Chapter 11 Sadie #3
Quentin leaned in, forearms resting on the table as he closed the space between them. His eyes flicked over her face and her breath hitched, embarrassingly obvious.
“Good,” he murmured. Then, with a crooked half-smile and a flicker of something wicked in his gaze, he added, “And very, very bad.”
His eyes dipped to her lips for just a second but it was enough to send her pulse skittering. This was trouble. The slow, dangerous kind. The kind that didn’t crash into you all at once, but crept in quietly, soft words, steady eyes, lingering looks, until you were already drowning in it.
He let the silence stretch, warm and charged. Then, without a word, he reached for her plate. His fingers brushed against hers, barely there, but enough to send a jolt through her.
He carried the dishes to the sink, glancing at her over his shoulder. “Come on. I’ll walk you home. Make sure the 'bear' doesn’t come back.”
He made air quotes around the word bear, and she scowled.
“I’m just saying,” he added, rinsing a fork with irritating smugness,“the more I think about it, the more I wonder if there even was a bear. Maybe someone just wanted an excuse to burst in here and interrogate me like a sexy little Sherlock.”
Sexy? Her face warmed immediately. He thought she was sexy?
“Excuse you,” she said, pointing at him. “I was fleeing for my life.”
“And somehow landed directly in my cabin?”
“With zero shoes,” she shot back, glancing down at her bare feet.
Quentin finished washing the last plate, grabbed his boots, and held them up. “Well, Cinderella, we’ve got options. You wear these, or I throw you over my shoulder and carry you like a distressed damsel.”
She gave him a long, flat stare. “You’re just desperate for an excuse to grab my ass.”
Quentin grinned. “I mean, I wasn’t gonna say it out loud, but yes.”
Sadie snatched the boots from his hands and jammed her feet into them, immediately wobbling like a newborn deer on ice.
“You’re lucky I haven’t fallen on my face yet,” she muttered, taking a few experimental stomps.
“Give it a minute,” Quentin said brightly. “I like to keep hope alive.”
They stepped outside, and the cold air immediately confirmed that pajama shorts had been a terrible, terrible decision.
Sadie sucked in a sharp breath. “I look like I escaped a sleepover during a natural disaster.”
Quentin stopped and gave her a slow once-over, taking in the shorts, the thin t-shirt, and the goosebumps spreading across her arms and legs.
“…Hold on.”
Before she could protest, he shrugged out of his jacket and settled it over her shoulders.
It was warm and heavy and immediately swallowed her whole, which was bad enough, but then the smell hit her.
Woodsmoke, clean soap, and something unmistakably Quentin that went straight to her brain and shut down all higher reasoning.
Her knees wobbled slightly, which felt dramatic and deeply inconvenient, especially when she realized she’d inhaled again like an idiot and yes, his pheromones were absolutely doing illegal things to her body.
She stomped along beside him, every step a squeaky, uncoordinated disaster that made it clear the boots were not on her side.
“So,” she said, trying to walk without looking like she needed a helmet, “what’s your plan if I fall and crack a tooth on a pinecone?”
“Immediate mouth-to-mouth,” Quentin said without missing a beat.
She rolled her eyes. “That’s not first aid.”
“It is if I’m in charge.”
“God help the injured,” she muttered.
A dry leaf crunched loudly under his boot. Sadie, already tense from the cold and the coordination challenge of walking in borrowed boots, shrieked and flailed like someone had fired a starter pistol next to her head.
“This is it,” she announced. “Tell my story.”
Her foot caught on something solid, and the world tilted.
Quentin caught her easily, one arm firm around her waist, the other steadying her elbow like this was a thing he did all the time. “Whoa there, cowgirl,” he said, steadying her with a smirk. “Boots too powerful for you?”
“They’ve turned on me,” she muttered, clinging to his jacket like it was a life raft. “Mutiny in snakeskin. They waited until I was cold and overconfident. Classic ambush.”
He looked down at her with that maddening, effortless grin. “They seem pretty cooperative when I wear them.”
“That’s because they respect you. You are enjoying this way too much.”
“I’m enjoying you,” he said, voice dropping a shade lower. “You are wildly entertaining.”
He laughed, low and warm, and something in her chest flipped like it hadn’t gotten the memo to stay calm. She became painfully aware of how close they were. His hands. The heat of him. The fact that her heart was now auditioning for a drumline.
“You can let go,” he said gently.
“Oh. Right. Yes. I meant to do that.”
She released his shirt and stepped back, pretending her pulse wasn’t still sprinting. His hands dropped away, but the warmth of them lingered, like her body was filing a formal complaint about the separation.
They made it to the door, but her nerves were still buzzing, keyed up by the dark and the cold and the lingering what-just-happened of it all.
“Can you, um… check inside?” she asked, trying to sound casual and not like a woman one suspicious noise away from jumping into his arms. Quentin nodded.
He slipped inside and started scanning the room, flinging open closet doors, checking under the bed like he was auditioning for the world’s most handsome home inspector. She half-expected him to announce a final inspection and hand her a clipboard.
When he stood back up, dusting off lint from his jeans, he gave her a little smile. “Unless you count a very hostile-looking dust bunny, you’re safe."
She laughed, the last of the tension finally draining out of her shoulders.“I think I can take him.”
“Good,” he said, then added, “You should probably take my number. Just in case the wildlife stages a comeback.”
She nodded, heart thudding a little faster as she passed him her phone. His large hands dwarfed it, and she tried not to focus on the way his fingers moved over the screen or how ridiculous it was that she found something as mundane as typing attractive.
When he gave it back, he didn’t move away. He lingered, eyes catching hers like they had nowhere better to be. “Goodnight, Sadie,” he said, voice soft and almost reluctant.
And then he was gone. She stared at the door like an idiot. She finally exhaled, flopped onto the couch, and grabbed her phone. She had manners and she had thumbs. Obviously, she was going to text him to thank him for feeding her and protecting her from the bear. She wasn’t an animal.
SADIE: Thanks. For dinner. And for making sure I don’t get murdered by forest creatures.
QUENTIN: Happy to help.
QUENTIN: Are you done ignoring me now?
SADIE: Yes. We are resuming our regularly scheduled antagonism.
QUENTIN: Line reading tomorrow night?
SADIE: Fine.
QUENTIN: Fine.
She rolled her eyes at the screen, which did nothing to stop the smile creeping across her face. She could hear the grin in his last message.
She typed out a response. Deleted it. Typed another. Deleted that one too. Nope. She was not feeding his ego tonight.
Instead, she chucked her phone onto the couch and let out a long sigh. Her phone stayed quiet. Her heart, meanwhile, was doing cardio over six texts and a goodnight. She ignored it and closed her eyes.