The Snow White Christmas Cookie

PROLOGUE

She was already twenty minutes late and it was making him totally crazy. The snow was coming down so heavily that he was starting to wonder if she was going to show up at all. Eighteen inches were expected by nightfall. The schools were closed. Again. The state government offices were closed. Again. The governor was ordering people to stay off of the highways. Again. It was the state’s fourth shutdown blizzard in the past two weeks. Epic stuff. But she’d promised him she’d show up. He checked his cell phone one more time. No messages from her. So he just sat here in the deserted parking lot and waited, growing more and more desperate.

When he’d opened his eyes that morning and seen all of the snow he’d been plunged into total despair, thinking she would bail on him. But she’d called him to say she’d definitely be here, snow be damned, because she really, really needed to feel his arms around her. She needed him. Which he was okay with. Hell, more than okay. She was everything to him. Even though they were only able to meet like this maybe twice a week-just the two of them alone together-she was pretty much all that he lived for.

“What am I going to do about you?”

Those were the first words she said to him. This was back in October at the free flu-shot clinic at the Congregational Church. It was she who approached him. Was waiting outside on the steps for him after he got his shot.

“I–I don’t know what you mean,” he stammered. Because he was kind of shy around women. Especially such pretty ones.

“Yes, you do,” she said with that bold self-assurance of hers. “You keep looking at me everywhere I go but you never talk to me. How do I get you to talk to me?”

“Seems to me we are talking.”

She smiled at him, her eyes twinkling mischievously. “Hey, you’re right. We are.”

And, somehow, they ended up together here.

Honestly? He couldn’t believe his luck, although he was a creature of luck and always had been. Pretty much everything that had ever happened to him in his whole life was about luck. But most of it had been bad luck-until she came along.

The first time they’d arranged to get together she arrived before he did, and when he walked in the door and saw the way she was looking at him he experienced such a powerful sexual rush that he thought his entire body was going to explode right there in the middle of the room. He’d never experienced anything like it before. Had never met anyone else like her. He couldn’t believe how calm she was about sex. How completely free and easy she was about her body. She acted like it was the most normal thing in the world to walk around naked in front of him. Of course it helped that she was so beautiful, with smooth, flawless skin and abundant curves in all of the right places. Even more lushly built than he’d dared to imagine. She was vital, alive and gorgeous. Naturally she felt comfortable in her own skin.

He didn’t. Naked, he felt exposed and vulnerable. He cringed at the sight of himself in the mirror. Always had. He wasn’t someone who’d ever been lean, hard-bodied or tanned. Hadn’t been one of those guys back in high school who liked to hang at the beach all summer long, playing volleyball with his muscular buds and their slim, bikini-clad girlfriends. Running into the surf, laughing and frolicking. Zipping around town in an open-topped Jeep with no shirt on. Those guys had been proud of their bodies. Not him, with his concave chest, soft tummy and that terrible acne all over his shoulders and back. He’d hated team sports. Hated anything that called for him to undress in front of the other guys. They called him Pizza Man because his zit-encrusted back looked so alarmingly like a bubbling hot pepperoni pie.

And you don’t just forget something like that.

The stigma had stayed with him, same as those scars on his back had. He’d had his share of women over the years but he was never at ease when he was naked with them. And so they were never at ease around him. Not once, to the best of his knowledge, had he completely satisfied a woman. Whatever it was that made them gasp and moan and scream-they never, ever did that with him. Except for that one time in Atlantic City, and he was fairly certain that Ambrosia was faking it. She was a pro, after all. Honestly? He considered himself to be a total dud as a lover. Same as he was at everything else in life. Nothing more than a waste of skin. Pitted skin at that. That day he’d gone for his flu shot he was feeling about as low as he ever had. He could see no reason to get out of bed in the morning. No reason to do much of anything.

Until he met her. She changed everything. She took an interest in him. She liked him. And, from that first moment when she came walking out of the bathroom naked, she made it clear that she wanted him. Even though he could not imagine why.

He got so incredibly nervous when she started to undress him. If she’d made fun of him or put him down he would have gone straight home and killed himself. But it hadn’t been like that at all. It had been wonderful. She was so gentle and kind. Her touch excited him beyond belief. She was delighted by how he responded to her. “Flattered” was the word she used. And then they were together right there on the sofa and she was alive under his touch, gasping and crying out his name and it was … incredible. He was incredible. Potent. Confident. In charge. He had no idea why it was so different with her, but it was.

For the very first time in his whole life he was the man he’d always wanted to be.

After their first time together, she was pretty much all he thought about, day and night. The scent of her. The way she felt in his arms, so silky smooth, supple and strong. The way he felt. He was a brand-new man when he was with her. A bold, strong man who could take on any situation and not feel overwhelmed. Not feel the need to drink or get high to keep it together. He was together, thanks to her.

He wasn’t someone who had ever set long-term goals for himself. He’d just lived his life day to day, making his share of blunders along the way. But because of her, he was now thinking about tomorrow. Making plans. Making things happen. That’s what a man did. Thought big and acted big. He still wasn’t entirely certain where their relationship was heading. They hadn’t talked about that yet. And she did have someone else in her life. But he knew exactly where he wanted it to go:

Hawaii.

He was going to surprise her with two plane tickets to Honolulu just as soon as he had enough money stashed away. Enough so that they could stay there in the warm sun together for as long as they wanted. Forever, if he had anything to say about it. And to hell with everyone else.

Hawaii.

Just the two of them on a deserted beach somewhere. Sipping tall, cool drinks. Making long, slow love whenever, wherever they felt like it. It was like a dream. Except this was no dream.

I am making it happen.

That’s what he said to himself as he sat in the empty parking lot waiting for her, his heater blasting, wipers barely keeping up with the snow that was falling in heaps on his windshield. A big orange town plow truck went rumbling by, the ground shaking as its blade scraped hard against the pavement.

And then he saw her car coming toward him through the snow. She parked next to him and got out. He could tell right away that she was upset about something. Although she insisted it was nothing.

“Are you sure? You look like you’ve been crying.”

“I’m fine. I’m just so sick of all of this snow.”

“Me, too,” he said, picturing the two of them on a beach together in the sun. Her in a bikini. Him in a pair of trunks and nothing else, just like one of those tanned, muscular guys he knew back in high school.

The room was ice cold. She turned up the heat before they took off their hooded parkas. He wore a new plaid wool shirt and corduroy slacks. He never used to pay much attention to what he had on. Now he did.

“I’d like to play a game today,” she said. “Is that okay?”

“Sure thing.” He loved her games. “What kind?”

“I want you to punish me.”

“Punish you?” This was something entirely new. “Why would I want to punish you?”

“Because I’ve been a bad girl.”

“You have? What did you do?”

She shook her head. “That’s not part of the game.”

“Well, what am I supposed to do?”

“Whatever you feel like. I’ll do whatever you say. Just make me pay, okay?”

“I don’t understand.”

She sighed impatiently. “Then I’ll make it simple for you. Just this once pretend that I’m the ’fraidy cat.”

“I’m not a ’fraidy cat,” he shot back.

“It’s just an expression.” She studied him curiously. “You’re awfully thin-skinned sometimes.”

“Sorry.”

“Don’t apologize for yourself. I don’t want you to be a yutz. I want you to make me pay, damn it!”

“Okay, here goes…” He felt himself growing taller, his chest puffing out a bit. “Stand there and close your eyes.”

She obeyed him.

“And don’t move. Not a single muscle.” It was he who moved toward her. First, he unzipped her jeans and yanked them down so roughly that she let out a yelp. Then he put his hands up underneath her turtleneck sweater, grabbed hold of the sleeveless cotton thingy that she wore instead of a bra and ripped it from her body, tossing it aside.

She started breathing heavily, her breasts rising and falling. “Don’t stop!” she whispered urgently. She was actually into this. Liked what he was doing. “Keep going!”

And so he did. He shoved her down onto the sofa so hard that she bounced a foot up into the air. Pulled off her slip-on snow boots. Yanked her jeans all of the way off and hurled them aside. His own chest was heaving now, and he was aroused beyond belief. Couldn’t get out of his clothes fast enough. Naked, he took hold of her panties and tore them from her body, too. All she had on now was her turtleneck sweater. He pulled that over her head-only he was so rough about it that his knuckles struck her left eye, which instantly began to twitch and water.

“Oh, God, I’m sorry.”

“Don’t apologize! How many times do I have to tell you?”

“But I–I think I just gave you a black eye.”

“It’s okay. Really, it is.”

Except it wasn’t. Because she was crying now. Hell, she was sobbing uncontrollably. Something was really bothering her, he realized as he heard a siren off in the distance. Another car accident, no doubt. There’d been so many on these snowy roads.

“Maybe we’d better stop.”

“No!” she pleaded, clutching at him with great urgency. “Just make me pay, will you?”

He kissed her hungrily. She kissed him back. And then they were together in each other’s arms and he was buried deep inside of her. Never had he been so deep.

“Is this what you wanted from me?” she gasped in his ear.

“Yes,” he groaned. “Oh, yes…” He’d never wanted anything or anyone as much as he wanted her right now. In fact, he was so consumed by pure animal desire that he was barely even aware that the siren kept getting louder and louder.

Not until he heard the screech outside.

Not until his whole world came crashing down upon him.