“Could’ve fooled me.”
“Oh, I’m sorry. Was I supposed to be rude to a client? Tell his grandson to fuck off? I run a business, Crew. I have to be professional even when men assume I’m available just because I’m single.”
“Are you?”
The question hung in the air between us. “Am I what?”
“Available.”
I thought about my ex. About how he’d made me feel like my success was something to apologize for. About how he’d wanted me small and manageable instead of strong. About my non-existent love life since then—three years of putting all my energy into the mill, into proving myself, into being responsible Charlotte who took care of everyone else.
I thought about Brantley and his assumptions. About Mr. Henderson trying to set me up because clearly a woman my age needed someone to take care of her. About all the bossy men in my life who thought they knew what I needed better than I did.
And then I thought about Crew. About the way his hands were gripping the steering wheel right now. About the tension in his jaw. He wasn’t like any other man I’d ever met. He didn’ttry to manage me or make me smaller. Instead, he saw my competence and admired it instead of being threatened by it.
My heart kicked hard against my ribs. “That’s not—you don’t get to ask me that. Not after spending days avoiding me. Not after calling our kiss a mistake.”
“I wasn’t the one who walked away, Charlotte.”
“You didn’t stop me,” I shot back.
“Because I couldn’t trust myself not to do it again.” The words burst out of him, raw and honest. “And I’ve avoided being alone with you, because every time I look at you, all I can think about is how you felt in my arms and how badly I want—”
My breath caught. “Want what?”
“You. I want you. And I have no right to. I want to touch you. Taste you. Feel you. I want to strip you out of those jeans and find out if you’re as soft as I’ve been imagining. I want to make you come on my tongue, on my fingers, on my cock. I want to hear you scream my name. I want—fuck, Charlotte, I want everything.”
Before I could respond, before I could process what he’d just said, before I could tell him yes, God yes, take it all, the world outside the windshield changed.
One second, we were driving through clear December air, and the next we hit a wall of white. Snow came from nowhere—thick, heavy, blinding. A snow squall that appeared out of thin air, swallowing the road, the landscape, everything.
“Shit!” Crew cursed as visibility dropped to almost nothing.
He reduced his speed immediately, but I could feel us sliding on the snowy road. My hand gripped the door handle. “Where did that come from?” I breathed, staring at the impossible weather. One second clear, the next a complete whiteout.
“It doesn’t matter. We need to get off this road.” Crew’s voice was controlled but tense. “Where’s the next exit?”
“About five miles up ahead. There’s a hotel—it’s pretty much the only thing there.”
“Hold on.”
Those five miles took forever. Crew drove with the kind of controlled precision that spoke of experience in bad conditions, but even he couldn’t completely prevent the truck from sliding on the ice. Every time we hit a patch, my hand shot out instinctively to grip his thigh, feeling the hard muscle tense under my palm.
Finally we saw the exit sign through the snow, and Crew carefully guided us off the highway. The hotel appeared through the whiteout. It was part of a chain, catering to highway travelers.
“Thank God,” I breathed.
Crew pulled into the parking lot and killed the engine. For a moment, we just sat there, both of us catching our breath, the snow falling silently against the truck.
“Let’s get inside, before this gets worse.”
We walked through the snow to the lobby, arriving breathless and covered in white. A young clerk looked up from his phone with surprise.
“Two rooms,” Crew said immediately.
The clerk shook his head. “Sorry, man. Only got one left. Road crews booked out most of the hotel because of the storm.”
Of course the universe would do this. Would trap us in one room after that confession in the truck. After days of tension and wanting and barely controlled need.
