Holiday Bound

Alex Carradine can’t believe his father wants to come and visit his ski resort. Could it be that after so many stormy years, “slick Mitch” Carradine wants to offer an olive branch? Maybe the old man is mellowing, settling down with the new lover he’s bringing along.

Then Alex realizes the acid truth. This is no warm family visit. His father’s new conquest is none other than the woman of Alex’s sexual fantasies, meant only to dangle tauntingly in front of his face. At least an unexpected blizzard has frozen his father out of the picture entirely.

Angeline Kastakis was looking forward to taking the next step in her relationship with Mitch. Too late, she realizes she’s been led into a familial battle zone. Now it’s Christmas and she’s marooned in a blizzard with an insolent, gorgeous hunk of man whose blazing blue eyes tell her loud and clear he wants her in his bed. Preferably tied to it with a bow.

There’s no escape in sight. But as Alex stirs her secret longing to be mastered by a man, escape is the last thing on her mind…

Warning: This book contains scenes of sensual submission hot enough to make you sweat in a blizzard.

“Great. Just effing great.” Angeline peered out the window in the gray, sleety twilight, hoping to see some sign of civilization—the outline of a house, a friendly light shining from a window.
Anything
. But only wind-whipped, ice-encrusted pine trees and crystal-glazed snow entered her vision.

She glanced down at her cell phone and saw the now-familiar signal annoyingly informing her she was out of coverage.

The weather forecast had been for heavy rain when she’d left her parents’ farm on the upper peninsula of Michigan earlier that afternoon. The temperature had dropped unexpectedly, hovering just at the freezing point and causing hazardous conditions. Now the meteorologists had done a one-eighty, predicting a snowstorm and heavy winds to follow the messy sleet.

Just her luck. Damn Mitchell for spawning such a sulky, anti-social son. Why did he have to live in a barren, frozen wilderness anyway? Why did Mr. Contrary Alex Carradine have to flip off the Ivy-League education his father had so generously given him, the lucrative job at the Chicago Board of Trade and the lakeshore penthouse, which would have been both
warm
and
convenient
for a Christmas visit, in order to make some kind of social statement and go all nature-boy on them?

“Ski resort, my ass,” she said, squinting into deepening dusk. People’d have to be nuts to actually
pay
to come to this place.

A gust of wind caught the SUV, making the vehicle shudder. Angeline cursed softly.

The narrow, winding road that led up the forested hill was snow and ice-covered and downright treacherous in spots. Angeline hadn’t seen so many sharp twists and turns since she’d ridden on a roller coaster as a teenager.

The reality of her situation settled on her like an ice-laden cloak. She was stuck in the middle of a sleet-storm with a blizzard to follow. There wasn’t a scrap of civilization in sight. According to her directions, Heavenly View Ski Resort was at the top of the hill, which might be anywhere from a half-mile to five miles away. It’d been hard to tell how far she’d gone since the turn-off, what with the nauseating twists and turns, and constantly being on high-alert due to the slick conditions.

Not that she’d been alert enough, apparently.

Mitchell was supposed to drive up from Chicago and meet her at his son’s resort at 4:30 p.m., but Angeline guessed that was unlikely. She’d already learned from her car radio that I-94 had been completely shut down between Chicago and Milwaukee due to conditions more suitable to an ice rink than an interstate.

She reluctantly turned off her vehicle and pulled up the hood of her coat, securing it tightly around her chin, preparing for an unpleasant, possibly dangerous trek to the top of the hill. She’d learned a few things growing up in the frigid winters of the Upper Peninsula. Thankfully, she had a flashlight in the back. There wasn’t a single streetlight lining the treacherous drive. Apparently Alex “Grizzly Adams” Carradine expected the patrons to drive up this hell mountain in pitch blackness.

Mitchell must occasionally tear hunks out of that sexy black and silver hair of his whenever he thought about his surly son. Thinking about Mitchell’s handsome face and charming smile made her heart sink to the vicinity of her belly button. She’d been so looking forward to getting to know him better over Christmas. The glowing fantasy of spending hours upon hours with Mitchell, of chatting intimately beside a roaring fire…of
finally
sharing a bed with him dimmed and cooled with the reality of oncoming night and the clicking sound of ice on the roof of her SUV.

She jumped in alarm when something thumped heavily on the window. A scream tickled her throat at the sight of the dark, hulking figure looming just inches away. Without thinking, she clicked the lock button. A great paw thumped on the window again. It took Angeline’s stunned brain a moment to realize the paw was covered in a black ski-glove. The frozen metal of her car door handle rattled.

“Unlock the damn door,” the monster-man growled.

Realizing her foolishness, Angeline hit the unlock button. The door swung open. He bent his tall form and glared at her briefly. Angeline had a fleeting impression of flashing, furious blue eyes and a scowl surrounded by a dark beard encrusted with ice crystals. She had to resist the urge to slam the door shut again.

“Can’t you read?” he demanded rudely.

“Eh…excuse me?” Angeline sputtered.

“This road is closed. What’d you do? Remove the barricade?”

“There wasn’t any barricade. I drove right up here, just like any poor, unsuspecting soul might—”

“Unsuspecting
idiot
,” he interrupted. He straightened. “Apparently you’re the one person on the planet who doesn’t know we’re in the midst of a sleet storm with a blizzard to follow. This road is dangerous.”

“You’re telling
me
that?”

“Come on,” he said tersely, ignoring her heated outburst. “It’s getting dark. I don’t want to be wandering around this skating rink in the pitch black.”

Angeline hesitated. She didn’t relish the idea of going with this intimidating, rude, bear of a man any more than she did trekking up the mountain alone in search of the resort.

“That’s all right. Thank you. I’ll just follow the road up to Heavenly View. You needn’t bother yourself. I’ll be fine.”

“That’s doubtful, considering the resort is shut down.”

“Shut down? How do you know?”

“Because I own the place. Like I said, this road is dangerous. I don’t want people risking their necks on it. Are you coming or not?”

Angeline swallowed back her retort in the face of his rudeness. She shouldn’t have been surprised that she spoke to Alex Carradine in person. The male outside her door was huge, and hadn’t Mitchell said his son won a football scholarship to Princeton? She should have expected he’d be built like a linebacker—or a bear, which he resembled presently in his insulated, hip-length black ski jacket and black knit hat.

She tossed her keys and phone into her purse and clambered out of the SUV. She threw his large, shadowed form a dark look as she slammed the door, although she doubted he could see it in the encroaching gloom.

“Where are we going?”

“To my house,” he said as he turned and started to walk through two feet of snow, his boots making a cracking sound as he broke the thin layer of ice on top. Angeline plunged in after him, glad he didn’t notice when she nearly did a face plant on her slippery first step.

“You don’t live up at the resort?”

“No.”

“Pleasant sort,” Angeline muttered under her breath when he didn’t say anything else, just continued to stalk through the deep snow on long legs.

“Could you slow down, please?” she called out irritably after several minutes. She’d been trying desperately to keep up, placing her feet in the holes his boots had left in the snow, but as darkness fell, it became increasingly difficult to see his footprints. Besides, she was getting winded from the pace he’d set. He paused and turned to look at her.

“I told you I wanted to make it back before dark.”

“
Thank you
, I heard you. But if you keep going so fast, you’ll get too far ahead for me to see where you’re going. I’ll be lost out here,” she explained slowly, like she was talking to a second grader. He must have taken too many hits to the head in the backfield, Angeline decided. It was a miracle he’d been so successful in his career as a member of the Chicago Board of Trade. Mitchell had certainly implied on several occasions that his only son was thicker than refrigerated molasses.

“Better keep up, then,” he informed her.

Angeline made a sound of disbelief and just stared as his big shadow began to recede. When she realized he was fading from her vision, she plowed into the snow after him. She had to focus all her energy on not falling. The temperature was dropping and the sheet of ice on the snow was becoming increasingly hard to break. The icy pellets that had been stinging her nose and cheeks had altered to large flakes of swirling snow. Thank God she’d just come from her parents’ farm and not straight from work, or else she might have been wearing a pair of stilettos instead of the practical boots she sported.

She could just imagine what Mitchell Carradine’s taciturn son would have to say about her wearing heels. Probably accuse her of being a
fashionable
idiot—

“Ugh,” she grunted into Alex’s back after he halted abruptly. She bounced off him. The man was as solid as a brick wall. “What did you stop for?”

“We’re here,” he muttered.

Angeline blinked and strained to look around his massive shoulders. She saw the outlines of a dark structure, but couldn’t make out any details. It took her a moment to realize Alex had opened a door and moved inside. She stumbled after him, catching her foot on the threshold and tripping heavily on some kind of hard flooring, catching herself at the last moment.

“Can’t you turn on a light?” She squinted into the darkness.

“I could—if the electricity wasn’t out,” he muttered dryly. “The ice is weighing down the tree branches and they are falling on the power lines. Weren’t you wondering why it was so dark coming up the hill?”

“I wondered, all right. I just thought the owner was a sadistic cheap-wad who—”

She stopped when she recalled she was speaking to the owner of Heavenly View Ski Resort.

A single flame flared. Alex held a long match to the wick of a kerosene lamp. It lit his countenance in a fiery glow, giving Angeline her first real look at him. His face looked intimidating in the flickering shadows…like it’d been carved from rock. His slanted brows and dark facial hair gave him a demonic look. She shivered when he turned to look in her direction.

Where Mitchell was all urbane sophistication, his son was rough-hewn and intimidating.

“Take off your stuff. You’re all wet,” he ordered. He tore at the laces of his boots and unceremoniously kicked them off. He whisked off his knit hat and tossed it on what appeared to be a worktable covered with neatly organized tools and storage bins. Angeline glanced around the dim, cold room, realizing they were in a garage. Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed that he had unzipped his coat and whipped it over his shoulders. Angeline turned, the image of rippling muscle snagging her gaze. She gasped.

He glanced down bemusedly at his bare chest.

“I was using up the last of the hot water when I heard your wheels spinning. The bathroom is at the end of the hall and faces east. Good thing I was in the shower, or I might never have heard you.” He picked up the lantern and nodded impatiently at her coat.

Angeline peeled her eyes off a glorious spread of male flesh. He was large all right, but his insulated coat had disguised the fact that he was also lean, sinewy…

…and beautiful, in a primitive, Spartan warrior, take no prisoners kind of way.

The thought made her tear at the buttons on her coat hastily, as though action would help chase it away. How old did Mitchell say Alex was?
Had
he ever said? In her imagination, she’d always pictured him as the overgrown, rebellious teenager, the type who just wouldn’t accept adult responsibility.

But the brooding, somber man who pinned her with a palpable stare while she awkwardly removed her ice-encrusted boots hardly called to mind Peter Pan.

She’d always suspected that Mitchell was quite proud of the fact that, at age 55, he drew stares of longing from females and envious glances from younger males in their prime. He’d certainly seemed pleased by her look of amazement when he’d told her his age. She’d have guessed he was ten years younger if she were going by appearance alone. As a name partner in one of the largest, most successful law firms in the city, Mitchell had it all—the power and confidence of an older, seasoned man along with the athletic build and face of a younger one.

She’d assumed Alex was in his mid-twenties.

She’d assumed wrong, she admitted as she glanced up anxiously between damp lashes to catch a glimpse of the imposing man who stood so close. He was probably in his early thirties, if not older.

He was older than her.

The realization unsettled her for some reason.

“Has your father called? I couldn’t reach him, my cell phone isn’t getting any service here.” She pushed back her hood and slid her wool coat off her shoulders.

What he did next startled her, even though she was getting used to being surprised by Alex Carradine. He stepped toward her and placed his chilled fingers on her chin. He tilted up her face. Her lips parted in amazement as he held up the lantern to study her with a narrowed gaze.

“Angeline Kastakis.”

“That’s right. I thought… I thought you knew it was me when you first saw me,” she said, even though it was clear he’d just now realized she was his father’s girlfriend. She could read his expression in the dim light as easily as she could interpret hieroglyphics. She glanced down, made uneasy by his relentless stare. Mitchell had the manners of a prince. How could his son possibly be so rude…so
rough
?

“My father’s girlfriend is Angeline Kastakis,” he said in a deadpan voice. Her confusion amplified when his rock-like expression broke. White teeth flashed in his swarthy face. The abrupt alteration—the sheer power of his sudden smile—made her take a step back.