20. Chapter 20
Maddie
Iwoke slowly enough to mistake warmth for safety.
For one foolish, drowsy instant, I knew only heat at my front, weight at my back, the low crackle of the fire, and the deep, even rise and fall beneath my cheek.
Then sense returned all at once, sharp as cold water, and I realized I was tucked against Sage’s chest with his arm laid over me like we had practiced the shape of this before.
I went rigid.
My spine locked first, then my stomach, then every useful thought in my head fled in twelve different directions at once.
I pulled back immediately, too fast for grace, and his arm slid away from me without resistance.
The wool throw bunched in my lap. I swung my legs toward the edge of the couch and planted my boots on the floorboards as if standing up fast enough might undo the fact that I had been asleep on him like some love-struck idiot in a movie with a tragic budget.
Behind me, his voice came low and unhurried.
“You’ve got no reason to be embarrassed. You had a restless night. I didn’t mind having you close.”
That should have made it better.
It did not.
I sat there with my shoulders up around my ears and looked straight ahead at the fire because looking at him felt unwise.
The cabin had changed while I slept. The flames had settled from the high, bright energy of earlier into a slower, steadier burn.
Outside the windows, pale afternoon light pressed weakly through the heavy curtains, turning their edges to muted gold while leaving the corners of the room in a comfortable dusk.
The glass reflected firelight in broken little glows.
I did not trust comfort. Not this much of it. Not when it arrived wearing a man’s face.
“You can stand up and run for the door if that helps,” Sage said mildly.
I turned then, because there was no way to let that pass unanswered.
He was already on his feet, dark sweater fitted neatly over his shoulders as if even sleepiness in a woman’s company had no power to rumple him.
His hair had fallen a little from whatever disciplined arrangement it had started the day in.
It made him look less polished. Which, unfortunately, made him look better.
“I’m considering it,” I said.
One corner of his mouth tilted. “Then let me at least bribe you into staying long enough to wake properly.”
Before I could decide whether that deserved suspicion or a laugh, he turned toward the small kitchen tucked along the far wall.
The domestic sounds that followed were disarming in a way I resented on principle.
A cupboard opened. Ceramic touched wood with a quiet clink.
Then came the soft metallic ring of a spoon against a saucepan and the low hiss of heated milk.
I sat there on the edge of the couch with my dignity in tatters and listened to him make something warm in a cabin in the woods while the fire breathed and the horses shifted outside, and the entire thing felt like a trap designed by a woman.
Or a man who knew women better than he admitted.
The scent reached me before he did—dark chocolate, rich enough to seem almost sinful, lifted by the sweetness of milk and something faintly vanilla underneath. It made my stomach tighten with immediate interest.
Oh, that was dirty.
He came back carrying a mug in both hands, steam ribboning up from the surface. Tiny marshmallows crowded the top in a little white drift, already beginning to soften into the chocolate. He held it out to me without flourish.
“Here.”
I took it because I was not a fool and because it smelled like comfort had decided to become liquid. The ceramic was hot against my palms. I looked down into the mug and then up at him.
“Did you put marshmallows in here,” I asked, “or anti-anxiety meds?”
Something crossed his face so quickly I nearly thought I had imagined it. Not guilt exactly. Not surprise. A flicker, sharp and unreadable, there and gone before I could pin it down.
Then he laughed, low and easy.
“I don’t need to slip you a Mickey to calm you down, Maddie.”
The answer should have settled me.
Instead, that little vanished expression stayed under my skin like a splinter too small to see and too sharp to ignore.
I turned forward again and took a cautious sip.
The cocoa was obscene.
Deep and dark and thick enough to feel indulgent, sweet without being childish, with that slight bittersweet edge real chocolate had when nobody had insulted it with powder from a packet.
Heat moved over my tongue and down my throat in a slow velvet line.
I closed my eyes for half a second before I could help it.
“Damn,” I muttered.
“Good?”
I cracked one eye open and glanced back at him. “You know it is.”
“That wasn’t a denial.”
“Don’t get cocky.”
He made a soft sound that might have been amusement, and before I thought to object, he sat behind me on the edge of the couch.
Not pressed against me. Not crowding. Just near enough that I felt the cushion shift and the shape of him at my back. Then his hands came up and settled lightly on my shoulders.
Every muscle in my body tensed.
“Relax,” he said.
“That’s easy for you to say when nobody’s sneaking up on your neck.”
“I did not sneak. I sat directly behind you.”
“That’s somehow worse.”
His thumbs pressed gently into the knots at the tops of my shoulders before I could swat him away, and to my intense irritation, relief flashed through me so fast it felt almost humiliating.
I had not realized how much the ride, the run, the bad sleep, and my own frayed nerves had settled there until somebody with capable hands found the exact map of all of it.
I hated competence in a beautiful man. It was against my religion.
He worked slowly, measured and patient, palms warm through the knit of my sweater.
The pressure moved from my shoulders to the tight bands along my neck, then back outward again in deliberate circles.
My wolf, who had opinions about nearly everything, went suspiciously quiet beneath it.
Not soothed exactly. More... watchful and less inclined to bite.
That alone made me uneasy.
I drank again to give myself something to do with my mouth besides make noises I would later deny under oath.
His hands found another knot just under my left shoulder blade and pressed.
I inhaled sharply.
“There,” he said quietly.
“You sound entirely too pleased with yourself.”
“I’m pleased with anatomy. It’s not the same thing.”
“That was such a polished answer I almost respect it.”
“Almost?”
I took another drink and let the cocoa sit in my mouth a moment before swallowing. Warmth spread out through me again, broader now, less local than a hot drink ought to have managed. It settled into my chest first, then my limbs.
That should have been pleasant.
It was pleasant.
It also made a quiet warning bell begin to ring somewhere in the back of my head.
Maybe it was only food, heat, exhaustion, and a massage from a man absurdly good at them. Maybe that was all. Lord knew the simplest explanation was usually the right one.
And maybe I had spent enough time around supernaturals in my life to know that “usually” was a comfort word, not a promise.
I lowered the mug and stared into it, watching a marshmallow slowly collapse into the dark surface.
“You always keep a cabin stocked like this?” I asked.
“Yes.”
“For random women who pass out on you?”
“For guests.” His thumbs slid once more along the base of my neck. “Though you’re the first to make this exact use of the arrangement.”
“Lucky me.”
“I was going to say lucky me,” he said.
I looked back at him over my shoulder.
His expression had gone soft in a way that made me wary.
Not hungry. Not mocking. Simply attentive.
A man might look that way at a skittish horse he had no wish to startle.
That should not have annoyed me as much as it did, but there was something maddening about being handled gently when you could not decide whether gentleness itself was a strategy.
I turned forward again before I could think too hard about that.
My phone.
“I couldn’t find my phone this morning.”
His hands stilled only briefly. “It wasn’t in your room?”
“I looked everywhere. I meant to mention it at breakfast, but got sidetracked by biscuits.”
He laughed, the sound free and easy, and wandered to the counter that held his phone. “Let me text Moriah and get her to have the staff start searching.”
He grabbed his phone, and the screen lit up. Then he glanced up from the screen. “If it’s in the common areas, they’ll find it.”
“Thank you,” I said, and meant it despite myself.
“Of course.”
He set his phone aside and did not immediately reclaim the space behind me. That restraint should have eased something. Instead, it made me aware of the absence of his hands, which was its own sort of insult.
I finished the cocoa in slow swallows, buying time to put my face back together. The warmth remained, low and pervasive. Not enough to make me foolish. Just enough to make caution feel farther away than I preferred.
Sage picked up my jacket and held it for me.
I stood and slipped my arms into it, careful not to let my fingers brush his longer than necessary. He set the collar straight with absent competence, then stepped back.
“We should head in,” he said. “You’ve slept away more of the afternoon than you probably intended.”
“That obvious?”
“Only to me.”
I gave him a look. “That’s not as charming as you think it is.”
“It wasn’t meant to be charming.”
By the time we rode back to the house, the day had gone soft around the edges.
The cold still bit, but the light had changed into that pale, slanting afternoon gold that made old stone look almost forgiving.
I had just stepped through the front doors and into heat, noise, and the smell of sugar browning somewhere in the depths of the kitchen when a hand caught my arm and tugged me sideways before Sage could say a word.