One Snowbound New Year's Night Read online

  “How was the road?” Becca fetched her phone from her purse, distracting him as she sashayed back from where it hung under her coat.

  “I caught a rideshare to the top of the driveway and walked down. I can meet one at the top to get back to my hotel.”

  “Plows will be busy doing the main roads. And it’s New Year’s Eve,” Donovan reminded her. “Drivers will be making surge rates moving drunks between hotels in the village. They won’t risk ditching their car by coming all the way out here.”

  “So what am I supposed to do? Stay here? All night? With you?”

  “Happy New Year,” he said with a mocking smile.

  Canadian Dani Collins knew in high school that she wanted to write romance for a living. Twenty-five years later, after marrying her high school sweetheart, having two kids with him, working at several generic office jobs and submitting countless manuscripts, she got The Call. Her first Harlequin novel won the Reviewers’ Choice Award for Best First in Series from RT Book Reviews. She now works in her own office, writing romance.

  Books by Dani Collins

  Harlequin Presents

  Confessions of an Italian Marriage

  Innocent in the Sheikh’s Palace

  What the Greek’s Wife Needs

  Her Impossible Baby Bombshell

  Signed, Sealed...Seduced

  Ways to Ruin a Royal Reputation

  The Secret Sisters

  Married for One Reason Only

  Manhattan’s Most Scandalous Reunion

  Visit the Author Profile page at Harlequin.com for more titles.

  Dani Collins

  One Snowbound New Year’s Night

  To my delightful editor, Megan Haslam, who suggested I write a couple snowbound for twenty-four hours in Canada on New Year’s Eve. Writing this romance became its own jigsaw puzzle as I tried to fit all the expected glamour and emotion and heat into that tight frame, but I had so much fun with it. Thank you!

  Contents

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  EPILOGUE

  EXCERPT FROM VOWS ON THE VIRGIN’S TERMS BY CLARE CONNELLY

  CHAPTER ONE

  THE SOUND OF harp strings increased in volume, dragging Rebecca Matthews from a sound sleep to disorientation. It was daylight, the window blinds open to a view of falling snow on cedar trees. How—?

  Oh, right. She was back in Canada.

  She closed her eyes again and groggily reached to the night table to turn off the alarm. She didn’t even recall setting it.

  Her hand couldn’t find the phone, but the sound abruptly cut off.

  “Don’t scream,” a male voice said quietly.

  She screamed, scrambling into a huddle against the headboard, snatching up one of the giant pillows to clutch it across her slamming heart, all while her brain processed that it was Van’s voice. She was perfectly safe. He wasn’t supposed to be here, but this was his house. Or would be, as soon as she signed it over to him.

  Donovan Scott, her soon-to-be ex-husband, stood in the doorway holding his phone in a loose, dangling grip. He wore jeans and a cable-knit sweater and had an even darker, more imposing level of sex appeal than she remembered. That quiet force reached out and wrapped around her like an invisible hand, squeezing the air from her lungs.

  She hadn’t seen him in four years, not even stalking him online except for a handful of photos her sister had shoved under her nose. In appearance, he had changed only in small ways. He wore a fade on the sides of his hair and had shortened it on top so it no longer flopped rakishly toward one brow. His closely trimmed beard was now shaped with precision to accentuate his jaw and made his golden-brown eyes seem even more eagle-sharp. His mouth held the stern tension of gearing up for a race. All of him radiated that familiar bunched energy he’d always contained. He wasn’t competing any longer, so he wasn’t lean to the point of wiry, but his body was still pure muscle, all wide shoulders and long legs and power.

  There was something vastly different in his demeanor, though. He had no easygoing smile for her. Rather, he exuded suspicion and hostility and harsh judgment as he held up his phone and drawled, “I didn’t want you to hear me downstairs and think I was an intruder.”

  “Well done,” she said facetiously. “I told the lawyer to tell you I was coming in to pick up a few things. Did you not get that message?”

  “I did. That’s why I’m here.” His cool, pithy tone made her heart thunk in her chest.

  She closed her fist into the pillow. She wanted to bury her face in it. Could he tell she’d been crying? She was a train wreck. She’d had a few hours of sleep and a shower after she landed in Vancouver yesterday, but she wasn’t wearing makeup and her hair was falling out of its topknot. Oh, gawd. She inwardly cringed as she noticed the green-and-cream plaid on her arm. She’d pulled one of his flannels over her thin sweater and smelled it before falling on what used to be their bed for a hard, ugly cry. Jet lag had taken over and she’d pulled the corner of the duvet across her, escaping anguish and loss by falling asleep.

  “I was cold,” she mumbled, straightening the collar of his shirt against her shoulder. Definitely not cold any longer. A hot, mortified blush rose from the pit of her stomach at being caught in his bed like Goldilocks. “I thought you were in Calgary?”

  “Where’s Courtney?” he asked at the same time.

  They both fell silent.

  When the quiet dragged out and she realized he was waiting for her to speak first, she said, “Her, um, flight was delayed. She was going to miss her connection and I didn’t want her to spend New Year’s Eve stranded in Winnipeg, so I told her to stay home.”

  Becca’s first and best Canadian friend had offered to meet her in Vancouver and hold her hand while Becca closed out what remained of her life here in Whistler. It had felt like a horrific imposition to let Courtney fly all the way from Halifax for a handful of rough emotional days and a glass of champagne at midnight, but Becca really wished she had a wingwoman right now.

  “I thought you were spending Christmas in Calgary with Paisley?” she asked, mentioning his sister.

  “I did.”

  “Her kids must be getting big.” She smiled faintly, wishing she’d had a closer relationship with his niece and nephew, but she and Paisley hadn’t gotten on.

  “They are.”

  “I only meant to be here a few minutes, but jet lag...” She trailed off, feeling as gauche as ever around him.

  This was so stilted and awful. Latent adrenaline was burning through her veins, leaving her entire body stinging. This was why she’d wanted to come into the house while he was away, so she wouldn’t have to face him and the mire of memories between them.

  “The lawyer initially told me February. I was surprised when he said you wanted access over New Year’s Eve.”

  “This was when Courtney had time off work. She thought it would be fun to celebrate New Year’s Eve here like old times...” Becca’s voice faded as her throat constricted. Nothing about this was fun. “It was all organized at the last second.”

  “You didn’t have to work through the holidays?”

  “I—” A hard jab of inadequacy struck. Why did it make her feel like a poser to admit this? “I’m not tending bar anymore. I’m, um...” She cl
eared her throat. “I’m starting school soon. I worked until Christmas Eve, spent a few days with Dad and Ollie—he remarried—then I have a prep course I want to take before the actual classes start.”

  “Oh? What are you studying?” His brows went up with interest that had to be good manners and little else.

  “Lab tech?” She didn’t mean it to sound like a question, as though she wanted his approval. Maybe she did. She’d finally found something she felt remotely passionate about. It wasn’t particularly sexy, but it meant a lot to her.

  “I told the lawyer I could send everything down to you. You didn’t have to come all this way.” His gaze flickered toward the empty suitcase she’d opened and left on the floor. So far there was only a cotton sundress inside it.

  “I need to close out an old bank account and...sign the papers.” Finalize their divorce. Release the title on this house to him. Everything could have been done electronically, but... “I don’t actually want many of the clothes.” What was she going to do with designer gowns and high-end skiwear working as a lab tech in Sydney? “And I was...”

  As she remembered why she was here, she pushed the pillow off her lap and hooked her heels on the far side of the bed. Her jeans rose up her calves as she dragged herself off the bed. She shook her legs and brushed her bottom as she got to her feet, then folded his flannel across herself, more from defensiveness than chill.

  She didn’t want to admit she’d paid high-season airfare and come all this way to find a cheap gold locket her mother had given her. Wanda had started wearing hers after Mum passed and Becca was angry with herself that she’d left hers here.

  It was Van’s fault. He’d started buying her earrings with precious stones and a tennis bracelet and art deco pendants on links of white gold. A modest gold locket didn’t go with the sort of upscale designer names his family wore. She would have told him to send the locket to her if she had known where she had left it, but she couldn’t recall the last time she’d worn it.

  “I’m surprised you haven’t moved all of this into storage.” She glanced from the door of the closet, where her clothes had been zipped into garment bags to keep the dust off, but were otherwise exactly as she’d left them.

  “I’m at the condo in Vancouver most of the time.”

  Condo made it sound so modest. It was a penthouse with views of Stanley Park, Coal Harbour and the North Shore.

  Van moved to the night table and tilted the bottle of wine she had spitefully opened and poured into a glass, bringing both up here with the intention of drinking it all herself.

  “Are you mad?” she asked dolefully.

  We can drink it on our fifth anniversary, she had said when he purchased the bottle. They’d been touring Okanagan wineries on their honeymoon. It had been one of the vineyard’s select vintages, meant to be cellared at least five years, and had cost two hundred dollars when it was released.

  “Depends,” he said drily. “Is it corked?” He picked up her glass as if they had been sharing dishes all this time, sipped. Considered. His brows went up. “Worth the wait.”

  The look he leveled at her put tension in her belly and a cavernous feeling in her chest.

  “It dropped me like a tranquilizer dart,” she mumbled, and went into the closet where her drawer of accessories had already been mined without success. “Do you mind reaching that shoebox for me? I have a vague memory of putting my old glasses in there with some of my travel paperwork. I want to see what else is in there.”

  “You kept your glasses?” He’d paid to have her vision fixed shortly after they married.

  Her frames were cheap and outdated, the prescription completely useless. She should have donated her glasses after the procedure, but, “Growing up, I was threatened with slow and painful death if I ever lost or broke my glasses.”

  Her family had been poor. She still was, compared to him. Her sister had told her to let Van ship everything to her so she could sell what she didn’t want on consignment, but his family had thought her a money-grubbing gold digger as it was.

  No, she had decided. She would let him dispose of the jewelry and clothes however he saw fit. She would divorce him and sign over the house with only a nominal settlement. Irreconcilable differences had never seemed so literal, but they had always been far too unequal to find any middle ground—especially once Becca had learned she couldn’t give him the children he wanted.

  After privately coming to terms with that hard news, she was working on envisioning a future where she was happy with herself and by herself, not thinking happiness could only be achieved by being a wife and mother.

  She was here to draw a line at midnight. New year, new life, new Becca.

  Because reinventing herself had worked out so well in the past.

  The closet was as big as her bedroom in her new, tiny leased studio in Sydney, but it felt like a broom closet when he entered and stood close, emanating his spicy, woolly, snow-fresh aroma all over her.

  He brought the shoebox down and angled it away from them, blew the dust off and tilted the lid open. He looked at her expectantly.

  There were her glasses in their cloth case along with a charger cord for a redundant phone, a handful of receipts and some purple, green, and gold beads from a Mardi Gras party they had attended shortly after they married.

  Flash me, he’d invited when they’d arrived home afterward, slightly drunk and very horny. She’d whisked off her shirt and bra, then sat across his lap on the edge of that bed while he twined the long necklaces around her breasts before cupping her butt and lifting her onto her knees so he could suck her nipples.

  Did he remember...?

  One tentative glance upward and she nearly melted under the flare of heat in his gaze. He remembered everything. Carnality hardened the sharp angles in his face and sent a golden spear lodging itself behind her navel.

  Her skin tightened and she grew so hot she felt scorched. It was mortifying to have desire rise up like an apparition between them, but yearning pinned her exactly where she was. She couldn’t escape the way she had completely let him have his way with her that night. Many, many nights, but that one in particular. When he’d urged her to take him in her mouth, she had knelt at his feet and caressed him, listening while he petted her hair and told her in intimate detail what he wanted to do to her.

  Then, before he lost control, he made good on his promise. He stripped her down to only those beads and gave her what he’d denied himself, going to his knees on the floor as he buried his head between her thighs and made her scream.

  She’d still been panting in reaction when he had thrust into her. He’d been rough, but in a good way, making her climax again before rolling onto his back and bringing her astride him where she did everything she could to take him over the edge.

  Van was ruthlessly self-disciplined, though. He was a world-class athlete with ridiculous endurance. In a gravelly voice he had told her how hot she was, how much pleasure she was giving him as he thrust up into her. How much he loved watching her succumb to pleasure.

  She had shattered and he sat up, gathering his knees beneath himself while holding her with her legs twined around his waist. She had arched back so the beads sat as a collar-like weight across her neck while he bent to feast on her breasts, drawing forth a fresh, pulsating desire that completely overwhelmed her.

  No one had ever made her feel like that—like a goddess. Irresistible. Pure and unashamed in the way she gave herself up to him.

  As she grew wild and ready to explode, he brought her up into his lap, so she clung around his neck and kissed him with utter abandon. The beads had dangled down her back and her damp nipples had rubbed deliciously against his hot, hard chest as he rocked up into her.

  She’d been mindless. Uninhibited and insatiable. Smothered by his kisses and writhing with him in a way that melded them as close to becoming one as it was possible to
feel. Words were gone. In those throbbing, exquisite moments, they were completely attuned, speaking a primitive language all their own.

  Culmination arrived, striking both of them at exactly the same time, propelling them into another world where reality didn’t exist, only heat and white light and exquisite pleasure. The kind that should have kept them sealed for all eternity.

  But it hadn’t.

  Her awareness came crashing back from that iniquitous memory to see his pupils had expanded so his irises were mere golden halos around black, depthless orbs.

  With sensuality weakening her bones, and craving for lost passion snarling like a demon inside her, Becca absently licked her lips.

  His mouth had finally softened from its unyielding line. There was a distant pair of small thumps, one barely heard, the other louder and accompanied by the spill of beads.

  All she really felt or saw or perceived was the force that pulled them together. Magnets finding their opposite and snapping together in a way that resisted separation. Van’s mouth descended on hers as his hard arms drew her body into a firmer fit with his.

  Longing and loss and sensory starvation acted like sparks on the kindling that was always there. Always. His mouth slanted and swept and stole. She loved it. She gave herself up to him with a roping of her arms around his neck and a mash of her breasts to his chest, dragging herself into him even as his arms closed so tightly around her they hurt.

  She was glad for that ache. For those implacable bands that nearly cut off her breath. It was like being caught close after a near-death stumble at the edge of a cliff. Hold me tighter. Keep me safe.

  His mouth was equally hard as he raked it across hers, plundering as though he’d been starving for years, exactly as she had been. His hands went down to her backside and angled her hips into his groin while his mouth consumed hers, tongue thrusting exactly as it had that night when he’d been buried inside her.

  This was the sort of instant lust that had brought them together in the first place. It was wild and glorious—a crashing storm that roared and excited and blew down any obstacle in its path.