He raises a brow. “You say that now. You haven’t tasted my coffee yet.”
I laugh, taking the cup. My fingers brush his, and the contact is a spark—immediate, visceral, impossible to ignore.
He notices. He always notices.
“Join us?” he asks, low and almost rough. “Me and Holly, I mean. She’s already up. She made ornaments out of the leftover ribbons from your float, and she’s insisting she saved the prettiest one for you.”
My chest tightens, warm and full.
“Always,” I say.
His eyes soften but he doesn’t move.
He just stands there, looking at me, snow falling around us, lights from my tree glowing through the frosted window behind me. Something shifts in the air—subtle, dangerous, beautiful. I sip the coffee to hide how intensely he’s staring. The heat pools in my stomach, slow and spreading.
“You okay?” I ask.
He steps closer. “Yeah. Just… didn’t think you could look more beautiful than you did last night.”
My breath catches. The robe suddenly feels too thin. The snow suddenly feels irrelevant.
I whisper, “Ash…”
He lifts a hand slowly, like he’s giving me time to stop him. His fingers graze my jaw—barely—and I melt. Actually melt. My knees soften, my breath hitches, my heart free-falls into something deep and terrifying and completely right. The porch is silent except for the soft hiss of falling snow. His thumb traces the line of my cheek.
“Been waiting to do this,” he murmurs.
I rise onto my toes without thinking, chasing his warmth.
“Ash,” I breathe.
That’s all it takes. He leans in and kisses me.
Slow at first. Mindful. Testing. His lips press to mine with a kind of reverence that steals the breath from my lungs. He cups my jaw with one hand, the other sliding to my waist, pulling me closer, holding me steady as the world tilts under us.
I exhale into him, fingers curling into the front of his jacket. The kiss deepens as if something he’s been holding back for weeks finally snaps free.
His mouth moves against mine with a hunger that’s controlled only by the thin edge of restraint he’s clinging to. He tastes like coffee and heat and a man who’s finally letting himself want something. Want me.
My hands slide up his chest, over his shoulders. I press closer, feel him inhale sharply against my lips. He groans softly—low, rough, devastating—and the sound runs straight through me. Snowflakes melt in my hair. Lights glow behind us. Ash kisses me like he’s waited for this moment every day since the first one he saw me. And then he breaks the kiss for half a second, forehead resting against mine, breathing hard.
“Lucy,” he whispers, his voice wrecked, “you have no idea what you’re doing to me.”
“I think I do,” I whisper back. “Because you’re doing the same to me.”
His lips curve—just slightly—before he kisses me again, deeper this time, like he’s claiming the morning, the snow, the entire damn mountain.
I kiss him back with all the heat and longing and fear and hope tangled inside me. We lose track of time. All I know is his hands on my waist, his mouth on mine, the warmth of his body crowding out the winter cold, the sound he makes when I tug him closer.
We only break apart when–“FINALLY!”
We jump apart like guilty teenagers.
Holly stands at the bottom of the porch steps, decked out in Christmas pajamas and holding a stuffed reindeer like she’s been waiting all year to catch us.
Her grin is blinding. “I KNEW IT! I KNEW YOU’D KISS!”
Ash scrubs a hand over his face, groaning. “Holly?—”
