“I’m covered,” he said, and this time there was a hint of humor buried in the grit of his voice.
I turned slowly, peeking through my fingers. He was wrapped up again, but his hair was still tousled, and his jaw was set so tight I thought it might crack. And did I see just a tiny crack in the invisible wall he kept between himself and the world? Between me and him?
I hoped so. Oh, how I hoped so. For a moment I pondered easing out of his shirt and saying something like, fair’s fair.
“Accidents happen,” he managed, though his chest was heaving.
“Right. Accidents.” I bit my lip, my eyes darting down to his chest one last time before I bolted. I couldn’t help myself. I hurried back to my bedroom, threw myself onto the bed, and buried my face in a pillow to stifle a scream of equal parts embarrassment and pure, unadulterated lust.
Six months. We hadn’t even been here for a week, and I had already seen the goods.
If I thought my wedding kiss was going to haunt me, I was wrong. That image—Thorne, dripping wet and completely bare—would stay with me.
I rolled onto my back, my breath still coming in ragged gasps. My body was humming, a deep, restless ache settling between my thighs that made the fake part of this marriage feel like a joke.
And the worst part? I wasn’t sorry. Not even a little bit.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Thorne
I was losing my mind.
I’d been living in a state of perpetual semi-arousal since the moment I’d said I do. And every day since then, it had gotten worse.
Every time Maddie brushed past me in the kitchen, every time she laughed at my grumpiness, every time I caught the scent of her vanilla shampoo—it was like a slow-burning fuse getting shorter and shorter.
But after this morning? The fuse was gone. There was just an explosion waiting to happen.
I was lying in the dark, staring at the ceiling, listening to every sound the cabin made as it settled in for the night. My imagination was in a dangerous neighborhood I shouldn’t be walking through. I was haunted by the image of her in that green flannel shirt—my shirt—and how it had barely skimmed the tops of her curvy thighs this morning. The look in her eyes when the towel had given way and she’d seen exactly how much I wanted her. No filters in place.
I kept wondering what she would have done if I’d simply picked her up and carried her to my bed. Would she have made more of those small needy sounds she’d made as soon as she saw what she’d almost grabbed beneath my towel?
I could hear the rustle of her sheets through the thin wall, the soft thump of a pillow as she shifted. Every sound was magnified in the quiet of the mountain. I knew exactly where she was lying. I knew the exact curve of the mattress under her weight.
Then I heard it.
A low buzzing sound.
I frowned at the ceiling. What the hell was that?
It stopped. Started again. It was a mechanical hum, insistent. Was something wrong with the electricity? The water heater finally giving up the ghost and making some death-rattle noise?
I got out of bed, pulled on sweatpants, and went to investigate. I checked the breaker box in the pantry—silence. The buzzing continued. Rhythmic. Insistent.
It was coming from down the hall. From Maddie’s room.
I knew I should just turn around. Go back to my room, shove a pillow over my ears, and pretend I hadn’t heard a thing. But the territorial part of my brain—the part that had been on high alert since the courthouse and had shifted into high gear this morning—wouldn’t let it go.
Instead, I found myself walking down the hallway, following that sound, my brain supplying incredibly helpful images of what might be causing it. The door was closed, a firm barrier against me and the woman inside.
I didn’t knock. I didn’t breathe. I just pushed it open.
And froze.
The sight inside shattered whatever was left of my self-control. It didn’t just shatter. It ground the pieces to dust.
Maddie was on the bed, her back arched, her eyes closed tight. One hand was fisted in the sheets, her knuckles white. The other—
