“I was fixing her stitches,” I clarified, it being partly true.
“That’s what they’re calling it, huh?” he asked. He was an oddly preceptive person for someone who spent almost no time around other human beings.
“Drop it,” I demanded, going to yank open the back window, reaching out to grab the eggs from where Sloane had them buried under a pile of snow.
“Your life,” he agreed, reaching above the machine to drag down three mugs. “How does she take her coffee? Don’t have any fancy shit,” he told me as though I didn’t already know he wasn’t the type to remember to pick up caramel syrup or anything like that.
“She takes it black,” I supplied, cracking eggs into a bowl.
We said nothing else, both of us generally used to silence. A good ten minutes later, while I was pushing around scrambled eggs in a pan, the door to the bathroom opened, bringing steamy air, and the heady smell of all Sloane’s scents, a moment before the woman herself reappeared.
And her uniform was completely back on.
Navy blue slacks.
Beige blouse with buttons up the front.
Skyscraper heels that matched her shirt.
Her hair was still wet, wrapped in yet another braid down her back.
She’d even put her minimal amount of makeup on.
And jewelry.
“I would have cooked,” she said immediately, almost sounding off-put that I had done it.
“That is about all he knows how to cook,” Ranger told her, handing her a mug. “And he’s burning them,” he added.
“Thank you,” she said, bringing up the mug, taking a long sniff before drinking, closing her eyes on a moan that had both Ranger and me tensing up. “I missed this more than the lights,” she admitted, sounding a little embarrassed by her own reaction. “So, um, what is the plan now?” she asked, clearly not as comfortable with the silence in the room, likely because she didn’t want Ranger catching on to the tension between the two of us.
“What plan?” I asked, plating the eggs.
“Well, now that you don’t have to shovel,” she clarified, grabbing forks for us. “Are we still going to stay here the extra time, or are we moving on?”
I could feel Ranger’s gaze on me, but ignored it.
“We’ll head out tomorrow morning.”
“And by morning, you mean four, I imagine,” she said, pushing around her eggs.
“Yeah, four. We have a lot of ground to cover.”
“Right,” she agreed.
And just like that, Miss Blythe-Meuller was back.
SEVEN
Sloane
Ranger was unexpected.
First, of course, because his presence woke me out of a dead sleep, making adrenaline surge through me, making it hard for my head to wrap around what was going on.
Once the sleep cleared away though, I got an eyeful of him.
He was good-looking.
In a way that was somehow rougher than Gunner even. And I didn’t think that was possible.
He was a giant of a man, dark-haired, eyed, bearded. And his voice was the thing heroes in TV shows and movies were made of.
He stayed through breakfast, filled this giant canteen with coffee, then told us he was off to clear the roads.
He didn’t come back.
And me, well, I tried to distract myself.
I dragged the cot back to the closet. I brought all the bed things back to the bedroom, remaking the bed, organizing my clean and dirty laundry, cleaning the bathroom and kitchen.
In short, I tried not to think about it.
The kiss.
Tried.
Failed.
Epically.
Sometime by ten in the morning, when I had exhausted every task I could think of in such a small space, I kicked out of my heels, and sat down on the bed.
And thought about it.
Even just the memory of it was heating my body, making my skin feel overly sensitive, my heart race, my breathing get shallow, my breasts swell, and my sex clench.
I didn’t know what it would be like.
To kiss a man like him.
Just to kiss him, this man who was able to see underneath me, see what was really there, who I felt safe enough around to share some of my past with.
In just a few days.
It felt consuming.
It overtook me.
True, maybe it was just my sexlessness, my dry spell that was lasting, well, three too many years.
I hadn’t been touched in so long that my body was overreacting to it.
But my gut was telling me it was more than that, that it had more to do with him.
And the way I melted into him, the way I moaned while his tongue moved over mine, the way I was about ready to grind against his hardness before Ranger interrupted.
Honestly, if he hadn’t, I had a feeling that we would have done it right there on the sink vanity.
“Ugh,” I growled, rolling onto my side, burying my face into the pillow.
It was pointless to even think about it.
It was over.
Even if we wanted to continue things, we couldn’t.
Because in a few more days, he was going to drop me off in my new life.