Page 98 of First Chance

“Not at all.”

The faintest smile crosses her lips as she swipes the bead of sweat off my temple. “I’m warm enough.”

I don’t immediately lean forward to turn off the heat, andshe reaches over to do it herself. Except she doesn’t curl her hand back into her chest when she’s done, she lays it atop mine, just over my heart.

“This is awfully big for someone who pretends like he doesn’t have one,” she whispers, curling her fingers into my shirt.

She’s wrong, I don’t have it.

It’s already in her possession.

Before I can confess my unyielding obsession to the woman I’m only fake-engaged to, headlights sweep across the windshield, filling the cab with light.

Even after being drenched and wind-blown, she’s captivating. Her dark lashes flutter heavily across her smooth skin as the warmth of her gaze loses focus.

I should get out and help the others, but I don’t. I hold her for the hour it takes them to cut the tree into pieces and move it off the road, admiring her as she succumbs to sleep.

I manage to steer us home, but I would have sat in the roadway with my hazards on all night before I would have woken her up.

I’m considering doing the same thing once I park in front of the house, but she blinks awake when I turn the engine off.

“Is it all over now?” she mumbles into my chest.

“Yeah, it’s over.”

She sighs but doesn’t move, and I don’t want her to. Getting out of the truck means I go back to gravitating around her without actually being able to have her.

“Is it too late to watch a movie?”

“No, it isn’t.” I huff in amusement, glad that the silence I’ve suffered through for nine days and 21 hours is over.

She skips inside to the guesthouse as if we didn’t just endure a natural disaster and picks out a movie, handing it to me before she finds dry clothes.

“Is this some sick joke?” I stare at the Twister DVD in my hand.

“I thought it went with the theme.”

“I think you’ve finally lost your mind.”

“Maybe.” She ducks behind the curtain separating the bathroom from the rest of the room and starts peeling off her sticky, wet clothes, kicking them across the floor.

By the time she comes around the curtain, tying her hair into a damp knot on top of her head, I’m locked painfully inside my body.

She was just naked, less than ten feet away from me.

“Ready?” Her sweet, innocent voice has no idea the torture I endured while the thinnest of curtains separated her from my view.

“Yeah,” I mutter, grabbing her hand and leading her across the stepping stones to the porch.

“Afraid I’ll blow away?”

“Something like that.”

I don’t let go of her until she’s settled onto the couch, but only to start the movie before pulling her back into my chest when I sit. After the night we’ve had, all my rules be damned.

Chapter Thirty-Six

Jo

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