Free STORM OF LOVE (snowed in with the billionaire #3) (billionaire erotic romance)) by Karolyn James

(1)
     
    His hands.
    His strong hands.
    She still felt them, or at least she swore
she could. Through the howling wind, the teasing whispers that ran
by her ears, the frigid snap of winter’s fingers, stinging like
pins, and the blinding snow. Mother Nature’s cruel joke, or maybe
its greatest test.
    How far would Stephanie go for Nathaniel’s
touch again?
    Better yet, would Nathaniel attempt to find
her?
    But he did find her already, didn’t he?
    Stephanie opened her eyes and the air
scraped at them. The snow pelted against her skin, hitting, and
melting. The process didn’t seem all that bad if it were only a
flake or two. But this was a blizzard, millions upon millions of
snowflakes everywhere.
    As she looked around, Stephanie instantly
felt confused again. She was disoriented, her only help being the
tree she held with her right arm. Her body shivered to the bone.
The most intense cold she ever experienced in her life, leaving her
wondering how long a person could be in the cold before dying.
    How does a person die in the cold?
    She vaguely remembered that maybe a person’s
body would grow tired, shut down. A gradual death, shivering until
everything just stopped.
    Body, mind, soul.
    And heart.
    Stephanie touched her chest with her left
hand, letting out a cry. She couldn’t imagine her heart not
beating. She couldn’t imagine Nathaniel’s hands never touching her
again. This was supposed to just be a quick statement, her feeble
attempt at defiance, her way of pushing the boundaries with
Nathaniel.
    How far would he go?
    The original question dripped in sexual
thought, but now was more of a question of survival.
    Stephanie closed her eyes and opened her
hand against the tree. She needed to walk, whether it was the right
answer or not. She refused to just stand in a whiteout, hugging a
tree, begging for Nathaniel Anders to save her, waiting for
death.
    Her arm slid along the tree, her fingertips
the last things to touch it. As she started to step, she whimpered,
trying to stare straight ahead, hoping for some kind of vision.
    It wasn’t supposed to be like this.
    Death, life, or love. Stephanie should have
been in a business suit, talking in front of the executives at
HanAn. Then again, what did that really matter? Nathaniel had
already told Stephanie his intentions… blaming her for making a
decision. Technically, as Stephanie took her first set of steps
from the tree, she was unemployed. Being a temp at HanAn was
supposed to be her way into the company, or at least have some kind
of referral to something bigger and better. Instead, thanks to
Nathaniel and his command, she had inadvertently made the decision
to get rid of parts of HanAn, including the one she worked for.
    So much for stepping up and making her voice
heard.
    Stephanie called for help but her voice was
thrown right back at her by the wind. She wasn’t sure if it even
carried at all. She called for Nathaniel and imagined him appearing
from the white wall before her eyes, wearing his suit, blue tie,
hands in his pockets. His defined face, chiseled features, dark
eyes. He would command the weather to stop. To wait. To allow them
back into Wolf Top Lodge and only once they were in the comfort of
heavy covers and each other’s bodies could the snow resume its
torrent on top of the mountain.
    Nathaniel didn’t come.
    Stephanie continued to walk.
    She knew better by now than to look anyway
but straight ahead. The whiteness made it easy to get confused, not
that Stephanie really knew where she was walking. She could have
been walking deeper into the trees. Maybe slowly down the mountain.
Maybe even along the tree line.
    One thing was for certain, after counting
twenty steps, she knew that if she had been on the path she used to
walk into the trees, she would have been at the driveway to the
lodge. She would have been so close to warmth, comfort, Nathaniel .
    Step twenty-one was easy but step twenty-two
found Stephanie tripping on an object, falling to