Chapter 14
Niko
Itried to tell myself I wasn’t expecting shit tonight but food, a few drinks, and a room full of muthafuckas I didn’t plan on talking to.
That was the story I kept running with, but the truth was, a part of me came hoping she’d be here.
I refused to say that shit out loud, not to Victoria, not to myself, but it was there, buried under every excuse I made about “needing a break.” I hadn’t stopped thinking about this place since the day I left it, hadn’t stopped wondering if she’d ever come back.
Victoria and I flew in from Dallas early this morning, rode in silence most of the way to the resort, and checked into separate cabins like two coworkers sharing a project, not an “engaged” couple.
She showed up at the mixer for the free wine, I showed up because liquor was the only thing that kept my mind from spinning in circles.
I barely got two steps inside the lodge before something in the air shifted.
I felt it, then I looked up and eyes locked in on her.
And we saw each other in the same instant.
Elise was here in the flesh. The woman who’d lived in the corners of my mind for some time now.
. The one who left my sanity a mess after one week I never fully recovered from.
The one whose real name I still didn’t know, but whose body I remembered in detail, and damn… she looked even better now.
That deep green dress did something to me the second I saw her.
It hugged her body tight, pulling in at her waist and hitting her hips in a way that made them look even fuller than last year.
Her breasts sat higher too, perky, round, and damn near impossible not to notice.
Everything about her looked softer, thicker…
better. Everything in the room seemed to stop while we eyed each with eyes full of something neither of us could describe.
It lasted no more than a minute but it seemed like hours.
My feet had a mind of their own and moved towards her.
I couldn’t let the chance pass me by without finding out who she was and telling her how I felt.
“There you are,” Victoria said, stepping into my line of view. Her fingers brushing my arm. “I was looking for—”
I didn’t catch a damn thing after that. Her voice faded out like background noise. I glanced back Elise and she was gone. There was no trace of her. It was like the spot she’d been standing in had never been occupied at all.
“Everything okay?” Victoria asked.
“Yeah,” I lied, still looking around the room.
She kept talking about some kind of yoga class she wanted us to attend but I wasn’t stuttin none of that shit.
My mind was already somewhere else entirely, running through every possibility of where she went, why she disappeared the second another woman touched me.
By the time I stepped outside, the cold hit me straight in the chest. My pulse was still thudding, hard and uneven.
I checked the lobby… nothing. Then the hallway that led toward the cabins, still nothing.
I walked a little farther down the path, breath fogging in the air as I searched shadows and doorways, but she was nowhere to be found.
Either she moved fast… or she didn’t want to be found by me at all.
Victoria stepped in front of me before I could walk back out into the cold, blocking my path with her hand on my arm.
“What happened?” she asked. “And don’t give me that ‘nothing’ bullshit. I know you.”
My jaw flexed. I didn’t want to say it out loud, but the pressure behind my ribs was too damn tight to hold.
“I saw her,” I said.
Victoria’s expression shifted. “Her… meaning drunk-night- ‘Elise’ her?”
I nodded once.
“And she saw you too?”
“Yeah.” The word escaped my throat. “She looked right at me. Then turned around and hauled ass out of here.”
Victoria’s mouth parted. “Damn.”
“She probably thinks you’re my wife or some shit,” I muttered. “The way you walked up on me… she didn’t know what the fuck was happening.”
“Well, shit,” she sighed. “Yeah… that’ll do it.”
I ran a hand over my beard, pacing a slow line. My pulse was still too loud for me to think straight.
“She didn’t even let me say shit or try to explain,” I said.
Victoria gave me a look that was way too level-headed for the way my chest felt. “Okay. Let me be real with you, Frost. Right now, you’re wired, frustrated, and ready to bulldoze this place looking for her. That’s not going to help.”
“I need to talk to her.”
“Not like this you don’t,” she said. “You look two seconds from snapping somebody’s neck. You want her to actually listen to you? Catch her when you’re not running on adrenaline.”
I stopped pacing but didn’t look at her. I didn’t want to admit that she was right.
Victoria softened her voice just enough.
“You came all the way back up this mountain. You think she doesn’t feel something too?
She didn’t vanish. She didn’t go home. She just got overwhelmed.
Hell, I would too if I saw a man I fucked all week standing with a woman wearing a ring.
” I closed my eyes. That hit harder than I expected.
“She’s still here,” Victoria said. “Go back to your cabin. Sleep. Wake up early. Look for her when your head’s clear.”
I stood there, breathing slow, trying to swallow the urge to sprint back through every hallway until I found her.
“She ran from me,” I said quietly.
“And you’re chasing her tomorrow,” she replied. “That’s the plan. Now go before you scare the damn guests.”
I let out a deep sigh, turned, and headed for the door without another word. The cold air slapped me the second I stepped outside. I walked back to my cabin, the whole time replaying the way she looked at me, surprised and hurt.
By the time I made it back to my cabin, I was wired.
Too tight to sit still, too wound up to think straight.
I paced the floor twice, jaw clenched, breath coming slow and uneven.
When I finally dropped onto the edge of the bed and pressed my hands to my face, the quiet didn’t calm a damn thing, it made everything louder…
every memory, every picture of her in that dress, every thought I tried to bury for the past twelve months. I needed a reset.
Something to cut through the tension burning under my skin.
I peeled off my clothes on the way to the bathroom, dropping them where they fell.
The second the hot water hit my back and the steam rose up around me, it didn’t calm a damn thing.
How could it? Every time I closed my eyes, she showed up in perfect detail.
The warm wet feeling of her mouth, those little gasp she made when I was deep inside her, the slow grind of her riding me in that tub, water spilling everywhere while she held onto my shoulders…
her pussy gripping me so tight like she never wanted to let go.
Memory after memory hit me hard, and each one made the throbbing weight between my legs heavier.
“Fuck,” I muttered.
One hand braced against the tile, I wrapped the other around my hard, thick dick that was already oozing precum.
The first stroke had me damn near losing my balance.
I groaned tilting my head back as the water ran down my face My grip tightened, dragging my hand from the base to the tip, slow, squeezing pressure that had me sucking in air like I forgot how to fuckin’ breath.
I saw her in my mind… knees on the cold tile, hair wet down her back, her mouth open and her tongue circling the tip of my dick.
The vision had me stroking harder. The rough, wet sound echoed off the shower walls as my fist pumped over my shaft.
Her voice filled my head: “Niko—oh my God—don’t stop… please don’t stop—”
I thrusted into my hand, chasing the way her pussy used to milk every inch of me. Water hit my chest, my muscles tensed.
“Elise—” I growled.
My body jerked forward as cum spilled across my hand, my stomach and the tile floor, uncontrollable.
I stood there shaking, breath ragged and pressed my forehead to the wall while the water washed everything off my skin but not off my mind.
When the aftershocks eased and I washed up and stepped out.
I walked over to the sink and wiped the fog off the mirror.
The same truth stared back at me: I was fucked.
Completely. She was back on this mountain, and one look at her had every part of me lit up like I hadn’t gone a damn day without craving her.
I walked out the bathroom and sat on the edge of the bed, towel hanging around my waist, palms digging into my knees.
I still couldn’t breathe right. I wanted answers.
I wanted to know why seeing her again felt like the oxygen was leaving my body.
Her running meant she had to feel the same thing that I was feeling.
One thing I knew for sure… tomorrow, I was finding out.
No more running or hiding behind the past. She came back to Winter Haven for a reason and I wasn’t leaving without finding out exactly what the hell that reason was.