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"Say it," I gasp, riding him harder, the bed frame knocking the wall. "You know the bet, Miles. Say it."

He holds out for three more strokes. Three heroic, doomed strokes.

"Please, Audrey—" It rips out of him, hoarse and helpless. "Please, sweetheart, I need to come—"

I win.

And then I lose everything else, because he grabs my hips and drives up into me, and the orgasm hits both of us at once.

"Ohhhhhhh!"

I cry out loud enough to scare the trees as he comes hard, hot ropes spilling deep inside me while I shake and clench around him and laugh, breathless and wrecked, into his neck.

"You lost," I manage, eventually, legs twitching.

"Worth it." His chest heaves under my cheek. "So fucking worth it."

Afterward, Miles is a different man.

He's soft and careful as he cleans us both with a warm cloth from the little sink. I lay back and watch as he feeds two logs into the stove, and tucks me under the quilt before finding a tin of his mother's shortbread in a cupboard.

He hand-feeds me a piece while I lie there naked, still shaking and utterly boneless.

"It's late," he says, settling in behind me, his arm heavy across my waist. "Snow's coming down hard so it's not safe to drive the mountain."

I twist to look at him. "Is this another rescue operation? Because you have a pattern, Stratton."

"Fine." His mouth brushes my shoulder with a tender kiss I'm trying not to read into too much. "The roads are probably fine. I want you to stay anyway."

And here's the thing.

I have spent a week telling everyone that everything about my new life is temporary. The job. The suite. The man.

But the stove crackles, and the snow falls silent over four generations of Christmas trees, and Miles Stratton's heartbeat thumps slow and sure against my back.

"We go back to the resort tomorrow," I say.

"Tomorrow," he agrees.

I curl into him and stay.

Chapter 11

Miles

There is no polite way to eat cinnamon pancakes across the table from a woman when you spent last night between her legs.

I know this because I've been holding the same forkful for two minutes.

The farmhouse kitchen is packed as usual. Snow drifts past the windows, the woodstove crackles in the corner, and Mom keeps producing food like she's being judged by a panel of grandmothers.

The pancakes arrive in wobbling golden stacks dusted with cinnamon sugar, syrup pooling in rivers between the layers, and there's a platter of bacon crispy just the way we like it in this house.

Audrey sits beside me wearing one of my old flannel shirts, sleeves rolled, laughing with Mom like she's attended Stratton breakfasts her whole life.

"Eat, sweetheart," Mom says, sliding two more strips of bacon onto Audrey's plate. "You need your energy after working so late."

Audrey's eyes flick sideways to mine.