Page 1 of Wrapped Up In You
JONATHAN
December 23
Iswirled the bourbon in my glass, watching the amber liquid wash over the oversized cube of ice, coating the inside of the glass before sliding back down to pool at the bottom. I brought the glass to my lips and tossed back the contents in one swallow before setting the glass down on the coffee table with a thunk next to the half-empty bottle.
In front of me, flames in reds, yellows, and oranges licked at the logs I’d stacked in the fireplace an hour ago. Since then, I’d worked steadily at getting blindly drunk. Based on the warmth humming through my veins and the fuzziness in my head, I’d say I was more than halfway toward accomplishing that goal.
I picked up the bottle to pour another round—this bourbon wasn’t going to drink itself—when the door to the tiny cabin burst open, blowing in a gust of cold air and startling the shit out of me.
The bottle slipped through my fingers as I turned in reflex to see who the intruder was. Glass shattered on the hardwood floor beneath me and liquid spread in a puddle around my feet, but I made no move to escape the mess.
“What the fuck are you doing here?”
“Good to see you too, brother.” He flashed me a grin, then shook his head and stomped his feet, leaving a mess of snow on the floor around him.
“Close the damn door. Jesus. You’re letting snow in, and it’s making a mess.”
A chill slithered up my spine as the warmth of the cabin dissipated amid this assault from the storm raging outside. Hayden, mystepbrother, turned and closed the door behind him, dropping his bags, and what was that?—a guitar?—on the floor next to the entrance. He toed off his boots and began removing his winter-weather gear, spreading snow everywhere in the process. I would need a mop to deal with the mess he was making.Figures.
My thoughts came to a record-scratching halt as he began removing his jeans.
In the middle of the entryway.
Right in front of me.
His thick thighs and toned calves were covered in a layer of dense dark hair. His firm ass was clad in a pair of red boxer briefs with candy canes all over them, and when he turned, I caught sight of the very prominent bulge his hoodie did nothing to hide.Jesus. What would it look like when he was hard?
I swallowed. That was a thought I’d never had about him.
“What are you doing?” I ground out through gritted teeth. As tipsy as I was, I wasn’t nearly drunk enough for this turn of events, but as the bourbon I’d been drinking was currently soaking through my socks on the floor, I’d have to bear it in my current not-drunk-enough state.
Oblivious to the war raging inside my head and body, he paused and looked at me as if I was an idiot. “Taking off my pants.”
“In the middle of the entryway?”
“Some of those snow drifts came up to my knees. And since you seemed so bothered by the mess I was making, I took them off here by the door rather than traipsing snow across the living room.”
That actually made some sense. Dammit.
He returned to his production of undressing, removing his socks, making him nearly naked from the waist-down, before grabbing his duffel bag and crossing over to the single bathroom.
“Be right back.” The little shit winked at me before shutting the door.
In the sudden silence of the room, I became very aware that my socks were soaked through. I looked down and sighed, dropping my chin to my chest before taking another deep breath and carefully stepping out of the puddle and away from the broken glass.
I stripped out of my socks, then found a pair of slippers and got to work cleaning up the mess as carefully as I could in my muddled state. As I worked, my thoughts turned to Hayden and what could have brought him here, especially in the midst of a blizzard. I’d left yesterday, ensuring I beat the storm the forecasters had predicted. Had Hayden even known I was up here? Probably not. He likely hadn’t been aware of the storm either. The kid—man, I corrected myself—rarely did anything with any sort of forethought. If you looked up the definition of impulsive in the dictionary, you’d find a picture of Hayden Harrison.
Under what words would my picture reside? Anal. Boring. Predictable. Those are certainly the words Rebecca would have used. Did use. She’d flung them in my face the day she asked for a divorce six months ago.
“Why do you have to be so goddamn anal about everything, Jonathan? I can’t take it. No one’s allowed to make a mistake in your presence. Not a single towel out of place on the rack or a dish out of place in the dishwasher. And heaven forbid if I leave my shoes in the living room.”
“Is it a sin to want things orderly?” I blustered. What was so wrong with wanting things neat?
“I’m wasting away in this marriage. We never do anything off-script. Work. Eat. Sleep. Repeat. Lasagna on Tuesdays. Dinner at the club on Saturdays. Missionary position. Every. Single. Time. It’s boring, and the predictability is sucking the life out of me. I want a divorce.”
Hayden came out of the bathroom, still wearing his hoodie, but his lower half was now covered in a pair of ratty old joggers riding low on his hips. The elastic was loose in one ankle and both knees were almost completely worn through, but they hugged his bulge and thighs in such a way as to almost be indecent. As someone fastidious in all his attire, the worn-out nature of the sweats should have been a turn-off, but instead, I found myself turning away from him to adjust my hard-on as discretely as I could manage. I blamed this sudden attraction on the alcohol.
I bent over and swept the last of the glass into the dishpan.
