Ridge

Warm Me Up Baby

Two hours later when I have sufficiently proven to Allison that age is indeed just a number, we are in the foyer with Stella and Cannon stuffing our feet into boots and bundling up in heavy snow gear.

Cannon is dancing around already fully dressed in his snowsuit waiting for his pregnant stepmother to finish putting on her coat and hat. Allison is helping Stella with her boots since she can no longer see her feet. I watch in awe as Allison chats and laughs like she and Stella have been best friends forever.

I was wrong about her, so very wrong. But even after last night and this morning, I can’t get rid of the twinge of suspicion that’s disrupting my ability to completely let my guard down. I can’t help it. I think it will be engrained in my DNA forever to be slightly suspicious of anyone who works for a tabloid, or as Allison likes to call it, a celebrity magazine.

“Are you ready yet?” Cannon asks Allison and Stella with a huff. He’s been dressed for fifteen minutes. He’s probably drenched with sweat inside his snowsuit, and he is dying to get outside.

“Just one second, bud, let me get my gloves, and we’ll be set.” Cannon walks to the coat closet, opens the door, takes something off of the shelf, and closes the door.

“These?” he asks with impatience in his tone.

“Yes, thank you so much,” Stella says taking the gloves and putting them on.

“Ready?” I ask the group.

“Yes!” Cannon yells answering for everyone.

“Okay, let’s go.”

Cannon flings open the front door, and the wind smacks him in the face taking his breath away.

“It’s still storming,” Allison says through her scarf that’s wrapped around her face. “Good thing you have your own personal warmer,” she says lowering her eyes to Stella’s belly that her coat barely covers.

“I know, right? That’s one great thing about pregnancy, I’m never cold. Don’t worry, though, Cannon won’t last long,” Stella says trudging outside following Cannon.

She’s right. The storm is beautiful to watch from inside. It calls to you like a siren and leads you to believe you want to be outside tossing snowballs and making snow angels. But the minute you walk out the door, the wind takes your breath, and the cold and wet numb your fingers and toes.

Knowing that kids don’t last long is the only reason I agreed to go. I’m counting on him to be frozen in fifteen minutes so I can take Allison back to bed and warm her up. I can’t get enough of that woman, everything about her turns me on—her smile, her curves, her mind, her compassion, and the place on her neck that makes her shiver when I kiss it. The thought of her naked spread out in my bed under me is making me hot and hard even out here in freezing temperatures and blowing snow.

The driveway in front of the house was plowed an hour ago, but it’s already several inches deep—deep enough to scoop up a good-sized snowball and toss it at Cannon’s back.

He whips around and laughs when he sees who launched the first attack, and then he scoops up his retaliation snowball and throws it as hard as he can at my head. He misses but hits my chest, so I feign traumatic pain and grab my chest.

I hurry and make another, and before you know it, there’s a full-fledged fight going on amongst us. A hundred snowballs later, Stella calls a truce, and we decide to brave going down the driveway as far as it’s been plowed to see what we can see.

Stella and Allison are walking ahead of Cannon and me. Their heads go together trying to hear each other in the wind. Allison glances back at me and then so does Stella. Both of them laugh, Stella shrugs, and I feel like I was just the butt of a joke. I don’t ask what they’re laughing about. Instead, I file it away in my head for later. I’ll give Allison a chance to tell me herself, and if she doesn’t, I’ll kiss it out of her.

We don’t make it far before the driveway is drifted over with a mountain of snow forcing us to turn back. We help Cannon build a snowman, and when he asks to make a fort out of snow bricks, I have to break it to him that operation snow play is over. We are frozen stiff, even Stella is shivering, and we need to go inside. He whines until Stella whispers something in his ear, and then he marches straight inside. She does that often, and I always wonder what she says to make him bend to her so willingly.

Inside, Olivia, one of the housekeepers on staff, meets us at the door collecting our coats to hang them up to dry. “Thanks, Olivia. I can take care of my coat, you don’t have to do that,” I tell her. As a member of the Pride’s staff, I don’t like other staff members to wait on me.

“Oh no, sir, I’ll take it, I don’t mind,” Olivia says smiling up at me with a rosy blush on her cheeks. Olivia has had a crush on me ever since the first day I arrived at Silversage. I’ve never gone there, though. She’s pretty enough and sweet, but I have a strict no fraternizing with the help policy, and she’s finally figured that out.

I hand over my coat, and she lowers her eyes to the floor and exits the foyer.

“Somebody’s got an admirer,” Allison whispers in my ear.

“She’s a good person, but I don’t date the house staff.”

“So you don’t consider me house staff? I do work in the house, after all.” She’s saucy, and I like it.

“You don’t work here all the time. You’re more of a guest.”

“Hot chocolate for everyone,” Stella announces, and Cannon, as usual, yells and tosses his arms up in the air as he runs toward the kitchen. “I knew you two were perfect for each other,” Stella says passing us with a smug expression on her face. I glance at Allison.

“She and Ash set us up, didn’t they?” I ask narrowing my eyes as I watch Stella and Cannon walk away.

Allison nods her head. “Yep, they sure did. Does that upset you?”

I snap my eyes back to her, “No, why would you say that?”

“The look on your face just now.”

“What look?”

“The one that said I’m pissed about being set up.”

I reach out and trail my finger along her jaw. “That’s not what my face was saying.”

“Help me learn your expressions then, what was it saying?”

I look at her hard and serious. “That was my what on earth made them do this when she’s going to leave for New York in a few days look.”

“That’s a good question.”

“A good question, indeed.”

She smiles wide, and I wonder for a second if she’s gone off the rails. “What are you smiling about?”

She forces her smile away and clears her throat, but the mischievous twinkle is still in her eyes. “Nothing.”

“That smile wasn’t nothing, out with it.”

“Okay, it’s just that sometimes you sound more like an Englishman than a cowboy. Indeed.” She drags out the word indeed and cocks her head when she says it.

“Are you making fun of me?”

“No, of course not, but you have to admit you have no twang or country accent whatsoever.”

“I lost it when I went into the Marines. It leaks out here and there.”

“That’s right. I almost forgot you said you were a Marine. What did you sound like before? Lay some cowboy speak on this big-city girl.”

I inwardly cringe when she reminds me she’s from the city. I feel something for this woman, something more than I’ve felt for anyone since my wife. Knowing she will be leaving soon makes my chest ache. There is no future for us. Allison is career driven, and she has her brother to take care of along with her life is in New York. My life is here. Where does that leave us?

“Ridge?” she says laying her hand on my chest. “Are you okay, you drifted off there for a second.”

I shake off my thoughts and focus on the here and now. “Come on now, darlin, I gotta hankerin for some hot chocolate, and I don’t mean the kind Stella and Cannon are havin.”

She stares at me for a few seconds and bursts into a full-on belly laugh. I smile, slide my hands into my pockets, and wait for her to catch her breath.

“Oh. My. God. That’s the worst country accent I’ve ever heard. You should stick with the proper gentleman stuff. It suits you better.”

“What? You didn’t like it?” I ask raising one eyebrow in mock surprise.

“I love your boots and your Wranglers and even your cowboy hat, but that accent, no.”

“Good, I couldn’t keep it up anyway.” I reach out and gently pull her against me and cover her mouth with mine. She is so damn delicious, every time I taste her I want more. “So are we going into the kitchen or upstairs?” I say against her lips not breaking our connection.

“I think it would be rude just to disappear. How about kitchen first, upstairs after?”

I slide my hand around to her nape and hold her steady to kiss her again. She moans into my mouth, and my other hand moves down to her hip and then her ass. I’m about to carry her upstairs when I hear someone cough.

I pull away and find Ash standing with his shoulder against the door watching us with a knowing smirk.

“Oh, hi, Mr. Pri, I mean Ash, we were just…”

“No need to explain,” he says holding up his hand and walking closer. “I was going to let you know I have a few hours free if you wanted to get some of the pictures done this afternoon. My Skype meeting was canceled.”

“Oh, well, yes I can get everyone together, and we can…”

“I told the crew to relax and take the day off. We thought you would be busy all evening.” I’m not giving up my evening with Allison so she can rush through some pictures of Ash in his library.

“All right then, I’m going to find my wife and join her for some hot chocolate. Are you two coming?”

“Yes, we are,” Allison says squeezing my hand.

“Great, come on then.” Ash leads the way, and I shoot Allison a questioning look. She shrugs.

“I’m cold, hot chocolate sounds good,” she says loud enough that only I can hear.

I whisper in her ear, “I could have warmed you up.”

“Oh, I have no doubt you would have, and I suspect you still will.”

“You suspected right, little lady.”