Sam was morethan ready to get into the promised sauna, with the freezing air nipping at his legs and shriveling his .... everything.
What he was not prepared for was Maggie opening the door, wearing nothing but a towel.
“We have to stop meeting like this,” was all he could say.
Maggie stared at him, lips half parted. Her dark hair was piled in a messy bun on top of her head, tendrils straggling around her face, damp with sweat and steam. She looked deliciously kissable.
His stallion, of course, was delighted.
“Coming out or going in?” Maggie said blankly, then squeezed her eyes shut. “I mean. I’ll leave.”
“No,” he said quickly as she reached for the coat hanging inside the door. “Look, I gotta get out of the cold.” He came in and hastily shut the door behind him. “There’s no need for you to go. We’re adults. We can share a sauna as long as we keep our towels on, right?”
Maggie hesitated, then gave a small nod and put her coat back.
It was clear to Sam after a couple of minutes that they absolutely could not share a sauna, towels or not.
They had taken opposite benches, but this didn’t help. The towels were not hiding nearly as much as Sam wished they did. He hadn’t realized that clinging to curves was something that a towel could do to the extent that Maggie’s was doing. He folded his hands on top of his own towel to hopefully disguise the problem that was, so to speak, growing.
Maggie shifted uncomfortably on her bench. “You know, I think I’ve had enough sauna for one night.”
“Are you sure?”
“I’m sure,” she said, rising swiftly, with a firm hand on her towel to keep it from slipping. She looked around as if to gather items, then seemed to realize she had no items to gather. “Have a, uh, a good night, Sam.”
She went swiftly past him in a flash of bare legs. Sam took a moment to collect himself, and then rose as well.
“Maggie, wait.”
She had vanished behind the barrier between the door and the coat area. He heard a thump and cursing.
“Are you okay?”
“I can’t get the door open,” Maggie snapped.
Sam went around the half-wall. She had her boots on, coat over her arm, and was wrestling one-handed with the door. She tried pushing against the bottom with her foot.
“They said it can stick. Let me.” Sam jiggled the door, then put his weight against it. “It’s wedged or something.”
“Come on, use your strength,” Maggie said impatiently. “We’re shifters. We can open a stupid door.”
She put her coat down and planted her hands on the door, pushed, pulled, and finally had to stagger back to catch her towel before it slipped down her sweat-slick arm. Sam grabbed her to stop her from potentially crashing into the wall
Now he was holding a wet, sweat-slippery, mostly naked Maggie.
“This is fine,” Maggie said, mostly to herself. She got her feet under her. “Someone will get us out eventually.”
“With what, a chainsaw?” Sam put his shoulder against the door. Then he felt his towel start to slip and had to grab it.
He met Maggie’s eyes for a minute.
“This is going to sound like an excuse,” he said. “But if I take off my towel and use it as padding, I can apply more force to the door.”
The flush on Maggie’s cheeks was probably just the heat in the sauna. “Yes. That makes sense. I’ll—I’ll go open some vents in case we start getting too hot.”
Sam was already too hot, but not physically. Having Maggie out of sight was a little help, anyway. He unwrapped his towel, pressed it against the door, and threw his shoulder against it.
No luck. He didn’t want to break the hinges. Something was really holding the door in place. He was afraid it might’ve frozen shut. All this water and steam, with the temperature dropping steeply at night, seemed like a good way to make that happen.
