Britney Clark is on her way to her best friend’s wedding, where she will serve as her maid of honor. There’s just one tiny hiccup in the otherwise jovial proceedings—one of her high school bullies is attending!
When she arrives, she can’t deny the heat between her and Jacob, her former bully, and things are only set to get steamier when they are snowed in together.
But can people really change? Can she really trust him? Britney has some decisions to makeshould she listen to her head or heart?
As if in answer to her mood, the very forest seemed to still, to await what was going to happen next. A light dusting of snow began to fall. She closed her eyes against it, tilting her head up to the sky and willing her racing heart to calm.
From the crunching, Jacob was anything but calm. She opened her eyes to watch his pacing, his jerky movements. He looked like he too wanted to say so much. But if he was going to be a coward, she wasn’t going to wait for him. She began stalking back the way they came, when his hand wrapped around her forearm, holding her in place.
“Don’t you think I’ve spent every minute of every day regretting what I did?”
She wasn’t having that. No matter if it was true. No matter if she believed him. “And don’t you think I’ve spent every minute of every day working through it—trying to forget what was said to me?” She whirled around to face him. Their faces were so, so close she could feel the heat emanating from him.
Jacob cupped her face in his hands. “I’m sorry. I am so unbelievably sorry. I was a coward who moved around five schools before finding myself at the same one as you. I was a coward who followed the leader, followed the bullies, just to fit in, and I’m sorry.”
He took a deep shuddering breath, and it was like she felt it ripple through her own body.
His eyes flicked open, and her heart stuttered. “You’re beautiful. You were beautiful then and you’re beautiful now.”
His warm lips covered her own, but not before giving her a chance to stop him, a chance to back away. She didn’t want to. She believed him. She wanted him. Maybe people could change…
Britney tasted his soft lips, opening her mouth to deepen the kiss. He responded eagerly, his fingers fisting in her hair, pulling her body taut against his own. She’d been kissed and she’d been kissed. Jacob fell into the latter category. He kissed with his whole body, putting his weight, his height, his heart behind it. As their tongues tangled together, she felt her body shiver. He wrapped his arms around her tighter.
“Allow me to warm you up,” he whispered against her mouth. His hands scooped up under her ass, raising her off the ground and into his arms.
Oh, yes, she’d let him warm her up. She’d let him warm her up any time. This is what her body had wanted the second she’d seen him. It was like her brain needed to hear his words, the apology. Now that she’d got them, she wasn’t going to waste a single second.
Luckily, he seemed to have the same idea.
Her hand dipped between them, wanting to feel what she’d suspected from his groans at their kiss. He shuddered as her hand stroked over the hard length pressing at the front of his jeans.
“Britney,” he murmured, as she pulled him closer and began tugging at his belt. His eyes widened. “What, here?”
She grinned. Happy to have reduced him to this … to nerves, uncertainty.
“Why not?” she countered, walking over to a bed of moss under a blanket of trees. The trees had kept out the snow. There was a small shelter, a wooden hut that appeared to be unfinished. She figured it would keep some of the cold out, but the heat of Jacob’s intensity was enough to light a burning fire. She could warm herself on that.
Jacob’s gaze darkened as she took off her clothing. “Yes, why not?”
