She let her hand slide from his face, down the corded column of his neck, brushing lightly through the hair at his nape. She couldn’t stop herself. Her hand settled briefly on his chest, wide and warm, grounding her with that steady weight she’d once known so well.
“Over here,” she murmured.
She slipped past him, close enough for the air to crackle between their skin, and padded to the dresser along the far wall.
“Underthings are in the top two drawers,” she said, casting him a quick look over her shoulder. “I like to match.”
The word landed like a dropped pin in silence.
Underthings.
She hadn’t meant it to sound suggestive. Hadn’t meant anything by it, really. It was just a word. Calm. Matter-of-fact. But the second it left her mouth, something in the air shifted.
She felt it more than saw it.
Bear didn’t say a word. Didn’t make a sound.
But his body reacted.
Subtly. Sharply.
His breath caught, just for a fraction of a second, and his shoulders tensed like he’d taken a hit he wasn’t braced for. The T-shirt stretched across those rippling abs went taut, the fabric shifting as his hips moved forward, subtle, involuntary, hungry. His jaw ticked once. A small muscle flared near the hinge, then smoothed. His eyes, Earth-loving Ancestors, those eyes, darkened in a way that made her toes curl in the carpet.
Undeniably, sensually, male.
Her body screamed for him in a dozen desperate languages. Every nerve lit. Every boundary blurred.
“I have comfy tops and pants in the larger drawers underneath.” The words barely made it out, just air now, breath laced with ache.
She reached for the drawer handle.
But he was already there.
His hand slid along her forearm, slow and reverent. “Let me,” he whispered, the words crushed with restraint but louder in her soul than when he’d told her to sit down.
She stilled.
Then he moved closer.
That big, controlled body came up behind her, not harsh, just close enough to cage her against the dresser and drive her wild. His heat poured into her back, his chest fitting to her spine, the breadth of him an unmistakable promise. The shiver started in her chest, swept over her breasts—nipples tightening into aching peaks craving his hot, possessive mouth—and dropped low, blooming into a molten throb that pulsed around her clit in slow, dangerous waves.
She reached for the drawer. His hand closed over hers from behind, firm and steady. “Let me,” he murmured, voice rough at her ear.
He kept his body against hers as he shifted just enough to reach past her. One arm braced at her hip, anchoring her. The other slid in front of her to pull open the top drawer. His chest brushed her shoulder with every breath, the intimate angle making it impossible not to feel the strength of him everywhere she touched.
A soft, guttural groan broke out of him. “Bailee… are you sure?—”
She gestured, taking in his carved face full of heat and want, those gorgeous lips that she needed to take over and over again. “The bathroom’s through here.”
She stepped toward the carved wooden doors, their edges dark with age, the grain swirling like smoke. Inside, her bare feet padded across soft rug and cold tile toward the gleaming porcelain basin of the enormous soaking tub set into its marble surround, built wide and deep, a retreat meant for long nights, long limbs, and the slow surrender of heat, her pulse fluttering as the silence stretched between them.
“Wait for me, firecracker,” he called after her, his voice rough but edged with a smile. “I have… underthings to sort out. Gotta make sure they match.” Then, almost gruff. “No twisting that water faucet, Bailee. You hear me?”
Oh, Ancestors help her.
She was melting
Dying.
