“Oh, that’s a good idea,” Arden said, and she whisked away the jacket before he had a chance to do anything else with it. She looked around for a place to put it and found a nail pounded into the wall behind the stove, where she hung it up. “That’ll be dry in no time.”
She kept darting glances at his damp T-shirt-clad torso, with a slight flush turning her cheeks fetchingly pink. Baz tried not to intentionally flex.
Okay, maybe a little flexing. As long as she was looking there, she wasn’t looking farther south.
However, none of this was doing anything to help with his little ... problem. Especially when she turned even pinker and looked quickly away.
“I’ve got cocoa,” Arden said, sounding a bit desperate herself. “Like, the packets, the instant kind. Do you want any?”
“That’d be great,” Baz said. While she rummaged in her pack, he took advantage of the opportunity to move over to sit on edge of her bunk, pushing her sleeping bag aside so he didn’t get it damp from his still slightly wet jeans. This at least got him a little farther away and let him calm down a bit. He could still smellher—the cabin was full of her—but at least it wasn’t quite so ... present, especially in the form of a piece of damp terrycloth that had recently been rubbed all over her naked body.
... Okay, he was never going to get rid of his hard-on at this rate.
Arden poured water into a blackened camp saucepan and put it on top of the stove to heat.
“So I hope you had fun in town today?” he offered. “In spite of everything with that jerk who was hassling you.”
“I did.” She glanced at him. “Thanks. I really do appreciate it. Actually, I appreciate everything. You could have just kicked me out of Windrock when you found me here.”
“It really doesn’t seem fair to do that. You didn’t even know this place wasn’t abandoned. In all honesty, it basically was.”
“Yeah, I guess so, but thanks anyway.” Arden selected two mugs from the row on the windowsill. She flashed him a quick, bright smile. “Look, I even have more than one cup now, thanks to your friend Fern.”
“Where did those come from?”
“The trash.” Seeing the look on his face, she added quickly, “I gave them a good wash in the stream. It’s not really a trash heap in the modern sense—I mean, it’s just a pile of broken dishes and stuff like that. Fern showed me. She’s been picking up pretty little things to make her house nicer.”
Baz supposed he’d been doing the same thing with abandoned bottles in the store. Still ... “You should be careful. You might cut yourself or get tetanus or something.”
Arden lowered her head, flushing again. “I’ll be fine. I’m a big girl. I’ve been taking care of myself for a long time.”
“I’m not implying you’re not. It’s just that it’s easy to get into trouble out here.”
She looked at him from beneath her lowered lashes. “I did get in trouble. And you came to help.”
Arden set their mugs beside the stove, left the water to heat, and came over to the bunk. He quickly shuffled over to make room for her. She sat beside him, almost primly.
“So what was that about, anyway?” she asked.
“What was what about?”
“When you showed up to help me on the hill. You’d been running. Did you just happen to be there in that clearing when I needed you, or did you know I was in trouble?”
“I knew,” Baz breathed. He was captivated by her eyes, her lips, her nearness. He could feel the heat of her body. She was nearly touching him.
“But how?”
“Arden,” Baz began. “Do you know what fated mates?—”
He was interrupted by a sudden, loud pounding on the door.
“Is that my door?” Arden asked, baffled. She withdrew, pressing herself against the wall.
“Arden?” called Lexie’s voice through the door. “Baz? Are you in here?”
“No!” Baz yelled back.
“Oh good! We need you.”
