The shower looked empty. Heart in his throat, Noah set the mug down on the counter and yanked open the glass door.
And felt his heart crack.
Bailey was huddled on the floor in a ball, her head bent over her knees.
Yeah, all distance had definitely gone out the window. He’d done as she’d wanted; he’d gotten her to Mammoth. Now he should turn around and get her the hell out of here, or walk away.
But he couldn’t.
He couldn’t walk away from her and didn’t know who could.
She hadn’t moved. Concerned, he stepped right into the shower and squatted down at her side. “Bailey.”
She jerked as if she’d been shot, and then stared at him from hollow, haunted eyes.
She’d fallen asleep, he realized, just sitting right there, too exhausted to even move.
He knew how she felt. Even now, with the water beating down on his back, soaking into his jeans, he felt the same.
The water was beating down on her as well, and with her hair in her face, and the little bit of mascara she’d had left smudged beneath her eyes, she looked like a drowned rat.
Ah, hell, who was he kidding? She looked hot. Way too hot to touch, but he couldn’t just leave her there. He stood and turned off the water. “Come on, Princess,” he murmured, and scooped her up into his arms. Not noticing how her bare wet skin felt in his hands, he told himself. Not noticing that her pale blue satin panties and pink bra had gone sheer, and snug as a second skin, revealing far more than they hid.
Christ, she was mouth-watering.
Nope, not noticing. He tossed a towel around her, did his best to dry her off some, and carried her into the bedroom. He went to set her down on the floor next to the bed so that he could pull back the comforter, but she tightened her grip around his neck and burrowed in, making a soft little sound that tugged right at his gut.
“I’ve got to set you down,” he said. “And get your wet things off.”
She loosened her hold, and he let her slide to the carpet, maybe coincidentally keeping her snug against him as he leaned over the mattress and yanked down the covers.
Or not coincidentally.
Dropping the towel, she moved to crawl into the bed, but he stopped her. “Your things…” He gestured to her bra and panties, which were outlining every curve and nuance. Her breasts were pushed up, her nipples two tight points. Her belly rose and fell quickly with her stressed breathing. And those panties, the way they clung to her every single jaw-dropping, sexy, erotic inch.
But he might as well try to stop breathing.
Or to not get impossibly hard at the sight of her.
Yeah, like that was in his control.
“Sorry,” she actually said, and reached behind her to unhook her bra, while he stood there afraid his tongue would fall out and embarrass him.
A man should not go six months without sex, he told himself. Should. Not. Because now, suddenly, the only thing that was going to make him feel better was exactly that, complete with a mind-blowing orgasm, the hotter, the sweatier, the wilder, the better.
It was crazy, beyond crazy, but after the unexpectedly rough flight with the landing gear troubles, then the goons with guns, the wild goose chase…they were finally going to end up naked.
Just to prevent hypothermia.
A big, fat lie, by the way. He hated liars, and he’d become one, but with the feeling of Bailey wrapped around him like warm honey as she’d been, he didn’t give a shit.
She was struggling with the clasp on her bra, her motions lethargic, as if she was so out of energy she could barely move. In the meantime, with her arms behind her, her breasts were thrust out like two ripe offerings. Water from her hair dripped down her belly and into her panties, which concealed exactly nothing, not the fact that she was neatly trimmed or that she was a natural strawberry blonde.
Jesus.
“I can’t-” Her voice was slurred with sheer exhaustion.
“Here.” Putting his hands to her shoulders, he turned her around and brushed her hands aside. Her shoulders and neck were bared because her hair had fallen to her front, showing off her smooth, beautiful back, the way her sexy-as-hell panties had given her a world-class wedgie-
“Noah?”
Right. The bra. “Yeah,” he said, tearing his eyes off her ass and the wet satin invading it, his voice sounding rough even to his own ears as he unhooked her bra.
Head bent, she let the material fall to the floor. Unable to help himself, his gaze slid back down. “Uh-”
Her fingers hooked into the little wisp of material still at her hips.
Again, he stopped breathing.
With a tug and a little shimmy, she began to slide the panties off.
And for just a moment, he actually died.
Oblivious, she bent over, and he realized he hadn’t died, not yet anyway, because there was blood rushing through his veins, beating with a loud BOOM, BOOM, BOOM at the sight of her as she bent, naked, totally exposed-
“Tired,” she murmured, and straightening, crawled up onto the mattress, nearly making his eyes pop right out of their sockets at the sight of her briefly on all fours as she moved to the center of the bed.
She was the most gorgeous, sexiest thing he’d ever seen.
Then she slipped beneath the covers, turned on her side away from him, and didn’t budge.
“Yeah, uh…I’ll just crank the electric blanket.” He did that, then stood there like the fool he was, dripping all over the carpet, shivering, hard as a rock.
And there was nothing, nothing in the world, worse than being in wet Levi’s when hard as a rock.
She didn’t move.
“I’m going to get out of my wet things,” he heard himself say.
She didn’t care. Or at least she didn’t say a word.
He unbuttoned his Levi’s and grimaced as he attempted to shuck himself out of the wet denim. He’d already kicked off his shoes, so he tried to get his drenched sock off, but that turned out not to be a good idea with his jeans stuck wet and clinging to his thighs, and he fell over.
Lying on the floor, his ass hanging out, his legs caught in the damned wet jeans, he sighed. “I’m okay,” he said.
To no one.
When he managed to kick free of the jeans, he stood up. All he could see of Bailey was the top of her still damp hair, but he could have sworn he could hear her teeth chattering together.
Damn.
Well, that left him no choice, right? He had to warm her up, ward off the impending hypothermia. It was his civic duty. So he quickly dried off, lifted the edge of the comforter, and slid in. Oh, yeah, the sheets were warm, thanks to the electric blanket and the down comforter.
So he had no idea why he breached the halfway point of the huge bed and bumped up against a nude, curvy, deliciously warm Bailey. Oops. He was on her side. Unfortunately, his arms slid around her before he could stop himself, and he pulled her back against his chest and thighs, snuggling in.
“Mmm,” left her lips, but other than that, she said nothing.
Nor did she move away. In fact, she didn’t move at all.
Encouraged by that, he braced his head on one hand, the other skimming up her side as he looked down at the only thing visible outside the covers-her face.
And had to laugh.
She was asleep. As in dead-to-the-world, one-hundred-percent asleep, while he was hotter than he’d ever been, harder than he’d ever been…
For a woman so terrorized, she didn’t even realize he was in bed with her. He didn’t care. He had no idea how sick that made him, but was fairly certain it made him pretty sick.
In her sleep, she snuffled and made some sort of soft whimper. “Shh,” he murmured, hand on her belly,
