Page 49 of Tinsel in Telluride

I want to tell him they aren’t that cold and rip them from his grasp. He doesn’t get to be nice to me. Not right now. Not when I don’t know why my body is drawn to him when it absolutely shouldn’t be. Not when I’m going to die, and he’s going to leave and fuck everything up after being the perfect almost dad to Zach.

“Leigh, tell me what you see,” he murmurs against my hands.

“What?” I gasp.

“Five things you see. Tell me.”

“No.”

“Five things,” he growls, and my body goes still.

Seeing in his eyes that he’s not going to let me have this moment without him fucking it up, I concede a half-hearted, “Fine.”

Fucking moody, selfish, billionaire, asshole.

My eyes dart left, then right, searching for anything tangible before a stray thought sneaks in.

Is there a wrong answer here?

Can it be anything?

Shit. I don’t know.

“Out of your head, Leigh. The first thing you see.”

A wild hair, plastered to his forehead beneath his beanie, catches my eye.

My throat feels thick. Impossible to swallow, but I manage to squeak, “Hair.”

“Good. That’s one.” He takes both my hands in one of his large palms and the other moves beneath my coat to the small of my back, keeping me anchored close to him.

My gaze trails down past his perfectly sculpted brows. “Eyes.”

His breath warms my hands. “That’s two.”

He traces tiny, even-pressured circles with his fingers against my shirt. “What color are they?”

“Blue.”

And what a beautiful shade of blue they are. Like an iceberg that flipped over, seeing the sun for the first time. They sparkle.

“Good. What else do you see?”

My gaze slips lower. “Lips.”

His tongue darts out and wets the soft pink pillows—masculine yet still far too pretty for a man. “That’s three. Something else.”

Lower, I latch on to the sliver of silver skin at the base of his throat.“Scar.”

His brow furrows. “Huh?”

“Right here.” I tug a hand free and trace the puckered skin.

Luca shivers and swallows hard before shifting slightly back. “Uh, good.” His voice wobbles. “Two more things.”

I want to ask how he got it, but that’s too much for my brain to handle. Instead, I keep to his directions, following the hollow of his neck back up to his jaw—which, unlike this morning, is now shadowed with hair.

“Scruff.”

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