Page 237 of The Friends and Rivals Collection

VANESSA

Well, that escalated quickly.

It’s not as if I asked Shaw to the cabin to seduce him with whipped cream, and I definitely didn’t buy it for that purpose. I’m not even into food play.

And yet I completely wanted his finger in my mouth. When I get near him, I want him madly.

Most of the time, there’s a built-in barrier between us. A sex blockade in the presence of other people. I haven’t been alone with him in ages, and that’s made it easy, relatively speaking, to ignore the ache inside me.

Now that it’s only the two of us, my want is like a parrot on my shoulder, squawking, demanding crackers. Yes, Polly, I want a Shaw cracker too.

I grab my mug like it’s a shield so I can sort out my thoughts.

“It’s snowing harder.” Grasping that excuse to snag a little space, I head to the living room, set the mug on the coffee table, and march to the window.

Outside, the snow falls faster, heavier.

I point to the white carpet blanketing the ground.

“Look! I think we’re here for a little while.

” The thought of being stuck with him tonight is both nerve-wracking and thrilling.

Will it last all night?

I grab my phone from the coffee table to check the weather app.

“What's the report?” he asks as he walks over from the kitchen.

I shrug. “No service, but I’m not surprised. It tends to be pretty spotty at the best of times. I managed to get a signal at the end of the driveway when I called you earlier.”

After putting his cup on the table too, he joins me at the window, his shoulder nearly touching mine. “Then the Shaw Keating Amateur Meteorologist Report says . . . it sure looks like it’s going to snow all night.”

But does he want it this way? Does his parrot want a cracker too? Does he even have a parrot for me?

I try to keep the mood light, easy, and bird-free. “That’s Tahoe for you. One minute it’s sunshine and smiles, the next it’s snowstorms.”

He stares through the glass at the sky. “Bet it’s going to last the whole day.”

My eyes stray to the clock above the mantel. It’s nearly eight. “The whole night is more like it.”

He turns his face, his gaze catching mine. His eyes darken, his voice deepens. “Looks like we’ll have to figure out how to pass the time.”

My throat goes dry. Is he saying what I think he’s saying? Or is he flirting like the gold medalist flirt he’s been my whole life? “We have board games,” I blurt out. “That’s what you do in a cabin to pass the time, right?”

A grin seems to tug at his lips. “Absolutely. Break out Monopoly. Bring on Chutes and Ladders. Let’s go crazy with Candy Land.”

I tilt my head, giving him a sharp stare. “Do you think I don’t know you’re teasing?”

He holds up his hands in surrender. “I love Candy Land. I swear. Let’s play it after we finish the most amazing hot chocolate ever.”

“Fine. Hot chocolate and Candy Land it is.”

I wish it were hot chocolate and kisses . . . kisses and stripping . . . stripping and hot, sweaty fireplace sex . . . hot, sweaty fireplace sex and promises.

But Candy Land it’ll be for now.

We move to the couch. He’s quiet at first as he reaches for his mug. “It’s a damn good thing we have hot chocolate as well. To pass the time.”

“Try it first. But if you don’t like my special hot chocolate, we can never be friends again,” I say, feeling the need to emphasize our friendship, perhaps so I can figure out if that’s where he still is.

Just because I sucked on his finger like it was his dick doesn’t mean anything more will come of it.

After all, we’re whiling away the hours drinking cocoa, not licking whipped cream from each other’s navels.

But when I say “friends,” he looks like he’s chewing on the word and it tastes like kale to him.

When I chew on the word, it tastes a little like guilt.

Like dark secrets I should bury forever.

I’m here in this cabin for Perri, as a wedding gift to my amazing friend. I didn’t drive up from Lucky Falls to seduce her brother. Her handsome, funny, sexy brother who I’ve been longing for over the years.

He taps the side of the mug. “Since we’re friends, why don’t you tell me what makes this hot chocolate so special?”

“Cinnamon.”

“Ah, so it has a little spice,” he says, his hazel eyes dancing playfully.

Briefly, I wonder if Jamie’s eyes will lure me the same way.

Whether any other man can possibly have this effect on me.

No one has before, and perhaps that’s why I haven’t found the one .

Maybe that’s the reason I want the real deal but haven’t had it yet.

Have I compared all my boyfriends to him? To a man I’ve never had?

All I want is to learn if the comparison is valid. And to do so by tasting the chocolate on his lips.

“Yes, it gives it a little kick,” I answer, fighting to focus on the hot chocolate. Fighting like my sanity depends on it.

“I like a little kick,” he says, and he makes it so hard not to flirt, especially as his eyes drift to my sweater, and to what’s underneath the material.

I happen to have nice boobs. They’re round, firm C-cups, which is kind of awesome. I like my breasts. I like my body, for all its curves, dips, and blips.

He lifts his chin. “By the way, what’s up with the striped sweater?”

I pluck at the knitting. “You don’t like my sweater?”

“No, I think it’s fantastic. I mean, is it part of your whole retro-girl look?”

“It is. I snagged it from a vintage shop on Etsy. I think I’m incapable of wearing clothes that were made in this century.”

“I’ve always noticed that you sort of look like you just stepped out of the 1950s, which, trust me, is great. But I’m curious why.”

I love that he’s asking. We’ve talked about so much over the years, at parties, at dinners, at the bowling alley.

But here’s a new thing that we’re chatting about.

“When we moved to the United States, one of the ways I practiced English was watching TV and movies. I loved Happy Days and Elvis Presley flicks—that whole vintage look. It felt very American to me. By the time I started making choices about what I wanted to wear, that was the time period I identified with.”

“That is one of the coolest stories I’ve ever heard.”

“It is?” A dose of delight zips through me. “Why?”

“Because it’s a reason. It’s not just ‘Oh, I think it’s cute.’ Not that there’s anything wrong with that. But you had a deeper reason. It says something about who you are.”

“I suppose it did. Maybe it still does.”

“Is that something you wanted when you first came here? To feel more American? I knew you then, but we were, what, six and seven? I don’t remember a ton.”

“We were young,” I say, recalling only bits and pieces of when my parents moved to California from Colombia so my scientist father could pursue better job opportunities.

“I already knew enough English, but I wanted to fit in. I can seamlessly fit in now, and clearly I can speak without an accent. But here’s a little-known fact—I still dream in Spanish. ”

He inches closer. It’s heady, his nearness. It makes the air crackle, and I’m thoroughly distracted once more. Especially when he asks in that low, smoky voice, “What else do you do in Spanish?”

My breath hitches, and my stomach flips. I try to think of Perri and how I’ve been lying to her for years by omission . . . but I’m also not thinking about Perri at all. I can’t keep her in my head when Shaw looks at me like he wants to be more than friends.

Like he wants to pass the time the same damn way I do. I decide to tango closer to the truth because I need to know if it’s time to break out Monopoly so I don’t jump him—or if it’s time to jump him. “Sometimes, when I’m really caught up in something, I’ll speak in Spanish.”

A naughty grin spreads on his face. “Is that so?”

“Yes.”

He seems to know what I mean and where I’m heading. He’s staring at me with fire in his eyes. With hunger in his expression. My whole body sizzles, and I want to back up and revise my answer about how I want to pass the time.

I want to tell him the truth now because my life is barreling toward a date with another man. A man who might very well be the real thing. But I don’t want to go anywhere with anyone else until I know what to do with this massive, overstuffed box of feelings for my best friend’s brother.

Maybe it’s time to open the box and get this man out of my system.

Perhaps that’s why I haven’t found the one yet—because I’m hung up on this one I can’t have.

And maybe, if I have him once, if we “pass the time,” I won’t think of him anymore.

I’ll empty the box, fold it up, stuff it in the recycling bin, and walk away.

He nudges my knee with his. “Vanessa,” he says playfully. “What exactly do you mean when you say ‘caught up’?”

This is it. This is the chance the snowfall is giving me — to tell Shaw I need him to rid me of my desire for him. He’s the sickness and he’s the cure.

But how do I say I speak in Spanish when I’m thinking of you ? I say your name in my native tongue when I slide my hand down my body at night. When you make me come in my fantasies. When I call out your name.

I take a deep breath.

You say it by saying it.

So I do, needing to crack open the box.

I say all of that in a rush of lightning-fast Spanish.

He blinks. “What?”

But I backpedal, because I want him to go first. I want him to want me so badly he dreams of me in Spanish, and he doesn’t even speak the language. “I said, when something tastes good, I say it in Spanish.”

He shakes his head as if he’s caught me. He leans closer, his eyes holding my gaze. “I don’t think that’s what you were saying.”

My stomach flips. A rush of heat zips through me. “What do you think I was saying?”

His eyes blaze. “I think you were saying something else.”

I glance at the fireplace, trying to find the courage but wanting him to find it too. I wrap my arms around my waist.

“Do you want me to build a fire?”

Sex and a fireplace? “Yes.”

He heads to the deck, grabs a few logs, and builds a fire. When it’s lit, he turns around and offers me his hand.

I gaze at his big hand. This is a clear step, and that’s what I’ve wanted from him.

I take it, loving the feel of his fingers wrapped around mine.

He pulls me up from the couch. “Want to sit by the fire?”

I’m on fire. “Yes.”

He tugs me down to the carpet in front of the flames. We sit cross-legged, looking at each other. “We’re not drinking hot cocoa to pass the time,” I whisper.

He shakes his head. “We’re not playing board games to pass the time.”

Right here looking at me is the man I’ve been in love with for more than a decade. He’s the one I want to go to the wedding with. He’s the one I either need to get under or get over.

“I’m supposed to go to Perri’s wedding with Jamie Sullivan,” I say, ripping off part of the Band-Aid.

His jaw ticks. His eyes narrow. “I heard,” he mutters as he lets go of my hand.

My brow knits. “You heard? What, is it like a rumor going around?”

“Doesn’t sound like it’s a rumor. Sounds like the truth.” And he sounds annoyed. “Is it true?” His voice is harsher than I’ve ever heard it, but I like what that knife’s edge in it tells me.

“Perri and Arden want me to go with him. It was Miriam’s idea.”

He’s silent for a beat, then he studies me like he can find all my truths in my eyes. “Is that what you want?”

Now.

This moment.

It’s time.

I straighten my shoulders, returning to another question from before. “What do you think I said in Spanish?”

He stares at me, undressing me with his eyes, licking his lips. Then he rises on his knees, and the world slows.

It slides into this moment where he lifts his hand. Cups my cheek. Runs the pad of his thumb across my face.

I burn with longing.

And I melt from the terrifyingly wonderful awareness that this is happening.

He inches closer, his mouth on a fast track for mine, and whispers, “I think you said this .”

He captures my lips in a kiss.