He sat up with a start. “What is it?”
She pointed. “Are your feet made of ice?”
“What? No, I—”
“I thought an icicle had somehow fallen beneath the covers.” She rubbed the inside of her calf where his toes had sought purchase. “Do you have any dry socks?”
“Yes, I keep them with my spare trousers and dress in my magical pocket. Now, will you get back in here before both of us freeze?”
Keeping her eyes trained on his feet, she slipped back beneath the covers and turned away from him. Several moments passed, the only sound the patter of ice against the window. “Are your feet still cold?” she whispered.
“Yes.”
“Is it keeping you awake?”
A pause. “Perhaps.”
She shifted her legs until his toes brushed the bottom of her feet, absorbing some of her warmth. His body stiffened, then relaxed. “Thank you, Sadie.”
She made a non-committal sound as exhaustion overwhelmed her. It was so difficult keeping her walls up around him, aroundeveryone. As his warmth spread over her back, seeping into her chest and relaxing her spine, she allowed herself to breathe, to simply be in his presence.
Perhaps spending the night together wouldn’t be so hard after all.
Chapter 6
Goodgod,hewashard.
In fact, he was certain that he had never been so hard in his life. Because at some point during the night, his arm had snaked around her middle and pulled her against his chest. And the foot between her calves had turned into his entire thigh between her bloomers, close enough to feel the heat of her core against his flesh. His cock was tucked snugly in the crevice of her bottom. For the first time since he arrived at the firehouse that evening, he was quite warm.
Too warm.
But he’d let himself drown in a pool of his own perspiration to keep Sadie close.
I’ve shared a bed with a man before.
Garrett considered himself a progressive man, a champion of women’s rights. The notion of women remaining chaste was a ridiculous double standard, and he would never think less of a woman for chasing her pleasure in the same way a man chased his.
But whoever had shared Sadie’s bed was no longer in her life, and he suspected her dislike of the practice of courtship and marriage stemmed from this mystery figure. That someone had treated her unkindly, had even hurt her.
And that made his blood boil.
Sadie hummed in her chest, the vibration stirring his hand as it spread over her abdomen. God, what he would give to make her moan, to watch her let down her fiery exterior and deliver herself over to his care.
Another moan, accompanied by the rocking of her hips, the swell of her backside giving his cock enough friction to make him groan in response.
Her breathing changed, shallowed, as the motion became more rhythmic, more intentional.
Moreconscious.
“Sadie,” he whispered.
The rocking paused. “You’re awake?”
He’d never been so awake in his life. “I can leave—”
“Don’t you dare.” Another tilt of her hips, this time more tentative, as though gauging his response.
His hand slid from her belly to her hip. The tension between them was electric, crackling with the need to break. The storm had suspended their reality, relaxed the rules and conventions that dictated what they should do, the distance they should maintain, until the only thing that mattered was caring for the woman in his arms. “What do you need, Sadie?”
