She’d had a string of that lately.
Beth Ann turned and bumped into dry skin. Dry, warm skin. She gasped and stepped backward, toward the ledge.
His hand shot out and grabbed her. “Careful.”
“Sorry,” she muttered, stepping back toward him and to the side. It was dark in the tree house and he’d clicked his flashlight off—maybe to save the battery? “You, um, you took your shirt off. Want me to wring it for you?”
“It’s dry,” he said, and she felt him press it into her hand. “For you.”
“Oh.” Oh, that heavenly man. “Think we can hang up my dress and the cloak and see if they’re dry by morning?”
He paused for a minute. Then, “Fine,” he rasped. She heard his boots clomp on the floorboards. “I’ll wait outside—”
“It’s raining,” she said before he could leave. “You can just, you know, turn around. I’d hate for you to get all wet again.”
“Fine,” he said in that same gruff voice. “I’m turned.”
His voice sounded a little farther away, as if he had turned his back to her. She hesitated for a moment, then slipped out of the cold dress. It had been so pretty on the rack. She hated it now. Useless, pathetic scrap that didn’t offer her a bit of warmth. She didn’t even have a bra on—the stupid dress had a built-in shelf. All she had underneath was a nude thong. Quickly, she shimmied out of the dress and slipped the new shirt on, nearly sighing with how warm her body immediately felt.
She heard him shift. “Better?”
“Much better,” Beth Ann said, feeling blissfully warmer already. “Oh God, thank you.”
“’Course,” he said in that short, clipped voice. “Gimme your dress.”
She handed the sodden heap to him, and the cloak, and through the darkness, she could make out him hanging them.
“Hooks,” he said. “Nearly busted my head on one of them.”
She laughed at that.
“I see my pain makes you smile,” he said in that hard voice, but it had an edge of teasing to it.
“I have to admit, the thought of grim and scary Colt Waggoner being laid low by a clothing hook did make me smile,” she said.
“Grim and scary, eh?”
Oh, now she’d gone and offended him again. “Something like that,” she said lightly. Now that Colt’s warmth had left the shirt, she was beginning to shiver again. It was much better than before, but still not enough.
“I’m going to take my pants off so they can dry, too,” he said.
“Oh, of course,” she said, hating the blush creeping over her cheeks. Totally a practical move. Not that she could see anything in the dark at all.
She heard his clothing rustling and the sound of his boots being unlaced. The rain had picked up outside and she listened to it rather than the sounds of him undressing.
“Think it’ll let up by morning?” she asked him with a sigh.
“Hope so,” he said in a flat voice. “Don’t wanna stay here all weekend.”
“Me, either,” she said, and rubbed her arms again. “Too cold and everything’s all wet.”
“Still cold?” Suddenly he was behind her, and she felt the warmth radiating off his body. Okay, he was standing like, inches away from her. Was he wearing boxers? Briefs? What did he look like almost nak*d? Her n**ples tightened all over again. Stop it, she told herself. Not the appropriate time for rescuer fantasies. She didn’t even like the man.
“Maybe it’ll just take me a bit to heat up,” she said hopefully, just as a raindrop splattered on her head from the ceiling. She stumbled to the side and felt her arm brush his body. God, it was unfair that he was so warm and it was so cold.
He said nothing for a long moment, then, “I have an idea, but it’s not ideal.”
“Nothing about this is ideal,” she said. “Lay it on me.”
“I have a rain slicker,” he said. “Our only waterproof blanket, of a sort. We’re both down to nothing and you’re still cold.”
“Are you suggesting we share body heat?”
“Something like that,” he said, the words seemingly stiff.
“I am all for that right about now,” she said, trying not to sound too eager. Oh, hello, delicious torment. She’d been about to suggest it herself but didn’t want to seem like an eager tramp. Hi, can I rub my body all up against your hard one? I swear it’s just because I’m cold. The thought of your rippling abs and my eighteen months without sex has nothing to do with it in the slightest.
“Here,” he said, handing her the slicker. “Let’s move over to that corner. It’s the driest.”
His hand lightly brushed her shoulder and nudged her forward, and Beth Ann followed. She felt the boards creak as he shifted down to the ground, and then she heard him pat his leg. “Come on.”
Oh boy. Heart fluttering with anxiety and a mixture of things she didn’t want to define, she slid down to the floor next to him, and curled up, hugging her legs close. His warm arm was suddenly touching her legs and he pulled her body against his, and she tilted and leaned back against him.
“Don’t be shy,” he said in that same almost-mocking voice. “Shy means cold.”
She realized she’d sat down right between his legs. He’d spread them wide to accommodate her body, and her legs eased over one of his thighs, until her feet dangled off to the side and she curled halfway, sitting in his lap.
He reached around her and pulled the slicker over the two of them like a blanket. Then she felt his arms slide around her waist. “Relax,” he said. “Not gonna touch you. Platonic.”
No, she suspected he wouldn’t, but she was all too acutely aware of where she was sitting, and what she was laying against. For example, right now her cheek lay against a metal chain that she was pretty sure were his dog tags. Imagining those on his nak*d chest was rather…delicious.
Not that she should be thinking about that sort of thing. Especially right now. His c*ck jutted like iron, and she’d definitely noticed how hard it was. “I’m feeling something decidedly unplatonic against my side,” she pointed out.
“Involuntary,” he said. “I’m alive and you’re female and almost nak*d.”
All good points, and he was definitely warm and hard under her. “I see. Well, you sure know how to make a girl feel special.”
He chuckled. “Didn’t realize that was what you wanted tonight. You want to feel special, you got to ask.”
Charming. “Platonic,” she repeated.
“Platonic,” he agreed. “Not dead.”
He was going to be in a world of hurt in the morning, Colt decided. Beth Ann—pretty, unattainable Beth Ann Williamson—had fallen asleep in his arms, wearing nothing but a scrap of panties, his T-shirt, and a rain slicker that covered them both. He was pretty sure she wasn’t wearing a bra. She’d turned a little after she’d fallen asleep and mashed her full br**sts against his chest, and it had taken every ounce of his strength not to groan aloud. His dick was as hard as steel, and his knee throbbed, and he didn’t care.
She snuggled up against him and slept, oblivious to their cold, wet surroundings. And he kept his hands carefully on her back, because he was afraid to put them anywhere else. Her thighs were too exposed, her front too tempting.
What the f**k was he doing? Why had he lied to her about the two of them being stranded? Had he wanted to teach her a lesson so badly that he’d felt like traipsing through the mud with her at his side all weekend? Was he that much of a masochist to enjoy a woman’s weeping and exhaustion? This was his own damn fault. He’d forced her to stay out here in the wild because he’d lied to her about being stranded.
Worse than that, she wasn’t crying or complaining about fatigue. She wasn’t being tortured by this. She was snuggling up against him. Even worse than that, he was attracted to her. Really, really attracted—could stroke himself off at the touch of her hand on his chest attracted.
Fuck. And she was nothing but bad news.
Wouldn’t the town just love that, he thought with a wry twist of his mouth. Sweet, perfect Beth Ann, stolen away from handsome Allan Sunquist by one of the white-trash, no-good Waggoners.
Actually, he liked that thought very much, and his arms tightened around her, shifting her closer.
So this had started out as revenge, but it had changed at some point. Maybe when she’d laughed and apologized for being nasty to him. Maybe when she’d taken off her dress and shimmied into his shirt and even though he hadn’t been looking, he’d been picturing it.
Either way, he was setting himself up for a world of hurt and a weekend full of blue balls. There were a lot of things girls like Beth Ann liked in this world, but blue collar, ex-military guys from trailer parks weren’t one of them. Beth Ann’s family had money. They mingled with Houston society. They held fund-raisers and held city offices and did stupid shit like that.
And even knowing all this, he wanted to tilt her face up from where it was buried against his chest, and slide his lips over her parted ones, and kiss the hell out of her. See if she’d respond to his kiss.
But he wasn’t that big of a dick to molest a girl while she was sleeping. And Beth Ann wouldn’t be interested in a guy like him. So he just lay his head back against the tree house wall and tried not to think about the curve of her hip resting against his cock, and how he could have her spun around and down on the floor, pushing her panties aside and sinking deep into her before she’d had time to fully awaken. Fuck her until that sleepy look in her eyes turned to desire.
Okay, so he was thinking about it a little.
Beth Ann slowly woke up, her front toasty and delicious, her feet incredibly cold. She shifted, wondering why her bottom felt so stiff. She was pressed up against something deliciously warm and hard, and her first thought was Allan. Except Allan didn’t like to cuddle in bed with her, and there was definitely a large, warm hand cupping her ass. To her horror, she was drooling on a bare chest. Oh God. She suddenly knew whose chest that was, and she suspected he wouldn’t like being drooled on. She sat up, surreptitiously wiping at her mouth, and then straightened the dog tags that had gotten stuck to her cheek, returning them to their usual spot on his chest.
“Mornin’,” Colt said in a raspy drawl.
“Um, hi,” she said, and ran a hand over her hair. It had dried sometime in the night into unruly waves. Lovely. She probably looked like a hot mess. “How’d you sleep?”
“Well enough considering the splinter up my ass,” he said. “You?”
“Like a baby,” she said. She laughed but it was kind of the truth. She’d slept well in his arms, given the circumstances. Almost too well. Of course, she’d never admit that to Colt. He didn’t even like her.
“It’s still raining,” he pointed out.
“Still?” she said with dismay. “That means the river’s still going to be too high to cross, then?”