Chapter 8

Chapter 8

Nicole

Brooke and I seriously had more than chemistry—we had gravity. Trying to escape only ever got us so far. And just like that, there we were again, sitting by the big firepit at the center of the market, where the air was crackling and warm and smelled like toasted marshmallows and hot chocolate, surrounded by children laughing and their parents talking over hot drinks. Brooke and I sat close together, reconvening halfway through gift shopping, discussing where to next—scheming in the way we always did, except this time everything was different, because she was looking into my eyes, and it was like the glow of a thousand lights, the warmth of a much bigger firepit than this, and all the safeness of being wrapped up in a blanket drawing by the window as night came on over the valley below my cabin.

After picking up gifts, I led her to my car—it was a no-brainer, since she’d gotten gifts for her family too, and she needed to wrap them before she could go home. We didn’t talk about anything at the market—too many people around. We didn’t talk about it in the car, either, not while I was blaring her own music over the speakers and I sang until she grudgingly joined in.

It was only while we were wrapping gifts, sitting in my cabin between the crackling fireplace and the Christmas tree where our hand-painted ornament hung, and the glass doors overlooking the valley, that it came up. She did it so offhand it took me by surprise, just a quick comment while she laid the hand-stitched earmuffs for her sister Abigail in a gift box, not even looking up, just saying, “Sorry about last night. I didn’t mean to, uh… kiss you and run.”

I looked up over where I was wrapping a box—or doing my best, anyway, the wrapping paper starting to wear out a little from the misshapen folds I made. She kept her eyes down, settling the earmuffs on tissue paper, focusing in on squaring them in the box, and I watched her eyes glow lighter brown in the firelight, her face lit from the side in sharp contrast. Finally, I said, “It’s fine. You and I have both done worse.”

She quirked a smile, looking up into my eyes. “Bit of a different energy, don’t you think, Agent Silver?”

My heart missed a beat. I didn’t understand how she just… did that. How she could just look right into your eyes and make the rest of the world disappear—the thing she’d said about Silent Night where the rest of the world faded away into one point that meant everything, I felt like it was there in every time she met my eyes.

“Maybe,” I said, holding her gaze carefully. “But… these things happen.”

She held my gaze a while longer before she looked away. “I don’t mean to play with your feelings or anything.”

A nervousness shot through me, suddenly not sure if this conversation would break my heart. “I know. You’re not… I mean, not really. You aren’t trying to any more than I’m trying to.”

She looked back down to the gift box, closing it up and rolling out a length of shiny red wrapping paper. “I just… you know what it is. I’m not staying here. It wouldn’t be fair to either of us.”

I chewed my cheek. “So… is that the closest I’m getting to confirmation that I’m not the only one who feels this way?”

She laughed a sudden sharp, breathless laugh. “That gift wrapping is hard? Yeah, I’m not very good at it.”

“Dodging the question, are we, Code Red?”

“I was trying to. I see now it has boomeranged back around and hit me in the back.” She sighed, sitting back up and picking up her tea, taking a long, slow sip. “I wouldn’t have kissed you otherwise.”

“I’ve actually still been trying to figure out which of us initiated that one.”

“I’m the one who sat on you and kept moving closer until we kissed.”

“We always sat like that.”

She cupped her tea close to her face, staring out the door. “I think maybe we’ve always been like this, Nicole. And we just didn’t realize what we could be.”

My heart thrummed. Damn me and my hopeless romanticism. There was nothing I could be weaker for than someone I’d loved as a child coming back into my life all perfect and gorgeous and really hot with a guitar in her lap and telling me we’d always had feelings for each other, deep down. Especially since she was right. The hopeless romantic part of me led to disaster with Sabrina. It was trying to lead me there again.

“You’re really beautiful, you know,” I whispered, and I wasn’t even sure why—the words just happened. She set down her tea, looking back across the coffee table at me.

“Nicole Livingston, you are the most beautiful woman I’ve ever known, and I’ve fallen for you a dozen times already. When I came back to Mountain Crossing, I didn’t mean to do it again. But you always had a way of getting past anyone’s defenses.”

Ah… dammit. I was soft. This was the kind of thing that only happened in my sappy Christmas movies. And in my daydreams, a million times over. All this time, I’d been trying to decide what would be a good compromise, because this didn’t exist in real life, but here she was.

“Brooke…”

She pursed her lips. “Yes?”

I sighed, pushing my ugly wrapping job away and sitting up straighter in the armchair, grounding my slippers on the thick shag rug in front of the fire. “Don’t tempt me to get mushy.”

She flickered a smile at me, but there was something in her eyes. It made me hesitate until I realized what it was—a flush of nervousness, vulnerability. Like this was just as scary for her as it was for me. “Try me,” she said. “I’ve been enjoying getting to know your sappy side. I even watched your holiday romcoms with you.”

I smiled, and like always when I smiled, Brooke did, too, like seeing me smile just made all her problems go away. “You’re asking for it,” I said. “I’ve watched one woman after another going in and out of my life. Every time they left, I asked myself what I was doing wrong. But if you’re going to sit there across from me in the firelight and tell me you’ve fallen for me a dozen times before and threaten to do it again—I don’t think I was doing anything wrong after all. I think all of them left because they weren’t you, and the universe knew it was always supposed to be us.”

She let out a long sigh, nodding slowly. “Yeah, you weren’t kidding about getting mushy.”

I leaned forward, reaching across the coffee table and capturing her hand in mine. “I don’t care what happens next,” I said. “For right now, you’re here, and I’m here. If I only get this time with you, Brooke Carston, then kiss me, and make this moment last forever.”

She stared into my eyes, and I held her gaze with my heart hammering, pounding in my ears. Slowly, without a word, she leaned closer, until she stood from the sofa, walked around the coffee table, and closed that gap—it felt like a metaphor for the other distances being closed as she pulled me up to my feet, taking my hands in hers.

“I have to say,” she murmured, drifting closer until I could see every little strand of darker color in her irises. “I think I need to get you to help me write my lyrics.”

I laughed breathlessly. “Oh, so now you like the mushiness?”

“I don’t think I ever said I dislike it.” She lifted a hand to my jawline, holding my chin in two fingers, and angled me to meet her gaze. “I’ve liked learning all the different things that make you up, Nicole Livingston.”

Like sinking into a soft bed after a hard day, like stepping out of a snowstorm and into the warmth of my cabin, like drifting into deep sleep and sweet dreams, when Brooke kissed me, it felt like coming home.

Her lips against mine were even softer, sweeter than they were the night before, caressing mine with gentle, warm touches. It started slow, light, chaste, but before long, her hand cradled the back of my head and held me there, her other moving to my hip, and I let my weight fall against her, melting into a deeper kiss.

She was really good at kissing. It left me with my head spinning. Her lips moved slowly with mine, heat blazing through me, and when her tongue touched my lower lip, I surrendered to her completely. I parted my lips and let her in, feeling the way she explored every inch of me—she didn’t rush, just took her time, savored me like I was a masterpiece, and nothing had ever made me burn as hot as that.

At some point, I sank back onto the chair, and she fell on top of me, her knees on the cushion, bending over me to keep kissing me. I felt my hands traveling up and down her back, roaming over the soft, smooth skin I could feel through her shirt, and when I brushed my fingers along the exposed skin right above her pants, she let out a soft groan that said yes, and I let my hands explore up under her shirt. That silky skin of her back under my fingertips felt like paradise.

When her hand found my thigh, though, dragging slowly down to my knee and up my inner thigh, I broke off from the kiss with a heavy gasp. Brooke paused, but I bit my lip and nodded.

“Sorry. Don’t—don’t stop.”

“You’re sure it’s okay?”

I nodded. “Very, very sure. Absolutely, overwhelmingly positive, actually.”

Slowly, her fingers made their way up my thigh again, and it sent heat shooting through every part of me. I tensed up completely under it, letting out a whimper, and a smile played over Brooke’s face.

“You haven’t done this in a while, have you?” she said, and I chewed my lip, looking away.

“Shush.”

“I’m not making fun, Nicole,” she said, her voice soft, and she laid a gentle kiss on the tip of my nose. “If it helps you relax, I haven’t done this with a girl in years.”

Talking about doing this, confirmation this was actually happening, made my body weak. I bit my lip, nodding. “I trust you.”

“Good.” She laid a swift kiss on my lips, moving her hands to the hem of my shirt. “Can I take this off, Nicole?”

The soft, sweet tone in her voice when she said my name—it was so soft, quiet, but it was the whole world. “Please,” I said. “Just… everything. And, um… you know, maybe…”

“Do you want to take mine off, too?”

Who knew asking questions in small, soft voices could be so sexy? I wanted to let her do anything at all. “Please,” I said.

And I did—we stood up, and she pulled my shirt up over my head, draping it over the back of the chair. Gentle, deliberate. I was a little clumsier tugging her shirt off, but to be fair, my heart was pounding, and the sight of her shirtless didn’t help—smooth, bare skin up to her bra, and I ran my hands slowly up the length of it, caressing her like she was a fine silk artwork, as she touched me with the same reverence. Our pants came off next, me stumbling with nerves feeling drunk as I tugged my jeans off, Brooke helping steady me with a small laugh, a gentle kiss.

My head went fuzzy as our underwear went too—my bra, and hers, and then a flush of self-consciousness as I stepped out of my panties. She just looked at me like I was the most beautiful thing she’d ever seen, though, and I never wanted her to stop.

When she kissed me, our fronts came together, her legs intertwined with mine, her breasts against mine, and I thrilled in the sensation of her against every part of me. I’d never felt this before—sex feeling good, I was used to, but this sensation of raw vulnerability, honesty, of wanting and being wanted, it made me buzz all over with a sensation I wasn’t familiar with.

“Lie down on the floor,” she whispered, pulling away from the kiss, her hands on my bare hips. “I want to make you feel good, if that’s okay, Nicole?”

I moved like I was in a dream, sinking onto the thick shag carpet, the heat of the fire prickling over me on one side. Brooke sank with me, kissing me until she eased me onto my back, and she kissed her way down my body until she knelt between my legs, laying a small kiss against my inner thigh. I wrapped my legs around her, holding her like I could keep her here forever.

“Can I—” she started, but I cut her off, nodding.

“Please, Brooke.”

It didn’t take any more than that. She kissed her way up my thigh, and when the soft heat of her lips met my center, my body gave way to her. I melted onto my back, feeling the soft shag hairs of the carpet tickle my back as the fire cast the sweet smell of crackling wood over the room, and I let the bliss of Brooke’s tongue against me drown out all other sensation in the world. I closed my eyes, and I just let myself feel her, feel the way she settled into me with soft, sweet kisses against where I was most sensitive, her tongue working quick, small patterns against me.

She didn’t rush it like this, either, and I didn’t want her to—just guided me slowly upwards, coasting, going slowly and gently like she was mapping out every little thing about me. I rode the waves of sensation, melting into the perfect bliss of the moment, an incredulous voice in my head saying I’m having sex with Brooke Carston.

After an eternity drifting through the sensations of her tongue teasing around me, dragging through where I needed her most, kissing gently against me, I found myself breathing hard and clutching at the rug. “Brooke,” I gasped out, feeling my back arch. “Brooke, I’m—please, Brooke,” I groaned, feeling like I couldn’t say her name enough.

“I want you to feel good for me, Nicole,” she breathed, barely pulling away from my center before meeting me with her tongue again, and I felt the climax threatening to undo me completely.

“Brooke—” I cried out her name once, and again, and that was the last thing I was conscious of before I plunged into sweet release. Every part of me melted down into that sensation, into that feeling where Brooke was the only thing in the world, my legs wrapped around her, gasping, hips thrusting up to meet her, crying out her name again and again, before I came crashing down. I found myself back in the warmth of the firelight and Brooke’s embrace once I came back to reality, her planting soft kisses against my collar.

“Are you okay, Nicole?” she breathed, the sweetest sound in the world, and I nodded, wrapping my arms around her and holding her into me.

“You’re so perfect,” I murmured, closing my eyes and just breathing in the way she smelled, sweet like lavender. “So perfect.”

“I’ll remember that the next time you try teasing. I’ll be like, no, Nicole, you said I was perfect.”

“Always thought you were.” I planted a kiss on the top of her head. “But for someone who’s so perfect, you certainly can be difficult.”

She laughed, looking up and meeting my eyes. “Like you’re any better? I know you like me like this.”

“Guess I’ve always had a type,” I said, pulling her up into a kiss, and I surrendered everything I was to the sensation of Brooke’s lips against mine, pinning me down into the soft warmth of the rug, the crackling fire filling the room with the sweet smell of home.