Page 44 of Candy Canes & Peppermint Kisses

The front door was open, but there was a screened-in one in front of it, and I brought my knuckles down on the wooden frame before taking a step back and clutching my bag to my chest as if it were a shield.

I couldn’t see very well into the house with the screen and the shadows, but I could smell the scent of lemon, pine, and something deeply masculine, something that triggered a memory. The sound of heavy footfalls came through and drew my focus to the present.

A massive body rounded the corner, and although he was still shrouded in shadows, I felt that prickle on the back of my neck intensify. He didn’t move for a second, which I found a little bit odd, as if he were sizing me up. Maybe he was. Maybe he wanted to get a good look at me as the prospective renter who would be in his house. Although compared to a man of his size, I wasn’t sure how much of a threat I’d ever be.

My heart started beating fast when he stepped forward, and the closer he came, when the shadows didn’t conceal him any longer, I heard my sharp inhale of breath as I got a good look at his face, and recognition slammed into me.

Tristan Black.

Although I didn’t reallyknowhim, nothing that would have caused this instant tightness in my body, and hadn’t even had a full conversation with Tristan, I had seen him plenty of times while living in Cherry Falls.

When I'd been a little girl, he’d seemed larger than life when I’d seen him in town, this massive man who looked like he could crush bones with his bare hands. The older I got, I saw him as something more of a protector, a man who might look scary, but in his eyes I’d seen something softer.

And then that awe I’d felt when I saw him faded to something more carnal on the night of my going away to college party, when my eighteen-year-old self noticed him in the shadows watching me, and my body lit up and ached with something I'd never experienced before.

I exhaled slowly as my traitorous body lit up the closer he came. My body softened more at the scent of him filling my nose, making me dizzy and feeling drunk.

He was big and strong, almost imposing in his size. His shoulders were so broad that I swore he filled the entire doorway. His eyes were so dark, almost black, but I didn’t know if it was the actual color or because the pupils were so dilated.

I didn’t know how long we stood there staring at each other, our gazes locked almost intimately, but it felt like an eternity, a moment frozen in time. One I wasn’t too quick to end because it made me feelfunnythings… warm things.

And then he was pushing open the screen door, and I had to remind myself to breathe. I might not have reallyknownTristan Black, but looking into his rugged face, the scruff that covered his cheeks and jaw, the way he made my heart beat a little bit faster simply by standing there, it felt like I’d been waiting for this moment for a very long time.

It was like I’d been waiting to see him.

It was the strangest feeling in the world, and one I shouldn’t have let consume my thoughts. I should’ve been terrified about them, yet it felt like it was so… right in some inexplicable way.

“Well—” I breathed out on an exhale and felt a little embarrassed because it might’ve seemed dramatic. “You were the last person I expected to see today.” I gave an awkward laugh and immediately felt my face heat.

The corner of his mouth twitched as if he found it amusing, or more so, he found me funny. I couldn’t help but feel how my face got even hotter. I was embarrassed, felt nervous and anxious, and found myself picking at a loose thread on my bag, shuffling back and forth on my feet.

I wanted to tell myself to stop, to ask why the hell I was acting like this, why I couldn’t control myself. He pushed the door open a little more, and I gathered my composure. I moved past him, my shoulder brushing against his chest, the feel of all those hard slabs of muscle underneath his T-shirt making me feel especially achy between my thighs. I stopped when I got fully into the foyer and heard the screen door close, the frame banging shut and seeming almost… final.

I turned around to face him, the shadows in the house from the way the windows were positioned, from how the sun hung in the sky, made things seem a little hazy, a little less real.

“Do you want to do this in the kitchen?”

I felt my eyes widen and my heart rate pick up at his words, my mind immediately going into the gutter. I ducked my head, letting the shoulder-length fall of my blond hair hopefully conceal my no doubt tomato red face.

I nodded but didn’t look at him, and a second later he moved past me, and I couldn’t help but take note again at how big his body was, how hard and broad his shoulders and chest were, how extremely masculine every inch of Tristan Black was.

I followed him into the kitchen, and he pulled out the chair at the two-seater table for me. I hated that I was so nervous, that my legs felt wobbly, my knees kind of locking up. I tried not to look around at his place, to be nosy, but it was hard not taking notice of his home.

The kitchen had a rustic flair to it, yet it was modernized, with exposed beams crossing along the ceiling, natural hardwood flooring that was polished and smelled like lemon beneath my feet. The appliances were stainless steel, the countertops a marbleized white granite. There was only a coffee machine on the top of that granite, a bowl of bananas and apples across from that.

I didn’t know what I expected, how I expected his home to be, but looking at a man as big and rugged as Tristan, this certainly wasn’t what I expected.

“I—” I cleared my throat and focused on Tristan again. “I have references, background on where I’ve rented, things like that.” I held out the papers, but he was shaking his head.

“I don’t need any of that.”

I lifted my eyebrows before furrowing them in confusion. “You don’t want them?” A moment of panic settled in me that I’d screwed this up before it even started, that I’d inadvertently offended him maybe.

“I don’t need them because the room is yours.”

The air stilled in my lungs. “But you don’t know anything about me.” The words were low, maybe too low for him to hear me, but he leaned forward and rested his forearms on the table, his smile slow, soft even. Well, as soft as a man like Tristan could be.

“I know you, Dolly.”

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