Page 53 of Crave

When we arrivedat the resort, I went straight to my suite. “Jamison,” I called as soon as I entered.

The eerie, cold feeling of emptiness gave me the chills, and I folded my arms as I walked from one end of the suite to the other, calling Jamison’s name. On my next walk-through, I noticed something else—his bag and all his toiletries were gone. My heart turned to granite, and my breathing became labored.

“Shit,” I whispered, tears filling my eyes. “Jamison?” I called, walking through the apartment again.

He’d mentioned going downstairs to the gym before I left that morning, which seemed like another rational reason none of his things were in the room. Maybe he’d taken a shower in the locker room. I could have critically analyzed that possibility until it made no sense at all, but I decided to check into it.

Once I made it to the gym on the first floor, I searched every corner of the space.

“Can I help you?” a grinning, overly muscular man asked.

“Have you seen a guy, tall, whiskey eyes, dimples, um… early thirties? You won’t be able to miss him.”

At first, he seemed confused by my description. Then he smirked flirtatiously. “Sounds like me.”

My frown intensified. “Then you haven’t seen him?”

He kept grinning. “No, beautiful, I haven’t seen him.”

“Thank you,” I said in a rush and turned my back on him.

As I power walked to the front desk, I thought about Jamison not answering my text message. Also, it wouldn’t be like him to not send me loads of messages throughout the day, telling me how much he couldn’t wait until I was back and he was inside me. We were in that can’t-keep-our-hands-off-each-other stage. My pussy had been missing him all day.

When I made it to the desk, I was happy to see Kara on duty. I waited anxiously behind two guys who looked as if they skied way too much. They both stole looks at me. I swore the people around there were always looking for a hookup.

Fortunately, another front-desk clerk opened her station and called the two guys to her. Kara seemed disappointed by that. I was happy when she stopped gazing longingly at the two boys and smiled at me.

“Hi, Miss Christmas. How can I help you?”

I could feel the guys’ eyes on me as soon as she spoke my name. There weren’t very many Christmases on the planet. I was positive they had recognized me as the heiress to the Christmas fortune.

“Hi, Kara. Remember the guy from two days ago?”

“Jamison Hot?” she asked.

The other girl chuckled.

“Yeah, Jamison Hot,” I said, deciding to go along with it.

“I heard he left this morning with a woman.”

“A woman?” I asked.

She went on to say that she was a pretty brunette in a suit. They were going to the airport. According to the message that was conveyed to Jamison, he was to come down and see her or she would meet him at my jobsite. That sounded like a threat to me.

Brunette. Suit.

“How did she sound?” I asked.

Kara shrugged. “I don’t know.” She turned to her friend. “That woman that came for Jamison Hot. How did she sound?”

“Weird. Like… OMG, that agent on that show. Um…Um…”

“Twin Peaks,” the two ski bros and I said at the same time.

“Yes,” the other clerk said. “Agent Tammy Preston.”