10
Scrooge
Landing protocols were ingrained in our rhythm at this point. Joe and I had made nearly a hundred of these trips up to the cabin. He’d been working for me for over five years. Hell, he was the reason I was certified as a pilot to begin with.
I trusted him like no other, but right now I wished he was in the back of the damn plane. I liked having her with me—next to me.
Perhaps too much.
I gave our tail wing number to the control tower and prepared for landing. The small airstrip was only fifteen miles from the cabin. Luckily, the weather had been clear coming in and a couple degrees over freezing, so I didn’t have to worry about extra precautions. Touchdown was soft with only one extra bounce.
“My fault,” I muttered.
Joe glanced over his shoulder then at me. “She’s messing with your mind, man.”
“Maybe.”
“You know what you’re doing?”
“Nope.”
Joe gave a rare grin. “At least you know you’re fucked.”
I tightened my fingers on the yoke as Joe engaged the brake. I didn’t think that one really required a response. I would get her out of my system and forget about Christmas. In fact, I intended to be blissfully unaware of the date and balls deep in the woman behind me.
That was my story and I was sticking to it, goddammit.
We rolled to a stop and Joe kicked out the stairs. She still didn’t stir. I waved Joe ahead as I walked quietly to the last row. She was huddled under one of the thin blue blankets that had been in that overhead bin as long as I had owned the plane.
I pulled it away from her and she made a snarling noise before pulling it back up.
My elf was a grouchy sleeper.
I shrugged out of my leather jacket and pulled her forward before wrapping her inside it. She murmured a death threat that sounded like she was going to castrate me with her heel, but I couldn’t be certain. I picked her up anyway and groaned as she curled into me, putting her face in my neck.
Her warm breath fluttered over my skin. I settled her more surely in my arms and reminded myself just how many ways I was going to take her tonight. She curled her arm around my neck with a soft moan.
It was just sex.
It was a chant in my head as I walked down the stairs and stashed her in the backseat of the Land Rover. Joe was already rolling out before I got my door closed. I peered up at the sky. The iridescent orange from approaching snow was backlighting the mountains.
Winter weather came up out of nowhere up here. Joe knew it and the town better than anyone. As the tires gripped the highway and we increased speed, Kay slept on in the backseat.
I wasn’t sure which was better—her sleeping through the impending storm, or her getting to see an honest to God, lake-effect event. I checked my app on my phone before we lost a signal. Twelve to eighteen inches was heading our way.
Great for the resorts, and definitely great for keeping her in my little cabin for as long as possible.
“Darla has been in?”
Joe nodded. “She even left you a crockpot of sauce.”
Darla Peterson took care of the cabins for the both of us. I trusted her to keep the cabin stocked with all the essentials I’d need to visit whenever I could. If I called ahead sometimes she even treated me to a home-cooked meal. Evidently, tonight was an early Christmas present.
I opened the glove box and took out my satellite phone, leaving the other for Joe. “You can drop us at the cabin and keep the Rover. You’re further u
p the mountain.”
“You sure?”