My first knock goes unanswered. So do my second, and my third. Finally, I give in and try the doorknob. I’m getting desperate with the cold sinking slowly into my bones.

To my surprise—and delight—the doorknob turns easily. I push it open and stumble across the threshold into a warm, cozily lit living room. There’s a fire already burning in the hearth, merry and bright in a space this small. Despite the threat of the snowstorm outside, there’s something instantly homey and comforting about the sight of flames dancing across wood logs. It reminds me of cozying up with Daddy and my big brothers around the fireplace at the ski lodge we normally rent every Christmas.

I pause beside the hearth, warming my hands as I glance around the living room. There aren’t a lot of revealing details—a few picture frames of a man and woman, both blondes, grinning at the camera. Other than that, just a lot of squishy plaid couches and shag carpets, plus some standard deer antlers decorating the chandeliers. Someone’s weekend ski cabin, clearly.

I’m still studying the photos when I hear footsteps in another room. My heart leaps, but I force it to slow again. I’m the intruder here, not this person.

“Hello?” I call as I move away from the fire, toward the sound. There’s another room directly off the living room—the kitchen, to judge by the scent emanating from it. Bacon and another open fire. “I’m sorry—I don’t mean to intrude. It’s just, the front door was open. I got caught in the storm, couldn’t drive any farther…”

I step into the kitchen fully. That’s when I stop dead.

No way.

No fucking way.

This is impossible. This is just your luck, Corina, my subconscious points out. It has a point, I must admit.

Because standing there, in the middle of the kitchen, like the most impossible specter you could imagine, is none other than Professor Tony Lakewood himself.

I rub my eyes for a second, just to make sure they aren’t playing tricks on me. Unfortunately, Professor Lakewood remains standing right where he was a second ago, with a fistful of kindling in one hand, and the other poised on the oven door, which he’d clearly just opened in order to restock the fire. To judge by the way his eyebrows shoot upward and his gaze drops over my body, as though double-checking to ensure I’m real, I can guess I’m every bit as unexpected and unwelcome a sight to him as he is to me.

He finds his tongue first. “Caught out in the cold, Corina?” He tosses the rest of the kindling in into the oven and slams the door shut. The kitchen seems to warm instantly—though maybe that’s just all the blood rushing to my face as I blush.

Damn him. Somehow it’s more irritating to me how attractive he is. His sharp-cut cheekbones and the dark stubble dusting his strong jaw, below his thin-frame glasses and his dark hair, tousled like he’s just rolled out of bed but in the perfect I-woke-up-this-way manner, make him even more infuriating. He would be exactly my type if he weren’t a) my professor, and b) the worst, most aggravating man I’ve ever known.

“Guess that makes two of us,” I say, crossing my arms and leaning against the doorframe. “What brings you all the way out here in the middle of a blizzard?”

“I could ask the same of you,” he points out. “Though I won’t. I can already guess what brings you here. Escaping to some glamorous ski holiday rather than actually committing to your studies again, I assume.”

“To assume makes an ass out of you and me,” I retort with a scowl. Even though he’s right. Only partly, I remind myself. It’s not like I normally escape on ski weekends. And he’s the reason I need to right now.

“If you spent the time you took to run away like this on your work, you might actually have a passable grade in my class at the moment,” he laments while turning to reach up and check that the flue is open. Doing so exposes his lower abs for a second—a flash of tanned, perfectly muscled stomach that makes my belly clench in response. I can’t help ogling his washboard abs, or the way his jeans hang low on his hips, so different from the formal outfits he normally wears to class. His jeans sag low enough that I catch a glimpse of his boxers, and the V-line pointing below them, directly at…

My cheeks flush even brighter, and I tear my gaze away. Only to find him watching me with a self-satisfied smirk.

“So easily distracted, Corina.”

I clear my throat hard. “If by easily distracted, you mean concerned about how much wood we have for that fireplace, then yeah, sure. Call me impractical, but I don’t fancy the idea of freezing to death out here. And you’ve built that fire pretty high for the time being.” I nod my chin in the direction of the chimney.

That, at least, quiets him for a moment. He steps back to study the fireplace, arms crossed. “There’s a wood pile out back. Plenty of supplies.”

“Let me see,” I reply, not trusting the unsure note in his voice.

With one last scowl, he leads me through a narrow kitchen—gas stovetop, that’s good, in case we lose power—and out back. Sure enough, there is a wood stack, complete with a tarp over it to keep the wood dry in the snow. Still, I cross my arms and lean back to study the sky, assessing. “We should bring more of this inside,” I say. “Just in case it really starts to come down. We’ll want to have enough dry wood so we can use it to dry off any wet wood if we need to delve into the deeper reserves later.”

He casts a sideways glance at me, assessing as well. But if he wants to argue, he bites his tongue over it for now. Tony pulls the tarp back a little, and working together, we carry armful after armful of wood into the little mudroom off the kitchen. Every now and then as I pass him squeezing through the narrow back door of the cabin, our arms brush, and a fresh riot of tingles shoot along my skin.

I ignore that and keep my face expressionless, my attention focused on the task at hand. I don’t have time to be distracted by anyone right now, much less him. I need to make sure we’re prepared in case this storm gets as bad as the radio claims it will.

Once we’ve brought in enough wood to last us at least three days, just in case it’s a really thick blizzard—it’ll take the snowplows a while to make it this far up into the mountains—I fix the tarp over the remaining wood and head back into the house to assess the rest of the cabin.

For his part, Professor Lakewood just leans back against the gas stove and watches me move around the cabin.

Right. So there’s a tiny little living room with a small couch—not big enough for anyone to sleep on unless they curl up into fetal position. Aside from that and the wood-burning stove, there’s the kitchen—really just a galley kitchen with the stovetop, a tiny sink, and a little icebox with some basics inside. I find a few jugs of water, some dry goods—mostly cereal and preserves, so that’s something. Aside from that, some frozen meat and fish in the tiny fridge—hard to judge how old it is, but when I scrape off some ice patches to read the sell-by date, it still looks good. And we can stick that out in the snow to keep if the power fails.

Beyond the kitchen is the real dilemma, though. I stop short on the threshold and stare a moment at the bedroom. It’s tiny, even smaller than the kitchen. “Bedroom” is a generous word for it, really. More like “sleepable closet.”

Professor Lakewood steps up beside me to peer over my shoulder. “Going to be a cozy fit,” he points out.

That’s putting it lightly. The bed takes up the entire “room,” and it’s a single bed. Plenty of fuzzy blankets to keep warm, and a cute little reading nook beside it stacked with books and a lamp. But definitely not made for more than one person. Let alone two people who currently hate each another.

“I’ll take the couch,” I say.

He scoffs. “Don’t be ridiculous. A child could barely fit on that couch.”

“I’ll make it work.” I spin around and brush past him. Our shoulders collide, and damn him, that distracts me all over again, because I can’t help thinking if we shared that bed, what it would feel like to have his warm, muscular body curled up against mine. How would those washboard abs feel against my backside, with his strong arms wrapped around my waist? And if I arched back against him, pressed my hips to his, would I feel something else? Feel him getting excited by my proximity, growing hard against my ass? How big is the cock he’s hiding in those loose jeans?

I shake myself. Stop it. You hate him, remember?

Luckily, he doesn’t make it easy to forget. “I know problem-solving isn’t your strong suit, Corina, but you have to admit we’ll both need to share the bed. Especially if the temperature drops more than it already has. We’ll need to conserve body heat.”

I grimace with my back still turned. He’s right. That doesn’t mean I need to admit it yet. “Well we’ll just have to wait and see what the temperature does,” I reply. Then I step into the kitchen and eye the wood stack. About a quarter of it is smaller bits and pieces—kindling we’ll be able to use to get the fire started. The rest are big logs. They’ll be good for once we have the heat roaring, but we’ll need a little more in-between pieces.

I grab one of the logs. “I’m going to go chop this,” I say. I let the back door slam behind me, cutting off whatever reply he might have.