“Everything okay?” Victoria asked.
“Yeah,” I lied, still looking around the room.
She kept talking about some kind of yoga class she wanted us to attend but I wasn’t stuttin none of that shit. My mind was already somewhere else entirely, running through every possibility of where she went, why she disappeared the second another woman touched me. By the time I stepped outside, the cold hit me straight in the chest. My pulse was still thudding, hard and uneven. I checked the lobby… nothing. Then the hallway that led toward the cabins, still nothing. I walked a little farther down the path, breath fogging in the air as I searched shadows and doorways, but she was nowhere to be found. Either she moved fast… or she didn’t want to be found by me at all.
Victoria stepped in front of me before I could walk back out into the cold, blocking my path with her hand on my arm.
“What happened?” she asked. “And don’t give me that ‘nothing’ bullshit. I know you.”
My jaw flexed. I didn’t want to say it out loud, but the pressure behind my ribs was too damn tight to hold.
“I saw her,” I said.
Victoria’s expression shifted. “Her… meaning drunk-night- ‘Elise’ her?”
I nodded once.
“And she saw you too?”
“Yeah.” The word escaped my throat. “She looked right at me. Then turned around and hauled ass out of here.”
Victoria’s mouth parted. “Damn.”
“She probably thinks you’re my wife or some shit,” I muttered. “The way you walked up on me… she didn’t know what the fuck was happening.”
“Well, shit,” she sighed. “Yeah… that’ll do it.”
I ran a hand over my beard, pacing a slow line. My pulse was still too loud for me to think straight.
“She didn’t even let me say shit or try to explain,” I said.
Victoria gave me a look that was way too level-headed for the way my chest felt. “Okay. Let me be real with you, Frost. Right now, you’re wired, frustrated, and ready to bulldoze this place looking for her. That’s not going to help.”
“I need to talk to her.”
“Not like this you don’t,” she said. “You look two seconds from snapping somebody’s neck. You want her to actually listen to you? Catch her when you’re not running on adrenaline.”
I stopped pacing but didn’t look at her. I didn’t want to admit that she was right.
Victoria softened her voice just enough. “You came all the way back up this mountain. You think she doesn’t feel something too? She didn’t vanish. She didn’t go home. She just got overwhelmed. Hell, I would too if I saw a man I fucked all weekstanding with a woman wearing a ring.” I closed my eyes. That hit harder than I expected.
“She’s still here,” Victoria said. “Go back to your cabin. Sleep. Wake up early. Look for her when your head’s clear.”
I stood there, breathing slow, trying to swallow the urge to sprint back through every hallway until I found her.
“She ran from me,” I said quietly.
“And you’re chasing her tomorrow,” she replied. “That’s the plan. Now go before you scare the damn guests.”
I let out a deep sigh, turned, and headed for the door without another word. The cold air slapped me the second I stepped outside. I walked back to my cabin, the whole time replaying the way she looked at me, surprised and hurt.
By the time I made it back to my cabin, I was wired. Too tight to sit still, too wound up to think straight. I paced the floor twice, jaw clenched, breath coming slow and uneven. When I finally dropped onto the edge of the bed and pressed my hands to my face, the quiet didn’t calm a damn thing, it made everything louder… every memory, every picture of her in that dress, every thought I tried to bury for the past twelve months. I needed a reset.
Something to cut through the tension burning under my skin.
I peeled off my clothes on the way to the bathroom, dropping them where they fell. The second the hot water hit my back and the steam rose up around me, it didn’t calm a damn thing. How could it? Every time I closed my eyes, she showed up in perfect detail. The warm wet feeling of her mouth, those little gasp she made when I was deep inside her, the slow grind of her riding me in that tub, water spilling everywhere while she held onto my shoulders… her pussy gripping me so tight like she never wanted to let go. Memory after memory hit me hard, and each one made the throbbing weight between my legs heavier.
“Fuck,” I muttered.
