Jill Shalvis - Instant Attraction

God, he was sexy. But she’d heard something. And if it was a hungry bear…“I think we should go in. You coming?”

“Hell, yeah, I’m coming. You’re going to come too.”

“You’re talking about-”

“Yeah.”

Her legs impersonated a bowl of jelly, and she yanked him against her, just as her door opened behind her, causing the two of them to fall inside.

Above them, still holding the door handle, stood Annie, staring down at them sprawled at her boots. “Oh, for the love of Pete.”

“Annie,” Katie gasped and sat up. “Hi.”

“Oomph,” Cam said when her elbow accidentally planted in his belly on his way up.

“I came to show you my new clothes.” Annie put a hand on her hips. The other held a plate of brownies as she stared at Katie. “I brought these and Will Smith’s latest DVD. Say you’re going to pick me, my brownies, and Will over my knucklehead nephew.”

Katie looked at Cam, who rolled to his feet. “Thanks,” he said to Annie. “Good to know where we stand.”

Annie sighed and lost her attitude. “I’m sorry. I think you two are a colossally bad idea, but Stone told me I had to stay out of it. I didn’t know you were going to be here. She’s the only girl here and I need a girl night. And you…” She divided a look between them. “You two need a cooling-off period.” She shoved a brownie in Cam’s hand, then pushed him over the threshold and shut the door in his face. “There. I thought he’d never leave.”

Katie let out a breath and reached for the entire plate of brownies. So close. She’d been so close.

By the crack of dawn, Annie was back in her kitchen making a boatload of sandwiches for Cam’s day trip to Diamond Ridge. She had her hands full of sliced sharp cheddar and fresh honey-baked ham when Nick stormed into the kitchen.

He yanked off his ski cap and slapped it down to the counter. He had the most god-awful hat hair, hadn’t shaved in at least two days, and his shirt was wrinkled. He looked ridiculously gruff and frustrated and disheveled, and just laying her eyes on him had butterflies executing summersaults in her belly. “What’s your problem?” she asked with as much disinterest as she could mutter.

“You. You’re my problem.”

Her belly flopped again, unpleasantly this time. He’d been her high-school sweetheart. Her college fling. The man of her dreams. They’d married young, and things had been great. And then they hadn’t, but it’d happened so gradually she hadn’t noticed until it’d been too late. She’d gotten lazy and had let things drift. And then she’d compounded the error by getting stupid on top of lazy, and she’d quit him.

And now he was quitting her.

All her fault, and she’d deal with that. Was trying to deal with that. “Well, soon enough I won’t be your problem at all. As soon as you sign the damn papers.”

He swore roughly beneath his breath. “Not what I meant, Annie.”

“Then what did you mean?”

“About what you said, about this me not seeing you shit.” He hesitated and looked at her the way he used to, with bewildered affection in the mix now. “I was thinking.”

“Yeah?”

“Is it something I could fix?”

Her heart actually skipped a beat and she dropped eye contact, busying herself with washing her hands. She’d been waiting and waiting for him to ask that question, and he never had-until now. “You’re a pilot and a mechanic. You fix stuff for a living. Theoretically, you’d be a cinch at fixing anything.”

“Goddammit, Annie. I need a direct answer.”

She went to work making coffee. “Yes,” she said after a minute, “I think you can fix it.”

“Okay.” He nodded. “Does that statement come with directions?”

She met his gaze. “I want you to know how to fix it.”

He let out a long breath. “I really hate that answer.”

“You know what I hate, Nick?” She set down the coffeepot rather than throw it at his head. “I hate the way you talk to me as if you don’t already know every single thing about me, the way I know everything about you, down to the fact that you’re probably wearing stupid boxers right this minute just because I can’t stand them.”

“I’m not-” He broke off, pulled out the waistband of his jeans to look, then sighed. “Okay, I am, but only cuz it’s laundry day.”

She shook her head and pointed to his. “I also hate the way you forget to comb your hair after you wash it and it falls over your eyes.” She rolled her eyes when he tried to pat it down. “I hate the way you can read my mind when I don’t want you to and not when I do want you to.” At that, the fight went out of her and she leaned back against the counter. “And I really hate that even with all that, I still don’t hate you. That I want you to fight for me.” Her throat burned, and defeated, she tossed up her hands. “I just want you to see me, Nick.”

“Ah, Annie.” His voice was soft and slightly gruff as his frustrated demeanor drained. “I see you every single day.”

“Then show it.” She so desperately needed that. “I need you to show it, Nick.”

He scrubbed a hand over his face while she stood there staring at him, yearning, aching. “I’ll try,” he said.

“That’d be really great.” She cleared her tight throat. “In return, I think it’s only fair that you give me something to work on. For you. To please you.”

She had the pleasure of surprising him; then an unmistakable wicked gleam came into his eyes and she had to laugh. “You’d actually want me that way?” she asked. “In bed? When we’re scarcely talking?”

“Hell yeah.”

Men. “How about outside the bedroom, Nick?”

“Anywhere,” he said fervently.

And she had to laugh. “I meant how about me pleasing you while not having sex?”

“Oh. Well…” He gave the question some thought, which was one thing she’d always loved about him. There was no subterfuge with Nick, no guessing at hidden meaning. If he was mad, she knew it. If he was happy, she knew it. No games.

“Maybe I want you to see me too,” he finally said.

She was still staring at him when Cam came into the kitchen. Annie had done her best to leave him out of this thing with her marriage as much as possible because dissension between her and Nick had always bothered him, and after all these years and in spite of the fact that he was a foot taller than her, he was still hers, a little, hurting kid who’d been given up by both his parents and needed protecting. Still protecting him, she managed a smile in his direction. “How was the brownie?”

“Amazing.” Not fooled, Cam eyed them both. “Do you two need to go to your separate corners?”

“No.” Nick had always loved Cam as Annie had, and that had never changed. He clasped a hand on Cam’s shoulder. “We’re good.” Then with one last look at Annie, one that held frustration with a glimmer of an old heat-which sparked a matching one burning inside her-he left.

Cam turned to Annie. “You’re good?” he repeated. “Since when?”

Annie handed him a mug of coffee. “We’re going to try to see each other.”

“Okay.” He took a sip of the coffee. “And what the hell does that mean?”

Annie sighed. “I really haven’t a clue.”

“Whose idea was this?”

“Some idiot’s.”

“Some idiot by the name of Annie?”

Annie slid him a glance. “Dammit. Yes.”

Cam burst out laughing, and the sound was so beautiful, so unexpected yet longed for, she just stared at him. “I thought you’d be mad at me.”

“I was. You are a nosy, bossy, mean, mean woman.”

“I try.”

He laughed again, and she could not stop staring at him. “What’s coming over you?”

“Nothing. I don’t know.”

“Huh. Well, whatever it is, I like it.”

He just sipped his coffee, and so did she, somehow feeling a little easier at heart for the both of them.

Cam left later for a two-day trip with Stone, taking a group snow climbing up to the frozen Jackson Lakes, a trip he’d planned and organized. And as Annie went on with her day, something different happened. Instead of the usual resentment and anger eating her up during the hours, she had something new stirring in her belly.

Hope.

For all of them.

Cam and Stone climbed mountain peaks all day with a group from the Bay Area, and it was good. It would have been great except Cam couldn’t think of anything other than getting back to Katie’s cabin to continue their whole getting naked thing.

Actually, he thought of a lot of other things too. Things like maybe she’d been right to call him on his shit. He hadn’t moved on.

He needed to move on…

Two days later when they returned to the lodge, Katie was at her desk, and as he passed by, she smiled at him. He returned it, and her glasses fogged, which was fun.

She’d missed him too.

While she dealt with the ringing phone, he went to his office to change. He’d just stripped out of his shirt when she knocked on his open door.

“Hey,” he said, turning to face her.

She was staring at his chest. Admittedly gratifying. So was the blush working its way up her throat to her cheeks as her eyes caught on the narrow tribal band tattooed around his bicep. “You have a tattoo,” she murmured. “It looks…” She bit her lower lip. “Tribal.”

“I got it in Africa.” He pulled on a black long-sleeved thermal. “How’s it been going?”

“Great.” She swallowed. “Except I can’t seem to find my tongue.”

Oh man. He wanted to strip down again, and then strip her. But first things first. He reluctantly pulled on an outer shell with WILDER blazoned across the front.

“You have a good trip?” she asked.

“Yeah.”

“I saw the schedule. You’re giving boarding lessons tomorrow.”

“Not really. Just meeting a few local kids to go over technique and style, and how to get sponsored. They’re on the team at school and their coach doesn’t have a lot of experience at that end.”