Her cheeks burn. “It’s a shirt.”
“It’s my shirt.”
She makes a frustrated sound. “You’re impossible.”
“And you’re here,” I repeat, quieter now. “In my cabin. In my dark. Asking me why I don’t want you.”
Ellie’s eyes sharpen. “I didn’t ask?—”
“You did.”
A beat passes.
Then she pushes off the counter abruptly and walks toward the hallway like she’s fleeing her own words.
“Fine,” she snaps over her shoulder. “I’m going to bed.”
I watch her go, jaw tight, forcing myself not to follow too close. Not yet. Not when she’s wound up like this, when she’s half fear and half heat and she doesn’t know which one to feed.
She stops in the bedroom doorway and turns back.
In the lantern light, she looks like trouble in flannel. Bare legs. Messy hair. Eyes too bright.
“Are you coming?” she asks, voice sharp.
I lift a brow. “To the bedroom?”
She glares. “To— to check the windows. The locks. Whatever you do when you pretend you’re not… you.”
My mouth tilts. “I’ll check.”
She nods too quickly and disappears into the bedroom.
I move through the cabin with quiet steps, checking the doors, the windows, the lock on the back entry. I tug the curtains shut, scan the black outside. The storm turns everything into a white blur. Visibility’s garbage.
I should be focused on that.
Instead, my mind keeps snapping back to her voice.
You’re acting like you don’t want me.
I exhale through my nose, jaw clenched. Want isn’t the problem. Want is easy. Want is simple.
Restraint is the problem.
I kill the lantern in the living room and take the smaller one down the hall, stopping outside the bedroom door. I don’t go in. I’m not going to be that man.
I knock once, soft.
Ellie’s voice comes through the door. “What.”
“I’m on the couch,” I say. “If you need anything, you call my name.”
A beat.
Then, quieter, “I don’t need anything.”
I lower my voice. “Ellie.”
