Royal Hearts (Love At The Lake #2)

Chapter 27

Twenty-Seven

CAT

“ I ’ve been looking for you everywhere.” Winter appears at my side before I make it to the winding staircase that will take me safely to my room where I can freak out in peace. There’s a happy hour going on with a cast of Dickens carolers singing a cappella by the bar.

The smell of clove, snow, and outdoors is still on him. “Hi,” I say weakly, letting him pull me by the elbow to a corner off the entry.

Torture. The entire date was absolute torture to watch. And I’m frozen. You’d think all the heat coming off Mandy would have kept us warm in the mountains; the woman was a blaze of flirtatious glory. But while she smoldered and batted her eyelashes, somehow simultaneously sneaking in a tutorial on wall stenciling because she’s vying for a show on HGTV, I got colder and colder. My heart sank. Even though I know Winter has no intentions, it was still hard to watch .

“You’re wearing the earrings.” He swallows hard, his eyes roaming my face, always assessing. “What’s next?”

“The next date is scheduled to shoot in two days. Tomorrow’s just some B-roll and filming everyday moments. It’s?—”

“No, I didn’t mean with the dates. I meant, tonight?” His hands move to my waist, fingers barely grazing my hips.

“Tonight?”

My chest aches with cold and an empty feeling I’ve been trying for a long time to fill. I can no longer ignore it—fill it with work, with emails, videos, and graphics. What I need, is a night off, but instead I’m heading to Frannie’s for my birthday dinner.

“What are you doing, tonight?” Winter presses.

Robbie’s camera appears in the corner of my eye, sitting on his broad muscular shoulder. That red light’s blinking.

“Tonight?” I repeat, gulping and gazing at what I can’t have. But his letter . . . Put me out of my misery and say you’ll be mine.

Before I can answer Mandy appears. “Great shoot today, Win. I’m headed to the hot tub to soak. Sore thighs.” She rubs the tops of her quads and I will my eyes not to roll. “Join me?”

“Uh.” He glances at me and I know he clocks the camera that’s on us, too. “It’s been a long day.”

“No problem. I mean, they’re not scheduled to film anyway, so what’s the point, right?” She smiles.

I hollered so loud at one point during their date, there was another echoing crack from the snow-packed mountains and I caught myself wishing we’d have another storm, or maybe even a teeny, tiny avalanche that didn’t hurt anyone but buried the lodge indefinitely. I’d never go back to my pink apartment in the Marina District, never get my phone back, and live on Christmas cookies, sleeping in my four-poster bed and taking lavender baths with Winter Larsen for the rest of my days.

Frozen, in a holiday snow globe, forever. That could be nice . . .

The coat, the weight of the heirloom crown, the heart-shaped earrings in my ears that I swear I’ll give back are all weighing heavily on my mind. Peeling blue polish. Hearts drawn on skin. French press coffee, sleeping in his arms with Lola snoring beside us, the fire smoldering in the grate. Snuggled in his clothes and his cozy socks—which let’s be honest—I’ve slept in all week.

If he thinks he’s getting his ugly, brown socks back, he’s got another thing coming. And honestly, I love the coat he gave me, and I’ve decided I’m going to wear it.

Why the hell have I been refusing to wear it?

But aside from all of that, being wrapped up in the comfort of him , his soft gaze and his soft words, were a gift I didn’t know I needed. Suddenly, I want to make the sad parts of him that he shows me, happy. And I want to take all his masks off myself and burn them. Show him he doesn’t need them, he’s lovable the way he is.

“See you guys later, I guess,” Mandy finally says, after watching me stand awkwardly next to Winter for too long. “I’m filming a tutorial in my room tonight for candy canes made from braided yarn. Wish me luck, my views have been down?—”

“You’re online? How?” I demand. Marco would not be happy to hear this.

“My laptop,” she says as if I’m a three-year-old.

“Mandy, if Streamflix catches you online promoting anything other than the show before we finish filming, there’ll be blowback?—”

“They won’t. And even if they do, the shitstorm bad publicity stirs up is usually worth it. Have a good night.” She winks.

“I think she’s in love,” Winter deadpans. “Alas, another influencer looking for her big break.”

I smack him in the arm and then wince, I’ve got to stop finding silly reasons to touch him. “You keep laying on the charm, and she might just fall for you for real.”

He gives me a quizzical, lopsided smile and a boatload of scrutiny. “You think so, huh?”

“ Let me help you into the saddle, bounce with me ,” I mock, though something like my pride—my heart—still smarts from the interaction.

“Somebody’s jealous,” he says, taking a determined step forward. “This show is a farce, I’m done with it. I’ll finish,” he adds when my eyes go so wide I feel them about to pop out of my head, “but I’m only doing it for you.”

“What about the Crown?” I throw my hands out wide in exasperation.

“Maybe I’m working on a new deal.” He takes another step and my feet inch back, afraid of what he’ll say next. “Maybe I have a plan, but I want to keep this crazy, infuriating, terrifying feeling all to myself for a little while longer.”

He takes a final step, and I retreat as far as I can so that our chests don’t touch. Not yet.

“Haven’t you heard? Crazy’s been canceled.” My back hits the wall behind us. “When you figure out a plan, you’ll tell me, won’t you?” I could use a plan, right now I’m floundering.

“You’ll be the first to know,” he looks at me intently, burrowing right past all my walls, like he always does.

The front desk is cluttered with people checking in and out. Robbie has surprisingly put his camera down on the bar across the room and is chatting up Liam who must be covering a shift tonight, looking dapper in his vest and cap. No doubt, he’s happy to be rid of the snowman tie. “Winter, we can’t?—”

“What are you scared of?” he asks, licking his lips, his shoulders crowding me in.

“I’m afraid of what happens next, if I admit I want you to be mine,” I breathe.

Time to be brave.

He gulps and I watch the Adam’s apple in his throat move, straining the cords in his neck. “The night we spent together, talking by the fire, that was real. The way my body reacts when you’re merely in the room—that’s real. We are real. You can’t stop what’s happening between us, Bloom. I know you’re strong, but not strong enough to fight this. You’ll be okay, I’ll see to it.”

I put my hands on his chest, planning to push him away but I forget to push. “Sharing a few secrets, a few truths, one kiss . . . Does that mean there’s something between us?” My words get lost in his chest, in the warmth that’s radiating off him, and then I make the fatal mistake of looking up into his burning gaze.

My hands slide to his neck, my thumb dragging across his jaw.

He groans. “I’ve thought about you every night since I had my mouth on you, wished for you in my bed,” he whispers, coaxing me gently.

My gaze shoots over his shoulder to where Robbie is now sitting, elbows perched on the bar with a sloppy puppy-dog grin on his face, hanging on every word coming from Liam’s mouth. “We can’t. Nothing about our situation has changed.”

“I say we can,” he murmurs while closing the distance, face buried in my neck, breathing me in.

I grab his cheeks and force him to focus, “I say, and your Streamflix contract says, we can’t, and it’s my birthday week, so you have to do what I say.”

“You get a day, Bloom. Your birthday was one day, and I got to wake up with you and wish you merry first.”

I’m not sure why this comes to me, or why I have to say it. “I can’t keep the earrings.”

He rubs his thumb over a red ruby in my ear, then under my jaw. “You’ll keep them. They were a birthday present. I like seeing them on you.”

I fight him, “I don’t want to owe anyone anything.” There’s a knot of emotion in my throat. Why is it so hard for me to surrender?

“You owe me nothing. Except for admitting that your birthday is one day, and you spent it with me.”

“I get a week. It’s Bloomfield tradition.”

“Says who?”

“Says Mike Bloomfield, and my dinner plans tonight to celebrate with my sister.”

“Hmm,” he muses mysteriously, rubbing at his strong jaw, “I may know something about that. Do you always get your way?”

“Mostly.”

“Fine. But now it’s my turn. Get in that closet, birthday girl.” He motions with a head nod.

“What?” I look behind me and sure enough, my back isn’t against a wall. It’s against a door. A little plaque that says maintenance in gold lettering to the side of my head. I’ve watched Darcy dip in here a hundred times. “No.”

“Listen to me for once and get in that goddamn closet, Bloom.”

I tip my chin up. Who does he think he is? “Why?”

“Because Robbie isn’t a moron, and while he’s put his camera down to flirt with Liam, it’s still aimed right at us and the red light is blinking. I don’t think I want what happens next on film. No one needs audio to know what I’m dying to do to you right now.”

My heart stutters at his words. “What’s going to happen next?”

“If I give you a kiss for your birthday, you can’t give it back?—”

A laugh bursts from my chest, then I sober when his expression only darkens. “Another birthday present? But you just said?—”

“Get. In. The. Closet.” If I get in the closet with him looking at me like that, things are going to seriously change between us.

“Okay.” Surrendering to him is terrifying but it is getting easier, or I’m getting weaker, but I’m not mad about it.

Turns out, it feels good to let go with someone you trust.

My pulse gallops as I turn my back to his chest and he hovers over me, hands circling my waist under my sweater. The contact of his skin on mine spikes my adrenaline, want rolling through me.

How do doorknobs work again?

We both fall into the dark and he’s on me in a flash of hungry lips and warm skin—hands, just everywhere. And for the first time in my life, I can’t follow the rules, because I don’t want to.

The kiss is ferocious. It’s greedy, and I love it. Our tongues clash, and his hand grips my neck, angling my jaw with a firm press from his thumbs. He has waited like a good boy, and he’s ready to take what he wants.

“Is this happening?” I wonder aloud, breathy, awestruck, off my footing and out of my element.

“You shouldn’t have come in here with me if you didn’t want my hands all over you, Bloom. I thought you were smart.” He mocks me with a chuckle and a challenge, warm breath, and the whisper of lips on my neck as his hands push under my sweater to grip my ribcage roughly.

“I thought you were a vapid pool of entitlement.” I fist my hands in his shirt and he props me on a countertop, lifting me easily like a feather.

My knees spread and he grabs my ass, pulling me flush so he can grind into me. I feel every single inch of him—of which, oh God, there are many. “I thought you were an advantageous, greedy, little narcissist.”

“Winter!” He laughs hard and I love the sound falling from his lips as his thumb brushes under my jawbone and tips my chin up the way I like it, but I turn my cheek.

It’s fun defying him, even though I’m allowing his hands to be all over me, allowing him to press between my legs as we both pretend we might get enough from this alone. “Don’t you dare pretend you missed the past tense part of my words. I thought you’d never want anything to do with me.”

“No.” I breathe.

“No?”

My head falls back and he takes the note, running his mouth from my collarbone to my ear, until he clamps down on that soft spot under my jaw. His tongue is warm and needy as he sucks at my skin .

I hiss as he palms both my breasts. “I thought, I think we’re playing with fire. Someone’s going to get hurt.”

“I won’t hold back with you, if you don’t hold back from me.” That promise is more comforting than he knows. He pulls away and I take a full breath for the first time since we’ve been alone and frantic for each other in the dark.

“But what if?—”

“Do you want to stop?”

“No.” I reach for the pockets of his pants and pull him back in.

“No?”

“Wait, yes.” My head is spinning, thoughts of what I want to do and what I should do clashing. “I can’t have you.” He pulls my wrist to his mouth and sucks at my pulse point, right over his red heart. “Winter, I can’t have you .” I’m telling myself as much as I’m telling him. I can’t. He’s not for me. He’s not mine.

“I want you so bad, it hurts.” His other hand moves to push a lock of hair behind my ear. I whine at his touch, the intimacy, hating myself for wanting more. The heat that pools between my thighs is shocking, I don’t think I’ve ever been this high off of someone’s mere touch.

“Winter . . .” He hums in response to his name, pressing his length harder into my center while I press right back into him. Trying to find a release, trying to make this enough.

“I’m trying, baby.” He knows what I want and his mouth lands on mine again, slow, steady, hot. I gulp him down with a groan while my fingertips dip below his waistband.

“More?” he asks, because I’m moaning and really, it’s clear I want more. I think this is Winter Larsen trying to be a gentleman in a closet full of hot breath, and frantic touch.

“Can’t.” It takes everything I’ve got to pull away.

“Why?” he pleads, and it puts a crack right down the center of me. If he only knew how much I want him. I’m soaked between my legs.

“I can’t have you,” I repeat, contradicting my words and gripping his shoulders, pulling him close again. I’m determined to enjoy this to the last moment until we leave this closet and go back to reality.

He growls, pressing me back into cabinets. “Do, do you want me?” He almost covers his uncertainty. “I’ve told you I want you to be mine but . . .”

He can’t imagine I’d want him? Like really want him, for more than just this. Is that what he’s asking? He is so want-able it’s funny. I have to swallow a laugh. How could anyone not want this enigmatic, melancholy, endearingly strong for everyone but himself man?

But I shake my head. “It doesn’t matter what I want.”

“It does,” he whispers in my ear, wrapping my hand around his neck, and securing it there. “Because I crave you, sod bloomst.”

A thrill runs the length of my body, from the tip of my head to the toe of my boot, settling heavily in my belly, then sinking between my thighs where he’s still pressing and I’m so close to firing off.

Could we hide it? “You’re theirs,” I whisper in the dark. “One of them is going to win you, and there’s nothing I can do about it.”

This is the truth. This is reality.

He scoffs at the ridiculousness of my statement. “I’m yours,” he growls as if the truth doesn’t exist.

“Winter—oh my God.” Something inside me pops, like a balloon filled with wanting. I combust for him, mewling into his ear while he rocks into me, whispering and encouraging me.

“That’s right, that’s exactly what you needed.”

I can’t believe that just happened, through my jeans. I’ve never been this affected by anyone. My hands still in his hair, and I look into his eyes. It’s dark, but I can make out the blue with flecks of grey surrounded by lashes three shades darker than his hair. His eyes smolder and hold mine while I unabashedly drink him in.

Could he be mine? If only for a short time? Even if it’s a secret ?

I bite my lip as my heart pounds with indecision in my ears. My core still throbbing for him. I’ve never put myself first. It’s been what Frannie needs, what my parents need, what Brand Hub needs, but never what I need. Never me first.

“It would never work.” I shake my head but really, I’m nuzzling into his neck again and clinging to him as I come down from my orgasm. “I’ve promised to hate you forever. I’ve promised to marry you off and never think of you again. It’s in our contract that production is not to fraternize with the cast. The Crown wants nothing to do with me.”

Give him up, before it’s too hard, before it hurts too much.

He laughs lightly against my cheek and pulls back to look at me seriously. “You read our contract? Like, start to finish?” He presses a finger into the divot in my top lip. I hold my breath and look into his eyes.

His mouth is everywhere again, and despite my trying not to, I open for him. My shoulders push back, my neck stretches long, my knees open wide. He’s still hard as steel between my legs.

“Of course I did, and you’re forbidden,” I say into his mouth when his lips come back to mine.

“Fuck, that’s hot. Say it again.” I reach for the button on his pants, but he swats me away, making quick work of undoing it himself.

His nose nudges mine, and I’m barely able to ask, “Which part?”

“How you can’t have me,” he breathes, his hand plunging into his pants as he grips himself.

“Why?”

“So I can tell you forever and a day that you can, until you believe me.” I watch his hand work and it’s the sexiest thing. “Fuck, Cat. How did you do this to me? I’m gonna come right now like a teenager.” And he does, and the sounds of pleasure he makes are perfect. And they’re all mine .

“Winter . . .” I say to the darkness, the last bits of my resolve fading into his touch, his smell, his want.

He collapses against me, panting, pressing his forehead to mine. And then he says the four little words that—for better or worse—seal the deal. “We can hide it.” Then adds as if for extra insurance, “No one has to know.”