Chapter Five #5
There’s no smirk. No "I gotcha" moment. Just mild annoyance, like I’m the one being weird.
Heat floods my face so fast it’s almost painful. I jerk my eyes up to his.
"You could’ve warned me," I snap, voice too sharp to be believable.
He blinks once, genuinely confused.
"I always sleep like this," he says. "Doesn’t everyone sleep nude? It seems unnatural not to."
"No," I snap. "Most people sleep like they’re expecting an intruder to bust through their bedroom door or a fire. No one wants to be naked when the firetrucks or the police show up."
That gets the smallest pause out of him. The barest shift of his shoulders.
"You’re not a firefighter or the police," he says.
I gesture toward the bed I’m currently sitting in. "Yeah but I’m a stranger."
He exhales through his nose and turns without a word, crossing the bedroom towards the dresser on the far side.
"Should I remind you that you begged to stay here? I didn’t invite you," he says and then yanks open a drawer, pulling out a pair of boxer briefs.
"That's true," I say sweetly, "However, I didn’t expect you to greet me like a European art exhibit."
His mouth twitches like he wants to laugh and refuses to give me the satisfaction, as he steps into the briefs, pulling them on quickly, but no less annoyed. Then he turns to me.
"Better?" he asks, his expression flat like he’s just put on socks, like he didn’t just stroll into this room naked a few minutes ago and rewrite my blood pressure.
My throat tightens. "Yes."
He shakes his head and lets out a breath as he crosses back to the other side of the room… his side.
I cross my arms. "You’re telling me every woman you’ve slept with sleeps naked all night too?"
"I don’t know," he says, voice bored. "I don’t stay long enough to find out."
I blink. "Of course you don’t."
He stares back at me as he pulls back the sheets on his side, holding my gaze as if he couldn't care less what I think about his sleeping arrangements.
"They’re naked when I leave," he adds. "What they do after that isn’t my concern."
My stomach flips in a way I absolutely hate.
I roll my eyes hard enough to strain something. "Wow," I mutter. "How romantic."
"I’m not romantic," he says simply. "And trust me, no one comes to me for romance."
He delivers the facts as if they are only that… facts, but something about it feels like a hollow existence. Almost like he knows it too but it can’t be avoided.
"Right," I say lightly. "Because God forbid you waste time on a woman once you’re finished with her."
His shoulders go still.
"Careful, Natalia," he says quietly.
I lift my chin. "Careful of what?"
"Thinking you know me."
"I don't want to know you," I shoot back, snapping my laptop shut. "And I'm not trying to. I just want to fix your mess and go home."
"Good," he says, turning away again like the conversation bores him. "Because I don’t hire people, I want in my bed."
My pulse jumps despite my best effort not to be affected by him.
He reaches up and turns off the only nightstand light, turning the chalet mostly dark except for the glow of my laptop screen and the white blizzard highlighted by the reflective moon.
I shut my laptop and move it to the nightstand. "Don’t worry. I’m not interested."
There’s a moment of silence and then, in the dark, his voice comes low and maddeningly calm.
"Get some sleep," he says, already done with me. "You’ll need the energy."
"For what?" I bite out.
His answer is immediate.
"You’ve got a flight to catch—"
Just as he finishes, a crack hits like a gunshot.
A deep, splintering groan of something massive giving way outside.
The kind of sound that belongs in a disaster film right before someone says run…
and then every light in the chalet cuts out at once.
The digital clock on the nightstand. The soft green glow of the thermostat.
The low hum of the heat registers along the baseboards.
Gone.
Total darkness, besides the reflective brightness of the snow outside piercing through the slats in the wooden window blinds. Total silence, except for the wind screaming against the glass like it's trying to get in.
"Was that a tree?" My voice a little shaky.
I hear Luka sit up, and barely make out his silhouette. The rustle of the duvet, the quiet certain weight of his feet hitting the floor.
"Stay there," he says.
He moves through the dark with the confidence of someone who memorized the layout the moment he checked in. A drawer opens. The strike of a match, a small flame that barely makes a dent.
"Power's out," he says. "Central heat too."
"How long until—"
"Until the storm passes." He sets down the match and drags a hand back through his still-damp hair. "I need to start the fire. It's going to get cold in here fast without it."
I pull the duvet up to my chin. The fireplace is directly across from the foot of the bed. It’s cast iron and stone, built to actually heat a space, not just look expensive. But the bed is closer to it than I'd originally clocked.
"We're going to have to sleep closer together tonight," he says.
I look at the bed. I look at the fireplace. I do the math I don't want to do. He’s right… it’s probably going to get cold in here.
"How much closer?" I ask.
"Close enough to make a difference."
I pull the duvet tighter. "If you touch me, I'll scream."
He stills. Just long enough that I know my comment landed.
"Yeah," he says, voice low and completely unhurried. "… With women who end up in my bed, screaming is usually the goal."
The blush detonates before I can stop it. Blazing up my throat and straight into my face with absolutely zero mercy. It's the first time since we lost power that I’m grateful it’s too dark for him to see my reaction.
He just turns and crouches in front of the fireplace, moving with that same infuriating ease he does everything.
I watch him work and immediately wish I hadn't.
Six-foot-four of bare back and boxer briefs, the firelight just beginning to catch against the muscle running along his shoulders and down his spine.
The kind of body that doesn't ask for your attention…
it simply takes it. Strong thighs, wide shoulders tapering into a narrow waist, and an ass that I am actively choosing not to have feelings about.
I look away.
It's been four months. Four months, three weeks, and some number of days since I’ve had a male induced orgasm.
My body is simply staging a revolution because it's been grossly neglected, and honestly, any man with a pulse and a jawline would set it off right now. It’s on a thin trigger at this point.
Almost anything could set it off. Including but not limited to, the dangerously attractive starting lineup for the Hawkeyes Hockey team.
It has nothing to do with him specifically.
Not the way he moves like the cold has no authority over him.
Not the quiet, low pull of his voice when he says something designed to crawl under my skin.
Not the way he caught me on that path tonight like hauling me back from the ground was as natural as breathing.
I stare at the ceiling.
Four months of celibacy.
That's all this is.
It has to be.