Page 55 of Tempted To Be Mine

“How do I look?” she asked, running her fingers through her hair.

“Super fucking sexy.”

“Jeremy!”

“You look fine. A little flushed, but it’s cold. That’s normal.”

She shot me a glare that promised retribution later, but there wasn’t time for more. The engine sound had stopped right outside. Footsteps crunched through the snow.

The cabin door slammed open with enough force to rattle the windows. Bernadette stood in the doorway, silhouetted against the fading light, looking like some kind of arctic rescue superhero. She had a radio clipped to her belt and bear spray in a holster on her hip. Her eyes swept the cabin, taking in the fire, the scattered coats, the two of us standing way too close together.

“Thank God,” she said. “When you didn’t come back, I knew something was wrong.”

“The snowmobile wouldn’t start,” I said, amazed at how normal my voice sounded. “Engine just died. I couldn’t figure out what was wrong with it.”

Bernadette nodded, already pulling the radio from her belt. “Happens sometimes in the cold. Battery probably gave out. I’ll call back to the lodge and get someone out here with another machine.”

She stepped outside to make the call, giving us a moment of privacy. Lucy looked at me, her expression unreadable.

“We should talk,” I said quietly.

“Later.” She grabbed her parka from the floor and shrugged it on. “When we’re back at the lodge.”

I wanted to push. She wouldn’t meet my eyes. I needed to know what she was thinking but asking in front of Bernadette was the wrong way to approach this.

“They’re sending two snowmobiles,” Bernadette reported. “Should be here in about fifteen minutes. You two okay? No signs of hypothermia?”

“We’re fine,” Lucy said. “Jeremy got a fire going. Kept us warm.”

Bernadette looked impressed. “Good thinking. Most people panic in situations like this.”

I shrugged, trying to look modest. “Just did what I had to do.”

The rescue team arrived faster than expected. Two lodge employees on snowmobiles completely oblivious to the fact that they’d just interrupted the most significant moment of my recent life.

Lucy climbed onto the back of Bernadette’s snowmobile without looking at me. I watched her wrap her arms around Bernadette’s waist. She settled into the seat and pointedly avoided my gaze.

I got the message. Space. She needed space.

I climbed onto the back of the other snowmobile, behind a guy named Tom who seemed perfectly nice but was absolutely not the person I wanted to be pressed against right now. Felt a little weird to be honest but the caveman in me didn’t want Lucy wrapping her body around him.

The ride back to the lodge felt endless. The trail wound through the forest, the same path we’d taken that morning, but everything looked different now. The shadows were longer, the cold more biting. My mind wouldn’t stop spinning.

I’d slept with Lucy.

No, not just slept with her. I’d made love to her. Because that was what it had felt like. Not a hookup. Not scratching an itch. Something deeper. Something that had been building for longer than I’d realized.

The problem was I had no idea what to do with that.

I’d been with a lot of women. All of those women knew exactly what they were doing when they got naked with me. It had always been fun. Easy. No complications, no expectations.

But none of them had ever made me feel like this. There was a mix of excitement, terror, and a desperate need to know what she was thinking.

Part of me wanted to do it again. Immediately. Find the nearest private space and pick up where we’d left off. I wanted to learn every inch of her body. Figure out exactly what sounds she made when I touched her in different places. The cabin had been too fast. I wanted to slow things down.

Another part of me wanted to run because this was dangerous territory. Lucy wasn’t someone I could walk away from if things got messy. She was woven into every part of my life. If this went wrong, I’d lose more than a lover. I’d lose my best friend.

And then there was the part of me that just wanted to talk to someone about it. That was the real kicker.