Page 34 of Snowed In with Benefits

My body says yes, a thousand times yes. He’s ridiculously attractive with his clothes off, and his stories about the animals just made him infinitely more attractive. There’s something about him that just makes me want to climb him like a tree.

My heart… my heart is heavy with guilt and something in the same family as shame. I should be giving myself space to heal. I should be closing chapters, tying up loose ends, giving closure to myself and the other people involved.

The other people… no. Just Preston. My mother will create her own closure, closure that won’t paint me in the best light, but closure nonetheless. Preston, on the other hand, must be going crazy trying to figure out why I blew up his life.

I’d love to answer that question, but I don’t have the answer. All I know, for sure, is that I’m in freefall and these three men have appeared out of nowhere to save me in their firefighter net.

I bite my lip. I can’t deny that I’m incredibly attracted to all three of them. Even Emmett, who, I’m pretty sure, absolutely despises me. There’s something about that tension, the way he stares at me when I enter a room like I’m both a magical fairy and the worst interruption imaginable, that makes me want to tame him.

And Hunter. Hunter is charming, and I desperately want to let him charm me past the point of no return. The way his glasses fog up when he’s cooking makes my stomach tight and my face heat up. It’s freaking adorable and I want to watch it happen over and over again. It’s not just the glasses, either. It’s the domesticity of the moment, the way he pours himself into taking care of people.

And of course there’s Beau. I want to trace the tattoos on his arms with my fingers and the ones on his chest with my tongue. I blush wildly as that thought strikes, but I can’t deny that it’s true. He’s so hard in some ways, so soft in others, it makes me want to discover how he would be with me. Our moment in the tub gives me loads of wild ideas about what might happen if we were in bed instead.

I must be having some kind of manic episode. Blowing up my wedding at the last possible moment, running away without having anything prepared, and now this raw sexual draw to three different men. It’s not like me. Maybe I’m just feeling reckless and a little wild right now, wanting to jump the bones of the first three men I encountered after fleeing Seattle. Maybe I’m spiraling, and this is just my mind’s way of keeping me from falling too far into my own thoughts.

Or maybe I’m just allowing myself to notice attractive people again. I was so loyal to Preston, so very aware of myself and my behaviors and trying to be the right kind of fiancée for him that I just blocked attractive people out of my mind entirely. Now I’m getting butterflies over a simple touch, a heated look, a little forced proximity.

It has to just be a reaction to becoming single very, very suddenly. I was almost at the proverbial finish line of a dating relationship, literally right there at the altar, and I ran away. Of course I’m going to spiral a little bit. I just didn’t expect myself to spiral like this, all hyper sexually aware of the men around me.

Preston would have opinions about all this, I’m sure. The optics of living with three men, wearing their clothes, bathing with them for god’s sake, would give him an absolute conniption. No amount of explaining would help. The optics wouldn’t change with context and, like my mother, Preston is all about the optics.

As if called by my thoughts, my phone rings. It’s Preston. I stare at my phone for a long moment as it rings. I suck in a deep breath, my thumb hovering over the button. I should really answer the call. I owe him some kind of explanation, don’t I? But what would I even say to him? I don’t even fully understand what happened, how can I explain it to him?

Worse, how can I tell him where I am now? That’s going to be his first question, I’m absolutely sure of it. Yeah, honey, I’m just crashing with a lumberjack, a human coloring book, and a charming chef. How ’bout you?

I decline the call.

A knock at my door makes me jump. I put the phone aside, pushing thoughts of Preston out of my mind.

“Hey, Goldilocks.” It’s Hunter. The breath I was holding when I was deciding whether or not to answer the phone finally releases. “I’m cooking dinner, if you want some. We don’t even have to trade this time, I promise.”

I laugh at that in spite of myself. “Thanks, Hunter. I’ll be down in a bit.”

“I’m counting on it.”

My grin lasts long after he’s walked away from my door. I move easier, more confidently and more relaxed, as I go back to rifling through what’s left of my clothes. This time, I layer a long maxi dress over a pair of leggings and top the whole thing with a thin cardigan. It’s a little chilly, but the clothes Hunter lent me are all soaking wet and half frozen.

I wish I could get clothes delivered out here. What would I even order? I haven’t bought clothes for my own sake in years. I’ve always catered to Preston’s tastes, even when his tastes were far outside my budget.

As soon as I open the bedroom door, the aroma of something delicious fills my nostrils. I follow the scent downstairs to the kitchen. It smells amazing, buttery and garlicky and herbaceous, but it’s not something I can easily identify. Down in the kitchen, I find Hunter stirring something in a massive stew pot.

He grins at me. “You made it!”

I try to grin back at him, but all I can see is the expression on his face when he caught me and Beau coming out of the bathroom together. Worried about what he might think of me, I bite my lip and wring my hands. His brow furrows.

“You okay?”

“Yeah, I’m fine. Now, now I’m fine. I wasn’t, er… earlier.” I wave in the general direction of the bathroom.

“Oh?” His expression is carefully neutral, which doesn’t make me feel much better. Hunter is the least judgmental of the three, as far as I can tell. If he’s suppressing his reactions, what the hell will Emmett be thinking of me?

I take a deep breath and push the thought away. “Yeah. So, today, Beau found a deer caught in the fence and I helped him cut it out. It took a long time, and then we got wet in the creek and we were cold, so then he brought me inside and… we warmed up. That’s all.”

Hunter nods like he understands, but he gives me a look I can’t quite read. Could that be jealousy? My stomach flips at the thought.

“Did you get any good shots today?” Hunter abruptly changes the subject, turning back to the stove to keep his eye on whatever is cooking in the pot. His glasses immediately fog up and he makes an irritated sound.

I think it’s cute.