Page 8 of Stranded with the Resort Owner

My eyes flick to his hips—and yep.

There it is.

His jeans are tight. Too tight. Straining just enough to make my mouth go dry and my brain short-circuit.

I drag my gaze back up, slowly, like I'm afraid of what else I'll see.

He doesn't look smug. Doesn't look cocky.

He just looks.

At me.

Like he's deciding.

I should move. Walk away. Unpack. Build a pillow fort of professional distance.

But I don't. I just stand there, heat crawling up my neck, my pulse hammering in my throat.

Lucas takes a single step toward me.

I don't retreat.

Another step.

Close enough now that I can see the flecks of silver in his eyes, the taut set of his jaw, the muscle ticking as he holds himself back. The firelight flickers across his face, and for asecond, he looks like something carved from heat and control and hunger.

He watches me with that unreadable gaze—but now it's fraying at the edges. Tight. Coiled. Ready to snap.

"Amelia," he says, voice low and rough. "If you keep standing there looking at me like that…"

My breath hitches. "Like what?"

His eyes drop to my mouth. Linger. His voice is smoke and sin. "Like you want me to pin you against the nearest wall and give you everything you've been fantasizing about since the lodge."

I go still. Completely still. The words land like a match dropped in gasoline.

The air thickens, charged with the same electricity that lives in the seconds before thunder.

He steps closer—slow, deliberate—until we're toe to toe, chest to chest, heat to heat.

"I'm not blind," he murmurs. "And, fair warning, I sure as hell ain't a saint."

My lungs forget how to work. My blood pounds everywhere at once. I can smell him—smoke and pine and that scent I haven't stopped thinking about since he first opened the damn lodge door.

"I'm not trying to make this weird," I whisper, even though it already is. My voice trembles, not from fear, but anticipation. "We're two professionals. Adults. Stranded in a blizzard. We can survive one night in close quarters without it turning into?—"

"Into what you've been imagining since you saw my bed?"

His mouth is right at my ear now, the heat of his breath dragging across my neck like a promise.

The heat in my cheeks explodes into something darker. Deeper. My core tightens like it's responding to his voice alone.

"You've been looking at me," he growls, "like you want me to tie you to that bed and ruin you."

My lips part. I can barely breathe, but I manage the only thing I have left.

"You're not wrong."

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