Instead, it makes me want to give her more data to analyze.
"The other part was wondering what a woman like you was doing alone in my forest, looking like something that didn't belong to the real world."
She stumbles slightly, and my arm comes around her waist to steady her. The contact is electric even through winter layers, and I feel her sharp intake of breath as she regains her footing. But she doesn't pull away from my grip.
"Something that didn't belong to the real world?" she repeats, voice slightly breathless.
"Beautiful. Soft. Lost." My hold on her waist tightens fractionally, enough to feel the curve of her hip beneath the oversized jeans. "The kind of woman who makes a man forget he chose isolation for good reasons."
We've stopped walking without conscious decision, standing in the falling snow while the forest holds its breath around us.
Her face is tilted toward mine, snowflakes catching in her hair like small jewels, and I can see her pulse fluttering rapidly at the base of her throat.
"What if she doesn't want to be lost anymore?" The whisper hangs between us, loaded with implications that make my blood run hot despite the subzero air temperature.
Every instinct I possess screamstake. Take what she's offering, take what I want, take what we both clearly need. Mark her as mine right here in the snow and cold until she understands there's no going back from this.
But I force myself to step back, to create distance before I forget she's been through trauma today, that she's vulnerable and possibly not thinking clearly.
"Careful, sweetheart." The endearment slips out before I can stop it, rough with restraint. "You don't know what you're asking for."
"Don't I?" She eliminates the space I just created with a single step, close enough that her body heat penetrates my layers. "I'm not a child, Joel. I know exactly what I want."
"Do you?" I study her face, reading determination there, heat that has nothing to do with physical warmth, decision that looks solid and considered rather than impulsive. "Because what I want might scare you."
"Try me."
The challenge in her voice nearly shatters my control. I want to back her against the nearest tree, show her exactly what she's offering herself to, claim her here in the snow until she understands that some territories, once entered, can't be abandoned.
Yet, I turn toward the cabin, jaw clenched with the effort of maintaining discipline.
"We need to get inside," I say curtly. "Before we both freeze to death out here."
She follows without argument, but I can feel her confusion radiating like heat. Good. Let her think about what she's really asking for, what she actually wants.
Because once we cross that line, once I stop treating this like a rescue operation and start treating it like what it actually is, there won't be any pretending this is just about waiting out weather…
The cabin appears through the snow like salvation, windows glowing warm and inviting against the gray twilight. As we climb the porch steps, I catch her looking back over her shoulder at the wilderness we're leaving behind, and something in her expression makes my chest tight.
"Regrets?" I ask, key already in the lock.
"No." She shakes her head, sending snow flying from her dark hair. "The opposite, actually."
"What's the opposite of regret?"
She looks up at me with those eyes that see too much, that read details I'm not sure I want to reveal, and when she speaks her voice is soft but absolutely certain.
"Anticipation."
If she's anticipating what I think she's anticipating, then we're both in more trouble than either of us signed up for.
And looking at the heat in her eyes, at the way she's watching my mouth like she's planning strategy of her own, I realize that trouble might be exactly what we both need.
"Get inside," I tell her roughly, "before I prove you right about that anticipation."
She slips past me into the cabin's warmth, and I catch her scent as she moves—something clean and sweet mixed with snow and my own clothes. It takes every ounce of self-control I've ever developed not to follow immediately, not to push her against the door and show her exactly what her words are going to cost us both.
As I finally step inside and see her silhouetted against the firelight, still wearing my clothes, still looking at me with heat and curiosity and something that might be trust, I realize that protection and possession might not be mutually exclusive concepts after all.
