“Get your boots,” he says. “You’re coming with me.”
“Excuse me?”
“Lucy.” His voice dips low, dangerous. “I’m not leaving you here.”
“I didn’t say you had to leave. I just said I’m fine.”
He stares at me like I’m made of glass and pure trouble. “You are not fine.”
“Stop being overprotective.”
“Stop giving me a reason to be.”
My stomach flips.
“This is ridiculous,” I say, because my brain is losing to my heartbeat. “You don’t have to drag me off to your cabin like some kind of blizzard caveman.”
His mouth twitches. “I didn’t say my cabin.”
I blink. “Then… where?”
“The firehouse.”
I open my mouth.
Close it.
Open it again.
“That’s worse.”
His brow lifts. “Worse how?”
“You expect me to stay in a building full of your firefighter friends? The ones who made bets about us last week?”
His jaw clenches. “They were out of line.”
“They were not wrong.”
Silence detonates between us. Ash looks away first—but only for a second. When his gaze returns, it’s darker. Lower. Like he’s fighting something primal.
“Lucy,” he says, quiet now, “I didn’t come here to argue.”
“You always argue.”
“I came here,” he continues, ignoring that, “because the thought of you sitting in a freezing cabin in the dark made me crazy.”
My breath leaves my lungs in a slow, shaky rush.
He steps closer.
I step back.
My heel hits the rug. I stop moving.
He doesn’t. He towers over me, headlamp light casting his features into sharp lines and shadows.
“I shouldn’t be here,” he mutters.
