Ten
Outside Miriam’s bedroom window, snow fell as hard and fast as ever. It was a beautiful inconvenience—a minor interruption in what was an already amazing life. She had much to be thankful for. Something she’d tried to remind herself last night while she lay awake feeling complete FOMO about missing out on Black Friday shopping with her sisters.
It wasn’t the shopping itself she was mourning, but the time she’d miss spending with them. Dining out and then grabbing lattes for dessert. Juggling the to-go cup and a plethora of shiny shopping bags while one of them dug the keys from Wendy’s purse so they could find the car.
She’d tried to reach either Kristine or Wendy on their cell phones. No luck. There were probably wrestling a discount television away from a grown man at a big box store, or maybe they’d opted for an early breakfast complete with mimosas.
After sending a group text—Buy me something of high value with a low price tag!—and tossing the phone on the bed, Miriam pulled on her jeans and layered a few long-sleeved shirts for warmth.
The house was cozy. The bed was a dream. She’d slept great once she’d finally fallen asleep.
When she’d returned to her room with the water bottle, Chase had no longer been looming at her doorway looking sexy and slightly rumpled and thoroughly kissed. He’d gone upstairs, she’d assumed. The house was large enough he could’ve been literally anywhere save the room she’d just come from. He hadn’t said goodnight.
She’d lain in her bed and wondered if he was in his own bedroom reliving the smoldering lip-lock they’d shared in the doorway. If he still tasted her on his tongue the way she tasted him on hers. If he was considering coming back downstairs to sample her mouth again...
But he hadn’t.
And now that she was awake and en route to the coffee maker, she tried to convince herself she was glad he hadn’t come downstairs to finish what he’d started. Relaying those thoughts to her heart was easy. Getting them past her raging hormones and that irritating fluttering at the V of her thighs was another matter altogether.
It’d been a while since she’d had sex. It’d been even longer since she’d had really good sex. It made sense that the physical reactions in her body were shouting Hell yes! Her nipples had hardened and pressed against the T-shirt she slept in, begging for attention. She’d resisted the urge to relieve that pounding pulse between her legs herself, balling her fists in the blankets and squeezing her eyes shut. She thought about camp budgets and depleting rain forests and other unpleasant topics, but no matter how she’d tried to distract herself, memories of Chase—from last night and ten years ago—led the pack.
It was simply him. He had commanded her full attention since the first time she laid eyes on him. There was a pull surrounding him and whenever she was in his atmosphere she couldn’t keep from being drawn in.
“As evidenced by my ending up snowed in here,” she said to herself. What other than the idea of Chase Ferguson alone on Thanksgiving would have convinced her to come out in a snowstorm?
She paced to the kitchen, located the coffee and made herself a single-cup serving. After only three hours of sleep, she needed it. No sign of her housemate yet, but she could guess he hadn’t slept well either.
She opted to give herself a tour of the house while sipping her coffee. She started with the main floor, most of which she’d familiarized herself with last night. The living room where they’d played Monopoly, the kitchen where Chase had heated his delivered dinner, and of course, her bedroom.
She’d had a peek at the other larger bedrooms dotting the halls when looking for her own, and took another gander now to be sure she was happy with her choice. She was. She’d chosen the smaller room because it was close to the kitchen and because it had a bathroom attached. Her idea had been to hide out until the storm blew over—the literal snowstorm and the one brewing between her and Chase. A cowardly plan. There was no escaping the blizzard just as there was no avoiding what had happened last night.
Upstairs she found a sitting area surrounded by bookshelves. A chessboard stood on a side table with two straight-backed chairs. She could imagine Chase hunched there, a wrinkle of consideration on his forehead, his fingers resting against his mouth while he thought of his next move. The room suited him, but the shelves on the walls—with a few generic leather-bound books and a random vase or decorative bowl taking up the empty space—appeared more what his decorator had deemed appropriate and less what Chase would’ve chosen for himself.
The library’s window, pointed at the top to match the pitch of the roof and as wide as the room itself, looked over the deck at the back of the house and the snow-covered lake beyond. Natural light flooded in, but even the sun felt cold, too far away to melt the ice clouding the glass. In a pair of comfy sneakers, she stepped silently across the shining hardwood floors. A doorway beckoned her, the edge of Chase’s bed in plain view, his own sneakers standing at the foot of that bed.
Light choked this space, streaming in from more floor-to-ceiling windows where the bed faced. His comforter had been thrown over the bed in a half-assed attempt at making it, two pillows stacked on one side. Jeans and a button-down shirt were draped over the bed like he’d been about to put them on but decided against it.
Where is he?
She stepped deeper into the room and ran her hand over the cream-and-dark-blue quilt, her fingers grazing the sleeve of his shirt. She could picture him here. Last night. Right now...
“Having regrets about what room you chose to sleep in last night?” a voice asked from behind her. She placed her hand over her heart in an attempt to slow its speeding rhythm.
“You startled me,” she said breathlessly.
Facing him didn’t help her catch her breath. He was shirtless, barefoot and water rolled in rivulets down his naked chest. He held a royal blue towel over his hips, grasped with one hand.
“You’re wet,” were the only words she could think to say. The only two words that eked from her suddenly parched throat. The only appropriate words she could’ve said out loud—and even those didn’t sound appropriate. Her eyes feasted on the dark hair whirling on his chest, the trail of it leading down his flat belly and disappearing into the terry cloth around his hips.
Yeah, there were no words.
“I went for a swim. Finished it off with ten minutes in the hot tub.” He stepped into the room with her and she felt the steam coming from his damp skin. “You should try it.”
He ripped off the towel to expose he was wearing absolutely nothing at all. She jerked her eyes away and tried desperately not to replay the vision of the inviting appendage hanging temptingly between his legs.
Chase strolled toward his attached bathroom, not the least bit shy as he dried his arms and chest and his bare ass. She didn’t mean to stare. It just...sort of happened on its own.
He had a round, firm butt leading to thick thighs that planed up to a defined, muscular back. His shoulders were strong, his traps defined...