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“I don’t want your jacket.”

His fingers flexed once around the collar, the only sign his patience was thinning. “And I don’t want to share body heat with a woman who hates my guts, but here we are.”

“Share what?”

Cole’s expression tightened, as if he regretted saying it out loud. “The temperature’s dropping. We stay close, we stay warm. That’s all.”

His gaze flicked to her mouth.

It was barely a second, but long enough.

The feeling was sharp and electric, settling at her core.

Emily pulled his jacket around her shoulders.

The coat swallowed her. It smelled like smoke, cold air, and him.

Cole’s shoulder pressed against hers, his body a solid wall of heat. Emily went rigid.

“Relax,” he said.

“Don’t tell me what to do,” she snapped back.

“Then stop acting like sitting next to me is going to kill you.”

“It might.”

The wind screamed outside and the bakery kitchen creaked. Nutmeg walked over and tucked himself into Emily’s lap, blissfully unaware of Emily’s pulse threatening to escape her body.

Cole shifted, dragging the jacket around them.

Their sides pressed together from shoulder to hip.

Emily sucked in a breath.

He went still. “What?”

“Nothing.”

“That was not nothing.”

“You’re very warm,” she said, then immediately wished she had frozen to death outside after all.

Cole’s mouth twitched. “Careful, Em. That almost sounded like gratitude.”

“Don’t worry. I’m disgusted with myself.”

“Good. I’d hate for this blizzard to change who you are.”

She turned her head to snap back, but he was closer than she expected.

Much closer.

The candlelight caught the edge of his face, the hard line of his jaw, the shadow of stubble along his cheek. His eyes weren’t smug now. They were fixed on her with something darker.

The silence stretched between them while the storm battered the bakery and Nutmeg purred in her lap and every inch of Cole’s body burned against hers.

“Don’t,” she said.