Compromising Kessen (23 page)

“Oh no. Oh no.”

“Kessen!” He grabbed her hands. “It’s fine. There are more family heirlooms. I’ll continue reading to get your mind off it, okay?”

She whimpered.

He took that as a yes. “Your biggest fear is you’ll somehow let your father down, which, on a more personal note, you should realize is basically an irrational fear. Your father loves you, and you could never disappoint him.”

She sucked in a breath and stared, obviously not expecting what he said. In fact, he hadn’t expected to respond in that way either. Why was it always easier helping others with their fears instead of conquering his own?

“Ahem,” he said. “Last, but not least. You sleep with a Little Mermaid nightlight, which I believe sufficiently proves you are terrified of the dark.”

Kessen’s mouth dropped open. “You got all of them right!”

“I did?” He tried to sound surprised.

“I can’t believe it!”

“Nor can I!” he agreed, knowing wholeheartedly if he hadn’t cheated, he would have lost miserably. Christian had no idea what her biggest fear was, or that she slept with a nightlight.

“But, but—”

“Use your words, Kessen,” he joked.

“That means…”

He waited, but she just stared, leaving him no choice but to grab her hands and say softly, “It means we’re having a slumber party.”

“Yay,” came her reply, albeit dry and dripping with sarcasm.

He would take it, though. In all actuality, he would take whatever he could get with this woman … and more.

Noticing Kessen wasn’t feeling comfortable at all he decided to lighten the mood. “How about we go outside, start a bonfire, throw in some of Nick and Duncan’s favorite shirts, and roast some marshmallows?”

Her eyes lit up. “It’s like you read my mind.”

Christian held out his hand for Kessen. It always was a stupid idea for them to touch. He clenched his teeth as her smooth hand wrapped around his. Blast, he was nearly brought to his knees just by touching her hand. When had a woman ever had this much power over him? The blood roared in his ears as he delicately led her through the house to the outside area for entertaining.

A small fire pit was located on the far end of the deck, as well as a few skewers to put marshmallows on.

Now all he needed to do was start the fire.

“You do know how to start a fire, don’t you?” Kessen asked doubtfully.

“I am a man,” he snapped.

“And that makes you knowledgeable because…?”

He snorted. “It’s part of being a man, something you’re born with, just like knowing how to spit and shoot things with a gun.”

She nodded her head. “Okay, my lord, so build the fire.”

He scratched his head in irritation, then looked around. No wood, no kindling, no matches. Where did the staff keep all the supplies?

He looked back to Kessen, but by the look on her face, she would rather die a thousand deaths than help him. How hard could building a fire from scratch be? All he needed was to chop down a tree and find some old newspaper.

“I’m going to go get some wood. You go get yesterday’s newspaper.” With that he left to locate an ax. Upon returning, Christian found Kessen sitting with two newspapers in her lap.

He rolled his eyes and walked past her to the Christmas tree farm behind their house. It had been around for years, and now would serve the purpose of being kindling.

The ax was heavier than expected, making him thankful he was the athletic sort. He swung the ax and got the tree to fall after only four blows. It wasn’t extremely impressive, considering the tree wasn’t large, but he had half a mind to turn around and growl just so Kessen could see how much of a man he was.

Then he heard something in the background, some sort of scratching noise. He looked down at the fallen tree and froze.

An enormous badger was staring up at him with hate in its eyes.

Everything happened in slow motion. He turned towards Kessen in horror and began screaming. “Run, run Kessen! It’s a giant animal!”

He nearly tripped on his own feet as he ran back to the house and locked himself inside. It wasn’t until he looked up that he realized Kessen was still outside and bent over with laughter.

Did she have no idea how terrible wild animals could be?

He opened the door a slit and whispered, “Kessen, get in here. It could have rabies!”

She turned towards him with her hands on her hips and sighed. “You don’t venture out into the country much, do you?”

He paused, then shook his head.

She threw him an “I feel sorry for your ignorance” look, and then trotted toward the fallen tree. On her way, she picked up two small rocks and began slamming them together. The giant badger, which now looked smaller than a cat, ran off leaving Kessen alone with the tree.

It took her less than five minutes to bring the tree back to the house, where she proceeded to cut it into firewood.

Christian felt like getting drunk, burping, making out with a stranger, and cussing all at once, if only to prove to himself and everyone else he was still a man.

He hesitated before going outside, knowing full well what Kessen’s response would be once he set his foot across the threshold. Most likely mocking, condescending, and many other things he didn’t care to review at the time.

Keeping his head down, he slowly stepped into the nighttime air and quietly closed the door behind him. The embarrassed little boy in him was definitely making a triumphant appearance as he shoved his hands in his pockets, all the while avoiding eye contact with Kessen and her lumberjack ways. When the splitting of firewood stopped, he heard Kessen toss some logs into the fire-pit and wipe her hands.

This was it, the moment that would define him forever. How would he react when Kessen began making fun of him? Would he rise to the occasion, or would he cower in the corner and finally realize he was nothing but a little boy?

She cleared her throat.

He looked up and squinted.

She put her hand out.

He took it.

“Uh … well, I mean, I like holding your hand,” she said, squeezing. “But what I actually wanted was matches. Unless you somehow know how to make fire appear out of thin air.”

No witty retort came; he was completely undone. Christian quickly looked around and located the matches he had found in the kitchen while making his narrow escape; he lit a few and started the fire.

“How did you…?” he started to ask.

“Colorado,” was her answer. “I like to think that when people judge me about where I live, they are doing it solely based on ignorance. It is a beautiful state, lots of mountains…”

“Badgers?” he offered, laughing.

She coughed to hide her laughter. “Yes. Yes, though we have badgers, they don’t like loud noises, you know.”

“Yes, I gathered that.” He licked his lips and smiled again, shaking his head from side to side. “You’re not going to tell Duncan, are you?”

Kessen leaned back and stretched. “Well, I could tell Duncan or Nick, but … I think I rather enjoy having something like this to hang over your head.” She winked at him.

He was again totally enamored with the girl.

He had to marry her.

No longer just something he’d do for his family’s honor, or for her father’s company, had was the word that best fit his feelings. Being her husband would never be boring; it would never be merely an arrangement. Instead, a friendship and passion were growing between them, something he hadn’t expected to find. Yes, he had to marry her. If for nothing else, his own selfish reasons of not wanting to ever live without having her near, even if she did scare him to death at least half the time they were together.

Kessen began rummaging through a bag next to her. Christian was too afraid to break the spell of their working together, so he merely watched while she pulled out a favorite shirt of Duncan’s and one of Nick’s.

“A toast!” she yelled, flinging them into the air in front of him.

“To our dear friends,” he finished, grabbing one of the shirts.

“Who sacrificially went back to London to fetch a dress that doesn’t exist.”

“And a swimsuit.”

“And a matching purse, was it?” She laughed.

“Among other things.”

“Hear, hear!” She threw the first shirt in. His soon followed, then she threw him a marshmallow, and they went to work on their dessert.

“I used to be afraid of marshmallows,” he found himself saying out loud. He was doing a lot of that lately.

“Oh?” she asked, putting two mallows on the skewer and laying it across the fire “Why?”

“Why what?” he asked, distracted with his own mallows.

“Why were you afraid of a piece of food?”

“Ahh,” he said, licking his sticky fingers. “It is quite simple; I hated to get dirty when I was little, and marshmallows had the audacity to constantly cling to my fingers.”

She gave him a “you must be joking” look, and he laughed.

“Okay, fine. The real story is Duncan and I wanted to have a camp out. We actually did it here at this very house. He set one of the marshmallows on fire and flung it through the air. It landed on my skin and burned me. It took me years to gain the courage to eat them again.”

She nodded somberly then began shaking her skewer.

“Wha—what are you doing?” he asked, slightly panicked. Would his embarrassment know no end?

“Oh, just playing,” she answered, still shaking the skewer.

“Uhh, do you mind not shaking the death stick?” He began scooting away slowly.

“You mean this death stick?” she asked calmly. Kessen shook it vigorously into the fire, and the marshmallow flew through the air. Christian, in another total state of panic, closed his eyes.

Nothing happened.

He opened one.

Kessen was right in front of him.

Or rather, Kessen was nearly straddling him.

He rather liked this sudden change of events.

Only one mallow had flown off; she brought the other one to his lips.

He opened his mouth and chewed; it was good.

She began to pull her hand away, but he caught it within his own and carefully licked each sticky finger until he thought he was going to go mad. Kessen’s eyes glazed over and her breathing came out in short gasps. When he reached the final finger, he lingered, tasting the sweetness of the mallow and the saltiness of her skin.

Had to marry her came rushing back in an instant. Would his family look down on him for taking her down to the courthouse now?

“My shirt!” A yell came from behind them.

“My favorite shirt!”

“Get it, Duncan! Get it!” Nick yelled, as Duncan looked like he was about to cry.

“It’s too late, my friend … we weren’t fast enough,” Duncan said, burying his face in Nick’s shirt.

“There, there. It will be okay,” Nick said, sending a scalding look in Christian and Kessen’s direction. “My, my. What have we here? A little midnight camp out?”

“Murderers!” Duncan yelled, still fake-sobbing into Nick’s shirt.

“Shhh,” Nick crooned, patting Duncan’s head. “They know not what they do, my friend.”

Duncan looked up, noticing the marshmallows, and smiled. “Hey, Kessen, did Christian ever tell you about the time I threw a marshmallow and it hit—”

He looked at Christian and paled. “Never mind. Sorry, I thought you were over it.”

Kessen nudged Christian. “He was over it until I threw my marshmallow at him just a few seconds ago.”

“He screamed like a girl, didn’t he?” Nick piped in.

“His voice does get high-pitched when he’s frightened,” Duncan agreed, sitting down on the chair nearest Kessen. “Mind if I use your skewer?” He gave her a charming wink that would have melted a candle. The guy had no shame.

“Sure.” She handed it over, but not before Christian let out a little grunt of manly frustration. How dare they interrupt what could have been the best experience with marshmallows he would ever have in his entire existence.

As if reading his thoughts, Kessen leaned over and whispered, “We can finish our dessert later.”

There is a God.

He relaxed as Duncan and Nick went on to describe their treacherous trip back to town, where they discovered they had no money and several items to pick up which demanded the money they left back at the house.

Duncan explained they went to Lady Newberry’s house and asked her for money to get some of Kessen’s things, promising they would pay her back once they beat up the Vandenbrook heir and stole his lunch money to see how it made him feel.

Lady Newberry, always the classy lady, merely cracked a smile and gave them twice the amount they needed and told them to enjoy a nice dinner on her.

Which they did.

“Even though we were the victims,” Duncan said between bites of his burning marshmallow, “we decided to take a shot at sainthood and allow you two to spend some quality time together without interruption.”

Christian rolled his eyes. “Which by my calculations only lasted around five hours total.”

“Sorry for being a good friend,” Duncan cried.

Then he threw a marshmallow at Christian’s face.

Christian lost it. He grabbed the closest bag of marshmallows he could find and began firing away at Duncan’s head. Kessen grabbed her own bag and began hitting Nick.

Neither of them had any defense; both of the bags were next to Kessen and Christian. They ran back inside with vows of revenge and locked the door.

“I hope they don’t intend to keep us out here all night,” Kessen said, laughing.

Christian suddenly felt hot. He wrapped his arms around Kessen from behind and whispered in her ear, “I’m sure we could keep ourselves busy if they do.”

Chapter Twenty-Five

Was it possible to fall in love in seven days? Kessen silently wondered as Christian’s hands burned what felt like permanent marks into her sides.

It was as if each finger was trying to mark his territory on her person, one by one, slowly making the agony of his presence clearer as time ticked by.

Neither of them moved. She doubted he even wanted to breathe for fear she would pull away. And maybe a few days ago she would have. She would have done a lot of things now that she was truly thinking. A few days ago she would have laughingly pulled away while teasing him about something ridiculous, if only to get a rise out of him, so he wouldn’t touch her anymore.