Secrets of a Chalet Girl:

If I can’t be bold now when can I be? It’s time Flora. Just go for it…

She was aware of the hen party girls closing in en masse behind her. The drunken giggling was a bit of a giveaway. They’d obviously decided she’d had enough space for one evening.

Please piss off!

She sent them furious telepathic signals but they weren’t picking up. Great.

“Hi Flora, if you want to stay that’s fine but we thought we’d head back to Chalet Repos.” Holly touched her lightly on the elbow. “Pippa’s worried that Scott and Steve will’ve dropped baby Lexie in the Jacuzzi or something. Hey Zac, you look in better shape than Scott after the Stag Do. I heard last night got pretty wild.”

Flora realised she was still in physical contact with Zac and pulled her hand away swiftly. So Scott and Holly knew Zac? While reassured on one level he wasn’t an axe-wielding psycho, part of her wanted Zac to be a total stranger, to stay a total stranger. That he was friends with her bosses made her a little…uneasy.

“Perhaps I should come back with you.” Flora wavered, her fingers tightening on the velvet bag strap, the sensible part of her trying to control her inner hussy. This wasn’t exactly something she’d done before. Getting it together with a random stranger in a bar was what other people did, not her. But so much had changed recently. How could she even be sure who she was or what she wanted? After years of Tom telling her what to do, the freedom to make her own choices felt…weird.

It was a nice kind of weird, though.

Verbier was a start over, a blank page just waiting for her to write in it. She couldn’t sit around waiting for someone else to come along and write her story for her. She’d already been there and done that in the first volume of ‘Flora’s Life.’

Volume two was going to be very different.

There’s nothing wrong with having sex for pleasure. It’s about time you bloody got some!

“Hey, you stay. It’s fine, you’re on leave until the wedding remember, no guests to get up for in the morning. I’d make the most of it if I were you!” Holly smiled, linking arms with an anxious-looking Pippa as they walked to the exit. “Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”

If I were you… So that’s pretty much the green light from my boss then.

“That doesn’t leave much,” Tash shouted back to Holly, winking at Flora in an exaggerated way. The girls fell about laughing and Flora waited for the ground to open up and swallow her whole. Well why not? It felt like the kind of evening where anything might happen.

When she wasn’t magically transported away from the scene Flora risked catching Zac’s eye and a lurch of desire jolted her, her insides performing a loop the loop, leaving her physically shaken. But as powerful as the desire was, a little niggle buzzed at the back of her mind like an annoying insect.

“Excuse me for a moment Zac.”

She took a few steps towards Tash, reaching her before she got to the exit.

“Did you set me up?” she whispered furiously in Tash’s ear. She could feel Zac’s eyes on her from where he stood at the bar. They trailed over her body, over the fabric cupping her breasts, lingering on her legs…she didn’t know how she could sense it but the sexual chemistry in the air felt palpable.

It feels like magic.

She shivered again, half with desire and half with fear. She had a choice – go back to the chalet and get ribbed by the girls for being a coward, not to mention spending a sleepless night burning with frustration. Or she could stay here with Zac and let this go further.

Her body screamed an instant ‘Stay!’

“You haven’t been laid in six months Flora,” Tash hissed back, a little too loudly in Flora’s opinion.

“Great, shout it a little louder would you, I think there was a guy over in the far corner who didn’t quite catch that,” Flora muttered, her jaw clenching and molars grinding. “Thanks a bundle for making me sound desperate.”

Breaking up with Tom had been so bloody traumatic, especially with all the hassle she’d been given afterwards about calling off their wedding. Leaping into bed with someone else hadn’t been top of her to-do list given she’d suddenly had nowhere to live, no job and oh yes, had been the most hated girl in town.

“Let me see the Dare bag,” Flora asked, a suspicion occurring to her. She made a lunge for the bag and managed to grab it. She opened card after card.

Each one read ‘Kiss the sexiest man in the room’

“Did you switch the bag?”

Tash shrugged unrepentantly. “That’s what friends are for. I made some spare cards in case you needed a little push to get back out there. These ones were for you. So what? Have fun, you deserve it and you’ll be thanking me in the morning.”

Sophie lurched in the direction of the barman and Tash grabbed her arm, knocking the cards out of Flora’s hands in the process.

“Amelia and I will get her back safe safely. Seriously Flora you need some fun, it’s way overdue.” Tash put on her stern, ‘don’t mess with me face’ that worked so well on the chalet guests who thought it was funny to pinch her bum.

That was true at least.

Could I?

As the possibilities fluttered into her mind her attitude softened towards Tash. Tash knew how hard her last relationship had been, how traumatic ending it had been for her. She didn’t know all the details, but she knew enough. They’d all talked long into the night about their love lives on more than one occasion.

If I can’t have fun here in Verbier when is it going to happen?

It’s time.

Zac bent down for one of the cards that’d fallen to the ground before Flora could stop him.

Shit.

His eyebrows shot up and he grinned. “So, I’m the sexiest man in the room am I?”

Flora’s face flamed again. She cursed her inability to stop blushing, really she should have grown out of the habit by now, she was twenty-four for frick’s sake.

“Well, the bar’s a bit short of talent tonight,” she replied stiffly.

There was nothing worse than a gorgeous man who knew exactly how sexy he was. That knowing smile was irritating and annoyingly…attractive.

Damn.

He laughed and took her hand, tugging her back towards the bar. She went unresistingly, aware of the gentle but insistent pressure of his other hand at the small of her back. The force of his will seemed sufficient to drive her but a part of her rebelled against this assumption of control.

After all, Tom had assumed control so slowly, so subtly at first that she’d thought she was imagining it and over-reacting.

These kinds of charms often acted as a mask and who knew what lay beneath?

I’ll just have to be careful.

“I’m all for you doing what the card says.” He lowered his mouth to hers and before she knew it they were kissing again. Her body pressed so firmly against his it was as though they were magnetised, relentlessly and ferociously drawn to each other.

She forgot the girls, even forgot she was angry as her fears melted away with the heat of his kisses. When he eventually pulled away the room seemed to spin a little. Her mouth opened but no words came out.

“Shall we get some fresh air?” he asked.

She nodded and averted her gaze from the smug smile of the barman. She had to see where this might take her. And she really, really needed to have sex. It’d been too long and her wakening senses demanded satisfaction.