Chapter 14
Emmi
The taste of Declan stayed with me long after our sweet kiss on the bed that night. The sweet nature of his breath combined to form a memory of him that I’d keep with me long after we escaped the hell of the snow storm. But three days after arriving at the chalet, we were still there, with no end in sight.
“How much longer do you really think it will snow?” I asked as I stood looking at the large windows near the back of the great room.
“Who knows? I thought it was only going to last a day or two; we are full on into the third day and I’ve never seen this much snow in my life.”
“What do you think would happen if I opened this door?” I joked as I held onto the glass door that led to the back porch.
The snow was literally as tall as I was and I imagined it all sliding into the house the second I opened the door. But then again, maybe it was so compacted by the force of the wind that it would just stay there like a solid snow wall.
“Do it,” Declan urged.
“Should I?”
The thought sent my pulse racing. We’d been at the chalet for nearly seventy-two hours. I wasn’t used to being stuck in one place for so long. Luckily, we had our work to do and had made it through Rosa’s long list of measurements to take, but now we had nothing else to do until the snow cleared and we could hike out to the nearby hotel. But it was still a good mile away and nothing I wanted to risk until we could clearly see where we were going.
“If you don’t do it I’m going to,” Declan said as he got up from the couch and put his hand on the door with mine.
His firm fingers wrapped around mine and that damn electricity between us was there again. I shyly tried to avoid his delicious eyes as he looked at me. The longing that filled him was getting harder and harder to resist. I really couldn’t figure out how he was continuing to avoid making a move. Well, besides the fact that I had said it was a bad idea after our first kiss, but still; he had to feel that energy that was going on between the two of us.
“I’m doing it,” I said as I pulled the door and he moved behind me.
His arm stayed on the door and wrapped around my body as we both pulled the door open. Declan kept his body a few inches away from mine, but the knowledge that he was so close was all I needed to feel weak in the knees.
“It’s staying,” he said as the door pressed all the way open.
“Wow, I really thought it was going to fall in here. Should we try to tunnel out?” I joked.
“We should try it at the front door.”
I had been joking at the idea of digging a tunnel out of the snow. It was clearly still snowing, and our digging would quickly just be covered up. But we were getting bored and at least digging was something to pass the time.
“I’ll get my warm clothes on,” I said.
As I turned around to go back upstairs to the bedroom we had claimed as ours, Declan was still holding the door and standing close to me. Facing him, only inches away from his lips, I paused and waited to see if he would make another move. But he didn’t. Instead, he moved out of my way and stayed near the back door while I went upstairs.
My ankle had started to feel a little better, and I could walk on it as long as I didn’t put too much pressure on that side. Usually, I limped around to where I was going and then stood on the good foot. It was amazing how much the ankle had hurt that first day, but it had started to get much better over the last two days.
We had set up the biggest room as ours. It had a king size bed in it that we shared, but there was a pile of pillows between the two of us to keep his side and mine separated. Although Declan appeared to be just fine at keeping his hands to himself, despite the clear attraction the two of us had for each other.
The balcony didn’t have as much snow on it as the downstairs did, but that was because it wasn’t facing the wind and there were trees to block it from getting too much accumulation. There was probably still near two feet of snow on the balcony though. I stood and looked out over the street, which hadn’t been plowed since we arrived. The whole town looked like it was basically on lock-down until the storm had passed.
Even though the snow continued to come down, the sky wasn’t as dark as it had been and I even saw a glimpse of sun every now and then. But even if the snow stopped that very second, it would be at least a day until the roads were cleared and we could get out of Breckenridge, and since the snow hadn’t stopped yet, we had no idea how much longer we were going to be there.
After pulling on my warmest clothes, I made my way downstairs to find Declan all ready to start our digging adventure.
“Even if we just get the path in front of the building cleared, that will help and make it so much easier when we are ready to leave,” Declan said as he handed me a shovel.
“Where did you find these?”
“In that closet,” he said and pointed to the front closet. “I’ve learned that the most obvious location is where everything is at.”
“Yeah, I’m learning to love these previous owners. Their logic is totally on point with mine.”
“I’m not very logical when it comes to my organizational skills,” Declan joked. “I would have put the shovels away and never remembered where they were at.”
“I’ve learned that about you.”
“Let’s get this digging party started,” Declan said with more enthusiasm that either of us should have had after spending three days trapped by a snow storm.
The snow was between four and five feet tall on this side of the builidng, and the initial problem we had was just getting out the door. We couldn’t exactly shovel the snow into the building to make room so Declan just pressed his whole body against the pile so we could at least get our shovels into it and throw it over the large pile in front of the house.
Declan would grab a shovel full of snow from the top of the pile, then halfway down, and finally on the ground. It took three full shovels full to clear each section and then I had to continue scooping behind him as other snow tumbled into the path. After nearly an hour of shoveling, we had cleared a ten-foot path toward the driveway, only about one-fifth of the distance we needed to cover just to get to the driveway. I couldn’t even imagine how long it would take to shovel the actual driveway. We would probably have to wait for someone with a snowplow to take care of that for us.
After our hour of shoveling, we were both sweating and ready for a break. When we turned around to head back inside, the snow pile had literally collapsed back in on itself, and a foot of snow was covering the path we had just shoveled.
We both burst into laughter at the ridiculous amount of snow we were dealing with. Even while I had been in New York, I hadn’t dealt with this level of snow before. It was nonstop snowing still, and the snow wasn’t compacted enough to stay put after we had shoveled it.
“Well, that didn’t work out so well,” Declan laughed. “Maybe a little wider path will work?”
“What? No way. We will just wait until it stops snowing. I’m not going to keep shoveling for the fun of it.”
I started to walk back in with Declan behind me, but as my foot hit the pile of snow in front of me, I slipped on my weak ankle and toppled right into the large pile of snow on the side of our path. The powdery pile wrapped around me and I sunk down into it as if it were a cloud of freezing pillows.
Instantly I burst into laughter and brushed the snow away from my face. Declan reached his hand out to help me up, but instead of using his hand to pull myself up, I pulled him toward me. The unexpected pull had Declan tumbling right next to me into the pile of snow.
“That was low,” he laughed as he stayed lying in the snow with me.
“I’m freezing; we should head back inside.”
I could barely feel my fingers as snow had seeped into my gloves. When we walked into the building, it felt warmer than it had before. The skin on my face and hands worked hard to adjust to the new temperature, but despite feeling warm, my whole body was shivering.
“You look like you’re freezing,” Declan said as he wrapped a blanket around me.
“I seriously can’t stop shivering.”
“It’s just your body adjusting to the rapid change in temperature. Did you get everything that was wet off of you?”
“Yes, but I’m still freezing.”
Declan took his hands and rubbed up and down on my arms in a fast motion in an effort to keep me warm. It was working, but I wasn’t about to tell him that I was getting warm. I was enjoying having his hands on my body way too much.
“You seem to be getting warmer,” Declan said as he moved a step away from me.
“No,” I said. “Stay close. You’re warm.”
My hands reached out and pulled on his shirt to keep him close to me. It was an instinctual motion as he moved back closer to me. My heart raced as I let my hands move up his body and wrap around his neck.
“Emmi, what are you doing?” Declan said as his eyes filled with heat.
“I’m kissing you.”
I got up on my tiptoes and wrapped my arms tight around Declan’s neck as our lips pressed together. This time I wasn’t going to be pulled away from him. His body pressed against mine and warmed me instantly. He throbbed with desire as his hands wrapped around me and held onto me tight. His hold was firm as he moved us toward the wall and used it as leverage as his lips moved from mine to my neck.
The feel of his skin on mine was more than I had fantasized about. My mind numbed with the pleasure he delivered. The small touches were simple, sweet, and delicate forms of his desire.
Our hands explored each other’s bodies. Touching and feeling, moving and pulling clothing out of the way so we could have the other’s skin next to ours. My hands pulled his shirt up and moved slowly up the hard landscape of his abdomen. His muscles were like small hills and my fingertips climbed higher and higher until they got to his chest.
Declan used his hands to throw my blanket off of me and wrapped me instead in his body warmth. His slid them under the side of my shirt and pulled my body up against his. The thrust intensified as I felt his bulge move against my leg. He wanted me just as bad as I wanted him, there was no denying it.
The moment lasted only a few minutes as we both gently pulled apart. Our hands locked together and our eyes continued to long for one another as we both took the moment in. This time there were no apologies though; this time there were no promises that we could keep our relationship professional.