CHAPTER SIX
Dillon watched Kit disappear into the bedroom. To put more clothes on.
Well, that was fine. For now. But she was running. She always ran. In the past, he’d had to deal with it. She wasn’t wrong when she said a relationship between them was complicated. But those complications were over now. They lived in the same town, they were here working together, and, no matter what she said, they did like each other. A lot.
Having a long-term relationship with Kit wouldn’t be easy. She wasn’t easy. She was demanding and opinionated and proud and strong.
And he wouldn’t have her any other way.
And she couldn’t run this time. Not very far, at least.
He ate his chili without tasting it. Then he tried hers. It was amazing. Of course. He had yet, in all the years of knowing her and competing against her, to find something Kit Derby wasn’t amazing at.
Except admitting her own feelings, of course. Which was ironic, considering her profession was to make people—okay, help people—admit their feelings.
He grabbed a beer from Grace’s fridge and finished off the second bowl of chili, too. And realized Kit was stalling. Or planned to stay in that bedroom all night. Which was fine with him. Kit and bedrooms were a fantastic combination. But he would be on the other side of that door if that were the case. Or maybe she’d fallen asleep because he’d worn her out.
Dillon’s body pulsed with need as he thought about their physical activity. Damn, that woman did things to him.
And she was going to talk dirty for him before this night was over.
Dillon rinsed the bowls by the light of the flashlight, and then his patience was officially used up. He stalked to the bedroom door and turned the knob.
Kit wasn’t asleep. But she was in bed, under the covers. And reading a book by flashlight.
And the emotion that slammed into him at the sight of her like that wasn’t frustration or desire. It was, Holy shit I want that. Not sexual want but deeper, every-night-forever want. He wanted Kit propped up in bed reading a book when he came through the door every single night.
Dillon gripped the doorknob tightly and took a deep breath. “Seriously?” he finally said.
She looked up. “What?”
What? Really? “You didn’t eat,” he pointed out.
“I realized I wasn’t really hungry.”
Uh-huh. She’d been hungry when she’d been spread out on the table and riding him in the kitchen chair.
And like that, the lust was back twofold. Dillon shifted. “Thought we were going to get the fireplace going.”
“It’s pretty warm in here under the blankets.”
“Is it now.” It wasn’t an invitation, but he didn’t care. He strolled to the side of the bed and reached for the covers.
“You need more clothes on,” she said, lifting an arm and pointing to the closet.
That was when Dillon realized that she was wearing gloves, and her arm was covered in a thick, bulky long sleeve. She had a hoodie zipped up to her chin, a stocking cap on her head, and a scarf around her neck.
It astonished him to realize that when he’d come through the bedroom doorway, those details hadn’t registered. It had been the overall picture and the way his mind had transposed the sight onto an image of his own bedroom. She’d been in his bed, propped up against his headboard. And she’d been wearing a skimpy silk nightgown.
He was either drunk from that one beer in Grace’s fridge, so overcome with lust for this woman that he couldn’t see straight, or he was losing his mind.
Or maybe he just wanted all of that—her in his bed all the time, not just for quickie sex here and there—that his imagination was four steps ahead of reality. Or forty hundred steps.
There was a ways to go before Kit would be up against his headboard for reasons other than him tying her there with silk ties . . .
Dillon reined in that part of his imagination, too. Holy hell, he was in trouble if he couldn’t even make it through a normal conversation without imagining tying her up for sex. Or marrying her.
He cleared his throat. “More clothes.” Maybe that was a good idea. Maybe the sex had, literally, blown his mind. He needed to get a grip. He crossed to the closet. “You think there’s stuff for me in here?”
“There’s some stuff of my grandpa’s on the left side,” she said.
Dillon glanced over at her. “Really? He’s been gone a long time, hasn’t he?”
She laid down her book. “Yeah. Fifteen years.”
“Wow.”
“She said she’s never going to be over him. They moved everything into this house together, including the clothes, and she said if he can’t help her move it out, it’s not leaving.”
Dillon felt a pang in his chest. Wow.
“You think it’s okay if I wear some of it?” He didn’t really remember Kit’s grandpa. He had no idea how big of a man he’d been.
“As long as you don’t leave with it on,” she said.
He looked over to find her watching him, a soft smile on her lips. He wondered if she even knew she was smiling. He liked it. He liked all of this. Him riffling through the closet for clothes while she watched him. As if they’d done it a million times before. It was so . . . domestic. And weird.
He turned back to the closet. Now that the power had been off for a while, the north wind against the old house with probably less-than-adequate insulation was cooling the house off quickly. “We really should go out into the living room.” For one thing, her in this bedroom was messing with more than his libido, and that was concerning him slightly. Not greatly but slightly. And not because he was allergic to the idea of domesticity or settling down and having someone in his bed reading every night before she went to sleep. But because he wanted it to be Kit. That seemed as clear as anything had ever been. And it had taken only a blizzard to make him see it. Okay, a tornado and a blizzard. Thank God he’d figured it out before they had a major flood or something.
But he had a feeling that convincing Kit of that was going to be tough.
“I’m good right here,” she said from the bed.
He sighed. Because everything with Kit was tough. It was like she was programmed to give him a hard time. Unless he was touching her bare skin. She’d argue the color of the sky with him. Unless he was kissing her neck.
He studied his selection of male clothing. Apparently George had really liked suits. “Was your grandpa a banker or something?” he asked.
“Insurance.”
“Ah.” Finally, he pulled a pair of sweatpants and a white dress shirt off their hangers, plus a red sweater from the upper shelf, and grabbed a suit jacket. Hey, it wasn’t about fashion. It was about layers. And not freezing to death.
He shrugged out of the robe that was definitely no barrier to the draft in the room as he turned to face Kit.
She didn’t say anything, and she certainly didn’t avert her eyes.
He started pulling the clothes on. “I’m afraid I’m going to have to insist on you coming out to the living room where the fireplace is.”
She lifted an eyebrow. “You’re going to have to insist?”
“In other words, I’ll carry your pretty ass out there if I have to. And hold you down if you try to leave.” His body stirred at the idea. “Now that I think about it, please make me carry you out there and hold you down.”
Kit opened her mouth to respond, then snapped it shut. She threw the covers back and got out of the bed.
So she did know when not to push him. Interesting.
She came around the end of the bed, and he got a good look at her. She had to have been wearing two pairs of sweatpants, at least. She also clearly had on a few pairs of socks, a sweatshirt under her sweatshirt, and . . . dammit, she looked cute.
“You’re doing it again,” he told her as he pulled on the suit jacket. Her grandfather had been a little smaller than Dillon but not much, and he was grateful the layers were going to work.
“Doing what?” She stopped and looked up at him.
“The cute thing again.”
She looked genuinely puzzled by that. “What’d I do?”
He moved closer. “Why? So you can keep doing it or so you can stop? Because you remember what happened last time.” Her cheeks went instantly pink.
“So I can stop,” she finally said.
But it seemed that she’d had to think about that. “Hmm,” he said. “Well, I’m not sure you can stop doing something you’re unintentionally doing in the first place.” That was the key, Dillon realized. She was cute because her defenses were down. They’d never spent time together that felt so . . . normal. And she couldn’t keep her walls up around him indefinitely. Not when they were stuck together, and she was out of her element—like the hospital or running city committees or just generally kicking ass—she had to let them down, and then she was definitely cute.
“What’s cute about this?” she asked, looking down at her crazy outfit.
He reached up and tugged on the edge of the stocking hat. “You’re sexy as hell in your skirts and heels. You’re kick-ass in jeans and T-shirts and work boots. But in mismatched clothes that belong to your grandmother because you’re trying not to freeze to death, you’re cute. That’s the best I can explain it.”
“Earlier, when you said I was cute, I wasn’t wearing clothes.”
And there was the sass. Never far from the surface. She might relax and let down her guard a bit, but she’d never not be willing to go toe-to-toe with him.
“That’s true. I guess maybe it’s just you, then.” And it was. It wasn’t the clothes. Or the lack of clothes. It was just her being real. And that should have worried him more than it did. “A new layer I’ve discovered.” He moved in even closer so she had to tip her head back to keep eye contact. “You know how I love discovering new things about you.”
“Yeah, yeah, you’ve learned how to make me say dirty words.”
He grinned. He had done that. “Well, I was actually referring to when I found out that you’re addicted to Parks and Rec. But yeah, the dirty-words thing was an awesome discovery, too.”
She was obviously surprised. “You remember that?”
“That you watched Parks and Rec whenever you were on the treadmill at the gym?” he asked. They’d also discovered that they both liked to work out late at night when the gym down the block from the main building of the medical school was mostly deserted. He’d found her there the first night by accident, but the combination of her sweet ass in workout pants and the fact that he didn’t like her being there so late alone quickly made his three-days-a-week gym habit into six days. She’d been good for his cardio.
And other things.
“Of course I remember,” he told her. “I’ve always loved your laugh.”
He wasn’t sure he’d intended to say that, but it was true. She’d watch the show on her phone propped on the reading rack on the treadmill. She always wore earbuds, so he couldn’t hear the show, but he could hear her laughing.
That had done crazy things to his libido, too. Or his heart. But he liked to chalk it up to physical attraction versus anything more complicated. At least, he had in the past. Now he was starting to think that complicated was inevitable. And exactly what he wanted.
“I . . .” She seemed downright stunned. “I didn’t realize you’d paid attention,” she finally said.
“I have, most definitely, paid attention,” he told her. “I know that you study with classical music, but you unwind with classic rock, and that you party with country.”
Her eyes were almost completely round now. “How . . . how do you . . .”
“I’ve studied with you, and I’ve been with you at parties, Kit.”
She cleared her throat. “Unwinding and partying are different?”
He shrugged. “Evidently. When you unwind, you prop your feet up and you drink wine, slowly, and you sing along to Bon Jovi and Guns N’ Roses. When you’re in the mood to party, you dance, you laugh, you drink hard liquor, and you love Garth Brooks and Dierks Bentley.” He watched her process that and felt like he’d just won a major competition. He fucking loved making Kit Derby speechless.
“I’m right, aren’t I?” he asked. Just like making her talk dirty, he did love to make her admit when he’d done something well or had done something that impressed her.
“I just . . .” Finally, she nodded. “Yeah, you’re right.”
“Some of my favorite words from you.”
She rolled her eyes.
“I guess that I’ve noticed how you unwind and party, because those times are rare,” he added. “And you’re always beautiful, but you’re fucking gorgeous when you’re having a good time and relaxing.”
Again, she was clearly stunned.
“We should make a fire,” she finally said.
He became aware that it was indeed getting a little chilly. “I’m all over it,” he told her, taking her hand as he headed down the short hallway. And she let him. And it felt natural. All of which was interesting.
Once in the living room, Dillon went to work building the fire. He was certain Kit knew how to build a fire, but he kind of liked doing the manual-labor stuff. It wasn’t especially evolved or liberated, probably, but he liked the idea of doing things to help take care of her and this situation. Just like he’d told Sarah on the phone—guys liked to do things. And he’d been doing a lot of talking tonight already. Judging by Kit’s reactions, he was doing okay, but that wasn’t his forte. He should probably reel it in while he was ahead.
Kit gathered blankets from around the house. When she came back into the room the second time, the fire was roaring, and she tossed her armload of blankets and pillows onto the floor. “It’s freezing upstairs,” she told him. “Since she pretty much lives down here, Grandma shuts the vents and the doors up there to keep from paying to heat the whole house.”
“I noticed. But the water was hot.” He stretched from his crouch in front of the fire. “Want me to open the vents up there?”
“It’s just for one night, and it will take a while to warm things up even if you do,” she said. “We should just stay down here.”
He looked down the hallway toward the bedroom they’d just come from. “Oh?”
There was only one bed on this floor that he knew of.
“Yeah. The couch is okay with you, right?”
Couch. Right. He should have seen that coming. He nodded. “Sure. Hell, it’s warmer out here than it will be back in that bedroom.”
She studied the fire. “That’s true.”
“You can cuddle up with me on the couch,” he said generously. “I don’t mind sharing body heat with you at all.”
Kit ignored that. She went to the couch and pulled it away from the wall. “Maybe I’ll take the couch.”
Dillon chuckled as he went to the other end of the couch and helped her move it closer to the fireplace. “I’ll fight you for it.”
Her eyes lifted to his. “Oh, really?”
He nodded. “Winner takes the nice warm couch by the fire. Loser gets the colder bedroom.”
“And how are you going to fight me?” she asked, straightening from her end of the couch.
“Well, we could wrestle,” he said, eyeing the pile of blankets in front of the couch.
“Or?” she asked.
He laughed and looked around. His gaze fell on the cabinet underneath the television. It had a glass door, and he could see the board games and decks of cards stacked on the two shelves inside. “Strip poker,” he said, moving toward the cabinet.
“I suck at poker,” she said.
He turned with an eyebrow up. Kit had just admitted to not being good at something? He really was getting her out of her element. “All the more reason I want to play, then,” he said, squatting in front of the glass door.
“Something else,” she said.
“Strip something else,” he tossed back.
“We’re going to strip? I thought the main objective here was staying warm.”
He pivoted on the balls of his feet to give her a slow smile. “Exactly.”
She didn’t argue further. “Monopoly.”
He groaned. “Monopoly takes forever. And what will you strip for?”
“Every time I have to go to jail?”
“No way. That’s not going to happen often enough.”
She laughed softly. “You’re not even going to try to pretend that this game, whatever it is, isn’t all about getting me naked?”
“Nope,” Dillon said, studying the selection again. “And you’ll be naked again.”
“Right,” she said drily. “Well, why don’t we just arm wrestle, you win, and I take my clothes off.”
Dillon opened the cabinet and pulled a long rectangular box from the shelf. He pivoted to face her, holding it up. “Because I have a better idea.”
She looked from the box to him. “Chutes and Ladders? That’s a better idea than me just stripping down?”
He grinned. There was no question that he wanted her naked again, but he liked surprising her. And the fact that he wanted to talk to her as well as lick her from head to toe would probably really surprise her. Because it kind of surprised him. Not that she wasn’t fun to talk to. She was one of the brightest, sharpest, smartest people he knew. But being offered the chance to just get her naked by pinning her wrists to the floor really did seem like something he’d jump right on.
But apparently this was what happened when he and Kit were given prolonged time alone together. They’d never had that before. And he was proud that he was interested in more than just running his hands—and tongue—over every inch of her.
He shut the cabinet and moved to stand in the middle of the blankets. “Every time I go up a ladder, I get to kiss you—wherever I want—for ten seconds. Every time I go down a slide, you can ask me any question you want, and I have to answer.”
She studied him, chewing the inside of her cheek. Then she turned and went into the kitchen.
Dillon frowned but didn’t say anything. He just gave it a minute.
She returned with a bottle in hand. It was a jar that said APPLE CIDER on a handwritten label that was Scotch-taped to the side. “Every time I go up a ladder, I get to take a shot,” she said.
“Of apple cider?” he asked.
“This is Grace’s apple cider,” Kit said with a smile.
Ah, spiked. He nodded. “And the slides?”
She met his eyes directly. “You get to ask me any question you want, and I have to answer.”
“Let’s do this,” he agreed readily. He knelt and started spreading out the blankets. Kit helped, arranging the pillows, and soon they had a nest of blankets in front of the fire that would keep them nice and warm and comfortable. And that would be perfect for laying her back and unzipping her hoodie and . . .
Dillon shut that down. They had a game to play. And he did want to play. He had several places he wanted to kiss her, and he definitely had some questions. He was also very curious about her questions for him.
Kit was studying their arrangement, again chewing the inside of her cheek.
“What?” he asked.
She shook her head. “Nothing.”
“Hey.” When she looked up, he waggled his fingers in the universal sign for Give it to me. “Spill. What are you thinking?”
“Just that . . .” She shrugged. “It would be . . . warmer if we made a fort.”
He blinked at her. “A fort?”
“A blanket fort,” she said, lifting her chin but not quite meeting his eyes.
He looked at their blanket bed.
“If we are more enclosed, it will stay warmer,” she said.
She wasn’t wrong. And being more enclosed sounded like a hell of an idea. And a blanket fort? When was the last time he’d been inside one of those? When he was ten? It sounded like fun, and most of all, it had been Kit’s idea. Yeah, he didn’t need her to strip to be completely, over-the-top turned on by her.
This snowstorm was either going to be the time of his life or the biggest mistake he’d ever made.
“Let’s do it,” he said.
She grinned, and he knew that he’d made the right decision. Even if he was now never going to get over her.
With Kit’s instructions, they moved the sofa even closer to the fireplace, then they secured some of the lighter-weight blankets to the mantel by setting a lamp and three bricks from the back porch on top of the edges and using the hooks that were always there for Christmas stockings. Then they draped the blankets down and over the back of the couch. Once those were in place, they added two sheets, one on either side, to make walls. The rest of the blankets and pillows were again arranged on the floor.
Dillon ducked under one side, studying the finished product. It was a perfect, cozy, romantic tent. He might never leave.
Kit crawled in on the other side and grabbed a pillow. She tucked it under her butt and crisscrossed her legs. And she looked really cute doing it.
“Ah,” she sighed, pulling her hat from her head and unwrapping the scarf. “That’s nice.”
Dillon joined her, choosing another pillow and facing her with enough space to lay the game board out between them.
“Ladies first,” he said, after he’d spread the board out and they’d positioned their markers. He handed her the die, and she rolled.
Nothing happened on Kit’s first move, but Dillon rolled a four, which meant he got to climb a ladder.
Kit said nothing as he leaned over the board and braced his hands on the floor on either side of her knees. He leaned in and murmured, “So hard to decide where to start kissing you. So many awesome options.” He pressed his lips to hers, mentally counted to ten—and then three more—before leaning back.
She blinked her eyes open slowly, then without a word, she reached for the die and tossed it again. And got nothing. Dillon also simply moved spaces on his next turn. They played without talking, without any noise except the crackling of the fire and the sound of the die hitting the board.
“Screw this,” Kit said when she rolled yet another number that gave her no chute or ladder. She grabbed the jar of apple cider and unscrewed the top, tipping the Mason jar for a long drink.
She looked up at him as she swallowed. He’d been watching the whole time.
“What?” she asked, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand.
He shrugged. “Cute.”
She frowned slightly, then shook her head. “It seems that everything I do that’s something you’ve never seen me do before is cute.”
“It does seem that way.”
She hesitated, then took another drink of cider. She swallowed and asked, “So do you like cute me better or the usual me better?”
Dillon was sure his surprise was evident on his face. Wow, so she was starting the questions and without even having the game as an excuse. He leaned over and looked at the board. He moved his game piece to square forty-seven, the top of a chute, and then slid it down to number twenty-six.
“That’s cheating,” Kit pointed out.
“But I slid back down.”
“But you’re now on space twenty-six, and you were on twenty-one before.”
He shrugged. “Okay, we can wait for me to answer that question until I get to a slide for real.” He picked up the die and started to toss it.
“Wait,” Kit interrupted.
He looked up, fighting a grin. “Yeah?”
“Fine. You can have space twenty-six.”
“You really want the answer to that question, huh?” he asked. It was an easy one. He’d expected her to delve into his need to work in high-pressure, fast-paced, sometimes grim situations, or his need to constantly ruffle her feathers, or if he was really happy being back in Chance.
She just looked at him.
“Okay, the answer is both.”
She blinked. Then shook her head. “No way. You have to actually answer the question.”
“That is the answer. I like both sides of you.”
“Fine. But which do you like best?”
He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. “Okay, honestly? Before today, I would have said the kick-ass, take-no-shit, knock-me-on-my-ass-sexy side. But now, I realize it’s only because I thought I’d seen you let your hair down and relax. But I’ve never seen you actually tilted off your axis. Until today. And yeah, Kit, I like it. A lot.”
She studied him, as if trying to gauge how sincere he was being. And he let her look. Because he meant every damned word. This Kit he could happily hang out with every day forever. The other one—hell, he could hang out with her, too, but it wasn’t until he was sitting in a blanket fort playing Chutes and Ladders that he realized how much energy it took to keep up with her, to be on his toes, to be ready to spar with her at any moment. He loved the idea of taking it easy with her, just having fun. Like lying in a hammock with her plastered against his side on a warm summer day. Or sitting with her hand in his in a movie theater. Or tucking her into a booth next to him at the bar while they hung out with friends. Or playing a silly game in a blanket fort during a snowstorm.
They’d worked together, they’d argued with each other, they’d had off-the-charts sex, they’d hung out with groups of friends and attended the same social functions from weddings to fund-raisers to house parties, but they’d never played. Not just the two of them. They’d never had just a normal, fun day together.
Until now.
And while he’d been pretty wrapped up in her before, he was now officially addicted.