Total pages in book: 42
Estimated words: 40951 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 205(@200wpm)___ 164(@250wpm)___ 137(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 40951 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 205(@200wpm)___ 164(@250wpm)___ 137(@300wpm)
I can do this.
Then she moves.
Her arm slides across my chest, palm settling right over my heart like she put it there on purpose. I stop breathing. I don’t dare move. Her fingers curl into my shirt, holding, like she’s anchoring herself.
My heart goes wild.
This isn’t allowed. She’s asleep. I know that. I’m not thinking about kissing her or touching her or anything else. I’m thinking about not moving a muscle because one shift might break this moment that feels like it’s holding me together by threads.
She nuzzles closer, still dreaming, her forehead brushing my shoulder. A soft hum leaves her throat—the sound someone makes when they’re safe.
Safe.
With me.
And that does something to me I don’t have language for.
I lay there frozen, while her hand drifts across my chest. It’s slow and innocent. Not exploring. Not searching. Just… resting. Like she’s known me a long time.
Then—god help me—she brushes her lips against my jaw.
Not a kiss. Not deliberate. The kind of sleep-soft movement people make when they’re shifting in a dream. But it is enough to pull a sound in my chest that I haven’t heard from myself since I was young and alive in ways I barely remember.
I don’t move toward her. I don’t take anything she’s not offering consciously. I just lie there and let the moment ruin me from the inside out.
Because it’s the closest I’ve been to something soft in years.
She shifts again, rolling away, arm slipping off me. The mattress cools where her body was, and I feel the loss like a door slamming shut that I wasn’t ready to leave through.
She settles, breath even, asleep again.
I lie there staring at the ceiling, pulse hammered into my throat, every nerve awake and aching. My hands stay at my sides because that’s the line. That’s the rule. She’s asleep. She didn’t choose this. I’m not going to be the man who takes wanting and turns it into something selfish.
But I also can’t unfeel this.
I’ve been a lot of things—soldier, son, grandson, business owner, ghost of Christmas Past, grudging carriage operator—but I don’t remember the last time I felt… wanted. Needed. Safe to touch.
Even if it wasn’t really me she was reaching for. Even if it was just a dream.
I stare into the dark until my eyes burn. I try to slow my breathing. Try to empty my head. It doesn’t work.
Because somewhere between the couch and the loft, between keeping my distance and keeping her warm, something in me cracked open.
I like her here.
I like her in my cabin, in my bed, against my chest, trusting me without even knowing she’s doing it.
And I don’t have the first clue what to do with that.
So I lie still, wide awake, letting the storm beat against the walls, and I stay exactly where I am—close enough to feel her breathing, far enough not to cross a line I can’t uncross.
And I hope sleep finds me before I do something stupid.
Like want this for more than one night.
Like want her.
SEVEN
IVY
The bed is warm when I wake up.
Too warm.
Like someone else was just here.
I stretch, blinking sleep from my eyes, and the cabin creaks around me. The quilt is still tucked around my legs, and the sun—low and lazy—filters through the loft window, casting golden stripes across the wood floor. It smells like coffee and something buttery and perfect, and for a moment, I melt into the scent.
And then I remember the dream.
The one where Rhett was in this bed.
With me.
It felt so real. Like, absurdly real. Vivid in a way dreams rarely are. I swear I could feel his chest under my hand. Solid. Steady. Then racing, like my touch set off an alarm he didn’t expect. His breath against my skin. My lips brushing his cheek. The weight of his presence next to me.
But it was just a dream.
It had to be.
I mean—there’s no way the world’s grumpiest sleigh man climbed into bed with me last night, right? He’s too principled. Too closed off. Too Rhett.
Still… I glance at the spot beside me. The covers look a little rumpled. There’s a faint indent in the pillow I definitely didn’t make. My fingers twitch like they remember the shape of him. My palm tingles where I swear I felt his heartbeat.
I press my hand there now.
No thump.
Just cotton.
Okay, Ivy. Calm down. Just a dream. A very detailed, very Rated-Holiday dream. But still a dream nonetheless.
From down below, I hear the soft clatter of pans and the low creak of cabinet doors opening and closing. Rhett’s voice murmurs something to himself, too low to make out. There’s the scrape of wood against cast iron, and I swear I smell bacon.
I grab my phone from the crate-turned-nightstand and swipe through notifications.
One from Margo.
SUBJECT: Content Status Update
MESSAGE: Hope the snow didn’t eat you. Sponsor’s asking for something ASAP—audio, teaser clip, anything with heart. Clock’s ticking. Give me magic, Ivy.