Page 141 of Scarlet Wars
He heaved me up the incline, the air thinning into mist as snow began to fall. Somewhere in the distance, a branch cracked.
I didn’t know if it was the forest settling or something else catching up.
THIRTY-THREE
EMMA
A fucking boathouse.
Not a nice little warm inn with maybe some sort of one-bed situation.
Not even a cold cave where we’d had to sit close, body heat and all, sharing whispered secrets in the dark.
No. What did I get? A damp, ugly ass, dilapidated boathouse that smelled like mildew and dead fish.
The author of my life had a serious fucked-up sense of humor.
The roof was half collapsed, the walls sagged like they’d given up years ago, and every step made the floorboards complain.Romantic getaway of the year.
Not that I needed—or wanted—a romantic getaway withMr. Tall, Dark, and Distant.
As soon as the door closed behind us, the latter muttered a curse and dragged a hand through his hair, wringing out the remaining ice water in a rough shake. His jacket was gone, and his shirt clung to him like a second skin, every line of hard muscle visible in the dim light.
Then, without ceremony, he grabbed the hem and yanked it over his head in one motion, the fabric tearing faintly as it peeledaway. He twisted it tight in his hands, wringing the water out, the sound of it obscene in the silence.
I bit my bottom lip before I could stop it.
His shoulders rippled, muscles shifting under his skin in a way that was borderline unfair. And his torso…seriously. No one neededthatmany abs.
Who the hell looked like that?
He wasn’t even pretending to be human at this point.
He tried to stand still, to hide the faint tremor running across his shoulders, but the tension only sharpened every line of him.
“What the hell are you doing?” I snapped, tearing my gaze to the rotting wall instead of letting it linger where it absolutely shouldn’t.
“Trying not to freeze to death,” he said, bone-dry, as if stripping half-naked in front of me was the most logical decision in the world.
A familiar and treacherous heat throbbed low through me. I pretended to study the mold in the corners while every nerve in me stayed tuned to the heat of his body, bare and far too close.
“Sorta seems counterproductive to takeoffyour clothes, then,” I muttered, shivering and hands shaking, while deliberately ignoring every basic fact about hypothermia like anidiot.
“Thompson.” His voice went flat and dangerous. “You have exactly three seconds to undress, or I swear I’ll rip those clothes off myself.”
Fuck me.How the hell was this my life?
I cursed a hundred thousand words under my breath—every single one a tasteful variation of Caden having to go screw himself on a large extra-spikey Morningstar—then pulled at the soaked hem of my shirt up with numb fingers. The fabric stuck to my skin, clinging like a second, freezing sheath.
Caden didn’t look away; he stood there, something rigid in the set of his face, unreadable in the dim.
“Happy now?” I bit out as I peeled the shirt free, breath fogging in front of my face.
“I will be when you stop shaking.”
And somehow, that made me shiver even harder. The fact I was standing in front of him in only a bra—and not exactly mission-approved panties—didn’t really help. The fact he was unapologetically roaming my body didn’t either.
“Eyes up, soldier,” I muttered, crossing my arms in a halfhearted attempt at modesty.
