There are a million places I’d like to be right now. My college apartment back in Spokane, celebrating the end of winter term with my best friend Lacey. My dad’s house in front of the fire, with my Kindle in my lap and a mug of tea in my hand. Or, even at the campus library where I work, checking in books, five shifts a week.

So, to be stuck ten miles from my dad’s place, when I was coming home three days early as a Christmas surprise, totally blows. But the snow started dumping buckets a few miles back and I knew I was screwed.

Thankfully, there’s a house up on the mountain ridge. While the single glow of light in an upstairs room chills me to some degree, it’s nowhere near as freezing as I’d be stuck in my car overnight.

I mean, I’d be more than frozen. I’d be dead. Which isn’t exactly how I want to ring in the new year.

Not that it will be rung in in some special way. I’ve never had a man to kiss as the clock strikes midnight and I have no reason this think this year will be any different.

Right now, so far as I can tell, I’m just lucky to be alive.

I pull my duffel bag over my shoulder before I don my gloves and zip up my winter parka. I lock the car and put the keys in my pocket. However, it is unlikely that anyone would come to steal the piece of crap.

What in the heck was I thinking? My spontaneity usually gets in the way of rational thought and this decision, to come here in the spur of the moment, is no exception.

My dad won’t be worried, since he didn’t even know I was coming in early. Although he’d be a basket case if he knew what I was up to. He knows the mountain like the back of his hand. He grew up in this tiny, barely-able-to-survive town of Hollow’s End, and so did I.

Most of the town struggled to find work now that the plans for the ski resort came to a grinding halt. The owner just decided it wasn’t going to be as profitable as he thought and left.

My dad felt the pain of that business mogul’s decision especially hard. He had bought new excavating equipment for his forest clearing company when the resort was going to be built. He had gotten loans to purchase the machines which he planned on paying off once the contracts were up and running.

But then the plans fell through, and my father’s now buried in debt. It breaks my heart that he can hardly pay his bills, so I want to make this Christmas especially good for him.

He loves Hollow’s End. He’s memorized the pass up and down. He’d know the snow conditions... and being the spontaneous woman I am, I didn’t pause long enough to consider them myself.

And now I’m here. Knocking on the biggest door I’ve ever seen. Everything about this place is foreboding and mysterious. It’s like the romance novel I read last semester for my literature class; a story set in a gothic castle, with a monster living inside and a princess locked inside a tower. That is until he takes her from prisoner to lover.

The story stirred something deep inside me. I remember lying in my bed, slipping my fingers beneath my panties, touching myself until I came, moaning as I imagined a monster taking me. Moving harder against my hand as I replayed the scenes from the book in my mind.

He pinned her against the wall, pushing up her dress and pulling her breasts into his mouth, gripping her bare ass as he took her hand and wrapped her fingers around his massive cock. She stroked him, and she tasted him. She moaned as he filled her so completely.

He was more than a man. He was a beast.

And I wanted him to capture me.

It felt wrong to be so turned on by such a threatening male, but maybe the fact that I’ve never been with a man at all has turned my innocence into something desperate.

My stomach is in knots as I wait for someone to answer.

The window on the massive door is inlaid with stained glass. The pattern is of red rose blossoms with thorns on the stem. It’s beautiful and so delicate, and for a moment my fear fades and I imagine a little old woman living in this grand home.

I tuck a loose hair behind my ear, fantasizing that instead of an unexpected rendezvous, that I will be welcomed with a kind smile. It’s probably more practical to dream of being granted a place to warm up until the storm passes. Which at the rate the snow is falling, might be a few days.

I was so foolish to drive here like I did.

But then the door swings open.

And it’s not a gentle caretaker here to welcome me.

No. It is a man, towering over me with broad shoulders and dark eyes, hair hanging loosely around his face, and a thick beard. He holds a three-pronged candelabra, and I know the power must be out here too.

He growls in lieu of a greeting and the timber of his voice tells me that this man is untamed, feral, and hungry.

The fact that my body stirs at the sight of him scares me more than the man himself.

I swallow hard, stepping back, despite the fact I have nowhere else to go. He must see the fear blooming in my belly as I wrap my arms around my chest, bracing myself against the chill.

“What do you want?” he asks abruptly. His eyes pierce me, and I can’t look away.

Not understanding the feelings seizing me, I realize with a gasp, that I don’t want to look away.

In fact, I want him to drag me inside and ravish me; shoving my panties to my ankles, binding my wrists with a rope, and taking all I have to give.

I blink. What in the world am I thinking? This is not some scene from a gothic romance. This is my actual life.

“My car got stuck in the snow and it’s freezing out.” I look around, biting my bottom lip, not wanting to stare at him. When I look at him again, I picture him stripped of his clothes with his bare chest against mine and his large hands holding my hips where they belong.

“And?” he snarls.

My eyebrows furrow. Is he dense? Or just leery of strangers?

“And my phone doesn’t get reception out here.”

He doesn’t say anything. I notice though, his jaw tenses and his eyes look me over, as if he is also unable to look away.

I should fear this stranger. He looks a decade older than me, but oh so much wiser.

However, I’m not scared. Not in the least.

“And if I stay outside,” I tell him. “I’ll freeze, so... I thought...”

“You want to come inside? Is that what you’re saying?”

“Yes,” I say. “Are you trying to make this difficult? I can’t feel my toes. It’s practically a blizzard out here.”

“I see that,” he says coolly. “Why are you alone? A woman like you shouldn’t be out in this weather by herself. Where’s your man?”

I scoff. “What? Is this some eighteenth-century vortex? My man? I don’t need a man to drive home.”

“You clearly need someone to tell you that driving in a snow storm is foolish.”

“Well, I don’t have a man, thank you very much. And maybe if I did, he would be driving with me. But that’s irrelevant.”

“Is it?” He raises an eyebrow, and that one look turns my knees to jelly and my core clenches in... desire?

No. I’m not letting this arrogant man get my panties all twisted.

But then pulls back his shoulders, and his entire height is revealed. He is more than a man— he’s a mountain man. And my panties are not twisted.

They are downright soaked.

And as he looks at me, I think he probably knows it.

Which is annoying, to say the least. “Ugh,” I groan. “What’s your deal? I’m clearly not a threat to you. You have a house. And I don’t want to freeze to death on your front steps.”

He stares down at me, our eyes lock, and I can’t see what he’s thinking at all. It’s like he has the power to cloak his feelings and it infuriates me. I wear my heart on my sleeve and my desire on my lips—the ones I can’t help but lick.

It’s like I’m dying of thirst and only he can quench my need.

“Are you actually considering letting me stay out in the cold?” I ask. “Is there someone else here I could talk to instead?”

He scoffs. “No. I’m all alone out here.” He runs a hand over his thick beard. “And what I’m wondering about is where I’ll put you up once you’ve come inside.”

I lift an eyebrow, though it isn’t fear that is covering me. It’s my curiosity that he has piqued.

“What are the options?” I ask, feeling a need pulsing between my legs... knowing just where I’d like him to put me.

It’s like he can sense my desire because, like the arrogant man he is, he smirks. Then shrugs, in the most infuriating way possible. Like he knows something I don’t.

And the truth is, I bet he does.

With a body like that, I can only imagine how many women he’s taken to bed.

When he pushes the door open wider, allowing me entrance, I exhale, knowing I won’t die out in the elements tonight.

He surprises me even more with what he says next, “Let’s start by getting you out of those wet clothes, then we can decide where you’ll sleep tonight.”