Page 33 of Snowed In with Benefits

Grinning, I let my eyes wander back to the tree of life. I move my other hand, almost touching his arm with my fingertips, and trace the tattoo in the air.

“That’s beautiful,” I tell him honestly. “You never told me the story behind that one. Where’d it come from?”

“Which—oh.” His body tenses around me and he moves his hand away. Damn it, what did I say this time?

“We’re warm enough.” His body shifts around me again, but this time he pulls completely away from me and stands up. I slide away from him without meaning to. There’s just so much of him to account for that the sudden movement moved me too.

I stand up a little slower, keeping one arm over my breasts. He hands me a towel without actually looking at me, and I take it. I’m watching him as he dries himself off, wondering what I did to change his demeanor so dramatically. There must be something about that tattoo that he just doesn’t want to talk about.

I should have asked him about rabbits or something instead. Sighing, I unplug the bathtub and let it drain as I dry my hair and body with my back turned to him. Eventually, once I’m dry enough that I won’t be leaving puddles across the floor, I wrap the towel tightly around myself.

Looking up at him, it’s clear that he’s still somewhere else in his mind. There’s a slight, gentle frown on his face and his eyes are looking at something far away. He meets my gaze and his frown softens ever so slightly. He grabs his clothes off the bathroom floor and I do the same, feeling awkward in my towel. I sling everything over one arm so I can keep hold of my towel with the other… just in case.

He opens the door and moves to step aside to let me through first, but there just isn’t enough room in the bathroom to make it work. It’s a gentlemanly impulse all the same; I really did misjudge him, didn’t I? He steps into the hallway and I follow.

“—could have killed yourself out there,” Hunter’s voice says.

I freeze.

Hunter and Emmett are standing there, in the living room, looking right at us. Beau keeps walking like he doesn’t notice.

I notice. I notice a lot. Like Hunter’s eyebrows shooting up and Emmett’s eyes narrowing. He clenches his jaw.

Emmett really doesn’t like me.

Face burning, I shuffle past them with my eyes turned to the floor and flee up the stairs, sticking hard to the wall to avoid flashing my panties at anybody. I can feel all of their eyes on me with every step I take. God, what must this look like? I can’t explain myself, can’t point out that we were only doing some kind of frostbite prevention protocol. All I can do is get as far away from them as I can as quickly as humanly possible.

I don’t think I breathe at all until the bedroom door closes behind me.

14

JOSIE

My face is burning so much it’s practically on fire. What did that look like? I know what it looked like, and clearly the other two do too. Emmett must hate me so much more now. He must think I’m stealing his friend that he sees as a brother, must think that I’m intent on invading their space.

And Hunter! God, no. Hunter and I have flirted a little bit, he must think I’m some kind of floozy, flirting with him and then taking a bath with his actual brother. Am I a floozy? Because I kind of feel like I am. If it had been Hunter in the bath instead of Beau…

A shiver runs over me and I realize that I’m getting cold again.

I drop my wet clothes and the towel on the floor, then quickly get out of my soaking wet panties. I should have just taken them off before I got in the tub, even just the walk to my room was enough to give me chills again. But if I had taken them off before I got into the tub… I bite my lip.

He would have done the same, for one. I’m almost sure of it. He kept his own underwear on for my sake. If I’d crossed that line first, well… I’m sure he would have done the same.

I move to the bed and grab a throw blanket to wrap around my naked body, replaying what just happened. His body was so strong, so warm, so very naked, and big enough to take up all the space around me. The feel of him against my skin, his wiry muscles, the hair on his arms. His solid chest against my back, the way his words vibrated through the both of us every time he spoke.

He spoke a lot. He was really opening up to me, wasn’t he? Or maybe he just really likes talking about animals. Maybe he wasn’t opening up to me at all, maybe he was just chatting to pass the time in an uncomfortable situation.

But no. The memory of his cock stiffening against my spine comes back in a rush that heats my cheeks. Whatever I was feeling, he was clearly feeling it too. Or maybe it’s just a primal reaction to being close to a mostly-naked woman. I can’t imagine that he has a lot of naked-woman time. It was probably just the novelty of having my skin against his that made his cock twitch.

But then there was his hand. He reached for my hand. His fingers tentatively lacing with mine, as if he wanted to hold my hand but wasn’t sure I’d let him.

I think I would have. No, I know I would have. That moment was so intimate, I didn’t want it to end. I don’t think he wanted it to end, either. The touches could have grown into something more so very easily, we were right there on the cusp of something more, something bigger, something… something hot. If he was feeling the way I was feeling, that moment never would have ended.

But then I ended it, somehow, simply by asking about his tattoo. If the moment was as intimate as I felt it was, would asking about any tattoo, no matter how personal, have shattered it like that? Somehow, I doubt it.

I make a face at myself in the mirror and blow out an annoyed breath. I obviously read something into that moment that clearly wasn’t even there in the first place. His body was probably just too big for both of us to fit in the space. His cock was probably just warming up after being in the frozen creek. He was probably just uncomfortable and moving his hand over mine was just his way of releasing some tension in his back or something.

But if it had been… if that tension I thought I felt between us was real… would I want that? I rifle through my clothes one-handed while I search my heart… and my body… for the answer to that question.