“You okay in there?”
Yes, I tried to say, but I was shaking too hard to use my voice. How could I possibly be cold in this hot, hot bath?
No. No, I’m not. I’m really not.
“Um. Christa. Hey.” He knocked, the sound weirdly muted against the cacophony in my head. “Say something, okay?”
I turned, sloshing water out of the bath, and grasped the edge with both hands.
“I’m… Shit. I’m coming in.” After a few seconds, the door flew open and he was there—really freaking tall, his shoulders wider than the doorway. His hair—the color of wet bark—was shorn about half an inch from his scalp, like he didn’t have time to deal. He looked dark and angry and wild and, for one weird second, part of me left my tight-knuckled hold on the bath behind and let my body remember how his had felt beneath me.
I must’ve looked like hell because he didn’t pause when he saw me, just swooped down and removed me from the bath like some towering God. Hercules or Poseidon or whatever. Water went everywhere, soaked him, the floor, but he didn’t give a crap. From where he’d grabbed me under the armpits, he shifted, lifted, pulled me to him, and breathed.
Oh. Oh, I’m crying.
I’d never felt so out of control.
He tightened his hold and put an arm under my bottom to steady me, held me as easily as he would an infant, while I clawed at him and sobbed into his neck.
Big, loud, messy convulsions I hadn’t experienced since I was a kid, before my dad died. Back when sobbing had served a purpose—getting emotion out into the air, cleansing it, maybe. After his death, there’d been no point in crying. Why bother, when no one heard me? When my insides were too shriveled to feel anything anyway?
His chest rumbled against mine and I tried, hard, to stop. To listen to whatever he was saying. But I couldn’t. This wasn’t a breakdown that I could stem using willpower. This was one of those all-encompassing things that hurt. Like really, really hurt. Had I broken a rib in the accident?
“Come on, honey. Come on.” He was swaying, back and forth, shushing me in a quiet voice, trying his damnedest to soothe me. Who was this man who looked like he’d as soon tear a person apart as talk to them, and then rocked me like a baby? Like I was something precious.
Against my nose, the underside of his jaw was rough, as if he’d shaved there recently. It didn’t smell like soap, though, but like… I sucked in a long, stuffy-nosed breath. He smelled like… The woods, maybe? Sawdust? And, God, that other thing. A man smell. His body. Earthy, but good. Not sweat so much as…what was it? Pheromones, or something.
Holy shit, what am I doing?
I felt like a puppet, controlled by my own out-of-control emotions.
I let out another shuddering breath, shaking hard, and in that moment, became utterly aware that I was naked. In his arms. My nipples were almost painfully hard against the rough wool scrape of his flannel shirt.
Another scrape. Oh. Oh, God. Was I moaning? How was this happening? I tilted my head, despite myself, and let my top lip stroke that place that smelled so good. An urge took me over—lick him, it screamed, and I was about to, when his voice cut through what I could only think of as a fugue state.
“You okay?”
“I don’t know,” I said, truthfully. I was breathless, and still clogged with unshed tears.
“Come on.” He turned to the side and took me to the right, into his bedroom, where he somehow managed to pull back the blanket while holding me. Slowly, and so carefully that I almost had to cry again, he put me in his bed, covered me, and left me alone in the dark.
I opened my mouth to ask him to stay and then reason finally kicked in and I shut it without uttering a word.
8
Micah
My instincts had played a big part in saving my life more than once. So I listened to them, usually. But tonight, I had to ignore the one begging me to go back and slide into bed next to that soft, naked body. To take her in my arms and hold her all night. Tightly, but carefully.
I paced to the door and back. There and back. On the third trip, I noticed the girls following me with their eyes, wide as I neared the front door, disappointed on my way back.
I let them out and sniffed. Smelled like snow.
I went and grabbed my phone—hated the goddamned thing, but I couldn’t run my business without it—and checked the weather app.
Two feet. If they predicted that much down in the valley, then up here, we were in for a major blizzard. Best case scenario, I’d get her down the mountain in the morning, then make it back up before it hit.
I thought of what her grandmother had said to me on the phone. “You’ll take care of my baby for me, won’t you, Micah? You’ll keep her safe?”
