She clamped her teeth together.“Sorry.You’re all set now.”She finished packing up the medicine box and lifted the metal to her thighs.“Yeah, well, we all have a past.I’m grateful for what I learned in nursing.It’s helped me tremendously to better care for my clients.”Her bare, delicate shoulder rose.“But it wasn’t me.I always knew our bodies could heal themselves when we let them.Don’t get me wrong, modern medicine is needed in numerous ways.But sometimes there’s a lot that can be done naturally, and for me, that resonated the most.”Her words danced from her lips, light and full of confidence.She spoke like a person who knew herself well and was proud of what she’d accomplished.
He rested his head on the back of the chair.Gravity pulled at his eyelids.“Sounds like you followed the right path.I’m happy for you.”His jaw yanked down in a yawn.He shook it off.“Sorry.”
“Don’t be.”She grabbed another blanket from the couch and draped it over him.“Get some rest.”She tucked the edge of the blanket around his shoulder, and he reached up and caught her elbow.
“Thanks.”
She closed her hand over his but moved it to rest on the arm of the chair.“Don’t mention it.”
“No, really,” he said, forcing his eyes to stay open long enough to say his piece.“You didn’t have to let me in...I would’ve died out there tonight if it wasn’t for you.”
Her tight smile reached her eyes.“Sleep.”She drifted away and the kitchen light clicked off, snapping his mind into darkness with it.
***
McKenna pulled theblanket to her chin and stared at the window.The moonlight reflected off the heavy snow and bounced through the gap between the curtains.She sighed and tossed herself toward the wall.Sleep wasn’t going to happen.Having a man under her roof for the first time in seven years was making her jumpier than a grasshopper.She flipped onto her back and stretched her hand above her head, her fingers grazing the gun, which lay against the wall by her headboard.Jaxon might not pose a threat, but she wasn’t going to take a chance.
The other reason she couldn’t sleep was stupid.He was a grown man, for god’s sake.He wasn’t going to die in his sleep from a fever, a cough, and a couple of deep scratches that she’d cleaned and bandaged.But an unfamiliar buzz of worry hummed beneath her skin.God, she hadn’t had to look after anyone in years.Sure, she worried about her best friend, Livy, but she lived hours away, in Denver.They were lucky if they saw each other a couple of times a year.
She wanted to get up and check Jaxon’s temperature—which was beyond ridiculous.She thought about getting a cup of magnesium to help her sleep, but if she snuck to the kitchen she’d risk waking him.
God, he was hot.Stripping off his bloody shirt had felt both wrong and deliciously right.Geez, those muscles.She needed a man in her life.Someone to keep her warm at night, to fill her every throbbing desire that her vibrator couldn’t touch.Her desire for intimacy.And heck, it’d be nice to have someone to help shovel snow and chop firewood...
She shoved her hand through her hair and flipped over to stare at the wall again.No, no, no.She wasn’t going there.One of the reasons she’d moved to Whistlemore was to get away from sleazy men who just wanted in her pants.Lo and behold, the small community had its fair share of creeps, but she’d done a damn good job keeping to herself while still running a small business that was enough to keep her comfortable and able to do what she loved.
She didn’t need anything or anyone else.
Except sex.That’d be nice.But sex meant there had to be a man and thus, she’d do without.
Jaxon would be good in bed.
Need pushed through the annoyance clouding her mind.She reached under the blanket and to the flannel pj pants that she almost never wore to bed.Pushing aside her panties, she stroked her fingers over her folds.Jaxon’s sideways grin flashed in her mind’s eye and she pictured the hot, thick muscle on his chest, his round, pale-pink nipples, his scruffy beard.Her insides tightened as she pushed two fingers inside herself and arched her back.Squeezing her eyes shut, she envisioned Jaxon’s beard scraping along her inner thighs, imagined him pressing kisses up her leg then nuzzling his mouth over her clitoris.A small cry tangled itself at her lips as her orgasm built higher and higher.
“McKenna!”The scream from the living room made her bolt upright.Her breath came out in fast pants, not from panic but from the orgasm that she teetered on.It’d only take a second...
“McKenna!”
Racing footsteps on the old floors of her cabin barreled toward her bedroom.She yanked her hand out of her pants and reached for the gun.The door burst open and Jaxon stood at the threshold.His chest took up the wide expanse of the doorway.Boxers covered his junk, but the rest of his body was on display.He flicked on the light.
She snapped her eyebrows down and stood.Embarrassment warmed her cheeks as his gaze flitted down her body and back up.The interest behind his stare hinted he knew exactly what she’d been doing.
She stormed to the doorway, gun in hand.“How dare you barge into my room like this?You scared the life out of me and—”
“Sorry.”His Adam’s apple moved on a swallow.“I need your gun.”
She kept the barrel close to her thigh and shook her head.“Why?”
“Something’s outside.I think it’s the mountain lion.”
She exhaled through her nose and chewed back the harsh words that pecked her tongue.“That’s insane.Cougars don’t stalk people like that.You must’ve had a nightmare.”
“Something’s out there.Come see.”Fear crinkled the skin around his eyes, and a ball of concern formed in her chest.
Please, God, tell me I’m not harboring a crazy person.
He caught her wrist and towed her down the hall.If it weren’t for the sight of his high, tight ass in the black briefs, she’d have torn her hand from his.
Lord, she might be as crazy as he was.
