Holiday Romance Collection - 6 Books Bundle (Erotic Romance - Holiday Romance) (21 page)

             
"I love you too, Josh. I think I always have, even when you were just a memory"

             
Josh took the carry on out of her hand and walked her back towards the elevators. "Let's make another memory. Maybe one that involves a nice soft bed, this time."

Do you like this book? Be sure to check other books in this series

Strictly Business - Volume 2

Unfriendly Rivalry - Volume 3

A Big Country
L
odge Story - Trilogy

Maybe I wasn’t going to die on a mountainside in
Austria
.

“I’m an idiot,” I muttered to myself.  “That staff member was right.  I shouldn’t rush out and try the first slope that beckoned me with it’s glistening purity and untouched crispness and startling beauty. 

“I shouldn’t have stood at the top of the mountain and looked around at the alps.” 

A drop of melted snow fell on my face, then another.  I reached up and took it into my mouth because even though I was surrounded by frozen water, I was parched.  Then I thought about the water and was afraid.

What if the snow surrounding me melted and collapsed?  I’d be dead—the air pocket around me filled in and leaving nothing to breath.

There goes my vacation of a lifetime. 

What a waste of money. 

I almost cried.

All they’d find would be a crumpled-up postcard bought in the gift shop even before I got to my room.  The resort was classic—all ski lodge and Austrian perfect and pretty as the proverbial postcard, which fortunately, they did sell in the lobby because that was the one I bought.  A ski instructor—blond hair shining in the brilliant sunlight and teeth as white as the snow and muscled arms showing even under his parka—standing in front with a group of happy tourists around him.

That could have been me.

Maybe it will be, if I don’t die.

I cried, and the snow around me started to melt faster.

I began to panic and tried to move my body, half fearing a collapse but also half hoping I could start to dig my way out.

I heard some noises way off in the distance.  It sounded like someone was laughing and having fun a mile away.  I knew I was passing out again because my face felt incredibly hot and my heart was beating like an approaching freight train.

Maybe the voices in the distance belonged to people who  could hear my heart and come and rescue me.

“Shit!  I was going to die. 

I was angry and frustrated and happy and sad, all at the same time.  My world began to spin around me.  The voices got closer.

Suddenly, I heard noises very close and a man’s voice and he was speaking in German—urgently and rapidly and loudly.

I felt vibrations over my head and the light at the end of my tunnel got brighter.

Maybe I
was
going to die and I’d soon be on the other side of that light.

I smiled when I thought about that shining blond-haired ski instructor on my postcard.  It was clutched in my hand and I had placed it over my heart, because hope is hope and you can always dream—even if you’re going to die.

They found me passed out and with a big smile on my face and my arm clutching the damp postcard in my hand.

At least, that’s what Franz Eigner told me later as he smiled down at me—his brilliantly white teeth in a huge grin and one tanned hand brushing aside my hair as he strapped me onto a stretcher as they carried me down the slope towards the ski lodge.

The rescuers wore skis and because I saw the snow and gorgeous mountain scenery whizzing by and I was alive, it felt like a ride at Walt Disney World.

Even though I’d almost died, I wasn’t dead
now
and the man hovering over me was starting to turn me on.  My God, I told myself, I thought everything about me would be frozen solid after being under the snow for hours, but there’s a certain tingling down there. Maybe Franz Eigner, this stunning-and-apparently-in-his-twenties man, can thaw me out.

His eye color changed from light to medium to dark blue, depending upon the light coming in and if there was a lot of sun or a little filtering through the wall to ceiling windows of the lodge.  I saw shutters to the sides and  I knew that they were probably there as security and safety against massive snow storms and to shelter the building from collapse.

“Fraulein...are you all right?  You have a strange expression on your face.  Are you well?”

I shivered.  “Sorry.  I’m fine—just a little achy that’s all.”

I studied him for a moment.  He was  over six feet and as stunning  a specimen of humanity as I’d ever seen.  I drooled in my mind and hoped I didn’t look
too
hungry.  He had a strong but slim build and he looked like he worked out. I snuck a peak at his lower torso and thighs and when I saw his partial erection behind well worn and faded denims, and just below the cable-knit sweater he as wearing, I blushed.

I looked up to find him staring at me, then he smiled. 

“Ah...I stuttered.  Who exactly are you, by the way?  I never got the chance to ask while I being saved from near certain death and everything.”

He stood upright and made a formal bow and then clicked his heels and saluted me.  “Franz Eigner at your service, madam.” He grinned.  “Better known as the owner of this modest establishment.”

I looked around at the antiques lining the walls, the dark brown leather sofas, the colorful tiffany-styled lamps placed on tables and along the walls, and the magnificent chandelier in the center of the lobby.  “Modest?  I’d hardly call it that, Mr. Eigner.”

“Franz, please.”  He paused a moment then grinned wickedly—making my temperature creep up once again.  “Would you like a massage?  I know a private small spa located right here, and I feel I owe you at least one because of you being buried under a ton of snow and everything, and on my property, too.”

“Ten tons,” I told him.

He raised one perfect eyebrow.  “Bitte?”

“I’m only joking.  The massage is not necessary, but would be much appreciated.”

Franz turned to the receptionist.  “Please show  Ms. Wilson to the spa and make sure she’s comfortable.  What room will she be in?”

The man looked at his reservation book then back up at Franz. “Number two, Herr Eigner.  I’ll have Gretchen show her to the room and help her get ready.”

Franz turned towards me.  “I’ll see you later, Ms. Wilson.”

“Janet, please.”

“I’ll see you later...Janet.”   He turned back towards me.  “Perhaps we can have dinner later this evening.”

I didn’t know about food but I knew I was ready to simply eat up his delicious-looking body.  I smiled.  “Perhaps.”

He gave me another heel click then turning, wandered off into the depths of the lodge.

I could hear him whistling a bit from Tales From The Vienna Woods, as an attendant led me to the spa which was on the top floor of the lodge.

Without a word, the masseuse  started to massage my shoulder muscles after pouring some warmed oil onto their hands.  I’d smelled, then seen the oil as I was taken into the room.

I didn’t expect the strength of the masseuse’s hands as they pulled and kneaded my muscles. 

It felt like a man.

I knew that if it
was
a man, that I’d be embarrassed. 

No one except a lover had touched my body and I wasn’t about to let one touch me now.

“Who is it?” I asked, muffled because I was still face down into the table.

“Your masseur, madam.”

Shit, it was a man!
I turned over, making sure that the towel which covered my lower body was pulled up under my chin.

Franz stood there, the blue in his eyes deepening into something a lot hotter. 

A lot more intense. 

A lot more sexy. 

His eyes dropped to my breasts because as I saw him, I’d accidentally let my towel fall.

He picked it up and offered it to me, his eyes still riveted to my face and then he cupped my cheek and ran his thumb along it.

I looked down and saw that his erection was tenting the front of his loose cotton pants and that the pants were the only thing he had on.

I pushed down the towel then threw it on the floor. 

“Do you want me?  If you don’t, I’ll leave right away,” he said. 

“I want
you
,” he added softly, his voice all steel and full of foreign intrigue—and promises of things to come.

I needed desperately to feel him, all hard erection and tanned body and arousal scent hanging around him like the powerful aphrodisiac it was to a sex-starved woman like myself.

I slid off the massage table then pressed myself into him.

He groaned and kissed my cheek then trailed his lips to my mouth where he first nibbled my lips and then kissed my mouth softly at first, then deep and forcibly inside, touching all of the sensitive spots.  He seemed to know where they were. 

He groaned again and it went straight to my sex because I was making him react this way.

“Shouldn’t you be tending to your host duties or something?” I asked him softly.

“Fuck the lodge.  It can wait.  The guests won’t go hungry.  All I can think about is you right now, anyway.  When I saw you all frozen and wet and frightened and shivering after we pulled you out from the avalanche, I thought we’d lost you.”

He smiled.  “Thinking ahead that’s all.  I didn’t know who you were yet.”

“And who’s that,” I asked.

“A good friend.  More so than the other American guests.  Possibly a lover...”

“I hope a lover, at least,” he added.

I felt his hard as a rock erection alongside of my thigh and pulled him closer.  I could just get my arms to meet around his chest.

“Mmmm...Franz, you feel so warm. And so good.”

I kissed his chest and then he suddenly picked me up and placed me back down on the massage table, then straddled me with his legs on either side of my body.  I felt a shiver as I saw him looking at my sex and my breasts. 

I didn’t know what would come next, but was about to find out.

When I brushed the hairs on his arms I felt a jolt of electricity down through my toes, looping up to the sensitive areas directly above my breasts.  In the very back of my mind I was worried that this was how he treated all of his women guests who were interested and also— how many lovers had he had?

I wondered how he had come into the business because he certainly appeared to be pretty well off, but in his twenties.  I knew nothing about Austrian or European royalty and because he had heel clicked me several times, I thought that possibly he was a baron or something.

He stopped for a moment and looked at me.  “What?” he asked.

“What if they need this room for a real massage?” I said.

“They won’t.  No one uses this spa in the Winter. They’re all out partying or skiing or drinking eggnog or getting drunk.”

“Sooo...that bit about asking the receptionist what room was available, was all a ruse?”