Bound for Christmas Read online

  Natalie steps on my foot and I glare down at her, delivering a smack to her firm round ass and immediately feeling a stir where I shouldn’t.

  She gasps and moves slightly away, a fake grin still plastered on her face.

  Oh, damn, one way or another, this is so going to end up messy. I just know it.

  Chapter 4

  NATALIE

  December 22

  This must be some kind of evil prank or something.

  I mean, I thought this whole retreat thing would be like a vacation.

  A sucky vacation I had to spent with Mr. Pain-In-The-Ass’s hoity-toityness judging me all over the place as he stared me down all the way from on top of his gigantic mighty snobbiness, but a vacation, nonetheless.

  It seems I was mistaken.

  Not only we’re going to have to pretend to be the best of friends, team players and all that crap, all the while gushing motivational stuff left, right, and center over our stay, all the while freezing our asses off in freaking damn Washington when we could be in San Jose, and not only we’re gonna have to get through all of this with our parents carefully watching us, no, apparently we’re actually going to get training.

  And could we at least get trained by some normal person?

  No, of course not!

  We have to get Alice Granger who is a cross between a Tinker Bell clone on crack, Mary Poppins after a mental breakdown and a Neo-Nazi wannabe all wrapped up neatly in one mentally unstable package and is completely off her freaking rocket.

  As I stare at her, pretty much open-mouthed, she’s talking about exercises to build trust that I’m gonna have to do alone with the jerk.

  And she wants to take candies, chocolate and cookies away from us for the duration?

  At Christmas?

  I’m of a mind of throwing holy water on her stupid smiling face just to see if she goes up in smoke.

  And even worse, when she’s not smiling, she’s gawking at Tristan’s taut ass like there’s no tomorrow, the bitch!

  I mean, not that I care or anything, but still, the way she looks at him like she wants to devour his big body’s gotta be what work harassment lawsuits are made of!

  “Miss Gold, are you listening?”

  I pop my gum and glare at her. “Yeah… you want us to sing ‘We are the world, we are the children’ while we hold hands and smoke peyote.”

  She splutters. “That’s not— that’s not what I said, I— that’s just… just a—”

  I sigh in exasperation. “A joke. It’s called a joke. Can’t you take one?”

  She huffs and when I hear Tristan’s chuckling I turn around to scowl at him.

  Tinker Bell from hell also turns to look at my nemesis batting her lashes up at him. “That’s hardly helpful, Mr. Silver. Laughing it’s nothing but negative reinforcement. We don’t want that.”

  Tristan rolls his eyes. “We don’t?”

  She shakes her head, smiling in what I can see it’s an indulgent way to him. “We don’t, Mr. Silver. Now, for the next exercise I want you to go stand in front of Miss Gold and close your eyes and please take off your glasses.”

  What the hell is she contriving now?

  Tristan doesn’t move for a while, but then we see our parents walk in and I gesture to him, mouthing a ‘don’t get us in trouble again!’

  He glowers at me but still moves to stand in front of me.

  “Here, let me put you in the appropriate position,” Alice says, sliding her grabby little hands up his muscular arms shamelessly.

  Tristan shakes her off. “I work much better with verbal instructions,” he tells her, and probably to save face, she starts to giggle like he made a joke or something.

  Man, this woman is really a piece of work!

  She turns to look at me. “Miss Gold, you too must remove your glasses.”

  I do as she says. “Now what?”

  She studies us for a moment, then she picks up a white poinsettia’s branch and starts to hover it all over us, humming.

  “What the fuck are you doing?” I blurt out.

  She just glares at me and shushes me.

  “Did she just shush me?”

  Is she for real?

  “She did, Nat. Shut up now.”

  After she finishes with her um… ‘ritual’ she asks Tristan to ‘please move a little farther away from me and then give me his back’.

  When he does so, she claps her hands and then starts to pluck away at what seems to be a Tibetan singing bowl with a little silvery stick; the metallic vibration of the sound filling the space with a shimmering echo.

  “Are you done with the tricks for the tourists? You don’t need to persuade us you’re good, remember? Our moms unfortunately already got our dads to pay you,” I tell her, and she shakes her head.

  “Miss Gold, such negativity won’t help you in your path forward. You must shed it.”

  I hear Tristan chuckles again and when Alice turns her back on us to put away the bowl, I take a step closer to him so I can punch his shoulder.

  He turns to scold me and this time the spawn of Satan tuts at him.

  “Mr. Silver, eyes front.”

  He huffs but turns around after throwing glance toward our mothers and probably catching sight of the hopeful looks on their faces.

  Those two are internationally ranked experts on guilt, particularly around the holidays, no one is immune to it.

  “Now Mr. Silver, I want you to take a breath, relax and then throw your entire weight backward.”

  He turns to the side to look at her. “Throw all my weight backward as in I have to fall on my ass?” he asks.

  I snort a little laugh but hide it behind a cough when the crazy bitch turns to give me the evil eye.

  “You won’t be falling, Mr. Silver, Miss Gold will catch you,” she explains calmly.

  I’m about to protest the inanity of her plan, when Tristan does it for me.

  “Lady, are you insane? I’m almost three times Miss Gold’s size.”

  I nod along, agreeing. He’s way too big for me to sustain him if he drops all his weight on me.

  She must be trying to get me out of the games or something.

  Mr. Know-all goes on. “She’s not strong enough, no way she can catch me.”

  I glare at his back. “Hey, you, big lug, I’m not strong enough? Chauvinism, anyone?”

  He turns to look at me, frowning. “You were nodding along not two seconds ago, Nat!”

  “Well, I changed my mind.”

  So I like to rib him up a bit, so sue me.

  Besides, one thing is for him to say he’s too big and quite another is to call me weak.

  “She can most certainly catch you,” Mary Freaking Poppins says, astoundingly coming to my defense.

  He shakes his head, throwing his hands up into the air. “Are you both crazy? Of course she can’t! And it’s not Chauvinism, it’s Physics, Natalie.”

  “Well, this isn’t about science, it’s about trust, Mr. Silver,” Alice says.

  “Un.Fucking.Believable,” he grumbles but still gets into position and then starts to tilt backward toward me, his big frame dwarfing me.

  I step to the side at the last minute and let him fall on his ass.

  “Ugh!” He looks up at me from the floor, glaring. “What the fuck, Nat! You didn’t even try!”

  I shrug. “Well, ‘la donna è mobile’, Tris, I suddenly realized your big powerful male brain knew better and decided I’d much rather see you on your ass than end up squashed under you.”

  –*–

  I actually felt a little bad — just a tad, really— for letting him fall like that, so I decided to call a truce and gave him his choice of bedrooms here in the chalet as a peace offering.

  He, of course, hogged the room with the bigger bed, which also happened to be the bedroom I had originally picked for myself and in which I just realized I left my favorite fuzzy slippers, my kindle and ph
one charger.

  I don’t think he would know how to act like a gentleman even if a book on etiquette dropped on his hardheaded ass.

  Now it’s the middle of the night, I can’t sleep, and I’m faced with two prospects: either I spend my time staring at the ceiling or I get up, knock on his door and get my stuff.

  And probably end up tangled in another argument with him within the first sixty seconds —because, really, it’s not like we can go any longer than that without biting each other’s head off— and just say fuck it to the whole truce thing.

  I kick my covers off, throw a thick fluffy robe over my Rudolph’s jammies and head into the hall.

  I lightly knock on his door and get no answer.

  I call his name. Still no answer.

  I knock a little bit harder. Still nothing.

  I smile. Maybe he’s sleeping and I can’t get in, take my stuff and get out again without having to talk to him at all.

  There’s a pleasant thought!

  There’s a sliver of light coming from underneath the door, but maybe he fell asleep while reading or something.

  Trying to make as little noise as possible, I press down the handle and push inside the room, expecting to find him in bed, but what I see makes my jaw drop on my chest.

  Holy Jingle Bells!

  Mr. Pain-In-The-Ass is most certainly not asleep right now, or lying on his bed, or wearing PJs.

  No, he’s completely naked with his back to the door and standing in the middle of his bedroom, water dribbling all over his ripped huge body as he dries his hair off with a towel. Which also happens to be the only towel anywhere near his person.

  Don’t guys keep towels around their hips when they get out of showers in like every romance book or romantic movie in creation?

  Leave it to him to go off script about something like this.

  I tell my brain I should turn my back to him, but my feet won’t budge.

  Then close your eyes, girl!

  Nothing.

  I can’t peel them off him and his muscular ass.

  Damn, why does he have to be so… so… hot?

  There’s a lot, and I mean a lot, of… stuff in front of my eyes right now.

  And I’m only human, after all.

  He throws the towel on the bed and starts to turn.

  I gasp when I see him reach down to his… well, and that’s when he sees me and, of course, there’s no way the floor can open up right about now and just swallow me whole.

  “What the fuck, Nat! What are you doing here?” he asks, scrambling toward his bed to pick up the discarded little towel and cover what looks to be something that no amount of terrycloth could ever hide.

  I flush all over and cast my eyes to the ground.

  He stalks toward me and I pick up my head, my eyes going round when I see what’s going on under the aforementioned towel now that the damn thing is actually around his hips like it was supposed to from the start.

  Oh. My. Goodness.

  I’m so embarrassed, I can hardly breathe and what’s worse, I can feel a sudden throb between my legs!

  He stops in front of me and tries to meet my eye. “Are you okay?”

  “I… I… kindle, charger, fuzzy thingies…” I mumble, my brain pretty much fried at this point.

  Tristan tilts his head to the side and then smirks. “You’re all flustered, Nat… did you like what you see? You sure took a good, long look!”

  He chuckles and I glower at him.

  “I didn’t! I was just… the shock… I-I-I… this is so horribly awkward, I—”

  He suddenly throws an arm around my waist and pulls me against his warm, wet body, making me yelp in surprise and then his lips are crashing down on mine.

  My mind goes blank and my heart starts to beat so fast, I’m almost afraid it’s going to stop soon.

  I tell myself I should push him off, but I don’t.

  I don’t.

  Why don’t I?

  I feel his tongue sneak into my mouth and seek mine and I respond to it.

  I moan into the kiss and he grunts, picking me up and winding my legs around his waist.

  I feel his hard erection poke at my center through my PJs and his wet towel, and I involuntarily grind myself against it.

  Oh my!

  What am I doing?

  This is crazy.

  Crazy…

  He squeezes my ass in both of his hands as he kisses me hard enough to steal my breath and when I feel his hardness jerk against me, I finally snap out of it and break the kiss.

  “Stop! Put me down, Tristan!”

  He blinks down at me, his breath as harsh as mine.

  “Natalie, I—”

  I shake my head.

  Not this.

  Not this, anything but this, not with him!

  I mean, I knew I was attracted to him: I should have been blind and deaf and with no functioning sense of smell not to be, but I never meant to act on it.

  I can’t stand this guy!

  I just can’t!

  We can’t go down this road.

  I gulp down air, touching my swollen lips. “This is bad, so, so bad…”

  “It doesn’t have to be,” he says.

  And I nod. “Exactly: it doesn’t have to be. It doesn’t have to mean anything, right?”

  He frowns. “That’s not what I meant, Nat.”

  I put my face in my hands and groan into them, willing my stupid body and my heart to calm the hell down.

  “It doesn’t matter that it happened. It… it didn’t happen. Let’s… let’s… let’s just chalk it up to… the lateness of the hour… or… or even Alice’s mojo, alright?”

  “Natalie, don’t—”

  I put a hand in front of me as if to stop him. “Please, don’t, Tristan. Don’t even think about it. You’re a guy, you just wanna get laid. You’ll say anything.”

  He shakes his head and comes closer, reaching for my hand to push it down and then here he is, cupping my face and staring down at me with those penetrating dark eyes of his. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “I don’t? We freaking hate each other, Tristan! This… whatever it is that just happened… it would just make things worse.”

  “You don’t know that, Nat.”

  I hug myself, taking a step back. “It doesn’t matter. We can’t risk something like this.”

  We just stare at each other for a while, still trying to catch our breaths as I force my brain not to analyze too closely the feelings and sensations running through me.

  “Ground of temporary insanity,” I finally say.

  “What?” he asks.

  “The… the kiss… it doesn’t matter on grounds of temporary insanity, so we don’t need to ever talk about this ever again,” I say and then scurry out of the room.

  Chapter 5

  TRISTAN

  December 23

  I slam my bedroom door behind me and just drop face-down on the bed with a sigh, barely sparing time to shuck my sneakers off.

  We just got back from the main hotel’s SPA and one of those lame ‘bonding’ activities Alice, the relationship coach from a mental institution, forces us to take part in every fucking day.

  Damn that evil bitch to hell and back!

  She spent the entire day torturing us all, making us share our feelings while holding the ‘snowball of truth’; a Christmas variation, she explained, on her everyday ‘glass sphere of truth’ and she managed to turn my executives into a bunch of whiny lame crybabies, then when she was done with that, she had us move again onto lame ‘bonding’ activities.

  I smirk to myself, I think I like my way of bonding with Natalie about a hundred times better, to say the least.

  I wonder what our prissy coach would think about the kiss I shared with my recalcitrant Co-CEO.

  Would she see it as ‘progress’ or as a ‘regression’?

  After we
were done with the stupid group activities, we passed onto ‘couple counseling’.

  Like Natalie and I need to be staring at each other and sitting in close proximity with a shrink analyzing everything we say and do and every little twitch of our faces right about now!

  At least today we didn’t snipe at each other that much, we were too busy keeping each other from wandering back onto those so pleasant grounds of temporary insanity.

  After we were done with all the touchy-feely crap, the ‘building of trust’ moved into ’surviving strain together’, meaning Alice had every gym instructor present on the resort’s premises strain each and every muscle in our bodies until we could barely breathe. When we asked her what was the point of that, she said it was meant to ‘burn negative energy off of our bodies’ and help us ‘focus our concentration into getting along’.

  It was a nightmare.

  I mean, I do keep in shape, I like to ski, and I run every day, but that?

  What the fuck was that?

  Doesn’t she know that nerds and gyms are like water and oil?

  We don’t fucking mix!

  She’s such a fucking quack I have no words for it, honestly.

  If the only thing I have to do to get along with Miss Ball-buster is tire the both of us, I can definitely think of far more enjoyable ways to accomplish it, thank you very much.

  So basically, now I’m not only tired from feigning to get along with Natalie in front of our families and our Vice-Presidents and execs, I’m also going mental from having to pretend I didn’t stick my tongue down her throat. And she let me do it and then kissed me back. She fucking did. And now she wants to drive me even more insane denying we kissed and most importantly, why we did it.

  I’m at the fucking end of my rope here, both physically and mentally and I still spent the entire way back up here cranky as fuck and barely restraining from flipping Natalie over my knee and spanking her as she either complained about the bitter cold, grumbled at me about everything under the sun or ignored me completely.

  And where is the little ‘bad energy’ I have left?

  Easy: all in my traitorous cock that can’t keep from straining toward her every chance it gets as my brain keeps on bombarding me with memories of the kiss I shared with her yesterday, the taste of her, the feel of her little curvy body pressed against my wet, naked chest, my hard erection digging into the sweet curve of her belly and her fucking smell.