“Are you pissed at me because I called you out?” he asked. Mildly.
“You weren’t wrong, and I apologized,” Kate replied in an infinitely serene way that Templeton didn’t bother to pretend he couldn’t feel all over him. He wanted more.More of that mouth, because the last thing it was when it was under his was cool or calm orserene. “I’m not sure why we’re revisiting the subject. Are you one of those people who can’t take an apology?”
“There’s not much I can’t take, Trooper,” Templeton rumbled at her. “As I’m happy to demonstrate at any point.”
“I’m so glad that you reminded me about your penchant for off-color remarks,” she said loftily, and he knew he wasn’t mistaking the challenging gleam in her gaze. “We’re working together now. So as inappropriate as it was for you to be doing this before, it’s even more so now.”
“We’re not officially working together,” Templeton replied easily enough. Because he’d thought about this way too much, clearly. “And even if we were, guess what? I’m a grown-ass man who makes his own decisions about his romantic life. My assumption was that you, too, were an adult and fully in charge of what you do and don’t do. Or do you need to hide behind rulebooks so you don’t have to feel anything?”
“I don’t even know where to begin with that.”
“Let me ask you a question,” Templeton said, roaming toward her. He watched how her eyes widened, then heated. It was about the hottest thing he’d ever seen. And he didn’t know how he kept himself from reaching over and getting his hands on her again. “What did you dream about?”
For a moment her face was blank. Then she flushed, bright and red enough to heat the whole of the lodge.
“Yeah,” Templeton said with deep satisfaction. “That’s what I thought.”
He picked up her bag again, carrying it as he pushed out the lodge’s front door. She came after him, and he could hear from the way her boots hit the deck that he’d pissed her off. A better man would probably not have found that as amusing as he did.
Oh well.
He led her along the intersecting wooden walkways until they reached the cabin that had been set up for her. He opened the front door, beckoning her in. And watched with sheer delight as the stiff way she preceded him told him all he needed to know about her mood.
It worked for him. Maybe he should have been concerned about how much it worked for him.
“I know this isn’t much,” he said as they looked around the cabin together. It was two rooms and a bathroom. The living room was furnished and winterized, and Oz had carefully laid out all the devices Kate would need to access the lists he’d made. There was a couch, a woodstove for heat, and a table in front of the window looking out over the misty cove. “But it’s yours as long as you’re here.”
“No secret handshake?” she asked coolly. “No initiation rituals?”
Templeton let his gaze rest on hers too long. With too much heat. “I can haze you if you want, Kate. But you have to ask nicely.”
Kate made a point of wrenching her bag out of his grasp. She marched into the other room, where Templeton knew there wasn’t a whole lot. A bed, a dresser. Rustic walls with very little in the way of ornamentation. A thick rug to keep the cold out.
Every now and again a client came to Fool’s Cove and stayed in one of these cabins. And then flipped out, because it was so stark and remote. And much too Alaskan.
But Kate wasn’t a client. And better still, she was local born and bred.
He stayed where he was, propping up the wall next to the front door until she came back out again and stood in the doorway to the bedroom.
And Templeton was not a teenage boy. He needed reminding, because all he could think about was that bedroom. That bed. And how easy it would be to cross thecabin floor in a step. Pick her up and hold her against him, then bear her down sweet and certain onto that bed.
His mouth watered. His sex registered its enthusiasm.
But Templeton stayed where he was. Maybe to prove he could.
“No,” Kate said.
Very distinctly.
“What do you mean, no?” Templeton protested with a laugh. “I didn’t do anything. Or ask you anything.”
“I can see your face. So I’ll repeat myself.No.”
Now he was enjoying himself. More, that was. He lounged as he stood there, crossing his arms and propping one boot up on the other in front of him to look that much more languid.
He’d seen his trooper in various versions of her uniform. And in early morning, cold-weather running gear.
But this was the first time he’d seen her dressed as... Kate. Or what he assumed was just her, nothing else. She wore tough-looking technical pants that licked their way over her strong thighs and athletic calves to tuck into boots appropriate for anything Alaska could throw her way. On top she wore a jacket she’d unzipped when she’d entered the lodge, and a dark green sweater he’d guess was wool. Hardy and practical yet quietly elegant.