She’s grinning.
“Bet you’ve never been cockblocked by a seventy-year-old before.”
I groan. “Woman’s got perfect timing.”
Noel presses a kiss to the corner of my mouth. Sweet. Teasing. “It’s starting to feel like the universe has it out for us, sending your parade of girlfriends to interrupt us everytime we almost…ya know.”She smirks.“Maybe next time, mountain man.”
I pull her tighter, her curves flush to my chest. My voice drops low, full of grit and promise.
“Oh, there’s gonna be a next time, sugar. And when we do this?”
I let her feel exactly how hard I still am beneath her.
“It won’t be a game and nothing will come between me and what’s mine.”
Chapter 15
Noel
Isink deeper into the hot tub and let the heat curl around me like a lover’s arm.
Correction—a grumpy, wet, broody mountain man’sarm.
Because Nash Hollis is across from me.
In the flesh.
And there’s alotof that flesh on display. It’s been twenty minutes since the knock on the door that interrupted usagain.“Comfortable?” he asks, voice like whiskey-soaked gravel. His arms stretch along the rim of the tub, biceps flexing under the water, beard damp from steam. His eyes? That dark wildfire stare that’s made me stupid since day one.
“Mm,” I hum, teasing. “Would be more comfortable if someone wasn’t staring like he wants to drown me in this tub.”
“I don’t wanna drown you, snowflake,” he says, leaning in. “Just wanna see how loud you’d scream with my hands between your thighs.”
I choke on my own breath.
He smirks.
Cocky bastard.
“Do you always flirt like you’re giving a threat assessment?”
He shrugs. “I don’t flirt.”
“Could’ve fooled me.”
“I promise, when Istartflirting, you’ll know it.”
I swallow.
The tension between us is a tight wire, snapping with every second we sit here. Bare skin. Hot water. Night air. And him—towering, tatted, and terrifying in the best possible way.
It doesn’t help that I’m naked beneath the surface.
Neither of us said we’d go in without suits. But when I stepped out of the bathroom wrapped in a towel and caught him already stripping down outside, boots and flannel dropped in a trail on the porch, the only question I asked was where the bubbles were.
Now I regret everything.
Because I can’t stop imagining how big he is.
