Faked - Karla Sorensen Page 0,47

with a small smile.

Bauer clenched his jaw and then dropped his forehead to mine with an exhaled laugh. "Yeah, princess. I do."

Chapter Fifteen

Bauer

Three hours—and an entire snow family—later, I did something I'd never done before.

I took a cold-ass shower after being outside in the snow.

Eventually, I'd have to start calling this strange reaction to Claire Ward The Princess Effect because holy hell, the woman was killing me slowly with one look, one touch at a time.

In that tiny bathroom, fixing those ridiculous snow pants that were about five sizes too big for her, I almost lost the shaky grasp on my control. Because while she might not have asked me to kiss her, she wanted me to. Everything I saw in her big blue eyes was almost certainly reflected in mine.

Maybe I knew what held me back because I wasn't a guy who forced himself on a woman, no matter how she was looking at me, but for the life of me, I couldn't figure out what the hell was holding her back.

For hours, we played in the steadily falling snow, using ridiculous props to make a four-person snow family, and for hours, she avoided prolonged eye contact or accidental touching of any kind.

Not that I would've felt anything good, layered up like we were.

And as the frigid water beat down on me, I had to laugh at myself that I still needed a cold shower. Because no matter how little eye contact or how little touching, I wanted Claire so badly I felt like I could've melted every inch of snow coating the forest outside of that cabin.

Goosebumps popped on my skin, but still, I braced my hands against the shower wall and took a few deep breaths. My reaction to her defied any common sense unless it was just the fact that she seemed so unattainable. That she evaded me just enough that I wanted to reach out and snatch her to me, hold her close, and feel everything about her that I hadn't felt yet.

Taste her lips to see if they were as sweet as I imagined them.

Grip her skin and see which parts of her body felt the best under my impatient hands.

Not the thoughts to be having when she was less than fifteen feet away from me, cuddled up under a blanket on the couch, which was where I'd left her when I ducked into the shower.

With a violent shove, I turned the water off and shivered. A threadbare towel was hanging along the back of the door, and I scrubbed myself dry as quickly as possible. By the time I'd tugged on my clothes, I felt a bit less crazed and a hell of a lot colder.

Thanks to the fire I'd started again after our time outdoors, I opened the bathroom door to a wave of warm air.

Fragrant, warm air.

"What is that smell?" I groaned happily.

No longer cuddled on the couch, Claire was in the kitchen, stirring something in a large cast-iron pan over the small stovetop. She smiled at me. "I raided the pantry, and he had some pasta and just enough to make a decent tomato sauce. So ... Italian it is. I hope that's okay."

"More than okay." I came up behind her, keeping a few inches between her back and my chest. Her hair was pulled up off her neck, wisps of dark brown hair trailing down the length of her neck. "Paige teach you how to cook?"

Over her shoulder, she gave me a chiding look. "Maybe Logan did."

I held up my hands with a laugh. "Touché, Princess, touché."

She shook her head. "It was Paige. Logan managed fine while we were younger, but when he married Paige, dinners got a lot better. She was living as a full-time model in Milan right before moving in with us, so we benefited greatly from her cooking skills."

Tugging a chair out from the table with my foot, I took a seat and shamelessly watched her navigate around the small kitchen area.

"How old were you when Paige and your brother got married?"

Her smile was barely visible as she stirred the sauce. "Just turned twelve."

I thought about the picture of her and Lia from their apartment, decked out in Washington gear. "It must have been every girl's dream to have a supermodel for your new mother figure."

She snorted. "Not exactly. We were ... oh," she sighed, "how do I put this? Lia and I were in our boundary testing phase when Paige showed up."

Watching as Claire