Chapter 1

One

P eople who loved Alaska should come with a warning label that read in fat, bold letters: bat shit crazy and loving it! Ivy Kennedy eyed her sister with a stare hot enough to melt the snowflakes clinging to her lashes.

Despite her black-rimmed spectacles nothing seemed to beat back the little, frozen fairy kisses.

Ivy skootched the eyewear up the bridge of her nose and eyed her surroundings, a little nervous at where Zahara had stood them. Sparkly icicles hung from the frozen eaves of the storefronts and several dangled nearby. One good bump from a passerby and she could be spending Christmas in the morgue. Ironic how something so beautiful could be so lethal. Apparently, Alaska and danger went hand in hand and the locals didn't care about putting themselves in peril.

She drew cold air into her lungs and let it out in a billow of hot air, considering her sister's batshit crazy request.

"Pleeeease. It's tradition. You get naked, get drunk, tie yourself to a partner and run. It's why it's called the Risky Whiskey," Zahara crooned, holding up a black-labeled bottle with Moon Lust scribbled down the side in a flourish of gold calligraphy.

Eyeballs glued to the amber liquid, she asked, "Exactly how much do I have to drink and what is it?"

"How much, well that depends how bad you wanna win. And we do wanna win," Zahara said, patting her plump belly. "Mama needs a nursery and if you beat Ethan for me this year, my prize is a handyman with wood and my set of plans."

That could be dangerous. When her sister set out to do something, she did it to the nines. Their communal room at the orphanage never saw a holiday without some kind of decoration strung, looped or piled to create a festive holiday. Ivy could only imagine what she would do with a whole house and nothing holding her back. Especially with a baby on the way. Zahara would want everything to be absolutely perfect.

Her sister's Christmassy red lips parted into what Ivy referred to as the evil sister challenge left over from their childhood days. All teeth and glittery eyes daring her to back down from the challenge.

It got her every time and her sister knew it.

Hoots and cheers erupted from the bottom of the street where the team ahead of them completed their race. White and red streamers snaked through the air, and she couldn't take in the whole town fast enough with everything that was going on. No rumbling sounds of cars or trains. No smog and definitely no irritated city folks brushing past her on the sidewalk. It was all weird and surreal. Like a small town straight off a postcard. Or out of a tiny snowglobe. The kind she liked to shake at the antique shops in downtown Houston. All hand-painted and beautiful to look at.

At the head of the street where they stood, a long foldout table held down a large amount of real estate with three fold-out chairs on one side and two orange cones in the front. Several plastic trays lined the front with dozens of little shot glasses filled with the same substance her sister dangled in front of her nose.

One team on one side and a place for another opposite them, she assumed. Above it, a single large banner stretched from either side with stark blue lettering, and Christmas lights cast a cheerful glow on the words: Annual Risky Whiskey Run.

"Come on. You wanna fit in, right? Well this is what happens here. It's almost something every day. You'll see! I'll go tell the judge you're in."

"Right. Yeah. Sure. An everyday occurrence. Got it." Ivy brows pinched in confusion, and she caught the sleeve of her sister's coat before she could escape to tell the judge she'd lured her in to fill her sister's spot. Not that a six-month pregnant lady could do more than waddle in snow up to her knees if you veered off the shoveled path.

"Did you say naked? As in commando, nada ? Not even panties and pasties?" Her voice hit a couple of notes higher than she intended. In a bob and weave fashion, Ivy dodged in and out of Zahara's line of sight to check if some alien hadn't kidnapped her strait-laced sister.

"Yep, you're still Zahara but you don't sound like my sister. Since when did streaking become a wintertime sport? And for you?" Leaning forward so no one overheard, she whispered, "I can at least keep on the panties and bra? Right?" Some facts you didn't leave to chance and miscommunication.

"As long as it's not your hospital scrubs, you're good to go. Tradition among the townsfolk is you do their version of the polar bear run, you do it naked and drunk. It's seventy years in the making. Anyone is welcome to join in on the festive fun as long as you can shoot back homemade hooch and don't mind your tatas grabbing some winter air."

"It sounds like someone got bored and horny and came up with a drinking game in the dead of winter."

Zahara laughed. "Yeah, that about sums it up. Or at least that's how the elder Savage put it when he told me all about ‘the tradition.'" Zahara threw up air quotes as a smirk played at the corner of her lips.

Ivy had made promises to visit her sister over the last year Zahara had made Savage Ridge her new home… and hadn't. She'd skipped out on every promise. Flaked out for one reason or another and honestly, the list of her lame excuses was embarrassing. Local crazy customs should have made at least number three on that list but she'd failed to do all her research. And her new Alaskan guidebook riddled with facts about the state failed to mention anything about snow streaking.

Well, one thing was for sure. I beat sitting around in a cold, bland apartment all alone for the holidays.

Maybe getting a little tipsy and stripping wasn't such a bad idea after all.

A wicked grin played over Ivy's lips. She just might survive this trip after all. She bounced on the tips of her toes in time with the Jingle Bells that blasted out over the crowd. "Well, you don't have to worry about my scrubs. I left those back at the office."

Permanently, she thought wistfully. Dropouts didn't need scrubs. But she kept the real reason she braved an Alaskan winter to herself. For now. Busting her sister's bubble with bad news seemed pure evil on a day like this when everyone around them smiled and cheered with an astonishing amount of holiday spirit. "But I am armed, you could say."

The midday temperatures easily dipped below holy shit Fahrenheit and settled in for a very long-lasting deep freeze. It felt twice as cold with the wind chill factor, and Ivy thanked her new lucky leg warmers she'd decided on more layers rather than the opposite.

"Your nose is scrunching up like it does when you want to say something but don't."

Damn. Time for deflective tactics. "Well, I wouldn't call them scrubs, per se. They're really cute, though, and red if that counts for something. With little bitty mistletoe all over them." She held up her thumb and forefinger to show the actual size.

"Oh, sexy!"

"Sure. Sexy booty warmers." And Ivy left it at that with a wiggle of her brows. "You know this is past crazy and straight into batshit zone, right?"

Zahara patted her cheeks and stepped back from the cleared path down Main Street. And Ivy really got her first look at what lay ahead of her. Her heart tumbled to the ground and dragged her stomach with it. Main Street was better described as her strip of doom.

"Holy shit I'm screwed."

"You always did like to tell it as you saw it."

She shot a sideways glance down Main Street's or Savage Ridge's frozen version of a slip and slide.

Two teams barreled down the street in their birthday suits, tied at the leg. She cringed as the team on the left took a nosedive and crossed the finish line on their asses.

Oh man. She couldn't do this. Not and actually manage to cross the finish line. But if she managed to win, maybe telling her sister she'd quit med school would go over easier.

She could hope. The only reason Zahara had come to Savage Ridge was to help her pay the mounting school debt she'd racked up.

Her teeth threatened to clatter, so she raised her gloved hands and cupped them around her face. "Remember that time I tried ice skating. You know that double date I ended up saving you from?"

Zahara set the metal canister down on the table and waved to someone over Ivy's shoulder. "Oh my God, whatever you do, please don't do a repeat. When you fell on that ice you somehow tripped everyone. There had to be thirty people on the rink!"

There were four times as many lining the streets watching the Risky Whiskey.

"Well, it's not like I meant to." With another long look down the icy lane, Ivy let out a heavy sigh and fisted the material of her coat over where her heart wanted to pound out of her chest.

Her date had been a great guy but the ice skating had led to mountain climbing, which led to her twenty thousand feet above jagged peaks contemplating survival probabilities with a questionable parachute strapped to her back. And that was where she drew the line. Nerdy girls with book fetishes didn't do extreme sports and this sat at the top of her oh-hell-no list.

She took another gander at the street and scrunched her nose in horror. This would easily turn into a game of human bowling in less than five seconds. She paused, fingers clutching her sister in place, only long enough to grimace at the possibility of a total wipeout in front of the entire town. NAKED.

Men clad in loincloths with lumberjack physiques dotted every snowy surface her eyes touched.

And every single one of them would witness her wipeout.

No.

She shuddered long and hard. And Zahara wanted her to strip in front of them ?

"No. Freaking. Way. Nope. Change my mind." A cluster of the sexy guys in question walked by and she really tried to keep her eyes north of the nipples, but when five, yes FIVE naked, men built firmer than a freight train walked by smiling, what was a girl to do?

Appreciate the view, is what.

"Zahara, when you said I needed a change of scenery you didn't say anything about mountain men with dimples and no clothes?"

Her sister smiled a cheesy grin. "Thought I'd leave that as a surprise. Merry Christmas!"

"You dirty slut!"

"Only on Christmas and twice on Sunday if you know what I mean."

Right. Her sister, the straight-laced high school teacher and now the meaty dish between two scrumptious and deliciously hot male specimens. Some girls had all the fun!

"It's about to get very cold for me, isn't it?"

"Only if you think about it."

Everyone from the small mountainside town gathered on the edges of the street. "It's like they're taunting my inner klutz and she's greedily rubbing her hands together in anticipation of embarrassing me. They've all unwittingly positioned themselves to fall prey to my tendency to have the worst luck ever."

"Look at it this way. You'll meet everybody at once and kind of break the ice. Would make one helluva meet and greet, huh!" The excitement on her sister's face tore her between giving in and giving up. She pinched the bridge of her nose to hide the laugh that wanted to break free.

With her best deadpan look, she eyeballed her sister without cracking even a sliver of a smile. Her glasses slipped and she edged them back into place with her chunky mittens. "Not. funny."

Zahara twisted her mouth into a grimace, and it was game over.

"That's all right. Maybe next year then." Her sister pulled out the old poor me routine.

It worked. "Damn you, woman. If it weren't for that little baby in you, I would be stripping your ass naked instead."

"So you'll do it then? You'll race in my place?"

Ivy caught her sister's smug expression and she narrowed her eyes. "You're so gonna owe me for this." Okaaay. So this was happening. Ivy shucked off her heavy coat and tossed it in the bin her sister pulled out from under the table.

"Anything you say, sis." Those berry red lips of hers peeled back into a bigger grin. "I see the ugly sweaters have made their appearance."

God, she was such a softy. Ivy kicked off her not-even-broken-in-yet winter boots and then started work on her Christmas sweater. "What? You didn't think I would leave my Rudolph home alone, did you?"

Ivy loved tormenting her sister with her tacky holiday sweaters year after year. No sense in breaking tradition. This one happened to be her favorite. Solid white with a huge reindeer face hand-stitched on the front with a large red nose.

She glanced up and caught the scrunched expression of horror and smiled with satisfaction.

"Let me make sure I have this straight. You guys do this run every year?" Freaking crazy people.

Next came her socks.

"Like clockwork. Every December twenty-first." Her sister laughed and shook her head. "Damn girl, how many sets of socks do you have on?"

Ivy choked out a gurgled laugh of surprise. "Did you read the thermometer?" she asked in disbelief as a gust of wind played hanky-panky with the ruffles of her clothing.

Gray clouds swallowed crystal blue sky in vast swaths to settle over the snowy peaks in the distance. Puffy fingers reached, ready to rake over the growing crowd gathered to see the spectacle. A few rays of sun beat back the inevitable, but before long another downpour of snow was due to hit Savage Ridge according to the news report she'd caught back in Fairbanks. Hopefully, not for a little while, though.

"By the way. You'll have a partner to race with, too."

Ivy buried her hands in the snow for balance as she toed off her boots and shimmied out of her snow pants to reveal a pair of jeans.

She couldn't help but think maybe the impromptu trip here wouldn't be so bad after all. Now that she didn't have to worry about pristine records, a little pre-holiday fun wasn't such a bad idea.

Ivy rolled her eyes at herself. Geeky to a fault, she couldn't approach a man to whip up that kind of ‘date' if her life depended on it.

"Are you going to leave me in suspense forever. Who's my lucky partner?"

Free from all her outer layers of clothing, she set to work her second layer. How did anyone manage to move in this brutal cold? She popped the button of her pants and looked up to see her sister smiling again. "Damon." Red lips curled into something that looked somewhere between mischievous and an oh-this-is-gonna-be-fun kind of grin.

Her stomach dipped. Uh-oh.

"You know the owner of Savage Fire and the most eligible bachelor in town."

Drop a hint much? Ivy chuckled. "Yeah. I picked up on that. I also got your little hints in your last email, and your last phone call and the phone call before that."

Zahara pressed a hand to her lips.

The little sly faker.

"But…what ever do you mean?" Zahara snatched Ivy's boots up and gasped, her red lips in the form of a very convincing O.

"Right," she drew out with an arched brow. Ivy didn't buy the good little Southern girl act for a second. Zahara wanted her sister hooked up and settled down right alongside her by any means necessary. Sorry, but that wasn't about to happen. Especially in Noname, Alaska where her tatas would freeze before she could get a guy interested in warming them up for her.

"Damon? He's the broody one of the Savage crew, right?" She scrunched her nose. That didn't sound too fun.

"Hey, Doc, nice long johns."

Derriere in the air, Ivy froze. Goosebumps prickled the length of her spine until Ivy stood ramrod straight.

Her eyes slammed shut. Right on cue, her bad luck showed up like an unwanted crazy uncle.

A whiskey-rich baritone warmed her from the outside in and had her wishing for warm blankets, and deep kisses and a rumbling fire. In that order.

Damn.

"Ivy, this is Damon Savage. My brother-in-law and your racing buddy. I trust you two will win." Zahara provided like a chirpy little cardinal.

Damn her. She smelled a setup. Zahara's eyes lit with an I-told-you-so glow and made Ivy want to grind her teeth.

Ivy did a slow one-eighty and the thick wool of her socks dug into the plastic grass carpet that acted as the only barrier between frostbite and her toes. Locked in like Velcro, it was all she could do to keep her balance as she stood, chin raised. Then raised a notch higher. Reaching up, she used a finger and pushed her glasses back in place.

Sweet baby Jesus, he's like a freaking gladiator . She shivered from her pinky toes to the roots of her hair.

Broad-chested, dimples on either side of his cheeks and taut pecs. Naked, tattooed pecs with pebbled nipples and a light dusting of snow on his shoulders. A marble god, she corrected herself as her gaze raked over perfection. Her gift shop bought guidebook did not warn her of such wintry beauty. No shirt, nothing to protect him against the cold and he owned it as if ice laced his blood and he thrived in it.

In place of pants, only a scrap of brown leather with a big S on the front for Savage she presumed protected his essentials from the cold like the others she saw gathered on the opposite side of the table.

"Did you know it takes as little as five minutes for a body part to die of frostbite and fifteen for hypothermia to take hold?"

Smooth, Ivy. Real smooth . You're going to be dead before you see any action.

Ivy couldn't help the sudden urge to tuck her head into the nearest snowbank. She needed to get a life outside the freaking library and hospital.

Tall, hard, and very much all male. Damon. She rolled the name around on her tongue. Fitting, she surmised. Rock-solid and cocky with a stubborn angle to his chin. He stood, arms at his sides and a half grin claiming one side of his mouth as his eyes drank in the flush of heat brushing her cheeks.

Another team lined up at the starting line all smiles and full of taunts. The sound of the gun went off and cheers erupted.

Her heart did erratic things in her chest. They were next.

"I see I'm not the only one that likes facts. Nice. I did know but it's still good for the refresher. When working with tourists an Alaskan native can forget the more delicate skin of outsiders."

As she stripped off another layer of socks she considered his words.

Smooth like silk. He was good. Heat returned to her extremities little by little as her mortification faded.

"Damon here has signed on to be yours all day after the race. A personal guide at your beck and call."

Damn her sister. More heat flooded her cheeks.

"Thanks." She made quick eye contact with Damon who only smiled back in that home town lazy relaxed way that made her wonder if anything ever riled him up. He'd fit right in back home with all the Texan boys.

Ivy tried to act nonchalant, but that was hard to accomplish with her pants down around her knees. A harsh swallow worked her throat and that caught his gaze next.

Hers? All day? Christmas wishes did come true. Her inner vixen whipped out the cuffs and whipped cream ready for the party while, on the outside, Ivy worked her expression into cool and calm.

Besides, who was she kidding? Her land him? Nerdy doctor dropouts didn't get the town's gorgeous bachelor. Three days, a week or a month wouldn't change that little fact. Not for her. Just how it was and she accepted it as fact a long time ago.

Quickie hookups and one-night stands never suited her anyway. Or rather no one ever really considered the quiet girl in the corner of the library poring over research books as sexy. Long hours in the library and her six-week rotations at the hospital kind of bit into her non-existent love life too. Not that she hadn't fantasized about a man just like Damon taking her in the back among the empty aisles.

Oh, how she wished.

Damon's smile broadened until and brightened his light brown eyes with a warm glow.

Beautiful. Love at first sight was a myth for idiots, but damn, lust at first sight… totally a thing and it had her panties dripping wet.

One more layer to go.

"Looks like your sister bribed or conned you too."

Air failed to enter her lungs as she searched for something to say and rethinking her whole decision against a quick roll in the hay. Technically, a whole day wasn't considered a one-night stand. Nothing in her rulebook about those. She gave herself a swift kick in the pants. Well, she was in the process of taking those off. But with three days on her schedule, she didn't have time to maul a poor innocent bar owner with her sex-deprived needs and wasn't that a shame.

She took in the shape of his lips and the way his dark hair brushed his shoulders. Asgardian, as clear as the snow in front of her. How else could she describe the god-like jawline and honey-colored eyes framed with those thick black lashes?

"I sighed like that when I first spotted my men too," her sister quipped close to her ear, and Ivy nearly died in her long johns.

Damon choked out a laugh as he ducked his head.

What the hell did her sister just say? "Uh, yeah. I don't think so. Just caught me off guard," she reassured them. Come on, Ivy, get it together .

Ivy turned and threatened every cell in her body to the terrible death of frostbite if they dared to make her blush. Of course, her body betrayed her.

A thick finger tucked a strand of her hair back with a smoky laugh, the kind heard in jazz rooms that left you wanting to slow dance all night long.

"Sorry," he offered with a shrug. "Your hair has a mind of its own and it looks like you have your hands full." He looked pointedly at her hands clutching the materials of her pants.

Around her knees. She quickly peeled them off. Gah. Seriously! Could this day get any worse?

Ivy brought her gaze up and smiled, "Siblings," and narrowed her eyes on the back of a retreating blue parka. "Right? All you wanna do is kill 'em half the time."

"I know the feeling. I have a few of my own." As he spoke his gaze lit lightly on her lips before roving over her long midnight black hair piled around her face and draped over her shoulders from beneath the largest matching white beanie she could find.

Damon raised a hand between them, and she peeled off her gloves.

Ivy didn't believe in magic but she didn't know how else to describe what happened from one second to the next. She sucked back air, harsh and loud as his expression flashed to pure shock.

Electricity. Purer than the fresh snow piling at their feet. Raw and unrestrained jolts of it zinged over her skin and zapped her system as their palms slid together, large fingers wrapping around her more slender hand. Locked together, she couldn't pull her eyes off their connected hands.

Before their mom died, before the drugs ate away the woman, she had once imparted in Ivy and Zahara that the day would come when the magic , she'd called it, would happen and they would be helpless against fate.

Not on Ivy's watch. Steel slipped into her spine. Not now or ever. Nobody would ever take that control from her.

She shrugged off the haunting words like she did everything else the woman had ever told her.

Curious, she flicked her gaze to Damon's. Big mistake. The unreadable mask slipped and the surprise she felt was perfectly portrayed back at her for a brief second before heat simmered in his irises.

Sex never sat high on her list of interests. Medical school had always taken precedence for her. Every once in a while, when the night grew longer or one of her colleagues would gush about their boyfriends, she would fantasize about the what-ifs. Waking to the sensual touch of a lover and the euphoria of an orgasm not by her own hand. But those were fantasies that stayed in her head and dissipated the second she woke in the morning. Besides, when did she have time to get to know someone that well? And there was never any guarantee whoever she hooked up with was good in bed to begin with. Her time was precious. Wasting it on an unknown factor like that seemed pointless.

Her gaze slid over the broad shoulders and hard dips and valleys of Damon's bare chest and she'd be lying if she didn't wonder the size of the package behind the tiny scrap of leather.

She had deep suspicions anything with Damon would leave her a boneless puddle. She didn't need hours with the man to know the intensity within him would burn her beyond recovery.

That gave her pause.

"Ivy."

Although a secret part of her wished he'd said her name like that because he felt the same tug to kiss her as she did him, Ivy knew better. A wispy fog tangled with her thoughts as sensual images of her legs intertwined with his, their bodies pressed together and surrounded by snow filled her mind.

She blinked and slowly the sight of snowflakes caught in his rich sable hair filled her visions, this time for real.

His brows a shade darker than his hair pinched together in a crease. "Ivy?"

Like tethers fraying, the connection snapped. She cleared her throat and took a half step back, the sights and sounds of the town party slamming into her like a thousand trumpets in her ears. Her gut lurched and for a second she forgot to breathe.

He felt it too. Or he was damn good at faking surprise. But the shafts of raw emotions shattering his irises didn't lie. She swallowed past the tight collar that suddenly restricted the flow of air to her lungs. She jerked her hand back and stretched the material.

Magic?

Her mother was crazy.

She shook her head.

He moved to reach out to her but thought better of it and let his hand fall back to his side.

"So, huh, are we going to do this?" she croaked around a scratchy throat. Her shoulders drooped and her gaze fell to the table where several trays holding the whiskey lined the deep red cloth covering it.

He rubbed a hand over his face and backed off a step, his gaze roaming over the crowd.

She could use a stiff drink. Maybe two. And she wouldn't say no to a third.

From her lower point of view, his eyes appeared hooded from her as he peered down. "I had no idea they came in pink."

She blinked. "What?"

"Your long johns. You really gonna race in those."

That got his attention?

She held his gaze and popped the first button at her neck and quickly unhooked the others. His eyes roved over every inch of skin she exposed and his expression darkened when the mounds of her breasts were revealed. And her lack of a bra. A real one anyway. The thin, lacy thing she had on didn't leave anything to anyone's imagination. Had she known she would be stripping in front of the town maybe she would have gone for full coverage.

She edged the sides of her long johns open.

He threw a heavy hand over hers, a dark, dominant hunger in his eyes. "Wait," he drew out drinking in the sight of her dusky nipples pinned behind deep blue lace. "No Southern rookie is going to freeze on my watch. Button that back up, sweetheart. You look way too damn good with them on. I'd hate to see the fight that would break out if you were to take them off."

"You don't think I can do this?" She popped another button right above the band of her matching panties that had a growl coming from him. "I might be a sweet-talkin' southern belle, but you should know better than to think me weak."

Defiance had her popping another button and another. Each one earned her a sexy narrowed-eye look. Reaching out, he took her hands in his and quickly refastened the few risqué buttons revealing the sexy V of her lacy panties.

Leaning in, until the only thing she could smell was fresh pine and snow he said, "If you do I'm afraid for the male population of Savage Ridge. I might have to fight them off. Might be fun but I'd rather use the time you have here with us with you and not getting my hands bandaged."

Oh.

That only made her want to find out what that entailed, but he had a point and she didn't relish the fact her nipples would freeze if she went through with her little challenge.

She willed her heart out of her throat. She could easily blame the heat hitting her cheeks on the freezing bit of air blasting them head-on from up the street. That was her story and she was sticking to it.

Damon reached around her and swiped a couple of shots from the table then pressed one into her hands.

"This will help get the muscles warmed up and take the edge off." His lips parted and in two seconds every last drop slipped past his lips.

She raised her cup. "Bottoms up."

"Everyone, thirty seconds."

Damon pressed another drink into her hands. "Guess that means us!"

"You know the rules, right? We have to run down the road as we drink the whiskey and we can't spill any. And we have to cross the finish line before anyone else."

They were so screwed. Liquid heat prickled up her limbs. "Yep. Easy." She nodded, wide-eyed. This was so not easy.

"Ladies and gentlemen, the next teams are lining up. Racers, are you ready?" The booming voice rang out over the crowd and elicited whistles, woots, and screams from the ladies. She didn't blame them.

Damon in a loincloth didn't leave much to the imagination and was the perfect Christmas present.

"Hey, Ivy."

She leaned around Damon's big body to see his brother all smiles and no clothes. She knew him by name but had yet to meet her sister's other brother-in-law. He was a leaner, yet just as finely toned version of Damon. A brunette stood by his side in a set of blue panties and bra that resembled a 60's bathing suit. And a scarf to match.

Huh. Cute, she mused, pushing her glasses up her nose. But she'd take her long johns, thank you very much.

"Make sure to miss that big patch of ice," Ethan, flicked a thumb toward the middle of their side of the road. "Don't worry, you can't miss it. See you at the finish line." He waved, throwing her a saucy wink.

Game. On.

"Don't pay attention to Ethan. He's an idiot."

"But the ice. I am a magnet for anything slippery, wet or hard."

His lips quirked up with the same smirk his brother had flashed across his face. "We'll have to see about that. Just curious, but all in that order?" His words were a dark, husky growl.

Freaking Zahara. She would kill her for this. Right after she popped out that kid.

Ivy groaned. "Just tie us together and let's get this over with." She needed to watch her words.

"Yes, ma'am," he drawled with a tip of his imaginary hat. The worst part. He didn't even look cold standing there. Dark nipples pebbled against flat disks but that was it.

Large, warm hands parted her thighs and it wasn't her imagination that he took extra precaution to not slip too high.

Here was a man who was good looking, had a fucking voice that could make her orgasm all on its own, and he was a gentleman.

She put a hand on his solid shoulder and leaned into him a little when she had to lift her leg so he could tie off the knot.

Now tied thigh to thigh, he stood and offered her a hand to her elbow for balance. "That's not too tight, is it?" His dark gaze lit on her.

"No. Not at all. It should hold us together." She pressed her hands to her cheeks and her voice held a flicker of flirtation to her own mortification.

Zahara swooped in with her ever perfect timing and handed them a tray filled with small plastic cups the size of Jell-O shots. "Don't spill any or we lose!"

Damon leaned over and pressed his lips to the shell of her ear. "By the way, those long johns are turning on half the town. He jerked his chin toward the growing crowd."

A single crack rang out over the crowd and all hell broke loose.

Fact: shit just got real and she was half-naked in front of a ton of strangers.