Love Me Like That (18 page)

I almost break.

I know I’m the one who told him I couldn’t get my heart involved. I said it first. He agreed, rather harshly, but the dense piece of muscle in my chest didn’t get the memo.

“What are we doing?” I whisper.

He chuckles. “Staying warm,” he coos in my ear, obviously not understanding the depth of my question.

“I don’t mean at this moment, Kadin. I mean what are we doing?” I keep my eyes closed and my face straight ahead. When he rejects me and leaves, I don’t want to have to watch him walk out.

He stays silent for a long moment. “This is all I have to offer you.”

“Warmth?” I sigh loudly.

“My body,” he says with a halfhearted chuckle. I don’t see the humor he’s feeling.

“I’ll take what I can get.” I hope he can’t see the tear that just rolled down my cheek or hear the sadness in my voice.

“You deserve better,” he whispers at my back; the heat of his breath tickles the tiny hairs on my neck.

Yes, I do.

If I were a better man, I’d leave this entire situation alone. I’m not a better man, which has been established quite thoroughly over the last eighteen months. Plus, I love the way she feels under my fingertips.

“The snow has been cleared. Your car is parked in the garage.” I pull her tighter to my chest. “You’re no longer stuck here with me, but I’m hoping you still want to stay.”

She doesn’t respond right away, and I immediately think she’s trying to formulate a way to tell me she wants to go. I close my eyes and wait for the words, not knowing how I will respond to them but sure that I’m not going to like it when she’s gone.
The contents of the drawer still wait.

“My assistant Lisa called and said there’s another storm coming in. Weatherman expects it to hit the area late on Monday. I was planning on heading back Sunday afternoon.” Silence. “I thought we could head into Poison and grab some junk food. Figured it’d be nice to leave the cabin.”

Just like that, at this very moment is when I decide that life is, after all, worth living. I’d like to think that the guilt I’ve been feeling over how my death would affect my parents and my brother, but I know my will to live is because of her. London. Even though there is no telling how this will end up between us, knowing that there is, at least, one other person out there that makes me feel this way, gives me hope for life after Savannah, that knowledge makes things, at least, tolerable.

“I would kill for some Twizzlers right now,” she mumbles more to herself than to me. “But I’m so comfy here.”

She wiggles her body, burying herself deeper under the covers, her delicious ass rubbing me just right. I begin to thicken immediately.

“Keep that up, London and the only thing you’re going to get is fucked.” She wiggles again, and I do the only thing I can. I place my hand flat on her lower belly and pull her tighter against me. I groan, feeling my cock nestle right between her cheeks. I slide my hand lower; my middle finger is brushing her clit and the outside fingers roaming over her decadent lips.

Just as the tip of my finger dives into her wetness, she wiggles out of my grasp and jumps out of the bed.

“Twizzlers!” She exclaims happily.

Alright. Two can play that game.

Holding her gaze, I lift my finger to my mouth and lick the tip. Resisting the urge to buck my hips at her taste, I suck the wet digit into my mouth. Her eyes darken, and she looks like she’s going to take a step towards me, changing her mind about being a tease.

I stand on the side of the bed and catch her eyes as they wander down my chest to the erection I have no luck of hiding, even if I wanted to. Her tongue snakes out over her lips when I reach down and adjust myself over the fabric of my sweats.

Clearing my throat, I turn toward the door. When she grumbles something incoherent, I turn my head back to her. “I’ll get changed.” A quick wink and I’m leaving the room.

“You’re just fine naked,” I hear her say as I close the door behind me.

Less than half an hour later we’re bundling up to head outside to the truck. London looks annoyed, clearly not happy with how her teasing backfired. I’d love to tell her my cock is just as annoyed, but I hold off. Knowing it and thinking it are much different than verbalizing it. If I give it too much credit, we’ll never make it to the store because I’ll end up stripping her down in the truck.

“You ready?” I ask as she wraps a scarf around her neck.

I pull the door closed behind us and guide her with my hand on her lower back. I instantly hate the multiple layers of clothing that separate my skin from hers.

I tug open the passenger side door and stare at her ass as she climbs inside.

“Nice,” I praise quietly.

Just as she was about to ask me what I said I close her door and make my way to my side of the truck.

I get in and shut the door quickly. Even with the speed we got inside the cold has crept in and obliterated the heat that had been building the last fifteen minutes. I rub my gloved hands together and hold them to my mouth, angling my hot breath over my chilled fingers.

I cut my eyes to London and see her raise an eyebrow at me.

“What?”

“Just thinking about how warm those fingers would be if I hadn’t gotten out of the bed.” She frowns playfully.

Trying not to think about the wet heat of her core, I put the truck in gear and begin to roll down the driveway. The plowing company did a great job, leaving the truck with an extra wide berth.

“Have you given any thought to my offer?” I finally speak as we turn right out of the driveway, heading into Poison proper. I told Lisa to make sure the plow driver left the gate open because the last thing I wanted to do was get out any more than I had to since I had no idea if the gate opening app on my phone would even work.

“I don’t think I have any other choice at this point than to move….I mean stay in your guest room. As far as the job,” she cuts her eyes at me, “I’d need to know more about it before I make a decision on that.”

“I imagine it’s just like any other office job.” I shrug my shoulders.

I glance at her and see her roll her eyes. “Not all office jobs are the same, Kadin. What role do you hold at your company?”

Shit. I don’t want to complicate things even more than they already are and for some reason I like her thinking I’m some regular old Joe.
Regular? Yeah right, you saw how her eyes bulged when she stepped foot in the cabin that first night.

Avoiding the whole CEO conversation I give her the basics. “I work for a company that builds log cabins. They built the one we’ve been staying in.”

She laughs; it rolls out of her mouth straight from the bottom of her stomach.

Her laugh is contagious even though I have no idea what she finds so funny. “What?” I ask with a chuckle.

“You’re a lumberjack?!?” The laughing continues, “Like you use an ax and cut wood.” She snorts in the most unladylike manner and abruptly covers her mouth with her hands, her eyes dancing.

“I use an ax to cut firewood, but we use machines and saws when we build.” I turn my attention back to the road.

“It suits you. Especially with the beard, Lumberjack.”

I raise my hand up and rub the scruff on my chin. “You have a problem with my beard?”

“Not one bit,” she answers seductively. I glance over at her, catching her watching my mouth. “I’ve already told you how handsome you are. Are you fishing for compliments?”

Instead of answering I just wink at her. I had thought about shaving; change of plans.

The short trip into town ends when I pull up in front of a Mom and Pop store. It seems to be one of the only places open in town, which won’t be a problem since I’ve only seen a handful of people since leaving the cabin.

London puts her hands in front of the vents, warming them before facing the cold once again. I just watch her, mesmerized by her beauty. Her bright green eyes shine behind the layers of her scarf and the hood on her jacket. Her cheeks are flushed from the cold, pinking them ever so slightly.

“What?” she asks eventually.

“He’s a fucking idiot,” I say without thinking. “Why on Earth would he think he could find something better than you?”

I watch the shimmer leave her eyes, and I immediately regret saying something so insensitive.

She turns her head and focuses out her window. “I’ve been asking myself the exact same thing the last few days.”

I lift my hand twice to reach out to her; to comfort her somehow. I’m a complete asshole for saying what I did. I didn’t mean it the way she apparently took it, and I feel like shit now. I want to beg her to come back to Spokane with me, let me show her how a real man treats a woman as precious as she is, but I don’t. I’m just now considering not killing myself, and I know without a doubt that jumping from my grief to London wouldn’t do either one of us any good.

“You ready?” she asks, breaking into the internal struggle going on in my head.

I look at her, and she has managed a small smile, so I take it and run with it, hoping I can actually make it become legitimate joy. I need to see the shimmer and sparkle in those amazing green eyes.

“You feigning for Twizzlers?” I wink at her. She grins just a bit wider, but it’s genuine. “I hope they have dark chocolate,” I say as I lean in closer to the windshield and look at the weathered sign, not feeling hopeful at all.

“Only one way to find out,” she says and pops out of her side of the truck and runs into the store.

I do what any decent man would do when a beautiful woman runs away from him; I chase her.

The more I’m around him, the more I want to be around him. We’ve been trapped in his cabin for days, and we spent less than an hour apart yesterday, yet it seems not to be enough. I crave him. I yearn for his touch. I covet every caress. The most alarming thing about this entire situation is that although the sex is out of this world amazing, it’s the embrace after the orgasm that causes the wildest beating of my heart.

His hot and cold is giving me whiplash. Well, maybe not cold; he never just shrugs me off. Sometimes I wonder if it’s only because we were stuck together and he knew there is no real way to get completely away from me. We hold each other all night yet we say that this is only sex. I’m just as guilty. I was the first one to bring up the fact that I can’t get involved any more than just the physical. It needed to be said, but now I think I should’ve kept my damn mouth shut.

The smell of moth balls hit me the second I open the door to the little country store. The smell is not completely off-putting, but the muskiness causes me concern for the snacks they have. I remind myself to check expiration dates on everything I get. I grab a hand basket and venture in further.

The gust of frigid air at my back informs me that Kadin has made it inside. I don’t acknowledge him; I just begin to wander up and down the aisles. The merchandise is as eclectic as the empty flower pots that were sitting on the small porch, and I do mean porch. This store has apparently been transformed from an old wooden house. The selections range from diapers and dog food to detergent and diamonds; that’s at least what the sign on top of the glass case claims anyways.

I stop in the food section and immediately notice the lone bag of dark chocolate Kisses. I plop them in the hand basket. From what I can tell they don’t have
Twizzlers
but they do have the generic ‘Vines.’