Jana

I’m trying to decide between a fuzzy sweater and a cute plaid shirt—both Christmas presents to myself that I bought in the village yesterday—when my sister yells up the stairs. “Jana, you’ve got a delivery!”

Ugh. Sometimes I hate how accessible I’ve made myself to my company. There’s not even anyone really there this week. A skeleton staff answering phones and fielding emails, but my editor and director and the VP they report to are all on vacation.

That didn’t stop me from agreeing to proof a couple of card designs so they could go into production the first week of January.

Almost everything we do is digital these days, but as the artist with my signature in the corner of the design, I have it worked into my contract that I get to sign off on a physical proof of the final copy before they go into the full print run.

It’s important, and a quality assurance step I wouldn’t want to give up. But it means that I need to have a quick turnaround on my approvals, and be accessible wherever I am in the world. When I went to Italy for my birthday last year, clearing those two weeks from my schedule was surprisingly difficult.

I need to get better at the whole work-life balance thing or I’m never going to have a social life.

And no, almost banging a billionaire doesn’t count, because after the almost-banging, he disappeared from my life—which just proves that I’m attracted to workaholics just like myself.

It’s so freaking unhealthy.

What I should do is check these cards out, approve them online, and then get out there on the ski hill. Meet a ski bum and find a way to drop the hint that I’m an easy lay.

I’m not, really. Or at least I haven’t been historically. Jake is the fourth guy I’ve ever been with. But I was totally easy for him. Maybe it’s the start of a new and exciting trend.

I grab the sweater, then throw it back on the bed. The plaid shirt over a tank top would show off some cleavage. Probably covering my entire torso in an inch of fluff is the wrong message to send if I want to get over Jake with the help of a snowboarder.

I pick up the sweater again. Nope. I don’t want to do that. Not yet.

“Jana!” My sister sounds exasperated now.

Great. I take a deep breath as I round the top of the staircase.

“I can just sign for her,” she says, and I shake my head. I already know what the driver’s going to say.

“Sorry, ma’am, but this requires the recipient’s signature only.”

I trip over my feet, because while I was totally expecting those words, I was not expecting that voice.

Jake.

In Vermont.

Then I smile.

Really, really big. Because how is he going to explain suddenly having a delivery route in Vermont, at my parents’ ski chalet?

I smirk to myself and hurry down the last flight of stairs. For the first time in a week, I don’t curse the fact I had to sleep in the small bedroom on the third floor. Otherwise he’d have had the upper hand in this encounter, and after three weeks of almost complete silence, that wouldn’t be right.

Of course, he did call me beautiful on Christmas Eve. That was nice. On the other hand, we haven’t spoken again. He doesn’t know how lucky he is that I’m wearing the fluffy sweater.

“Jana!” My sister turns as she hollers, and I stop right in front of her.

“Yes?”

“Delivery.” She points to the door. “But…”

I step around her and check Jake out for myself. Oh, I get the but now. He does in fact have a package for me—and not the dirty kind. A familiar cardboard box is in one hand, and his SwiftEx clipboard is in the other.

Something important is missing, though. “Where’s your uniform?” I ask, swinging the door open.

He steps inside, suddenly taking up all the room in the small foyer. Big and broad and impeccable in black. Intense, too. Suit-Jake operates at a different level than Uniform-Jake. His jaw flexes as he gives a little shrug. “Too cold in Vermont. They banned them.”

My lips twitch. Suit-Jake has a dry sense of humor. “And gave you all Armani suits instead?”

“It’s Hugo Boss.” He gives me a weird look and I give him one right back. He grins. “Hi.”

And there’s the Jake I know. The butterflies that had flocked to the ready in my tummy now take off. “Hi.”

He holds my gaze for a moment, then drops his attention to my lips—shivers—and then breaks away to look around the foyer. “So…skiing, huh?”

I want to drag him to a dark corner and kiss him senseless, but I don’t know where we stand. So I take the more sensible approach and stick with the cover story he’s provided. I point to the package. “Actually, I have work to do. So if you want me to sign for that…”

He hands over the clipboard and I gesture for my sister to close the door behind him. I ignore the what the fuck look she’s trying to shoot me. I don’t know what exactly is going on here, either, but the parts I do know are mine and mine alone.

He leans in as I scrawl my name. His voice is low and tugs at something hot and hungry inside me. “Any chance you’re free for lunch?”

Yes, are you crazy? Of course I am. But I don’t say that. I smile to myself and keep my face down. He doesn’t need to see how pleased I am. “You don’t have other deliveries to make?”

“Not exactly.”

“Oh?” It’s mock-innocence. I can put the pieces together. I know he pulled some rank to bring me this package. I know who he is, and he’s obviously not pretending anymore, but he hasn’t said that, and it’s weird. I know you’re worth the GDP of a few small nations, and that’s kind of freaky. Yeah, I can’t bring it up. I’ll bungle it.

“Jana…” His voice is suddenly low, rough, and loaded with meaning.

I slowly lift my head.

“Is there somewhere we can talk?”

“I…” I do a quick mental count of the rooms in the condo. My room is technically private, but it’s up on the third floor and that feels very high-school for the conversation I think we’re going to have.

There’s no way I want to traipse a billionaire up three flights of stairs to sit on a twin bed and have a conversation I’m sure my brother and sister will try to eavesdrop on through the ventilation system.

I shake my head. “Not really.”

He nods. “Okay. We could go to Starbucks. I saw one back there in the Santa’s Village-esque center of town.”

Uh… He’s dressed like something straight out of Wall Street and I’m… I glance down. Okay, I’m presentable. I’m wearing black leggings and these extra-long wool socks that look like men’s work socks, with the red stripe around the top, but they’re the perfect length to peek out the top of tall boots.

It was the perfect outfit when I was planning to hit that very same Starbucks to do some work.

Now it’s leggings next to Hugo Boss.

We’re so mismatched it’s not funny. But I don’t want to do this here, so Starbucks it is. I grab my parka, pull on my boots, and follow him outside.

Instead of a SwiftEx truck, there’s a stretch limo at the foot of the path.

I skid to a halt.

He stops with me, even though it’s thirty degrees out and he’s not wearing a coat. “What is it?”

“I miss the uniform,” I blurt out. “And the truck. I can handle that Jake. He was—”

“More your type?”

“Not exactly.” More my league, but I don’t want to say that out loud. I don’t want to point out how not in his league I am.

“Funny story.” He steps closer and tugs at the open edges of my coat. “I’m not really a SwiftEx driver.”

“Yeah, I got that.”

“Was it the suit?”

“Well, I don’t know if it was the same suit. Probably not. You probably wear them once and then donate them to homeless vets. But yeah, it was a suit. On you. On the news.”

“Ah.” He has the good graces to look chagrined. “How long have you known?”

“The morning after…” God, why am I blushing? It so doesn’t matter. “You know.”

“I had to go back to New York.”

“I saw.”

“I’m sorry for not being honest.”

“Whatever. I bet telling chicks you’re rich is kind of weird.”

“They usually just know.”

“Oh, great.”

He laughs, and I don’t want him to laugh. I don’t want him to be comfortable with this reality because I am so not. “Jana, I’ve missed you.”

“Okay.”

“That’s all you’ve got?”

“Well, I’m…funny. And you know, my sock collection is amazing. So yeah, of course it makes sense that you missed me. Your life is obviously lacking in jokes and socks.”

He leans in, his breath puffing in the freezing air, but he doesn’t seem to care. “Very much so.”

“Jake—”

Whatever protest I was going to weakly offer disappears as he kisses me. It’s rough, but it’s right, too. The confusing push and pull between excitement over seeing him and nerves over not being enough fades as he hauls me close. One arm wraps around my hips, the other around my shoulders, and his grip is possessive. I like that, a lot. But the best part is the slightly out of control way he pulls at my lower lip with his teeth before teasing into my mouth with his tongue, hot and dirty and demanding.

Like he just can’t help himself.

And the groan he makes as I lick back at him, because I’m hungry for this too? That’s amazing. I press up on my toes. I want him to make that sound again. I want to make him make all the sounds.

Groans. Grunts. Dirty words that slide into desperate moans.

We don’t need to go to Starbucks. We need to be alone, stat. “Jake,” I whisper as I lick my way out of his mouth.

He squeezes my butt as he drops his head to my neck. “I know. Coffee.”

“No.” God, no. “How discreet is your driver?”

Between us, his erection flexes. He exhales roughly. “I’ve got a hotel room.”

“That’s even better.”