He had no clue what he’d do if she said no. That was a lie. He knew what he’d have to do. He just wasn’t sure he could survive it. His body was already thrumming with need even though it made him an asshole.
There was no denying the sight of Laura with her clothes on got his blood pumping and his groin throbbing. Circumstances didn’t change his reaction to her, it just made him an asshole if he did anything about it.
When she didn’t answer he gripped her shoulders and gave her a little shake, bent his knees to bring his eyes level with hers. “Laura! Are you able to get in the shower without help?”
“Yeah,” she breathed. “T-thanks.”
“Okay, yell if you need me. I’ll leave this door and the bedroom one cracked. I’ll be in the kitchen. When you’re done come out there.”
She nodded as he let her go and backed out of the room.
Nash didn’t know how he managed it, how he walked away from the woman he’d wanted with a bone deep ache for five long years when she was practically naked in his bathroom, but he did it because he wasn’t an asshole. He might want to get her naked, at times needed it to the point of pain. He never thought this would be how he got that wish.
The last thing he wanted was for her to be forced to get naked in front of him. When Laura finally allowed him to see her it had to be her choice. She had to want it as badly as he did.
And right now he was pretty sure she barely had the brain function to breathe.
No. When he and Laura moved the dance they’d been doing around each other to one they did together it wouldn’t be because circumstances got them there.
They’d both want it—need it—with everything in them.
3
Curled over bent legs, head on her knees and arms around her shins, Laura shivered in spite of the hot water raining down on her.
She was never getting warm again.
Her teeth had stopped chattering, but the shivers and bone deep ache remained.
She’d lost track of time but knew she’d been in here a while. And even though her mind had cleared somewhat, she could only remember how she’d gotten here in a hazy kind of recollection, as though she’d dreamed the whole thing.
One thing stuck out though.
Nash Yates.
He’d come out of nowhere and pulled her from the snow.
He’d brought her home to Lakeside Inn.
He said he bought the Inn.
Why would he buy the Inn? He worked for Alex.
She was pretty sure he was some sort of boss in her cousin’s company because he always seemed to be in charge and giving orders whenever she visited one of Alex’s job sites.
She’d never allowed herself to delve too deeply into Nash. Self-preservation was a necessity when it came to the man. Laura wasn’t stupid, she knew if she got to know him, beyond his name and how good looking he was, she would find herself in trouble.
The attraction that sizzled between them sparked in a way she’d never experienced and while she wasn’t completely clueless when it came to the opposite sex, she wasn’t an expert. Her previous relationships were fleeting and superficial. None of those men had made her feel what Nash did, and they weren’t even friends, had maybe said a thousand words to each other in the years he’d lived in Winter Lake.
She remembered the first time she’d seen him. She’d pulled into a work site to talk to her cousin and without being obvious, checked out the new guy she’d never seen before. It wasn’t until she’d climbed out of her cruiser and gotten a closer look that she realized he was way out of her league.
For one, he was hot. Like smokin’ hot, grace the pages of a magazine H O T all capitals hot.
And two, he had to be at least a decade older than her.
She barely held her own against men her own age, and at twenty-one she hadn’t had much experience or honed her feminine wiles. Hell, she hadn’t posses any wiles back then, she’d been lucky to entice a man if she stripped naked in front of one.
The years between now and then hadn’t improved her skills at all.
