Chapter 4 Flynn
Flynn
I wake up alone in bed for the first time since she arrived. The sheets on her side are still warm, but she’s gone. I smell vanilla and brown sugar before I even open my eyes.
I pull on sweatpants and pad barefoot into the main room.
Imogen is at the counter in a flannel and a pair of my thick wool socks that swallow her legs past the knee.
Flour dusts one cheek. She’s rolling dough with fierce concentration, tongue poking out the corner of her mouth, humming “Jingle Bell Rock” so off-key it’s adorable.
There’s a bowl of emerald-green icing, a bowl of fire-engine red, and a cookie sheet already loaded with perfect little trees, stars, and one very suspicious snowman that looks like it’s flipping me off.
How she managed to do all of this with the food in my cabin amazes me.
I lean against the doorframe and watch her. My chest does that stupid, aching thing it’s been doing since the second she banged on my door with divorce papers.
“Having fun?” I ask.
She jumps, spins, and flings a pinch of flour at my chest. “Don’t sneak up on me! I’m in the zone. Items seven and eight are happening right now, and I’m rewriting them to be wholesome, because I am not wasting good frosting on your abs, no matter how lickable they are.”
“Lickable?” I grin, brushing flour off my bare skin.
“Shut up and get over here. You’re on piping duty.”
I cross the room, drop a kiss on the top of her flour-dusted head, and steal a taste of raw dough off the spoon. She swats my hand hard enough to sting.
“That’s salmonella roulette, mountain man.”
“Worth it.”
We bake together for the next hour. She shows me how to roll dough and how to load a piping bag.
It explodes once, and green icing shoots across the counter and lands in her hair like alien slime.
She laughs so hard she has to sit on the floor, knees to her chest, tears running.
I end up right there with her, back against the cabinets, her legs thrown over mine while we sample the icing.
We cut out reindeer that look drunk, stars that are more like blobs, and one very unfortunate snowman that ends up looking like a dick. She blames me. I blame her filthy mind. We name him Richard.
The first batch goes in the oven. The timer is set for twelve minutes.
That’s when I decide item six, sex pressed up a window, can’t wait another second.
I scoop her up, legs kicking in the air, and carry her to the big picture window that faces the valley. Snow is lashing the glass sideways, the storm a white blur of pure fury.
“Flynn, the cookies—”
“Need to bake for twelve minutes.”
I set her on the wide pine sill, yank the flannel over her head in one smooth motion, and press her bare front to the frosted window.
She gasps, the glass fogging in a perfect circle around her mouth. Her nipples tighten instantly against the ice, goosebumps racing across her skin like lightning.
“Hands flat,” I growl.
She obeys, palms smacking the cold pane. Outside, the wind screams like it wants in.
I drop to my knees behind her, spread her thighs, and drag my tongue through her in one slow, filthy lick. She cries out, hips jerking forward, forehead thumping the glass. I do it again, and again, until she’s shaking and begging and the window is a mess of handprints and breath clouds.
Only then do I stand, grip her hips, and slide home in one deep thrust.
The glass rattles with every stroke. Her tits drag across the frost, leaving wet streaks that freeze almost instantly. I watch her reflection in the clear strip at the top.
“Look at me,” I order.
She turns her head. Our eyes lock in the glass. I reach around, find her clit, and rub tight, ruthless circles while I fuck her hard and steady.
“Come while the world watches,” I tell her.
She does, screaming my name loud enough that the window vibrates. Her pussy clenching drags me over right behind her. I slam deep and stay there, spilling inside her with a groan that feels ripped out of my soul.
The oven timer chooses that exact second to ding.
We both start laughing. I pull out, spin her around, and kiss the hell out of her against the glass. Her legs are jelly, and I carry her back to the kitchen.
We rescue the cookies just in time. The edges are golden, the centers are still soft and gooey. I set her on the counter, pull the tray out with one hand, and keep her steady with the other.
She steals a star cookie still sizzling and blows on it, then holds it to my lips. I take a bite. It’s perfect.
We spend the rest of the morning decorating like children.
Green trees with red garlands piped in shaky lines, snowmen with crooked smiles, reindeer with one too many legs.
We eat warm cookies straight off the sheet, passing the spatula back and forth, arguing over whether the slightly charred ones taste better (they do).
When the counters are buried, and the cabin smells like vanilla and childhood, she declares numbers seven and eight officially complete.
We had only thought of one thing for those two numbers, eating off each other’s bodies, and had thought it was sexy at the time that we would take turns pleasuring each other with our mouths.
“It’s the wholesome edition,” she says, licking icing off her thumb. “We both sucked icing off each other's fingers, which technically fulfills the list item.”
I pull her into my lap on the couch, blanket around us, plate of cookies balanced between us. Snow is still raging outside, the little tree glowing in the corner with paper chains and zombie gingerbread men.
She’s quiet for a minute, tracing the raised scar on my forearm with one finger.
“What happens when the roads open, Flynn?”
The question hangs heavy between us.
I set the plate aside and pull her closer. “Used to think I’d stay up here forever. Keep the world out. Keep the noise out.” I press my lips to her temple. “That changed the second you walked through my door with those papers.”
She nods against my chest, but there’s worry in her eyes that she doesn’t quite hide.
“I don’t want to hide anymore,” I say quietly. “Not from you. Not from anything that comes with you. I want you, Imogen. The rest we figure out together.”
Her breath catches. “I don’t know where I belong,” she whispers. “I only know I belong with you.”
I tip her chin up. “Then that’s enough for now.”
She gives me a small, shaky smile, but it doesn’t quite reach her eyes.
We spend the rest of the day decorating the tree, eating more cookies than any two humans should, and pretending the unsigned divorce papers on the shelf above the stove exist.
I hang the carved walnut ornament I made in the exact center. She steps back, hands on her hips, surveying our crooked, zombie-infested masterpiece.
“Perfect,” she declares.
I pull her against me, arms around her waist, chin on her head. “Yeah. It is.”
Later, when the light turns lavender and the storm finally starts to slow, we sit on the floor in front of the fire with the last of the cookies and two mugs of spiked cocoa. She leans back against my chest, legs tangled with mine.
She’s quiet again, staring into the flames.
I kiss the top of her head. “Talk to me, Vixen.”
“I’m scared,” she says so softly I almost miss it. “I’m scared the second the roads open you’ll decide the mountain is easier without me. Or I’ll decide Denver is safer without you. And we’ll sign those papers and spend the rest of our lives pretending this was just a really good Christmas story.”
I tighten my arms around her. “I’m not signing anything.”
She twists to look at me, eyes glassy. “You say that now. But you built this life for a reason. You like quiet. You like being alone.”
“I like you more.”
She searches my face like she’s looking for the lie and doesn’t find it.
“I’m still scared,” she whispers.
“Me too,” I admit.
Eight down.
Four to go.