“You think they suspected we’d come, and they’d arrange it so we’d be alone. Setting us up.”
“Not Justice,” he quickly grumble. “Fuck no. He’d never want me alone with you. But Marshall and Beast? Those men are strategic. They don’t leave shit to chance.”
A strange thrill ripples through me—a mix of fear, excitement, disbelief.
He pours the cocoa into oversized stoneware mugs decorated with wreath-wearing reindeer. “Marshall’s been making comments to me.”
I catch his gaze when he finishes. “What kind of comments?”
His eyes are an entire storm. “The kind that suggests he thinks something exists between us that absolutely cannot happen.”
Oh, my heart stutters.
Not because I’m offended.
But because the light inside me dims at the truth of it.
“Because of Justice,” I murmur.
He grabs his mug, his knuckles blanching. “Among other reasons.”
“As in?” I ask, straightening. Wanting the truth.
He pulls back fast, retreating toward the pantry. “You want peppermint schnapps in this?”
“Is it my age?” I call after him. “Because I’m twenty-seven. I’m an adult, Spence.”
He groans; it’s quiet, tortured. “I’m not in my twenties anymore.”
When he returns, there’s something almost resigned in the set of his brow. I lift my mug and give him a small smile. “Spencer McCallister, are you like fine wine?”
“I—do you want yours spiked?” he croaks.
“I don’t know,” I murmur. “I’ve never had a drink made by a man like you. Or… anything else for that matter.”
Apparently I found my inner flirt, because I have NEVER said anything like that in my life.
The look on his face is pure meltdown.
He stares at the bottle as if it’s a threat. “Spiked it is,” he mutters, pouring with a fist clenched around the neck of the bottle.
After he’s put a shot in mine, he splashes his own, and when he finally looks at me, something like terror behind his expression.
“Justice is my best friend,” he says hoarsely. “My swim buddy. My brother in every way that matters.”
I curl my fingers around my mug for balance. “I know.”
“He trusts me.”
“I know that too.” I exhale, letting him see the vulnerable truth beneath everything else. “That’s why I feel safe with you. You know what happened to me in the past. It’s not easy being alone with a man.”
He glances down, intelligent gaze tracking some invisible line on the countertop.
“Good,” he rasps, turning to face me again. “I would lay down my life to protect you. Nothing will hurt you when you’re with me.”
The conviction in that vow knocks the air from my lungs. It reaches places inside me I thought were permanently closed off.
“I know,” I whisper.
