Chapter 10
Thora woke to the unfamiliar sensation of warmth and weight behind her. Cody, she thought. No. Cody’s best friend. She would have leaped out of bed out of fright, but she was pinned in place, with Lee’s
arm draped around her.
She was sure, given his warmth, that he had indeed survived the rest of the night, but she listened closely to his breaths,
rhythmic and slightly raspy, further proof of life. Another weird incident behind them.
A mysteriously cold room would be a great plot point for one of her books. The way she saw her breath hanging in the air,
instantly frozen, would be fun to try to capture in words. Her breath had become ghostly, coming out in billowing icy clouds,
like an ice dragon casting a fog over the land. Kids would love that image, right?
She knew if she told Cody everything that had happened since they arrived at Juniper, he would have told her she needed to leave immediately.
But if she told Mack, she’d get a real kick out of it.
This was Juniper being Juniper. She and Mack had plenty of strange stories themselves.
Multiple times, Thora followed Mack’s voice into a room that turned out to be empty.
Sometimes the scent of lavender in the Blue Room was so overpowering it made her sneeze, and then it instantly changed to roses.
Still, nothing bad had ever happened at Juniper. Well, that wasn’t quite true. But the bad things that had happened at Juniper
were always the results of human intervention and came with perfectly rational explanations. The creepy magic of the house
was part of its charm.
Like any person, she might react with fear at first. It was a base, human thing to do. But as was often the thing to do when
afraid, if you took a little step back, a little time out, you’d see that you were never in any real danger.
The cold room, though.
That felt downright threatening.
The cold had woken Lee up, prompting him to action. Maybe if he’d been passed out drunk or otherwise incapacitated, something
truly terrible could have happened. As it was, he was fine. Two chills in one day. Nothing to be too concerned about.
The bigger concern was how natural the arm gripping her felt.
She wouldn’t think about it too much. She dozed off and on again, tucked into Lee and perfectly cozy, until he finally roused.
“Oh, sorry,” he said, his voice gravelly with sleep, as he removed his arm. The cold that rushed in felt eerily familiar to
Thora.
“It’s okay,” she said. “It’s a small bed. How are you doing?”
“I feel great. Could you get back to sleep okay?”
Seemed a little silly for him to care about her when he nearly froze himself to death twice yesterday.
“I slept fine, except for the brief interruption there.”
“That was scary.”
“Yeah.”
“Now that we’re past it, can you tell me why you’ve been mad at me the whole time I’ve been here?”
Whatever efforts she thought she made to keep things civil clearly weren’t working that well. But in this position, it was
oddly easier to talk to him. He was nearby, but she didn’t have to look at him.
“It’s difficult to have you around. Instead of talking to any Williamsons about George’s care, you remodeled the house without
asking. You made it possible for him to stay alone and ultimately die alone. I know you cared about him, but I can’t help
but blame you for how he died.”
“I did my best to care for him. I loved him,” he said. His ease in saying those words, his voice so steady, underscored how
they really were connected this whole time, over this shared love, even if she was unwilling to see it.
She had to accept his love as truth, even if it was in conflict with hers. “I blame you partially because it’s easier than
blaming myself.”
“Thora,” Lee said in a low voice, and he wrapped his arm around her again. She tucked herself into him, that blend of softness
and strength his body offered. “What if no one has to be blamed?”
The suggestion shook her to her core. Something in her always looked to point the finger.
Everything had to have a reason. Everything turned into a story with a hero and a villain.
It was impossible to simply let things be.
But Lee was asking her to do that. She didn’t think it was a realistic path forward forever, but in this moment, she could relax a bit.
She tried to take the lesson from Tree & Leaf and let go.
“Okay.”
“I care about you, too, you know.”
She was beginning to realize that. At first, she thought everything he was doing was honoring George’s legacy. But cooking
for her, making it easier for her to work, keeping her calm in her moments of high dudgeon . . . these were things he was
doing because he cared. He cared for her in a different way than she’d ever felt. Like he was attentive to the animal of her
body, her hungers and emotional states, in a way that felt unusual. She didn’t want to say it was primal, she didn’t want
to say the way other people approached her was intellectual, but it was in that realm. He was intuitive. He had an instinct
for her, and she liked it.
She could let him know this. “I like the way you care for me.”
His grip around her tightened. Enough to feel his breath on the back of her neck, warm and rhythmic. She changed her breathing
to match his cadence.
If she rolled over, she knew what exactly would happen.
So, she rolled over, keeping one hand on his forearm so it didn’t lose its grip on her.
Her bold gesture surprised him. She noted the high arch of his brows. She was close enough to catch every detail of his face,
count every freckle. From this distance, she could admire his lips, which looked invitingly soft.
His raised brows moved back into place, and she felt an urge to run her finger along one. She was done resisting urges, so
she did. He smiled.
“I don’t think I’m quite old enough for unruly eyebrow hairs, am I?”
“No, I had an impulse.”
“We’re giving into our impulses, are we?” The words came out in an impossibly sexy whisper.
“Maybe.”
His fingers were splayed over the soft fabric of her camisole. “I definitely have an urge to put my hand under this little
top.”
“By all means.”
His hand was warm on her back. Whatever heat he had lost to the water and the Blue Room had not depleted his supply. There
was a furnace inside him, and she wanted to revel in it like a cat in a sunbeam. She wanted to purr.
“Your skin feels nice.”
He was no poet, but he didn’t need to be. She was starved for words like this, greedy hands on her, hungry eyes searching
her face, for what? For a sign? She could give him a sign.
“Your hand feels nice.”
She had the barest moment of hesitation. Because in her world of heroes and villains, she could make Lee a villain to Cody
in an instant. His friendship with Cody could never be the same if they took things any farther.
But Cody wasn’t her problem anymore.
It wasn’t her job to maintain his friendships for him. To continue to put him first, when he never considered doing the same
for her. She banished all thoughts of Cody from her mind. It was easy to do when she could slide her hand up from Lee’s forearm,
under the sleeve of his T-shirt and feel his strong bicep.
She matched his laconic style. “You’re very strong.”
“I’m tired of being strong. It’s taking all my strength not to kiss you.”
“Then be weak.”
He pulled his hand out from inside her camisole and plunged his fingers into her hair.
His thumb settled in front of her ear, stroking down toward her jaw.
The touch sent sparks down her spine, and Thora knew if he didn’t kiss her soon she might simply die.
Simply keel over from a lack of being kissed.
But he leaned in and brushed his lips against hers, tentatively at first. His lips were as warm as her hands, nearly scorching,
and she needed them. She moved her arm from his bicep to his back and pulled herself closer. Then he kissed her properly,
with the searing heat and pressure she craved.
He grazed his knuckles over the side of her neck on their path to the bare skin of her back under her camisole. There was
something precious about that slide of skin against skin, the way it called to her animal self, the one Lee always knew how
to cater to. She put her hand at the base of his neck, where his short hair had a pleasing, soft texture. Then she opened
her mouth to his, letting their tongues meet with a temperature impossibly hotter than any other part of their bodies.
Thora melted. She melted into Lee, softening everywhere he touched her. Every stroke of his tongue was firm and sure, and
she was sure she wanted that tongue on the rest of her body.
And she would have asked for it if there hadn’t been a knock at the kitchen door.