“Not on your life.” He grinned. The bag of letters had less than a handful remaining. The game was almost over, in his favor, and he knew what he wanted in return for their bet. Letting her gracefully bow out was not going to happen. “You know, you can always draw new letters and skip your turn.”
She didn’t respond, just shot him a scornful look before returning her attention to her letters. He sat back and crossed his arms, ready to enjoy the show.
But that satisfaction only lasted another twenty seconds. About the moment she took a long slurp of her cocoa, leaving a creamy chocolate mustache on her upper lip. She then used her pert little tongue to slowly lick the foam from across her lip. He closed his eyes.
Maybe keeping his eyes on the board would be a better idea.
An eternity later, she dropped her next word. Seventeen points. And then scooped up the last letters. It was cruel, really, to keep her in such suspense. He should just put her out of her misery and call it good.
But this was more fun.
He laid out the last of his letters and tallied up his score. “Only fourteen that time, but with a bonus for using all my letters—”
“I can add. Fine. You won this round.”
“Round?” He looked up at her.
“Didn’t I tell you?” She smiled sweetly at him, but he could see the determination in her eyes. “Best out of three.”
She really didn’t like to lose. Well, neither did he.
…
“I cannot believe you’re making me do this,” Kate said the next afternoon, trying to keep the rising panic from her voice.
Was this thing even safe? She clutched the side of the chair as the ski lift hurled them up into the sky. The once picturesque mountainside she’d been appreciating only this morning had gone from beautiful to treacherous in the space of a minute.
She was going to die.
The unrelenting snowfall that continued through the night had slowed to nothing more than a light dusting of snow that settled on her face and pooled into droplets of water. She was certain her nose was already akin to Rudolph’s, so a little water dripping from her chin seemed irrelevant.
“You’ll be fine. I promise,” the spawn of Satan was saying next to her. As if he’d anticipated snow, he was decked out in his own parka and ski pants—which she’d already noted seemed to emphasize the firmness of his tush and slimness of his hips and abs, despite their padding. Even the ridiculous ski cap on his head couldn’t take away from the sexy allure of his smile and those bright, hypnotic eyes. So hypnotic she’d been too busy staring into them to realize she was heading toward her death. He’d have been a great executioner. “I won’t let anything happen to you.”
Yeah, easy for him to say. He knew what he was doing. She, on the other hand, despite living the majority of her life in the Salt Lake area and attending a preeminent private school where 99.9 percent of the student population—her being the obvious holdout—went skiing every weekend, had never been. Ever.
She cursed her luck. She’d been so certain she was going to win last night with those tiles in her hand and that double word score that she’d stupidly agreed to go skiing if she lost. Something she’d had no intention of doing, because she was going to kick his butt.
Until she didn’t.
“I can’t believe you’ve never skied before. You live in a state where half the license plates brag about having the greatest snow on earth.”
“Right. And who would have taken me? My grandmother?” Not to mention the fact that lessons, slope passes, and ski equipment rentals cost money. Something that had been in short supply in her house.
“I think you’re old enough now to go by yourself,” he teased.
“So I can be humiliated when four-year-olds whiz by and heckle me as I plow my way down the slope? No, thank you. Not to mention that I could break a leg or an arm—or my neck.” God. She was really going to die.
He laughed. “I’ll make sure you don’t go flying off any cliffs. I promise.”
Cliffs? He was kidding. Right?
One hour. She just had to survive for one hour. Then they could go back to their room, where he’d promised to leave her uninterrupted while she soaked in that massive tub in her bathroom.
But what good would a bath be if she was crumpled at the base of a tree with a concussion?
“Okay. We’re coming up to the crest,” Dominic said in a soothing voice like he was talking to a toddler. “Hold on to your poles, slide forward to the edge of the seat, and when I say go, slide off and veer to the right. Got it?”
Oh my God. Oh my God. What?