted to be.
Which was waking in another new place, a new bed but with the comfortingly familiar presence cased across me, a leg wrapped through my own, an arm around my waist and her face pressed into my back.
Those rainbow bracelets she wore all the time tinkering anytime she moved, mixed with the steady breaths of her rest, meant I was entirely at peace.
I’d spent the last few hours doing whatever I could to make things easier for my little bed buddy and that began with transportation.
With the level of damage to her car, Blake said it was likely a write off and from the photos, that was probably for the best. The car looked as though it had been solid, but he’d done a nice number on the engine and while her brother needed her, getting a new one would be pushed aside.
But that was something I could organise.
It was the least I could do to say thank you for all she’d taught me.
I’d spent the last decade of my life working to live.
I didn’t even find my role as COO particularly interesting, but it was something I was good at because I had an eye for strategy.
Or so I’d been told. I interned at Titan, fresh out of university and within months I was managing a revenue department, before moving through and beyond the marketing and finance departments.
If there was a hole, I plugged it before transitioning to the next area which needed attention.
As such, I was known at work as Mr. Fix It .
The ever-reliable, always on-hand employee with a detail-oriented focus.
It was as challenging as it was rewarding, but it was at the expense of anything more in my life.
My friendship circle was small, consisting mostly of mates I’d met through the company, and the few partners I’d taken hadn’t lasted long because they were never my first priority.
It didn’t occur to me that this was a problem until recently.
Until I wondered how I would feel if something or someone took all of the attention of the woman currently blanketing my back while I fought for scraps.
Another unspoken epiphany I was currently refusing to give air time because when I realised I felt ready to shuffle my priorities, placing work second to the possibility of love, the shadowed woman who stood beside me was no longer anonymous.
Thoughts of one day marrying and living my days with someone were no longer a what if, because my mind had crafted its own drawing and it was with all of the very best colours.
That sketch, with it’s flowing brown hair and braceleted arm was very clearly the same woman laying atop of me now.
The same woman I think I’d loved since she shared her Kit Kats with me in kindergarten, always giving me the bigger half.
Or the one who laughed until she cried when I told her how I’d split my pants open doing high jump in high school in front of the entire grade.
My unapologetically blissful best-friend who smelt like blackcurrant and lychees and tasted like my greatest addiction.
But none of that mattered because in the time I’d spent organising a few things this morning, I’d received two emails from work and one of those included flight details to get me to New York in three days time and then home to Australia.
I would spend Christmas here and be home before the new year broke.
The pause from work and life wasn’t as timeless as I’d thought and the closing chapter was far too soon.
Something I would need to tell Shelbs today while I silently begged her to come with me and finish her trip.
I was going to do my best to ignore the ache of leaving and the impending doom of getting back on a plane, both without her by my side.
Focusing beyond the bedroom, from what I could see through the snow kissed window, the ground was coated in an untouched shimmering frost. The street looked vastly different in the daylight, wrapped in an icy stillness, it felt unreal, like waking up inside a snow globe and I basked in the beauty of it all.
I’d seen snow in the movies. In pictures and postcards, even in photos from my childhood, but never in reality.
Never less than five metres from me looking both sharp and soft, delicate yet dangerous and with Shelby on my back like a cape, it felt pretty fucking cool.
I wanted to get some weather appropriate clothing and explore, but I also wanted to keep watching from the warmth of this window, with my slow-rising woman by my side.
My woman. For three more days anyway.
When I finished in the shower last night, she was already fast asleep. I’d taken longer than planned, defrosting my bone-deep chill and then fisting my cock. Twice.
Once not enough to dissipate the memories of her stroking my thigh, gripping my balls, distracting me from the flight any way she could.
I’d given in to the unadulterated lust. A lust which began the minute I heard her voice at Melbourne airport.
The moment she spoke my name it felt as though taking leave and her arrival were serendipitous and had been eighteen years in the making.
A moment they make movies about or one which changes your life forever, and crazily, it felt true.
Her fingers began tracing patterns across my back alerting me to her consciousness and I closed my eyes, focusing on the gentle scrawl of her nails across my bare skin.
Even in the depths of a Canadian winter, I still slept shirtless, a habit I’d started as a teen and never been able to break.
And right now, I was grateful, because it was a rare occasion I could bask in the feel of Shelby without wondering where things were headed or how I was going to cope with being back at work. Alone.
I didn’t move, basking in the moment and even when she pressed a tender kiss to my back and quietly extricated herself from the covers, I kept my eyes closed, feigning sleep, only now feeling a lot less content.
We spent the morning acclimating to the cooler conditions, but wearing fourteen extra layers and not freezing my arse off, I felt more myself.
We’d collected the car I hired, after a brief argument because she found me ‘irritating’ for ignoring her offer to cover the cost and then headed straight to the department store so I could buy clothes.
I’d replaced my jumper after Shelby stole the one hoodie I’d brought from home and was now unapologetically claiming it for herself.
The sight of her in my jumper did unspeakable things to both my gut and lower parts of my body so I’d allowed it after a mild protest I’d put on purely for appearances.
“This is actually pretty good,” I admitted, taking a sip of my hot chocolate.
“Duh. Tim’s is the best. You positively cannot come to Canada without having a Double-Double,” she held her coffee up towards me and I took it from her grasp, taking a sip.
“It’s super sweet,” I grimaced, although the after taste was surprisingly nice .
“Exactly. The secret is in the double cream. So good. One time I almost had a kerfuffle with the server because she claimed there was double cream and there most certainly was not. I worked at Tims as a teenager, I know my drinks.”
I smiled. Australian Shelby was carefree, lackadaisical and unencumbered.
She loved getting unknowingly high and taking me along for the ride.
But Canadian Shelby was somehow even brighter.
Comfortable in the role of native, older sister and tour guide.
And ironically, given how majority of my life saw me overseeing initiatives and making decisions, playing passenger to her was a huge fucking turn-on and it was getting difficult to hide that awakening.
“So what are we doing now that I’m all rugged up?
” I asked, referring to my snow pants, boots and thermals.
There were decorations everywhere and with everything happening, I’d forgotten Christmas was now only two days away.
Mum and Dad had been happily surprised to hear about the impromptu trip overseas and I knew I was going to be sprayed with questions the first chance I gave them.
I’d also replied to Old Ed and frustratingly confirmed I would look into the spaces he’d found in NYC despite wishing I could ignore him forever.
“Blake hopefully comes home before the weekend and we will stay in for a roast, so I need to get supplies. But, I want to take you into town today. Show you a real white Christmas,” she grinned.
“Why only hopefully?” I asked, wondering why a hospital would want him to stay there over the holidays unless he absolutely needed to.
“Just waiting on clearance,” she gritted, running a hand through her hair. “They can be slow here, especially over the holidays.”
“I leave in three days.” The confession spewed from my mouth as if it knew I would never say it otherwise.
“What?” Shelby exclaimed, sadness sweeping across her features like a shadow before vanishing behind a careful mask of indifference .
She pulled into a carpark, switching off the engine before turning towards me. “How do you feel about this?” She asked tentatively. “I mean, you just got here.”