Nash
She smells like cinnamon and bad decisions.
Red lipstick, combat boots, and an attitude I can already tell is going to give me an ulcer.
And now she’s in my goddamn cabin.
Humming.
Actuallyhummingwhile she strings that sparkly tinsel shit across my bookshelf like she’s laying a trap.
Which she is.
Just not the kind I’m ready to fall into.
I lean in the doorway, arms crossed, watching her as snow needles the windows and the fire spits behind me. She hasn’t asked if she can stay. Hasn’t begged or apologized or offered to back her glitter-filled suitcase out the door.
Nope.
She just made herself at home. Claimed her corner. And now she's decorating my goddamn moose head.
“I swear to Christ,” I growl, “if you hot glue a Santa hat to Buckley’s skull?—”
She tosses me a grin over her shoulder. “It’s not glue. It’s a festive headpiece. Temporary. Non-invasive. Very on-brand.”
“Buckley doesn’t want to be on brand.”
“Well, Buckley doesn’t have a say.”
I push off the frame, step closer, slow and heavy-footed just to make a point.
She doesn’t flinch.
Doesn’t so much as blink when I come to stand behind her, close enough to smell her hair—vanilla and something bright, like orange zest and holiday mischief.
“I’m tryin’ to figure out why a pretty girl like you would answer a mail-order bride ad—runnin’ from the law, maybe? Or a crazy ex? What the hell are youreallydoing here, Noel?”
She reaches up to adjust the crooked Santa hat on the mounted moose and pretends not to notice the heat coming off me like a furnace.
“I told you,” she says sweetly. “Reality show. Contest. I win, you win. Everyone walks away richer and full of holiday spirit.”
“This isn’t a Hallmark movie.”
“No,” she says, spinning slowly to face me. Her gaze snags on my chest—still half bare, still damp from the shower she interrupted—and lingers a beat longer than it should.
When her eyes lift back to mine, they’re full of fire.
“This is better.”
Damn woman has no idea what she’s doing.
Or maybe she does.
Because even with the glitter and the chaos and the god-awful soundtrack she just put on my old Bluetooth speaker (is that Mariah Carey?), I haven’t told her to leave again.
Not since I made the mistake of noticing how her leggings hug her thighs.
Not since I saw the curve of her waist when she reached for that top shelf.
