Jill Shalvis - Instant Attraction

For two seconds.

Then she suddenly went ashen, then a spectacular green. She slapped a hand over her mouth and said “uh-oh,” signs he recognized all too well. Leaning in front of her, he shoved open her door just in time for her to lose her lunch, dinner, dessert, and vodka right there in Doc’s parking lot.

He held her from falling out of the truck on her face and scooped back her hair, while silently congratulating himself for being stupid enough to take her for a spin while drunk. “You okay?”

“Kill me,” she murmured, accepting the bottle of water he’d grabbed and handed to her. She rinsed out her mouth and leaned back. “Just kill me and spare me the agony of embarrassment.”

“For throwing up?” He shook his head. “Hell, Katie, I’ve had evenings end far worse than this.”

Eyes still closed, she smiled weakly. “You’re such a nice liar.”

“Seriously.”

“Seriously.” She let out a low, miserable laugh. “I’d be willing to bet that every single time you’ve had a woman in this truck, you’ve gotten your hands on her, and not to hold back her hair while she puked.”

“Actually, believe it or not, I’m out of the habit of seducing cute drunk women.”

She cracked open one eye and laid it on him. “Because of your accident. I can’t believe you stopped having sex.”

“Yeah, well, until you.”

She managed a weak smile. “I’m glad you broke your dry spell with me. I guess I’m irresistible.”

“I guess you are.” He started the truck again and got them on the road. She was surprisingly quiet all the way back to the lodge. Or maybe not so surprisingly, considering when he stopped in front of her cabin, he realized she was out cold, and snoring while she was at it.

He shook his head, turned off the truck, and carried her to the front door, which she’d locked. Without any guilt whatsoever, he frisked her for her keys.

She didn’t so much as budge.

She was still snoring when he set her on her neatly made bed, though she stirred when he tossed a blanket over her.

“Cheese,” she muttered as he pulled off her glasses for her and set them on the nightstand.

“What’s that, Goldilocks?”

“Have to put out cheese for Chuck.”

“You’ll get something other than Chuck if you do that.”

“Please?”

He caved. Of course he caved. One look into those vodka-reddened eyes and he’d do whatever she asked of him. So he got some cheese out of her small refrigerator and placed it on her front step. When he moved back into her bedroom, she was up on her knees, attempting to strip out of her clothes. She got her sweater off but looked stymied by the fact that she was still wearing two more layers. She tried to tug the two under-shirts off as well, which took a while because she got them stuck on her head for one brief second during which her breasts threatened to have a serious wardrobe malfunction and fall out of her bra.

Ah, hell. She looked adorably flushed, and adorably sexy, but he was not going to seduce her when she was drunk, no matter how much he wanted her. “Get in bed.”

Instead, she fell to her back and went to work on the zipper of her pants.

And he began to sweat. “Come on, Katie, just get under the covers.”

Nope, and there went her pants, which promptly got snagged on her boots because she’d failed to remove them first.

“Not again.” She flung herself to the bed, flat on her back in nothing but royal blue bra and panties, with her pants around her ankles, caught on her boots. “Oh boy. I’m dizzy.”

So was he, because she made quite the picture lying there.

Drunk, he reminded himself.

Hands off.

“De cha vu,” she said, and laughed.

Closing his eyes, he inhaled deeply, which didn’t help. He reluctantly moved in to assist, removing first her boots, then her pants.

“I’m really quite drunk,” she informed him in surprise, sliding her fingers into his hair, tugging his face to hers. “Very, very drunk.”

He looked into her eyes, saw the light and joy that she’d represented since he’d first laid eyes on her. “Yes, you are.”

And sweet.

And sexy.

And mind-bogglingly beautiful.

“Cam?”

“Yeah?”

“You’re hot.”

He let out a low laugh and backed up. Way up. “Okay, that’s enough out of you. Go to sleep.”

“’Kay,” she said agreeably. “But you are.” And with that, she resumed her snoring.

An hour later, she dreamed. She was in her car, stuck in traffic on the bridge, frustrated and angry at the damn truck that had trapped her behind it.

And then the shudder.

She’d no idea at the time what it meant, but she knew now and whimpered as the bridge gave way beneath her, as all the cars around her vanished, as she slid off the side, rolling, rolling, slamming to a stop.

Upside down.

Panicked, she tried to see, tried to figure out what had just happened, but then there were flames, and the heat. The horrifying heat, and then the worst part-discovering she was the only one who’d made it. She, who didn’t really have a life, she’d lived while others hadn’t. She could probably run her entire life looking for things to distract her from that and never forget it-

“I’ve got you.”

His voice, low and easy and as soothing as the snow outside, surrounded her. So did his arms, pulling her out of the nightmare and firmly into the present. Without looking back, she crawled into that delicious strength he was offering, burrowing in like she planned to hibernate for the rest of winter, and sank into a deep, dreamless sleep.

Annie tightened the tie of her jacket around her waist. It was a full-length stadium jacket, made of down, which was helpful since it was just dawn and the temperature hovered right at freeze-her-ass-off cold.

But she was doing this. She’d thought of nothing else all night, which was when it’d come to her.

Katie had been right. She was giving up too fast, without giving Nick a real chance.

Without giving them a real chance.

She thought she had a handle on that now. She’d been too vague. She’d been vague because she’d wanted Nick to figure out what was wrong all on his own, but guys didn’t appear to be equipped for that level of thinking.

Plus, how could she expect him to know what exactly had gone wrong, when she herself didn’t know?

Maybe together they could figure it out.

God, she hoped.

So to that end, she stepped into her boots, and still clutching the jacket to her, left the cabin that once upon a time she’d shared with Nick. She walked along the path to the cabin he used now. Knowing he never locked his front door, she simply let herself in.

There were dishes in the sink and clothes on the floor. Typical. She moved through the living room toward the bedroom, unable to hold back her anticipatory grin, because what the man lacked in house skills, he more than made up for in bedroom skills.

And she was so ready to get back to that portion of the program of their marriage. Needed to get back to that. They’d had some fairly major communication problems of late, but she figured there was no better way to force communication than while getting a little.

With that very goal in mind, she unbelted her coat and let it drop as she stepped into the doorway to his bedroom, naked. “Wake up, big guy.”

The bed was empty.

He was already gone. Dammit! She covered herself back up with the jacket and stomped outside again. The equipment garage’s lights were on. Shivering, she headed over there with rising frustration and purposely, carefully, knocked on the side door.

She was not going to screw this one up, not this time.

Nick didn’t answer, so she pounded on the door, and finally, it opened. The drone of the compressor and generator engines blasted out around Nick. He wore a pair of beloved Levi’s, faded nearly white, with a hole over one knee and the other thigh. He had on a thick, padded plaid shirt over long underwear and a ski cap on his head. He hadn’t shaved yet today, and probably not yesterday either. He looked a little tired and a whole lot disheveled.

And sexy as hell.

“What’s wrong?” he yelled over the machines.

Nothing, except he was still dressed.

“Annie? You okay?”

Yeah, she was getting there. Getting warm, too, despite the frigid temps. Nodding, she pushed her way in, once again un-buttoning her jacket as she kept her eyes on his, turning her back to the room to keep him in her sights. They were going to do this, right here, right now. “Close the door, you’re letting out all the bought air.”

“What are you doing here?” he yelled as he shut the door. “We’re-”

That was all he got out before she let the jacket fall.

His eyes bugged out first. Yelling “What the hell!” he leaped for her, yanking off his plaid overshirt to throw around her. “Jesus, Stone’s here!”

Clutching Nick’s shirt to her body, she whipped around and for the first time surveyed the garage.

Stone indeed stood there by the compressor, mouth agape in shock before he slapped his hands to his face. “My eyes!”

Nick shot him a look of fury, then whirled on Annie. “What the hell was that?”

She grabbed her jacket from the floor before shoving Nick out of her way to get to the door. “That was me trying to seduce you, you ass. And trust me, it was the last time. So I hope you got a good look, because it won’t be happening again!” And with that, she maturely slammed the door behind her.

She managed to wait until she was in her beloved kitchen, surrounded by a few leftover brownies, before she burst into tears and then consumed every last crumb.

Damn idiot man! How many ways were there to screw this up? And had she found them all yet? Miserable, she stood up to make herself another batch of brownies.