“I don’t need?—”
“You’re shivering. Take the jacket.”
“If I take the jacket, will you do the auction?”
“No.”
“Then I don’t want the jacket.”
“Tessa.” My name in his mouth sounds different than when other people say it. Lower. Rougher. Like he’s tasting it. “Take the damn jacket.”
“Why do you care if I’m cold?”
The question seems to throw him. He stands there, jacket extended, jaw working like he’s chewing on words he won’t say.
“Because you’re in my garage,” he finally says. “And I’m not gonna let you freeze to death in my garage. There’d be paperwork.”
“Paperwork.”
“Mountains of it. Not worth the hassle.”
“So this is about avoiding inconvenience.”
“Exactly.” He shakes the jacket at me. “Now take it before I throw it at you like I did with the truck keys. Which, for the record, was a gentle toss.”
“It was not a gentle toss.”
“You have no proof.”
“I have a bruise.”
“You do not have a bruise.”
“I might have a bruise. You don’t know my life.”
“Tessa.” He steps closer, and suddenly the jacket isn’t between us—it’s around me, and he’s wrapping it over my shoulders, and his hands are right there, adjusting the collar, and I can feel the heat of him through my clothes.
I forget how to breathe.
“There,” he says, voice rough. “Was that so hard?”
Yes. Yes, it was. Because now I’m wrapped in Ben Wilson and I can feel my scent sweetening, blooming with something I can’t control. I can smell him on every inhale and his hands are still on the jacket collar, not quite touching me but close enough that I can feel the warmth.
This is fine. Everything is fine. I’m not losing my mind over a jacket.
He seems to realize it at the same moment I do. His hands drop like he’s been burned, and he takes a step back, running one hand through his hair.
“Better?” he asks, and there’s something strained in his voice that makes me think he knows exactly what he just did.
“I was perfectly fine before.”
“Sure you were.”
“I was.”
Neither of us sounds convincing.
I want to keep arguing. Arguing with Ben is strangely satisfying, like scratching an itch I didn’t know I had.
