Page 16 of Snowed in with the Enemy

“I’m sure there’s plenty I’ve missed with no phone or electricity, but isn’t it odd that the streets haven’t been plowed yet?”

She shrugged. “Not really, no. This is a small town and our emergency services consist of four patrol units, two fire trucks and one plow driven by one of our off-duty firefighters or his elderly father. It happens when it happens. That’s small town living for you.”

“But what if someone really needs to get out?”

“They shovel or they wait. I’m sure the Holiday Grove FD had plenty of other things to worry about during the storm. Knocked down power lines, car accidents and probably a few space heater emergencies. That takes precedence.” She sat up and stared at me. “You’re thinking about business aren’t you?”

Her tone was accusatory so I didn’t bother to deny it.

“Let me ask you a question.” Nix stood, stark naked with her arms folded, as if I could possibly concentrate when she stood like that.

“Ask away.” I motioned my hand between us in a flourish.

“What’s your ultimate goal with your business? I mean when will you feel like it’s enough? Is it money? Five billion? One hundred billion? Or is it about properties? One in every state? Every country? When will it end?” There was no accusation in her tone but I was offended nonetheless.

“Why is your goal more noble than mine?” I stood too so we were eye to eye.

She scoffed. “I’m trying to help people. Buying local, sustainably sourced ingredients means I help local farmers and other vendors while also not adding to the harming of the planet!”

“I employ people, thousands of them!”

“You don’t care about those people though, at least not more than giving them a job that helps makeyoumore money. Your job, your goals are only about one thing, the bottom line.”

“I don’t have to care about them but I do, dammit. I pay my employees well, provide excellent benefits packages and my job allows them to feed their families, shelter them and send them to college. Is your bakery doing that?”

“Yes. I have two part-timers who are saving up for college, which they won’t be able to do when your resort puts all of us out of business. So hooray for yourthousandsof employees and screw the thousands of citizens of Holiday Grove, right?”

“You are so damn infuriating,” I growled.

“Yeah, well so are you,” she shouted back, breathing heavy, her eyes glazed with anger.

Beautiful. A low growl escaped when I stepped forward and held her face in my hands, devouring her mouth not to shut her up and stop the argument but because I just couldn’t help myself. She was so damn fiery, so beautiful when she was all riled up.

She didn’t push me away, she kissed me back with all of the raw need that I possessed too. It was a hot kiss and it tooknothing more than a few flicks of my tongue for her to jump in my arms, skin to skin, as we made out like teenagers.

Soon, it wasn’t enough and I dropped to my knees and lowered Nix to her back before I slid into her hot, wet center. “Fuck,” I growled and pulled out, sinking in even deeper the second time around.

She didn’t look away while we came together, almost daring me to break eye contact first but I couldn’t. I wouldn’t. She was too beautiful and I wanted her too much to look away. We didn’t agree on important things, this couldn’t last, but I wasn’t ready for it to end and I pounded into her in deep, possessive strokes that brought us both to the edge lightning quick. “Lee!”

She squeezed tight around me as her orgasm hit, her heels dug into the muscles of my ass as she rode out her pleasure, so beautiful as she chased down every last tremor. It was a sight to behold and I slammed into her over and over until she came again and took me with her.

Pleasure started at the base of my spine and rose until it exploded out of me in a powerful storm of want and need. I couldn’t stop moving within her even though we were both at the tail end of our pleasure. She felt too good. Together we were too good, explosive. My body sagged against hers and she took my weight. “Nix,” I whispered in her ear.

“Lee,” she whispered in response. “I wish…,” she began but she didn’t finish the sentence.

She didn’t need to. “Yeah, me too.”

We laid together for several silent minutes, catching our breath and deep in thought. The lights flickered a few times before they came back on.

It was good news but it was also the beginning of the end of whatever this was, whatever it could’ve been.

Those thoughts were front and center in my mind when I woke up the next day and heard a vaguely familiar scrappingsound outside. I knew what it was almost instinctively but I stayed as still as I could, unwilling to wake Nix and bring this—whatever it was—to an end.

“You hear that?” Her words are muffled against my chest, an edge of excitement to them that I couldn’t find within myself.

“I hear…something.”

“Sounds like JB or his son JT, have finally gotten around to plowing the roads on this side of town.” She moved in slow motion, removing her face from my chest to look at me. “You got your early Christmas wish. Freedom.”

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