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CHAPTER NINE

nate

I’ve never been more grateful for a snow day. Even if present company doesn’t share in the same enthusiasm. That’s okay, though. She’s learning, and for her first time actually doing nothing in god knows how long, I’d give Paige Montgomery a C- in the day.

A grade that is sure to ruffle her very cute feathers, but I see it as a good benchmark she can absolutely improve upon.

But today wasn’t a bad start since I was able to coax Paige into watching an entire movie franchise with me without a single complaint. A feat much easier to do when I make sure to avoid all the best Christmas classics and instead pick one of her favorite comfort series. It felt almost sacrilegious to not watch Home Alone or Die Hard or National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation on a snow day. But I don’t know. There’s something about the Twilight Saga that just screams the holidays for me now.

It could be the blue tint of the first movie, or the frigid temperatures of their bodies, but I’ve never felt more ready to celebrate Christmas than I do after finishing all five movies. Also has me thinking about getting my abs bedazzled so I, too, can sparkle in the sun.

Maybe Paige would like me better if I did.

Because she sure isn’t liking me now.

“No.” Paige crosses her arms, glaring at me. “Absolutely not. No. There is no way this is happening. No.”

“Scared, Princess?” I fight back a smile as I lean against the doorway. The fledgling truce between us only lasted for the duration of those five movies. Until she gave a big yawn, asking me where she’s sleeping tonight.

“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” She starts to stomp around the bedroom. Her sock-clad feet don’t really help her look intimidating or fearsome. Just adorable. “This is probably amusing you endlessly.”

“I will admit, I’m a little entertained.” By her more than anything. I love watching her composure slip. It’s why I love getting under her skin so much. A frustrated Paige will always be better than an edited Paige, where she’s holding herself back.

She bares her teeth at me. I have to swallow back a laugh. “You know, this is just like you.”

Now my brows go up. “How so?”

“You don’t ever listen to me or take anything in life seriously. And look at where that got us,” she rants, gesturing to the bedroom and the cabin beyond. “I bet you don’t even think this is a big deal!”

“I never said that.” My arms cross over my chest.

“But you’re thinking it!”

I don’t say anything.

“I knew it!” She points at me with a stern, unhappy finger. “I knew you weren’t taking this seriously. You probably orchestrated this entire thing!”

She continues to stomp around the room, and somehow she makes even her frantic steps look graceful. My arms stay crossed across my chest, but my muscles strain to keep them in place. The urge to grab her and haul her to my chest is strong.

“Why are you smiling at me like that?” She stops mid-stomp.

“You think I can control the weather?” My grin stretches. All of her irritation is now directed at the sight.

“What?”

“You said I must’ve orchestrated this entire thing. Meaning the snowstorm keeping us here. Which means you think I’m powerful enough to control the weather.”

Paige starts shaking her head. “That’s not?—”

“I’m beyond flattered, Princess, but I don’t know how I can keep handling these compliments. You’re going to make me blush.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

I smirk. “You’ve clearly spent a lot of time thinking of my capabilities.” Dropping my arms from my chest, I push off the wall. “What else do you think I can do? Or better yet, when do you think you spend the most amount of time thinking about me? Is it late at night? I promise whatever your hyperactive imagination has conjured up, the real thing is ten times better.”

Paige scoffs, sounding severely uninterested. “Please. It would hurt your feelings to know how little I think about you.”

I stop in front of her. Our chests practically touching as I lower my voice. “Then hurt my feelings, Princess. It’ll only make me like you more.”

Her lips part, stunned. I know she’s flustered with how her cheeks flush and how her chest moves faster, like she’s struggling to get a full breath.

I’d give all the money in my bank account away to know what’s churning behind those wide, cautious, leaning-more-green-today eyes.

Is she thinking about the way my body feels pressed against hers? Or is she thinking about the lake as she looks at me? About the kiss and what my lips would feel like if they claimed hers?

I know it hasn’t strayed from the forefront of my mind.

Her eyes dip to my mouth, and I can’t stop myself as my tongue darts out, licking my lips.

Her lips part in answer. Before crashing into a grimace. “You’re trying to distract me from the problem.” Paige pushes me away.

“Right.” I draw out the word, ignoring the hollow pang in my chest bone as I do.

Always pushing me away.

I have to tell her why I ended our partnership two years ago. And I know I had the perfect opportunity to do that today, but…I chickened out.

For the first time in a really long time, I got to hang out with Paige, and being in her company again was too good to ruin.

Tomorrow. I’ll tell her tomorrow. When we drive back down the mountain, before I leave her to the rest of her vacation. Give her time to process what I’ve said to her before we meet back up in New York.

“Nate,” she snaps, sounding both annoyed and frazzled.

I realize I kind of zoned out. Blinking back into the present, I follow her flailing, gesturing hands. “Right.”

The problem isn’t just that we’re snowed in at my family’s fishing cabin, which has very questionable insulation, even with the heater running, but sometime between the summer and now, my dad took it upon himself to do a little renovation to the space.

Mainly consisting of turning the second bedroom into a storage type area, full of boxes stacked almost to the ceiling and fishing poles and old pieces of furniture I haven’t seen since I was a kid and we sold our place in town.

My dad must’ve cleared out our storage unit, but in doing so, he turned the bedroom I usually sleep in into a hoarder’s dream paradise.

And yet, as packed to the brim as that room is, suspiciously missing from it is the bed. I tried to see if I saw any part of it from the doorway, but it’s so jammed in there I couldn’t see more than two rows of crap in front of me.

So even if it is buried under all the boxes and junk, there is no way to get to it. The cabin is small. Everything has to stay in there.

Meaning we are currently staring at the only bed in the entire house.

Or rather, I’m staring. Paige is in her factory standard mode of glaring at it.

“How many pillows do you need to sleep with?” Paige asks, hands on her hips, sizing the bed up like it’s her single greatest task to conquer.

“One.”

“One?” she repeats, snapping her attention to me like I’m some deranged creature. “What are you, a psycho?”

“First a murderer, now a psycho. Keep talking to me like that, Princess, and I’m going to propose to you before we leave here.”

Her face scrunches. “There is something seriously wrong with you.”

“Now you’re just teasing me.”

If glares could cut, I’d be sliced in half. “Nathan.”

I have no choice. The tone is too sexy to resist when she says my name so sternly. Slowly, I start to sink to one knee.

“What are you doing?!” Paige’s eyes bug out in alarm as she frantically grabs my bicep, trying to pull me up.

Despite years of discipline and all the muscle tone built up, she’s still not strong enough to stop my proposal.

She is pretty cute, though, with the way she heaves and tugs at my arms. I’m thoroughly enjoying her hands wrapped around my bicep, giving them a tight squeeze.

“Stop it, Nate,” she commands through gritted teeth as she keeps pulling.

I sink a little closer to the ground.

Her nails dig into the sleeve of my shirt.

“Nathan,” she practically pleads.

Oh, all right. Taking pity on her, I stop my descent, rising back to my full height.

I grin down at her.

It takes Paige a couple of seconds to process I’m standing back up so now she’s basically just caressing my muscles. If I was a cat, I’d purr under her ministrations.

She lets go immediately, wiping her palms on the thighs of her leggings, like that’s enough to get the feel of me off her skin. I’d like to think she just feels me around her thighs now, too.

“What were you doing?” Her tone is sharp, cutting.

“I told you, I like it when you’re mean to me.” And I really like it when I get to watch a blush spread across her face, covering her freckles.

“Focus. Nathan.” She speaks through gritted teeth. “We have a serious problem.”

“You’re right. I’m sorry.” I look back at the bed, the buffalo plaid comforter on top of it. “Are you a bed hog?”

“That’s not?—“

“Personally, I am. Blanket hog, too, so if you want to stay warm tonight, you’re going to have to just accept cuddling with me now. Do you think we should practice?”

“Practice? You don’t practice cuddling you just— Oh my god, what am I saying?”

“So you like cuddling, then? Any preference on big or little spoon? I actually prefer being the little spoon?—”

“Stop talking,” Paige barks, running both hands through her shiny red hair before pulling at the ends. “We will not be cuddling, Ford, because we will not be sleeping together in this bed.”

I lazily raise my hand in the air like we are back in class. “Will we be sleeping together outside of the bed? I’m a big fan of using the wall—” She smacks me across the shoulder, and I hold up my hands. “Kidding.”

…I’m not kidding.

But I’m pretty sure if I finish that sentence, the only kind of sleep I’ll be doing is the permanent kind. You know, tucked six feet under and everything.

Maybe I’m the one trapped inside with a murderer.

I give Paige a measured look. She’s practically shaking with annoyance.

Eh, at least she’s a cute murderer.

“You’re not sleeping in this bed,” she all but growls at me. Her feral kitten tendencies are coming out to play.

“Oh, yeah?” I try to keep the humor out of my voice. She’s just so cute when she gets worked up. “Then where do you suggest I sleep?”

“You saw the couch in the living room.”

“You mean the couch my dad has had since the eighties and refuses to get rid of and feels like you’re sitting on plywood?” I shake my head. “That won’t work. I don’t fit.”

Not to mention, wildly uncomfortable. A fact that Paige knows, if only by the way she keeps subtly rubbing her lower back. She only sat on it for half a movie before she joined me on the floor and she wants me to sleep there all night?

I’m a delicate boy.

“Fine. Sleep in the bathtub. Or on the floor, for all I care. You are just not sleeping in this bed with me.”

My brows shoot up, then pinch together. “Who said you got the bed? It’s my house.”

“Which makes you the host, and as any good host knows, you give your guest the only bed in the house during a blizzard.”

It’s technically not a blizzard, and there’s a lot less snow falling than the weatherman predicted, but I don’t correct her. She looks awfully proud of herself in this moment.

“Hmm.” I rub a hand over my beard to try and contain my amusement. “I must’ve missed that chapter in Emily Post’s etiquette book.”

“Don’t worry,” Paige states matter of factly. “I read it twice.”

I swipe my thumb along my bottom lip. “I bet you did.”

I’m not even sure she heard me. Just like earlier, Paige hones in on the movement, focusing on my mouth. I do it again, one slow long stroke tracing the edge of my lip, and watch as her nose flares with a heavy breath. Eyes following my thumb with rapt attention.

Until she catches herself. Then her glare slips back into place. “Be a gentleman.”

“I have never claimed to be a gentleman a day in my life.”

“You know what they say, Nate.” Paige picks up one of the pillows and slams it into my gut. I barely feel it. “There is no better time to start than the present.”

Her green-dominate eyes pierce right through my chest. “Because there is no way you are sleeping in this bed with me.”

I’m sleeping in the bed with her. And I can’t stop the amused grin on my face as I watch Paige march into the room with another armful of blankets.

“Do not say a word to me right now,” she orders, dropping the blankets on the mattress between our designated sides.

“Wasn’t planning on it.” My eyes widen. “Oops.”

Paige fists the sheets in front of her, giving me her best withering stare. “I only agreed to this if you promised not to make a peep. That is more than a peep.”

For the second time tonight, I raise my hand like I’m back in class.

Paige rolls her eyes. “Yes?”

“I’m just wondering if you’re collecting every pillow and blanket and jacket you can find for our fort.” She already has the cushions and blanket from the couch, the jackets we hung on the hooks by the door, and now even more blankets. I didn’t even know we had this many in the house.

“It’s not a fort, Nathan. It’s our sleep divider.” Paige starts to carefully stack her latest bushel of blankets on the already existing pile. Any taller and I’m afraid it’s going to topple over.

“Is this really necessary?”

“After you refused to stick to your side on the lake without a clear indicator? Yes.” She lays another blanket on top. “We need a physical barrier to keep us apart. There is no telling what you’d do unconscious.”

“Afraid you’ll cuddle me, Paige?” I lean back against the headboard and raise an arm to rub the back of my neck with a grin.

She stops her stacking and gives me a serious look. Or tries to. Her blue-but-more-green-today eyes don’t quite make it to my face.

They stall on my broad, shirtless chest. And my grin deepens in heady satisfaction as I watch her gaze roll over my meticulously defined pecs, pausing over a tattoo she hasn’t seen of three black and gray roses. She looks at it so intensely, I practically feel her touch tracing the petals with careful attention.

“See something you like?” I ask innocently, watching as she turns her attention on my abs.

I sound normal. Unaffected, when I’ve never been more tense in my life. Keeping still. Letting her have her fill while enjoying the way her cheeks heat and nostrils flare. How her breaths become more drawn out.

Attraction has never been the issue between us. There’s just always been a greater barrier keeping us apart.

Paige’s stubbornness to change.

Her mask comes down on her face at my question, shuttering any kind of desire she might feel for me. “It’s the middle of winter and snowing outside. Put on a shirt.”

“Worried I’ll catch a cold?” I stretch my arms above my head and watch with a feral kind of delight as her stare dips back down, watching my abs constrict. “You can touch them if you want. I’ll even let you pick how. My favorite methods are with hands and tongue, though.”

Paige’s face almost matches her hair as she gives me a severe look. “That right there is why this divider is necessary.” She throws the last two blankets on top, not caring about keeping it perfect, before she walks over to the clothes I’ve laid out for her on the tall dresser and disappears into the bathroom to change.

“I think your mom likes me,” I whisper to Snowball, who runs around the little pen I made for him out of a handful of boxes from my old bedroom so he wouldn’t have to sleep in his travel carrier tonight.

He stops chasing one of the crumpled paper balls I also made him and stares at me. Keeping my voice low so Paige doesn’t hear, I add, “She might not know it yet, but she likes me. Now I just have to work on getting her to forgive me.”

His red eyes blink as if to say, Good luck with that.

“You doubt me?” I put a hand on my chest. “It’s all I asked Santa for this Christmas. I’m not worried.”

He shakes his head at me, not far off from the exasperated expression his owner usually gives me, before going back to his toys.

Paige comes out of the bathroom, and I have to bite back a groan as she flicks the lights off, both the bathroom and the bedroom, bathing us in darkness.

But not before I see what she looks like wearing one of my shirts and sweatpants.

Fuck.

They practically swallow her athletically petite frame.

But it’s not even how they look on her that really has my attention. It’s this surge of carnal pleasure that ripples through my body over seeing her in something of mine.

My brain is stuck on that word. Mine.

It feels right. Like she’s always been in my clothes.

I almost wish she resisted my offer, that she’d be repulsed to have anything that has been on my body near hers, but Paige is a comfort over everything kind of girl. When she’s not in her practice leggings, she’s in her lounge leggings or baggy sweatpants, so it doesn’t surprise me she didn’t care about who the clothes belong to. As long as they were clean and could keep her warm tonight.

But now I’m left lying here, unable to shake the visual of my clothes brushing up against parts of her body I’d commit capital crimes to feel. To taste.

My dick twitches at the thought, making me glare at my crotch. Don’t you fucking dare.

My body locks as I try to think of anything else.

My grandma. The square root of pi. Saying the alphabet backwards. Anything to take my mind from Paige in my clothes, from the sound of her delicate steps as she shuffles across the room, to distract me from the mattress dipping under her weight as she crawls under the covers.

To forget she’s here entirely.

But that’s impossible. Even if I can’t see her, I feel her like I feel my chest move. Inherently. So entrenched within me, I couldn’t ignore her if I wanted to.

“Nate?” Paige calls after a long stretch of silence.

“Yeah?” My voice is hoarse. I struggle to clear it.

“If you cross that barrier, there will be consequences.”

“Does that go for both sides of the bed?”

Paige scoffs. “Please, I’d never.”

“Never say never, Princess. You might just find you like sleeping next to me.” God, wouldn’t that be something? Waking up with Paige next to me? “I’ll start thinking of your punishment now.”

“I wouldn’t hold your breath.”

“Don’t have to.” I smile into the dark. “I just have to be a patient man.”

“You can’t see me, but I just rolled my eyes at you.”

“I love your eye rolls.”

“There is something seriously wrong with you.”

“You can’t see this, but I just shrugged.”

Her laugh is soft, gentle, bleeding into the night, and I realize I don’t hear it enough. Paige doesn’t laugh enough, and it’s a damn shame because it’s one of the best noises in the world. I wait for her to say something back, anything else, but quiet descends into the room.

I force myself to get comfortable, closing my eyes. “Good night, Paige.”

“Good night, Nate.”