Page 38 of Until You Found Me

“A blizzard,” she agrees.

“Might get lost heading back now. Good idea to wait.”

“Can’t be too careful.”

He must be looking at her with some sort of muddled version of heart eyes because her obvious desire to hug him is almost as shocking as his own desire to allow it. He’s all mixed up right now, he reasons. His zig zagging blood sugar and the leftover adrenaline spike have him needy and confused, wishing for crazy things like her arms around him again and the warm press of her body under his.

It doesn’t mean anything. It can’t. He’s better off ignoring it.

“Stay right here and I’ll get you some coffee and pain pills.” She pauses when he opens his mouth to protest. “And don’t argue. It’s okay to let someone take care of you sometimes.The world won’t end.”

And then she’s gone to putter around in the kitchen, leaving him slack-jawed at how easily she got him to comply. The world might not end, but waiting for the other shoe to drop is still second nature. Eventually, she’ll understand he isn’t worth all this trouble.

* * *

Tessa brings him coffee and makes them both breakfast despite his protests. Gives him a wary side eye when he wobbles his way into the main area to sit at the table, likely worried he might collapse again. He doesn’t.

The trembling stops once he gets some real food in his belly, and then it’s like none of the trauma of the last night ever happened. He’s back to normal again, or what passes for normal, at least. How quickly it all fades always feels like the universe telling him he’s overreacting.

“I don’t think I’ve seen snow before.” She watches the flakes fall out the window with her second coffee between her hands. “Maybe I did, but if I can’t remember it, then did it really happen?”

“That’s like the forest and the tree question. If no one hears it fall, then did it fall at all?”

“Exactly. This feels like the first time, so…it is.”

“Well, if this is your first snow, then we gotta go out in it. Come on.”

She frowns when he gets up to find his coat. “You shouldn’t overdo it.”

“Slept off the majority of the drowsiness and the shakes aregone. Good as new. But…” He pauses, putting on a fake air of worry. “Should still stay close to the trailer. Not safe to go traipsing too far in a blizzard like this.”

She rolls her eyes, her smile spreading quickly. “Definitely not safe yet.”

“You’ll need more than the sweater you came in.” He riffles through his closet, pulling out another coat two sizes too big for her.

She lets him bundle her up in winter gear until he’s certain he’s never seen anything cuter than Tessa wearing his clothes, prepared for a snow day. He lets out a little huff of amusement, his lips pursing as he tries to resist a smile.

“It’s a sexy look, isn’t it?” she teases, drowning in fabric.

He nods with raised brows because it’s the right way to respond, but his dick perks up the moment the word sexy leaves her mouth. Sounds a lot like how she told him to open a massage parlor offering happy endings. Same tone and sass all wrapped up together. His sudden arousal makes him uncomfortable, if only because it’s unfamiliar and he has no clue how to process it.

Lydia had to sneak little blue pills into his drinks so she could fuck him because half the time he let her down. He woke up more than once to her already riding him while he slept, claiming it was easier if he wasn’t awake to get in his own head about it.

‘Go back to sleep. Just need to scratch an itch.’

The pills would make him come, but he’d stay hard long after, giving her plenty of time to do whatever she wanted and he let her. It was his own fault anyway that she had to resort to that.

‘Any man would consider himself lucky if his woman woke himup this way.’She’d say, and maybe she was right. Maybe he needed to be grateful that she was in his bed at all.

He always assumed he wasn’t wired right. Broken. Accepted that he simply never felt the kind of attraction required to fuck someone when he wasn’t too drunk to care or too drugged to know, but now he’s not so sure anymore. How quickly he’s hardening at Tessa’s silly innuendo while she’s dressed like a marshmallow has him questioning everything he thought he knew about himself.

He looks away when even more X-rated thoughts enter his brain, stumbles over a few incoherent words, and layers himself up as thick as her. She’s already ahead of him to rush out the door, but letting her out of his sight was his first mistake. Two steps into toe-deep snow and he’s pelted in the chest with a snowball.

Her laughter rings out as she packs another in her mitten-covered hands. “Gotcha!”

“I don’t do snowball fights,” he deadpans.

She narrows her eyes. “You don’t do them?”

---