AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Excellent,” he said, getting to his feet and holding the door open.
I stepped aside and he went in, taking his turn to finally feel warm again. I turned and looked around at the task that lay before us. The first thing I needed to do was sweep up the broken glass. After that, all we’d need was a little Christmas magic.
Chapter Sixteen
Gabe
Thewarmwaterenvelopedme like a cocoon, bringing feeling back to my frozen extremities. The fire and Jenna’s touch had been wonderful for heating up my numbed skin, but once she had left my presence and I was left on my own again, the chill had crept back in.
I lathered my hair and skin, cleaning off the sweat and remnants of our activities of the night before as the sounds of the wind slowly died down outside the cabin. The storm had already begun to blow itself out by the time we’d woken up, but I could hear the lessening in the gale with every passing minute.
If the snow stopped soon, there was every chance that the roads could be plowed within the day. And while part of me was glad Jenna would likely have her brother for Christmas, and that I would know my friend was safe, I couldn’t help but be just a bit disappointed. I knew that once Dean returned, Jenna and I would go back to a much less intimate arrangement, and the idea left me more than a little melancholy.
When I’d arrived, Jenna had seemed so insufferable and unwelcoming, but I now knew that my own actions had played an even larger part of that than I initially realized. The Jenna I’d gotten to know over the last day and a half, when we had nothing to do but spend time together and get to know each other, was like an entirely different person. She was smart, funny, and clever, with a compassionate nature and, by God, if she wasn’t the sexiest person I’d ever been with, I would drink my own bathwater.
Just thinking about the way she felt the night before, the way her lips felt on my skin, the way it felt to be inside of her had me twitching, needing another release.
But I wasn’t about to waste it alone—not when we might only have hours left to explore this connection and each other.
I got out of the bath and dried off, pulling on a new pair of boxers, pants, and a sweater, then went back out to the living room to see what Jenna had gotten up to while I took my turn in the bath.
Sitting on a blanket before the fire, she had the cards spread out in the solitaire formation again. She looked up at me as I entered and smiled, flipping a new card.
“Good bath?” she asked, her eyes traveling up and down my body in a way that told me she might have had an idea of the kinds of thoughts I was having in there by myself.
“Not nearly as good as it was to see you when I got out of it,” I said, surprising myself with how easily the flirtatious, sentimental comment came to me. But it seemed to have the desired effect, since Jenna immediately blushed and her smile widened as she looked down at her cards.
“So…” she said after a moment, looking out the unbroken window. “The weather seems to be letting up.”
“Yeah,” I replied, my smile fading slightly, “I noticed that.” I tried not to look too put out by the lightening skies, but the idea of losing this little bit of time together was even more disappointing with her in front of me.
“Dean and Lexi will probably be back soon.” It might have been my imagination, but, despite the hopefulness I knew she was feeling, I could have sworn I saw the same hint of sadness I was experiencing, myself.
“Yeah,” I said, unsure what else to say about that particular topic. We remained in silence for a moment, then I remembered what the plan had been before I got in the bath. “So, do you want to get started on that tree?”
Jenna smiled and nodded, gathering up the cards and sticking them back in the box. She stood, and the sweater she had on was such a perfect complement to her lovely curves that I stared for longer than I probably should have, though I felt certain any chastity between us had been blown away by the storm as much as the window had.
We wandered the house, looking at the destroyed decorations in the living room and dining room, casualties of the broken window and the storm that had raged inside the house while I’d gathered supplies from the shed. The tree lay on its side, several of the ornaments broken, and even more scattered around haphazardly. The tablecloth had been blown off and lay in a corner, with two of the four gold chargers broken in half. The garland on the mantle was bunched up in a messy clump, and the glass snowmen were little more than exploded shards of glass on the floor.
“Well,” I said, rubbing the back of my neck. “This is a disaster, isn’t it?”
“No kidding,” Jenna said with a mirthless laugh. “No chance we could just open up the window and let the storm blow it all away so we could just pretend we never saw it?”
“We don’t have to do this,” I reminded her. I was more than willing to ignore any kind of responsibility until real life walked back in the door. Until then, we could keep just enjoying each other.
“I know,” she said with a resigned sigh. “Believe me. I can think of… several things… I’d rather do.” She gave me a look and licked her lips, and I felt another twitch below my belt. “But Christmas is tomorrow, and if Dean and Lexi make it back, I want everything to be perfect—or, as perfect as it can be with half the stuff in here broken or ruined.”
I nodded in agreement, looking around.
“So where should we start?” I asked, unsure what would even make sense.
“Let’s get everything off the floor. Then we can go from there.”
I grabbed a broom and started sweeping up anything broken while Jenna gathered the things that were still salvageable and put them on the table to be sorted. The tablecloth was soaked from the snow that had covered it when it blew off and had since melted, but it was still usable, so we laid it out by the fire to dry. I picked up the tree to see what all had survived it falling over. Jenna had collected several ornaments which, once she’d taken care of everything else, she brought back to the living room and laid them on the couch.
“How does it look?” she asked.
I glanced down at her with a smile. “Looks beautiful from here,” I said cheekily.
