She stood in front of him with her legs shoulder width apart and her hands on her hips. He’d essentially have to bowl her over if he wanted to get up.
“Right! Stay there. Let me get the candles and flashlights.” She ducked down and used the limited light from the fireplace to find the two, now-empty, mugs on the floor.
“Okay,” Eric said.
He sounded amused, but when she turned from where she crouched on her hands and knees, shadows shrouded his face. Her gaze drifted down the outline of his strong body. His pants looked tighter, as if…
She sprang up and clutched the mugs to her chest.
She’d better find some alternative light sources fast because the firelight played tricks on her mind.
Chapter 8
Eric cleaned the sticky mess in the living room while Brenna searched for candles and more flashlights. His pants had grown uncomfortably snug. Not entirely his fault.
Brenna had been on her hands and knees before him with her tight ass turned up, swaying as she fumbled for the mugs. Now, the very memory made him hard, like some awkward, pimple-faced freshman with no experience.
Well, he certainly wasn’t a saint, nor inexperienced, but the image burned into his memory. It set his imagination running to the nearest gutter to slop around. How he’d love to grip those hips and…
Eric cursed and readjusted his pants. Again.
Why hadn’t he said something when she called him out? Spoken up? Even tried to deny it? He had thought of her differently as a null, but not in the way she probably thought. She didn’t have the enhanced strength, agility or accelerated healing like a werewolf who could shift, and when he was a teenager, he thought that made her weak. Vulnerable. But not in a mean way. He wanted to protect her. Life as a werewolf was difficult. Life as the alpha’s mate was downright dangerous. How could he place her in that role when she didn’t have the same arsenal of skills to defend herself?
Only after he lost her did he realize she had her own strength, and he could be strong enough for both of them and physically protect her.
Of course, he hadn’t thought any of that through. Instead, he’d made a knee jerk reaction and in that one cowardly, adolescent moment of stupidity, he’d ruined everything. And when the opportunity arose to explain, to apply a calming salve to the wound he inflicted, he’d commented on her hot chocolate body slap instead.
Eric squeezed the sponge, dirty water smelling of chocolate splattered against the floor. He groaned and squatted to quickly wipe it up. He’d successfully mopped up the floor in the limited light and cleaned the couch as best he could. The sweet aroma of chocolate still drifted off the worn blue fabric of the cushions.
He glanced down.
Or maybe the smell came from him. He chucked the chocolate-soaked sponge into the kitchen sink and peeled off his shirt and sticky jeans. He used the last of the water in the tank to wash them in the sink.
Luckily, the cabin’s supply room held multiple large jugs of drinking water. With the power out, the electrically-powered pump couldn’t refill the tank that supplied the cabin. The Jones family might have a generator, but the last thing Eric wanted to do in the middle of the night during a storm was tramp around in thigh-deep snow to find it.
Eric plunged his clothes in the sink water one last time before twisting them to remove the excess water.
He carried the shirt and jeans to the fire and hung them by the fire. The crackling flames had burnt a little low, so he threw another log on the fire.
Clean room? Well, close enough. Check.
Clean clothes? Check.
Clean Eric? He ran his hands down his chest. Sticky.
Footsteps thumped down the stairs from where the bedrooms were, and the light from a flashlight bounced along the wall before flooding the stair landing. Here came Brenna, and he wore boxer-briefs, and nothing else. He glanced at the couch. The one towel he’d found earlier currently soaked up the excess water he’d used to clean up the couch.
When the light turned from the stair landing and illuminated him from the darkness, like a giant spotlight, Brenna gasped. “Why are you naked?”
Chapter 9
The candles Brenna had tucked under her arms and clasped in her hand fell to the floor in a clatter.
Broad shoulders, chiseled abs, a defined V of muscle and a trail of dark brown hair led to fitted black boxer-briefs with a definite bulge, left little to Brenna’s imagination. Not that she needed one. She’d seen him completely naked earlier. The circumstances hadn’t allowed her to appreciate what Eric freely showed. An image flashed through her mind, one of her peeling down the elastic waistband of those briefs while tasting his skin and trailing the rippling muscles with her tongue.
The heady scent of the burning logs and unlit candles along with her imagination of what could transpire left her head spinning.
“Well,” Eric crooned. “I’malmostnaked because this beautiful woman dumped hot chocolate all over my clothes.”
