Drawn Deep (Afternoon Delight Book 2) by Taryn Quinn (15)

Fucking blizzard.

Again.

Why was I even surprised?

I was the jackass who had grown up on the outskirts of Turnbull, New York, snow capital of the northeast, and had escaped to sunny LA only to return.

Voluntarily.

No one had held a gun to my head or shackled my wrists. Nope, I’d strapped my surfboard to the roof of my SUV and made the trek home to buy property on the very edge of town. Outside of town, truth be told. Because the icy tundra in the city proper—ha ha—wasn’t enough for me. Might as well build a damn shack with my own two hands and surround it with pine trees and solitude.

So much freaking solitude.

True, it was just my vacation home. Cue more laughter. My place to escape from the rigors of being a famous rockstar.

At least the rockstar part was right. In my head if nowhere else. The famous? Working on that. Wilder Mind’s first single was due to drop just after the holidays, and our manager, Lila Crandall, was prepping us for the big time. A lot of that was smoke and mirrors designed to build us up into being the showmen we weren’t quite yet, but under her bluster, there was a kernel of truth.

Wilder Mind was poised to take on the world.

Me? I was poised to chop some wood so I could hole up in my cabin and spend New Year’s Eve soaking up the silence.

No other company. No other voices. Especially no incessant interview questions or even the shrill scream of fans. Not that we’d dealt with much of that yet. Only a taste. A hint of things to come if we were lucky enough to make it big.

In the meantime, it would be just me and my old Taylor acoustic, a roaring fire, and a case of Coors.

Hey, I never said I had highbrow tastes. So sue me.

Blowing out a breath, I heaved the ax through the chilly air, savoring the pleasant burn in my muscles. I was chopping way more wood than I’d need for a weekend at the cabin. If I was lucky, I’d make it back to Turnbull a few times over the winter. With the single dropping, we’d be branching out. Spreading out to do shows some distance from LA, which meant all the press that went with that. I’d be talking myself hoarse before I was expected to go up and bleed out onstage for the price of a ticket.

That was my role. My new role. The one I’d craved since I was a kid with a cheap thrift store guitar, a joint in my back pocket, and the requisite amount of teenage angst that made me think I could be a great songwriter.

Now I was getting my shot, and the battered composition notebook I’d been lugging around for years—first in backpacks, then in briefcases during my brief stint working at Ripper Records—was definitely getting a workout.

Just like my arms. I slammed the axe into the snowpack and threw back my head. Shit. The chill seared my lungs, yanking out my breath in icy puffs. And I still wasn’t smart enough to go inside.

Nope, I kept splitting logs, continuing on until the overcast afternoon turned into dusk. The foggy dark hung in ribbons of mist around my forest, and I didn’t stop until the distant cry of a lonely coyote made me think maybe it was time for that fire.

We didn’t get a lot of coyotes out this way, but we had some. In this much dense forestation, you got quite the range of creatures. Even the occasional black bear. My mom had told stories about one coming up to the back door and rattling the knob of her folks’ old ramshackle place, but I had to think that was bullshit.

Maybe I just hoped it. If a frigging bear couldn’t just break down a door, fuck the rest of us who rued being so goddamn polite all the time.

Still, much as I lobbied for the rights of bears and coyotes, I wasn’t stupid enough to be whaling on logs after dark. Not when I had a twelve-pack and a hot shower waiting for my sore ass.

“Getting soft,” I muttered after stowing the axe and piling up the wood to haul inside.

I grunted as I made my way around the side of the cabin in the knee-deep snow, part of a cord of wood in my arms. Obviously, I needed to hit the gym harder before Wilder Mind went out on tour. My body freaking hurt. I was covered in sweat. Probably looked like a frigging maniac with snow sticking to my beardy face.

I jumped around night after night onstage in closet-sized clubs and bars, but I wasn’t as hardy as when I’d lived in good old Turnbull full-time. Back when I’d worked on cars and picked up odd construction jobs to get by.

It had been blind luck and a dose of small town friendliness that had even gotten my ass out to LA. Lila’s mom and pop ran the local orchard, and my mom had gotten to talking to Lila’s mother one day about how I didn’t want to be stuck working construction for the rest of my life. One thing led to another and under six months later, I’d been on a place out to LA to meet with Donovan Lewis, the head of the record label Lila worked for. We hit it off and though I didn’t know shit about selling anything that didn’t come in a bucket or wrapped in cellophane, I’d ended up as an account rep.

Representing artists. Me. The guy who’d barely graduated high school but could schmooze a quart a milk out of a cow. Or so my mom had claimed to Lila’s mother.

Because a way with cows surely meant a way with egotistical, often drugged out musicians. Right.

Somehow it had worked though. Lila said I had a knack. Donovan had given me raises. A bunch of them, in short succession. The mogul some jokingly referred to as Lord Lewis didn’t shortchange his talent, and he’d seen something in me. I owed him and Lila a shit-ton of gratitude. First, for hiring me to represent some of their musical acts, and then for trusting me to front a band.

The band part I had more familiarity with. I’d been stroking an acoustic long before I’d stroked my first girl. Let’s just say I’d done my share of touching both, and leave it at that.

One more thing about Turnbull? They had some damn fine women, but it was hard to see them clearly under all the layers of outerwear when it snowed for what felt like half the freaking year. I preferred California women anyway. They seemed more good-natured as a rule. Maybe all the sunshine and hot temperatures put them in a better mood.

And goddammit, I loved me a woman in a bikini.

When I reached the front of my property and heard the squeal of tires, I didn’t react fast enough. Put the image of a half-naked, tanned woman in the mind of a man who’d nearly frozen his nuts off and who wouldn’t miss a car fishtailing off the road?

Right into my ditch.

Tires spun, spewing up snow and dirt and tiny rocks, and a horn went off about sixteen times. And I stared, my wood in my arms. Shocked as hell that anyone had even come down this practically deserted road in the first place, never mind took the curve way too fast and gone ass up in the ditch.

The chick was now attempting to shimmy her way out of the driver’s side window. Painfully. With no shortage of groans and screeches and noises no adult female should ever make.

Since she was moving—and frantically at that—I had to figure she couldn’t be too badly injured. Still, she could have done harm to herself she’d yet to realize.

With more than a small sigh, I set down the wood on the short set of steps to the cabin, brushed off my hands on the thighs of my jeans, and trudged down the snowy hill to where the squealing damsel’s car was lodged.

She turned her neck and gave me the biggest, brightest smile I’d ever seen. I was a little taken aback, since she was half in and half out of a window and her car was fucked up, if not totaled. It appeared to be an older model under the snow and grime, and an accident like hers could screw up the frame. If that happened, the vehicle was shot.

Not that she seemed worried overmuch.

“Hi!” she called over the rushing wind, her voice as cheerful as her expression. “Thank God for you.”

I didn’t know how to respond to that, so I came around the ditch and eyed her lopsided car. “Yep, well and truly stuck.”

She blinked at me from under the pink fringe of a stocking cap. “It’s just a little fender bender.”

“Oh yeah? Then why are you climbing out of the window?”

She wiggled. “Because the door won’t open.”

“Seems a bit worse than a fender bender to me.” I came around the driver’s side, hooked my hands under her armpits in her heavy down coat, and simply plucked her out of the car.

Only afterward did I think of possible internal injuries. Though what possible injury could’ve allowed her to jump and dance around now that she’d been freed, I did not know.

The other thing I noticed about her right away? She was dressed as if she was in competition with the Michelin man, except her bulk was made out of layers. Many layers. She had earmuffs under her hat to go with her bulky scarf, huge coat, ski pants—likely layered over thermals—and some serious freaking boots with enough snaps and ties to secure a horse.

And yet she was still jumping around, blowing on her gloved fingers, and laughing like a crazy person.

“Whoa, that was nuts. I seriously feared for my life. I saw Jesus and heard angels and all that stuff.” She frowned at her car with its likely bent axel. “I paid extra for the best snow tires. I still skidded. That seems like a warranty violation. Don’t you think?”

What I thought was this chick was going to talk my head off.

“The forecast predicted two feet today. Typical lake effect. Are you not from around here?” Though it was hard to believe someone from a warmer climate would’ve been that well-prepared, but maybe. They did tend to have thinner blood than us hardy northern types.

Though what the hell was I saying? I was a California boy now too.

Happily.

I’d never actually heard someone roll their eyes at me before, but her disgust was palpable. “Hello, look at me. Do I seem unprepared for this weather? If anything, I overprepared. In my trunk, I have a spare battery kit, a First-Aid kit, a tire repair kit—”

“Lady, I got it. You’re prepared. You just spun out. It happens.”

She propped her hands on her hips. Or at least where I figured her hips would be. Hard to tell with her coat.

“Very pragmatic of you, buddy, but now what? I’m stuck and I need to get to Mrs. Pringles’ before she goes to New Year’s Eve mass. This is her first year without her husband, and she puts on a brave face, but she and Joe were so in love. It was sweet to see, really. And if I can’t get there before mass, then I’ll have to wait until she gets back, or worse yet, go join her in the church, which would be okay except I kind of got ex-communicated last year.”

I wiped away the flakes collecting on my face. I would’ve hoped my expression coupled with how I looked might’ve intimidated her—big, burly, bearded—but if anything fazed this one, it wasn’t me glaring at her during her endless monologue.

“I’m sure I’ll regret asking this, but why, exactly, do you need to go to grandmother’s house?”

She brushed snow off the arms of her coat. It was coming down faster than she could efficiently whisk it away. “Oh, she’s not my grandmother—”

“That was a joke, Red.” I gestured toward her attire. Red and pink everything, which didn’t go together but somehow seemed to suit her. “You also have a car instead of a basket, but let me mix a metaphor or two.”

“Ah. Big bad wolf, is it then? Sorry, you don’t seem to fit.” She marched toward me and grasped the side of my pants. “Wile E. Coyote sweats aren’t exactly scary, tough guy.”

“Don’t touch,” I growled and that made her step back and cock her head, much like a puppy. Instead of a floppy ear, she had the bouncy pouf on top of her hat. “I can’t just touch you.”

She seemed to think about that. It was getting darker, and the snowflakes falling between us were coming faster and harder. But if I wasn’t mistaken, she was pondering that comment as if I’d just said the most important thing she’d ever heard.

“No,” she said after a moment. “I guess you can’t. You shouldn’t. Just because Derek ran off with Trini isn’t a reason for me to let strange men touch me. Especially ones wearing sweatpants.”

“What’s wrong with sweatpants?”

The most ridiculous thing about this whole conversation? I didn’t want to touch her. I was almost sure. So what if it had been a while for me? That was by choice. God knows I had women throwing themselves at me front, back and center, and it only promised to get worse as things took off with the single. I’d backed off the fuck-and-duck game simply because I’d gotten bored.

I was tired of fake women cloaked in pretenses who just wanted me for my fame. As much as I exploited my growing fame to get any damn thing I wanted.

Never said I wasn’t a fucked-up bastard, now did I?

“There’s nothing wrong with them, per se. They’re just not fashionable.”

In spite of the fact that my face felt like it was freezing into place, I cocked a brow. “Oh, and that eye-searing combo you have on is? You practically have on a snowsuit. Like a child.”

Her cheeks reddened. I don’t know how I could tell the difference considering she’d been awful damn pink from the wind to start with, but somehow I knew I’d gotten to her. “I’m not a child. I’m a grown woman who likes to be prepared.”

“Huh.” I crossed my arms and jutted my chin toward her car. “So how’s that working out for you?”

She stepped forward, kicking up snow with her gigantic boots. Then she let her gaze wander down the front of me and let out a little harrumph. “And you know what else? Statistics say that eighty-eight-point-six of grown men who wear sweatpants are either still living in their mother’s basements or they’re serial killers.”

Deliberately, I moved into her space, dwarfing her with my size. And yet again, she did not back down. “Those are some odds, Red. Are you feeling lucky?”

* * *

I was supposed to be afraid of this guy. That was what he wanted me to be anyway. Why else would he be looming over me as if he wanted to do me bodily harm?

But I wasn’t buying it. Let’s go over the evidence.

Wile E. Coyote sweats.

Enough concern to pluck me out of my car like a wilted vegetable.

Back to the Wile E. Coyote sweats.

Also, possibly the kindest, softest, most intriguing brown eyes I’d ever seen. Surrounded by a frame of inky lashes. Such a heavy fringe that snow kept gathering on them until he grew impatient and blinked it away.

But that was neither here nor there.

“First of all, there are most likely no serial killers in Turnbull or the surrounding towns. That’s extremely improbable, given the size of the population.”

“So are your dumbass statistics, but I didn’t call you on them, did I?”

I wasn’t pouting at being called a dumbass. Lord knows I’d been called much worse. As the youngest of six, I’d gotten used to verbal abuse at a young age. I almost enjoyed it.

Just because I looked small and defenseless didn’t mean I was. I tended to sneak up on people like a bunny.

Aww, she’s so cute and fluffy—CHOMP.

“Then again, you’re not making any effort to assist a stranded traveler, so maybe you are planning to Ted Bundy me. Where’s your fake cast, huh?” I gave his arms in the sleeves of his surprisingly thin coat a glance before pretending to search the snowbanks around us. “Where’s your VW Bug with the passenger seat taken out?”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“Ted Bundy. One of the most famous serial killers of all time. Don’t you people respect the titans in your field?”

“What people is that, exactly?”

His bored tone was making me feel stupid. So much for going toe-to-toe with this giant behemoth. He didn’t find me amusing and he obviously had no intention of helping to free my vehicle.

So time for plan B.

“I’ll just get my bread.” There was no helping my clipped tone as I stomped back toward the ditch. Not that I could even be sure he’d heard me. With the howling wind and the crunch of my boots on the snowy, uneven ground at the side of the road, maybe he hadn’t heard a word I’d spoken.

Then his big hands clamped around my upper arms and he hauled me back as if I’d been on the verge of falling into a fire pit. “Hold it. What bread?”

“Kindly unhand me.”

He made a low noise in his throat and without looking back at him, I knew he’d done that cocked brow thing again. Pretty hot. I couldn’t move one eyebrow independent of the other, so I tended to appreciate skills in others that I did not possess.

“You have no reason to try to get back in that car.”

“Yes, I do. I need my bread before it gets cold.” I sighed. “Well, any colder than it already is. My hot bag can only do so much.”

“Your hot bag? Woman, you make no sense.”

“Stop calling me woman, and it’s an insulated bag to seal in warmth. I used it to protect Mrs. Pringles’ bread. It’s her favorite, pumpkin chocolate chip.” I craned my neck to look up at him, intending to shove his big paws off me, but his head was tilted and his lips were parted, revealing just a hint of bright white teeth.

And those dark assessing eyes were searing right through every damn layer of my clothing.

“Kindly unhand me,” I repeated, not missing the slight chatter of my teeth. I wished I could blame the cold. It was so much worse than that.

I was by the side of the road with a disabled car and a possible Ted Bundy wannabe with soulful eyes, and I didn’t even really care that he was keeping me from my bread.

Mrs. Pringles’ bread. Same difference.

“You might injure yourself further if you attempt reentry. Let the professionals handle it.”

“Further?” I frowned. “I’m not injured.”

Was I? Quickly, I took stock. Everything still worked. Arms, legs, mouth. Definitely mouth. Sure, my heart was beating a bit too fast and my thoughts were skidding out of control, but that was normal for me. My dad called me “fanciful,” which he partially blamed on my obsession with the macabre. My mama said I spent too much time with my head stuck in a book. My brothers—all three of them—called me some variation of Magpie, my childhood nickname that had stuck like a damn flytrap. Maeve and Regan, my perfect older sisters, just sighed at my supposed antics and went on with their lives.

So yeah, mental babbling was typical for me. And often, actual babbling, though the dude hulking over me was not inspiring to foam at the mouth as I usually might.

I didn’t know men like him. The guys I attracted were safe, nice boys. The kind who went to church on Sundays and pulled their elderly neighbor’s newspaper out of the bushes and always referred to my parents as “Sir and Ma’am.” They didn’t have edges. They didn’t skimp on their manners. They definitely didn’t miss their morning shave.

As far as assisting someone with car trouble, they would’ve been sweet and helpful and fixed the problem before I could ask. Not brusque and dismissive and now rough as the brute hauled me around and set me a few feet away from my vehicle.

“Stay there.” He pointed at me. “I’m going to take care of your problem so you can get on your way.”

“About time. Do you have a truck hoist?”

He was already moving toward my car. He studied the door for a moment, then yanked on the handle. It opened for him with only the slightest effort.

Traitorous car.

Fumbling inside, he realized my window was the crank-up kind and shut it so the front seat didn’t fill with snow. “Guess the door wasn’t so stuck after all,” he shouted over the wind.

I rolled my eyes. Sure, if I had the strength of an ox, no problem. “I asked if you had a truck hoist?”

“A truck hoist?” he echoed, clearly not paying attention as he studied my car.

“Yes, to pull me out of the ditch.”

“No, I don’t have a truck hoist. What I do have should do the trick though.” He shut the door without grabbing my bread or any of my belongings, then climbed out of the ditch, pulled a cell phone from his pocket, and hit a button. Smugly, I might add.

This man did not have an air of friendly cooperation, that was for sure. As for neighborly concern? Nope. Nada.

After a minute, his smug expression flattened. His mouth thinned out and he gazed at his phone as if he’d misdialed. He hit a button again, waited, then yanked the phone from his ear. “What the fuck?”

I tried not to blanch. Of course, I’d heard swearing before. I was a college student, wasn’t I? But in my family home, we had a tip jar. Anyone who swore put in a five-dollar bill. Forget a one-dollar bill. My parents had wanted us to learn appropriate words swiftly, and parting with five dollars of our allowance had worked fast.

Pretty sure this dude didn’t have a jar. If he did, he’d probably smash it with one of his hamhock fists.

“Is there a problem?”

“No. Definitely not. The tow truck place isn’t answering. No big.”

“It’s New Year’s Eve.”

“You don’t say?”

I ignored his sarcasm and lifted my voice to speak over the growing wind. The darker it got, the more frigid it was growing outside. But I’d be damned if I shivered. If he could seem impervious to the weather, so could I. “If you’re not using a national company and instead supporting a local business, it’s not surprising. This is a holiday. Therefore, holiday hours.”

“Thank you, Miss Know-It-All, but I’m well aware of this particular company’s hours. It’s a family business.”

“Your family? Yet you don’t own a truck hoist?” I cocked my head. “Seems fishy.”

“I said family business, not my business.”

“Ah, like your dad? Or your brother?”

“Look, they aren’t answering, so we’ll have to just wait.” He glanced around at the gathering snow as if he planned for us to wait at the edge of the road.

If that was the case, I was definitely going to try to get back into my car. As much as I loved Mrs. Pringle, I knew my stomach was on the verge of roaring. That bread was going to be mine. I’d skipped lunch, and boy oh boy, I knew better than to take shortcuts. They never paid off.

“Okay. Well, thanks.” Even if he couldn’t be polite, I could. “I appreciate your…” But I wasn’t a liar. “Conversation.”

I couldn’t be certain in the near darkness, but I was almost sure his lips twitched. “Conversation, is it?”

I shrugged.

“Come on,” he said, indicating with his chin for me to head up the short incline to a dark, forbidding, tiny house.

Immediately, my back went up. And my spidey senses started to tingle.

Or that might have been my extremities due to frostbite setting in.

“No, thank you. I don’t think that’s a good idea. I’ll just stay here and call AAA.”

“You have AAA?”

“Of course I do.” I bit my lip, vividly picturing the expired notice on my desk at home. I’d paid that, right? It had been at the top of my To Do list, but with the holidays…

Okay, maybe not.

“You seem uncertain.”

“Not really.”

He gusted out a sigh. “It’s freezing out here. Let’s go inside and get warm. I’ll call the towing company again later.”

“If they’re not answering now,” I shouted over the wind, moving closer when my voice seemed to get sucked away, “what makes you think they will later? It’s a holiday. People are out celebrating.”

“Are you?” He pointed at himself. “Am I? No. Not everyone is in a fucking party mood. Now come on.”

When I didn’t budge, he gave me a stern look that made me half expect him to haul me over his shoulder like a sack of Maggie. Then he let out another of those windy breaths. “Please?”

My frozen face cracked into a smile. “Did that hurt?”

“A little. Not as much as my nuts shriveling up into my spine though.”

I swallowed. Along with not hearing a ton of swear words on a daily basis, I also wasn’t privy to men referring to their nuts as if that counted as ordinary conversation.

Hi, my nuts hurt. Pass the crackers.

“You, um, should definitely go inside then. That sounds painful.”

“It is. Come on. I won’t bite.”

“Are you sure?”

Now he did more than almost smile. He barked out a laugh. “Not unless you want me to, honey, and even then, I’m pretty sure you aren’t my type.” He tilted his head and lifted his voice above the howling wind. “I’m not into church girls. Even the ex-communicated kind, which does sound interesting.”

“It is. No, I’m not telling you.” I rubbed my mittened hand over my stinging cheeks. “What happens between a girl and her priest is private.”

“Wow. Some Thorn Birds shit? Kinky little thing, aren’t you?”

Was that actually approval I saw in his midnight eyes? They’d definitely warmed. Speaking of kinky…

“Hardly.” I sniffed, and not out of haughtiness.

I had to sneeze, and I had to pee. I was also freezing and starving and desperately in need of a long, hot shower.

Then again, did I dare get naked within the same four walls as this guy? Even if I wasn’t his type?

Serial killers had types too. They also didn’t kill everyone they met. I couldn’t be sure this guy was safe, but if I wasn’t in his target victim group, he could be a homicidal lunatic and I wouldn’t necessarily be in danger. Plus, I knew some judo.

Oh, the rationalizations a girl who urgently needs a bathroom will make.

“Okay. I’ll go inside with you. Briefly. Until we can reach the towing company. Otherwise, I will have many people out looking for me, and they will descend on your place like a swarm of locusts if I’m not home in a matter of hours.”

Much to my consternation most of the time. I was well and truly sick of being so overprotected by my family, though I loved them for their concern. It was just hard to have much of a life when you were watched like a rabid animal expected at any moment to go on a rampage through town.

In truth, I just mostly studied and worked, along with spending time with my bestie and my boyf—

Yep, not going there.

“Not if I tie you up and make you call them to say you’re okay and not to look for you. Then I might throw your chair in the basement and leave you without food and water.”

His voice was entirely too serious, which was how I guessed he was lying. It was a gamble, but I was going to bet that the usual serial killer didn’t advertise his intentions so brazenly. “You forgot to add that you’d have your way with me first.”

“Hoping, Red?” Before I could stammer out a response, he grabbed my arm and towed me behind him. “Not my type, remember?”

“I didn’t say yes,” I called.

He promptly ignored me.

After dragging me up a short snowy hill, we made our way up a scarcely shoveled path to a short set of rickety steps. He stopped to pick up some wood, then stomped up the steps and pressed his shoulder into the door. “Come on,” he shouted in my general direction before barreling into the dark house.

Hell, I didn’t even know if it was truly his. He could be an illegal squatter there for all I knew.

The fact of the matter was that I knew most of the people in Turnbull. This was on the outskirts, true, and the occasional person came or went without stirring my notice, but we lived in a small, self-contained area. We might be surrounded by trees and hills and blocked in by mountains of snow for almost half the year, due to our proximity to Lake Ontario, but we kept track of our own.

Also, it was hard to make quick getaways when a snowpocalypse wasn’t a disaster so much as a way of life.

Biting my lip, I cast a quick glance back toward the road. In the time it had taken us to walk up to the house—though calling it that seemed to be an overstatement—my poor car had become even more buried. The snow wasn’t coming down in flakes now. More like pellets.

“Red,” he growled. “Forget the damn bread.”

Something about his irritation made me laugh. I clapped a hand over my mouth, then bent at the waist when more laughter rolled out. I couldn’t catch my breath and what breaths I could take were laced with ice. Crappy time to be on the verge of hysteria.

Guess my accident had shook me up more than I’d thought. Or else it was due to the man himself.

So I stood up straight, threw back my shoulders, and strutted inside in my giant boots to my beheading.

At least he’d turned on the lights. As I shut the door behind me and shifted to survey my surroundings, from down the hall came a string of curse words shot off in succession like gunfire.

My eyes widened. If he was trying to ease me into feeling comfortable before he struck, he wasn’t too good at it.

“Are you okay?” I asked carefully, darting glances right and left as I crept up the hallway to where his voice was coming from.

And stopped dead at the mouth of the sparse, rustic kitchen.

He was standing at the stove in nothing but a pair of silky black boxers with a spatula in his hand, poking at whatever congealed mess was in his dented pan. It was one like you’d see in a camping kit, meant to be used on nights under the stars and no other time, ever. But that was his home cookware.

Fit him somehow, as did the intricate swirls and lines of dark ink that wrapped around his muscular shoulders and biceps. More ink covered his back and sides. He was a human canvas, tattooed and rippling with muscle.

I didn’t find that arousing. That he was the exact opposite of my lanky, inkless ex was merely something I noted.

“Fucking burner is fucking out.” He stabbed at the red mass in his pan. Without sparing me a glance, he continued. “Why are you still dressed like a damn polar bear? Get out of those wet clothes. You were standing in a snowbank for a good fifteen minutes or more.”

“Polar bears don’t need clothing, as they have fur.”

That he only growled made me laugh. And cautiously unwind my scarf.

While he continued to fiddle with the non-working stove, I cleared my throat. “You have a microwave. Just heat up the soup.” Cautiously, I stepped closer and peered at the gross stuff he kept trying to stir. “That is soup, right?”

“Yes. Tomato. I was going to make grilled cheese to go with it. Can’t now, because fucking burner is—”

“Fucking out,” I finished, surprised by how liberating it felt to curse. There weren’t any tip jars here.

No furnace either apparently, as it was nearly as cold inside as it had been out. Or else I’d caught a serious freaking chill.

“Look at you. Your teeth are chattering.” He turned to me and yanked off my fuzzy hat, causing the long hair I’d tucked underneath to come tumbling out. He gazed at it as if he was surprised I had hair at all, then managed to shake off his shock and tugged off my earmuffs too.

Sound rushed into my ears, including the uneven hiss of his breaths through his tightly clenched teeth.

I raised my gaze to his. He was staring at me in a way I wasn’t used to from men. When a girl grew up in a small town with three strapping, overprotective brothers, you got used to guys being too afraid to take their shot. As such, I’d grown accustomed to dating the safe, parental-friendly boys. I liked them. They were predictable. No serial killers in the bunch.

None of them made my blood heat the way this one was with merely a heavy-lidded look.

He gripped my hat and earmuffs in his hands, crumpling them. This close to him, without even the buffer of his clothes, he seemed even more huge. Tall, muscled, dangerous.

I didn’t know that kind of male. Had never wanted to.

Until now.

“Keep going,” I said softly, challenging myself as much as I was him. I gestured to the rest of my outerwear. “Lots more clothes to strip off me, Wolf.”