Quinn’s feet, chilled even through two pairs of socks and a thermal skin-tight suit, trudged through the deep snow. The roads were empty, but lethal with ice, and Noah discarded his car to the side of the road and insisted on walking a country lane that looked like it hadn’t seen life walk through it since the 1800s. The dead branches were taut and overgrown even in the middle of winter, their skeletons twisted at odd angles, as if they were full of pain and broken.
‘It’s not too far now. Do you need a hand?’
All he wanted was for Noah to hold him, to guide him through this snow, but he had pride. Plus, he was certain if he slipped, he would bring Noah crashing to the ground with him. Quinn looked through the dead trees, glimpsing a house covered in snow. A puff of smoke rose from the brick-breasted chimney, the shade of grey blending with the sky that threatened more heavy snowfall. He could make that, couldn’t he?
The chill on Quinn’s face pinched him, and he tugged his coat and scarf closer, wishing for the warmth in Noah’s car. Or maybe the warmth of Noah himself. As his foot was hit with a fresh dosing of undisturbed snow, he groaned.
‘Come on, hippie boy,’ Noah said, flashing his sexy smile. He tugged at Quinn’s coat, adjusting it as if it would make him warmer. ‘It’s just a bit of snow.’
‘I could fall and break my neck.’
‘At least that would solve the bookshop problem.’
‘Noah!’
‘Joke. I’m joking,’ Noah said, nudging Quinn on the shoulder. ‘I don’t want you to die.’
Quinn glanced at the house. It didn’t take much to deduce the route they were on.
‘Why are we going there now?’
The house, imposing, regal, and set within acres of land, was the house Quinn knew to be Hermione Sage’s home. Once belonging to Richard Booth, it was now the home of the faded movie star, and the setting of many ridiculous stories about ‘Hermione the hermit’.
‘Because she’s asked you to write her book.’
‘But she said to arrange a meeting. We can’t just show up.’
‘We’re not showing up,’ Noah said. ‘I live here.’
Fair point.
‘Come on, if you’re that cold, let me warm you up.’
‘How do you expect to do that?’
‘Body heat,’ Noah said with a shrug.
Body heat?Noah’sbody heat.
He could stand here in the cold and trudge through it and pretend that Noah’s offer wasn’t inviting, or he could leap at the opportunity to be close to Noah again. Body heat. That’s all it was. Survival.
Quinn chose the latter. ‘Fine.’
Noah wrapped an arm around him like he was a friend, a brother, and Quinn slipped his arm around Noah’s waist with some uncertainty.
‘You’ll have to hold me closer if you don’t want to break your neck,’ Noah said, an eyebrow raised.
Quinn said nothing, but did as he was told, feeling Noah’s toned back underneath him. The warmth was enough to convince him that this was a good idea, and he prayed that he wouldn’t slip and take them both out. The last thing he wanted was to be responsible for injuring Noah Sage.
They continued to walk, Quinn no longer angry with the weather, but warm and curious. He couldn’t believe he was about to come face to face with Hermione. The once Hollywood legend.
And then the scandal.
A scandal that was not a scandal, but just human need.
A source of gossip.
That was the image of Hermione that Quinn was more accustomed to: a faded Oscar statue. That golden glint, tarnished, chipped away at, and left to rot, not cared for and irrelevant. The press loved to speculate on where she was, forever reminding the public of her ‘disgrace’ and her ‘scandal’. If only they knew that a woman who’d been the victim of misogynistic press now lived in the English countryside atop a hill that had Quinn panting harder than the last time he’d been with a man.
