Chapter 22
22
Aaron
I wrap my arms around Holly and place a kiss on her head. “Warmer now?”
She smiles up at me. “Not quite. Damn, Scotland is cold.”
“Would a kiss help?”
“Hmmm, I think it could.”
I slide my hand to the small of her back and tug her flush against my chest. Her eyes flash with heat. Every time she looks at me with that desire and something I like to think as more than just lust, I melt. I dip my head and tug at her bottom lip with my teeth before soothing the small nip with my tongue. She presses firmer into me, and I have no doubt she can feel my cock hardening. When she giggles against my lips, I pull back and raise an eyebrow at her. “And what might I ask is so funny?”
“I get a kick out of your body’s reaction to me. That’s all.”
“Can I help it that you’re unbelievably sexy?”
She bites down on her lip. “I mean, I suppose not.”
Out of everything Holly and I have experienced together the past few weeks, I think watching her grow in confidence has been the most rewarding to me. Don’t get me wrong, I love fucking Holly and staying up ’til the wee hours talking to her about her hopes and dreams and her life back home. But I’ve seen her go from highly strung and anxious a lot of the time to mellowed out. I think her list has a lot to do with her gaining confidence, and I’ve been coaxing her to ask for what she wants during sex more. Her confidence is fucking sexy.
“How’s that sweet arse of yours doing?”
She blushes. “I did need to sit on an extra pillow when I braided my hair this morning.”
“That’s what you get for not using your safe word.”
“I think I need to permanently lose that safe word if last night is a result of not using it.”
“You like it, did you?”
“I sure did. I’ll have to be a brat more often.”
“Baby, I’m counting on it.”
“All right, you two. Less heavy petting and more heavy lifting,” Mam calls out.
I groan and Holly laughs. “Now whose blushing?”
I press my lips close to her ear. “If my mother knew what I was doing to you last night, she would’ve chosen her words better.”
We move the firewood from the large pile I cut this morning to each of the bonfires placed at the edge of the fence. It gives us a large area for the snowman competition and a place for people to thaw out when they need to.
“I cannae believe he has you lifting these heavy piles of wood, Holly.” George rushes over with his roll-up in his mouth and takes it from Holly.
“It’s all right, George. I don’t mind at all. Keeps me strong for when I have to keep Aaron in line.”
Aaron snorts. “I guess someone’s looking for a repeat performance.”
“Like I just said.”
He laughs and George goes to stub out his smoke.
People start arriving in crowds soon after that, and I’m ridiculously happy. We’ll do well in the pub tonight, and we’re fully booked thanks to the contest. We’ve even had to move Holly into my room for the foreseeable future. Not that either of us are complaining—or getting any sleep.
We wait another thirty minutes for everyone to arrive and get settled, then I grab the mic. “Thank you all for being here for our second snowman-building competition.” I nod at Holly.
“I hope you brought all your crafting goodies to make your snowman the very best snowman you can make.” The crowd hollers and screams and whistles at Holly’s question.
“All right, so as you know, you have fifteen minutes to create your very best snowman according to the theme we pull from the hat,” I say. “The kiddies will be around the back with our volunteers—thanks, Angelica, Bridgette and Caitlin.” They receive a round of applause and take a bow. “Has everyone got their partners?”
Holly and I glare at each other from opposing teams.
“You’re going down.” She gives me the universal sign for I’m watching you . “Okay, the category for this contest is book characters.”
I groan. “This is rigged. We all know Holly had something to do with this.”
Holly shoots me a sly smile. “Well, if you’d learn to read you wouldn’t be so worried.”
Everyone bursts out laughing.
“So, it’s going to be like that now, is it?”
She cracks her knuckles.
George leans down. “Never you mind, wee lass. He’s just a sore loser.”
“I haven’t lost yet.”
“Okay, everyone, are you ready?” Holly asks.
I look at my mother. “Ready, Mam?”
She nods. “Aye.”
We get to work on our snowman. Even though we don’t have much with us out here, I have an idea. Leaning over, I whisper into Mam’s ear. “Let’s do Holly.”
“How do you figure we do that?”
“We can either use one of her coats in the bar or one of your housecoats.”
“I have a housecoat ready for the wash, let’s do that.”
We both break to go grab things to make our snowman into Holly. When I get back, I look over to her and George. They’re wrapping crepe paper around the snowman. When Holly catches me watching her, she scowls at me. “Hey, mind your damn business.”
I chuckle and bow. “I’ll keep my eyes to myself if you do the same.”
“It’ll be tough with the sexy ass of yours, but I’ll do my best.”
George mutters something about not signing up for all the flirting, but he’s grinning. “C’mon, lassie. There’ll be plenty time for banter after we wipe the floor with your fella.”
Holly jumps around and keeps wrapping the paper around her snowman. The paper is going to dissolve, but who am I to give my opponent tips?
Mam comes back with the housecoat, and I’m nearly finished building the snowman. We drape the housecoat around the torso, then I grab a couple of sticks for hands and place a book on the sticks. It takes a while to get the arms to steady with the weight of the book so I run in and get a pages of what she said was her outline. I hope she won’t kill me for using these.
To add the finishing touches, I place a holly wreath on top of the snowman’s head.
“Two minutes to go!” one of the judges call out.
Mam gets to work doing the face while I make a plaque at the base of the snowman.
“Time!”
Everyone steps back from the snowmen. I look over at Holly’s. God, the imagination on this girl. The crepe paper has stained the snow light and dark purple like the Cheshire cat from Alice in Wonderland. Its mouth is made from marshmallows, and they’ve even made the tail.
I clap my hands. “Well done, Trouble. Makes sense you’d do something like this.” Because I can’t take another minute of not touching her, I scoop her into my arms and swing her around. “Hit it out the park.”
The judges start moving around to start scoring and Holly stands on her tiptoes to look at ours. “What did you make?”
“I’m not telling. You have to guess.”
She walks over and as she sees her notepad. She whips around and her eyes land on mine. “Is this supposed to be me?”
“You tell me.”
“It’s my outline and the housecoat. “Very funny.” She punches me in the shoulder. I should be used to it by now because it’s pretty much a daily occurrence, but I’m not. “Don’t kill me yet.” I point to the plaque. When she sees what I wrote, she turns around, her hands steepled over her mouth and her eyes brimming with tears.
Mam comes over and pulls her into a hug. “NYT bestselling author. That’s going to be on your books one day, hen. We believe in you.”
When my mum steps away, Holly wraps her arms around my waist. “That plaque saved your life.”
“I thought you’d want to see yourself in your favourite outfit.”
She laughs. “I love you.”
The minute the words leave her mouth, her eyes go wide, and she swallows hard. My heart thunders in my throat, and my hands start shaking.
“I…I’m sorry. That was probably too soon and unfair given?—”
I cup her face and kiss her long and hard. When I pull away, I wipe the tears off her cheeks. Only when she does the same for me do I realise I’m crying too. “I’ve been wanting to tell you this since the day you stepped off that plane. Holly, I love you. I think I’ve loved you since you punched me in the nose for calling you Trouble when you broke Mr. Adams window with the cricket ball.”
“I should punch you in the nose again now for making me say it first.”
“How about you kiss me instead?”
She cocks her head. “I suppose I could.”
My chuckle is smothered when her lips crash against mine. When the kiss ends, we walk over to the drinks table.
Holly hands me a mug of hot chocolate. “I haven’t had this much fun in a long time.”
I raise my eyebrows. “Oh, really? I’ll have to up my game.”
She shoulder-checks me like she always does. “You know what I mean.”
“Let’s pretend I don’t, and you can show me later.” I shoot her a wink.