Nah, the whole line about how sex was like pizza, even when it was bad it was good, pretty much applied only to the bro-dudes-in-finance kind of person. Six months of occasional orgasms while banging Mediocre Matt on the regular had taught her that. There was no way she was going to rethink her decision to send him packing.
Ian put the skillet down on a grate in the fireplace and turned around. Her brain hollered at her to play it cool, but her whole body did a hello-good-morning-to-me shiver of appreciation.
“Are you cold?” he asked as he stretched his arms and rolled his neck from side to side.
No, she most definitely was not; watching the way his muscles moved as he lifted his arms and brought them across his chest was mesmerizing. “I’m good. You like to cook?”
“I like to eat, so cooking is part of it.” He turned back to the skillet, flipping the bacon and then cracking two eggs into the pan.
“What can I do?” she asked, throwing back the covers and getting up before she realized her sleep pants had worked their way down—waaaaaaaay down—in the middle of the night.
Ian glanced back over his shoulder at her and froze. His gaze dropped to her exposed lower belly and lingered for two breaths too long as he worked his jaw back and forth before his focus traveled slowly up her body.
Her breath caught as she stood there, feeling naked under his attention, as electricity zinged through her and touched every nerve ending. Her nipples pebbled under her thermal underwear that left pretty much nothing to the imagination when it came to her high beams. She had to clasp her hands together to resist the urge to touch them, to roll their peaks between her fingers to dull the building ache inside her.
Ian turned back around, his shoulders stiff, then said, “You can get the plates.”
Hitching up her pants while trying to make it look like she wasn’t, she crossed the living room. “From the kitchen? Yeah, sure, sure, the kitchen. I will get them.”
Way to sound like you aren’t a giant weirdo, Shelby girl.
Like there was any hope of that around Ian Petrov.
Beyond his scruffy hotness, he was from hockey royalty. She knew his stats, his pregame meal preferences, and she’d let slip his deepest secret—one he hadn’t even known he had. So yeah, she would never be able to just act normal around him. And with that reminder, the idea of breakfast became totally unappealing.
After delivering a plate, bottle of water, napkin, and utensils, she gathered up some clothes in a bundle and headed toward the bathroom. “You go ahead without me.”
He looked down at the single place setting on the coffee table. “You’re not eating?”
“The snow stopped, so I’m gonna go see if I can shovel my car out and get out of your hair.” And yeah, she needed to get out of here before she made an idiot of herself by getting caught ogling him.
“The roads aren’t safe,” he said as he took the cast-iron skillet off the grate and slid the eggs and bacon onto the waiting plate.
“Well, once they are, I’ll be all ready.” Yeah, that sounded totally believable and not at all like she needed a snowbank between them to get her wayward body back under control.
He let out a rumbling sigh. “Is it because being here alone with me makes you uncomfortable?”
Not in the way he was thinking. She caught herself staring at the vee lines that disappeared under his waistband and jerked her focus back up to his face where it should have been the whole time.
“It’s not that.” She started toward the bathroom again. “Lucy obviously made a mistake, and I’m the one who should leave when the roads are better. You had plans that didn’t involve me, and I’ll let you get back to them.”
“And I can’t change your mind?”
She plastered on a cheery smile that she hoped didn’t look totally off-kilter. “Nope.”
Nodding, he shrugged. “Okay, then.”
She hadn’t expected him to give in so easily, but she’d take the victory. Making good on her win, she hurried off to the bathroom to change. By the time she got back, Ian was nowhere to be seen. A frigid blast of air hit her as soon as she stepped out onto the porch and reached for where the shovel had been the night before. It was gone. That’s when she spotted Ian still in those shouldn’t-be-sexy-but-were blue pants and a thick parka shoveling out his car.
Victory? More like total subterfuge!
Oh no. That is not how this is supposed to go. I’m the one who should be shoveling out my car.
She marched over, sticking to the narrow path he’d cleared between the porch and the vehicles, and held out her hand. “My shovel, please.”
He lifted it above his head where she had no hopes of reaching it unless she climbed him like a tree, which—as tempting as it was—she was not going to do because she had some pride left.
“The roads aren’t safe yet,” he said, as if that explained his overprotective-bordering-on-patronizing actions.
“What, you think I’m going to squeal off, leaving nothing but burned rubber on the snowpack?” She planted her hands on her hips and glared up at him. “I don’t have a death wish.”
“Good, then I’ll clear out my car, and I’ll leave when the roads clear up so you don’t have to drive on the roads.”
She held out her hand again, just like last night when she’d checked his thumb. “Give me the shovel.”
“If you want it, you’ll have to take it,” Ian said.
Of all the high-handed things. It wasn’t fair. She was taking the high road. She was giving him the cabin. She was going to win.
“This isn’t fair,” she said.
He just shrugged.
Frustration winning out, Shelby grabbed a handful of snow and shoved it right in Ian’s face. She had three seconds of oh-shit-what-did-I-just-do making her pulse spike before he started
