Kissmas Wishes (Love In All Seasons 3)

I shake my head, his words registering. “Less than what?”

“Less than you.”

I swallow, looking up at him, realizing he wasn’t looking at my curves — he's looking for a way out. A way out of this conversation, this request. A flashback of the last time he told me no runs through my mind. I cover my face, mortified like I’m in high school all over again.

“I’m sorry, this was stupid,” I say, grabbing my coat, moving to leave. Rushing to the door. “Have a good Christmas, Filson.” I pull open the door and stop in my tracks. There’s a wild gust of wind, snowflakes falling hard. The hood of my car is covered.

“Came down faster than predicted,” Filson says, moving behind me.

“I have to get home,” I say, marching onward. My foot, though, is moving faster than my mind and I begin to slip. “Oh, no,” I shriek, waving my arms to regain my balance but before my butt hits the ground, Filson has me in his arms. Saving me from a fall that would have left an awful bruise.

“You aren’t going anywhere until the snow stops.”

“When will that be?” I ask, suddenly not wanting to be here alone with him a second longer. When Filson looks at me, it’s like he sees right through me. And I’m not sure he likes what he sees.

“I’m not a weatherman,” he says. “I’m just a handyman, remember?”

Furious with his word choice, I spin around in his arms, he’s holding onto me so I don’t fall. “I didn’t mean that. I meant…”

It’s hard to concentrate though because being this close to Filson means smelling him. He’s wood shavings and blue skies and bergamot. He’s a man with a beard who looks like he could chop down the biggest pine tree. But he also drinks tea. That means for all the hard edges there is something soft at his center. Doesn’t it?

I swallow, looking up at him, into those piercing green eyes that had me head over heels for him when we were sophomores in high school.

“I wanted your help because I trust you, Filson,” I tell him plainly. Honestly.

He looks down at me and I wish, right then, that Filson liked me. That he thought of me as something more than a spoiled girl who got everything she ever wanted. Because the truth is, that isn’t the truth at all. I wish Filson saw me as an equal.

And more than that, I wish Filson would meet my eyes and tell me the words I’ve always longed to hear.

“You trust me?” he asks gruffly.

I nod.

His hands on my waist seem to hold me more firmly. Snow falls down, swirling around us with the two of us caught in a blizzard, and my emotions; the ones I suppressed for the last ten years, rise to the surface. I can’t seem to hold back my want for Filson. A man that seems to be so wrong for me that it’s ridiculous to even entertain these feelings.

But they are here. Real. Nonetheless.

“Why?” he asks. “Why do you trust me?”

I lick my lips before answering. Not wanting to say it wrong. “Because I’ve known you longer than anyone else on Earth. Because my granny adored you. And I know you don’t like me, but—”

“I never said that, Maple.”

My eyebrows lift. Hope blossoming even though so much of my life is so close to ruin.

I open my mouth words spilling out, “I thought you… I mean, back in school…”

He swallows and then takes my hand and pulls me to him. Time stops, the world spins, and I am in Filson Barre’s arms. I close my eyes, my miracle right here, outside his cabin. Right here, against him. His mouth meets mine. I melt faster than the snowflakes falling around us.

I’m not slipping anymore.

Right now, I am utterly head-over-heels.FilsonI pull her back into my cabin. Wanting to kiss her again, take her, have her — everything. This girl has had my cock hard for years and nothing she’s saying now is changing that.

It doesn’t make sense. The reason why she’s here. Why she wants me to fix her house up now in the middle of winter. She might think I’m nothing more than a man with a hammer and nails — but to be perfectly honest, I don’t care what she thinks of me right now. Because I know what I think of her.

She’s the most beautiful woman I’ve ever laid on eyes on and she’s in my cabin, looking at me with eyes full of hope. And I may be a man living alone in the woods, but I know what I see. And I see the longing in her eyes.

We move silently, our bodies pressed tightly together. My hands are on her cheeks and we both lean in, the moment stills, the fire cracks, the moment ours.