Page 49 of Forever Never
“Gimmie your keys, Rem.”
“Hug me first,” she insisted.
“Seriously?”
“But first open your coat. I don’t want to hug coat. I want to hug you.”
It was not a good idea to let Remington Ford through any layers of defenses. Especially clothing. It was too dangerous.
When he didn’t move, she attacked his zipper and the velcro closures of his parka. It took her three times longer than it would a sober person, but she finally managed with a shimmy of triumph.
“Okay. Here we go,” she said. “Are you ready?”
He was never ready for physical contact with her.
She resumed her original position, arms around his waist, face pressed to his chest. Without the protection of his coat, he felt everything too much.
It pained him to slip his arms around her small frame, to pull her tighter to him. He hated how well she fit. He could rest his chin on the top of her head and breathe in her hair. “Did you have a hat on?” he asked. She’d changed her shampoo somewhere through the years. Instead of a bright lemony scent, it now smelled like exotic oils. Tempting the senses like a spell cast.
“It fell off somewhere,” she said cheerfully. “Keep hugging.”
On a sigh, he did as he was told because arguing with Drunk Remi was even worse than arguing with Sober Remi. And Drunk Remi used deadlier weapons. Pouty lower lips, sad eyes. He could withstand her annoyance, her anger, but he couldn’t handle her sad.
Peeling her face off his coat, she leaned back to look up at him. “It’s snowing,” she announced unnecessarily. It was always snowing on Mackinac.
“I see that,” he said, reaching up to brush a snowflake off her cheek. She cuddled her face against his palm.
“Your face and my hand are freezing. You should come inside so you don’t get frostbite and lose my face.”
“I would if you gave me the keys,” he said in exasperation.
“Well, why didn’t you say so in the first place?” she yawned, burrowing her face into his shirt again.
“Remi?”
“Huh?”
“Keys.”
“Oh, right. Check my pockets.”
Cursing, he dug through her coat pockets, coming up with two hair ties, her cell phone, and a candy bar wrapper. He found the cottage key ring in the front pocket of her jeans and fished it out as quickly as possible with two fingers.
He noticed she wasn’t carrying her inhaler. That would be a conversation for Sober Remi.
“I’m sooooo sleepy,” she announced with a dramatic yawn.
“Come on, Sleeping Beauty,” he said, opening the gate and wrestling her through it.
She was shuffling her feet like it took too much effort to lift them, so he picked her up again. She wrapped her arms around his neck and then stuck her ice cube of a nose against his throat.
“If I wrote Hallmark movies, this would be a scene. The sexy lumberjack carries the drunk damsel in distress into a secluded cottage.”
He got the front door open and stepped inside. It was warm and bright inside. The fire cast a cozy heat throughout the living space. He was right—she’d turned on every lamp in the house except for the bedroom.
“What would happen next in your movie?” he asked, setting her on her feet and unzipping her coat.
“The sexy lumberjack and drunk damsel wouldtotallyhave sex,” she said, swaying into him.
