When Stars Collide (Chicago Stars #9) - Susan Elizabeth Phillips Page 0,36
“Body heat transfer.”
Neither of them had much body heat, but it still felt good. Her cold cheek against the side of his cold neck. His arms encircling her. Their thighs pressed together.
She felt a bulge press against her and drew back.
He grinned through his chattering teeth. “I’m not apologizing. It’s good to know I still have some decent blood flow.”
She wanted to go right back into his arms, but she widened the distance between them.
It had started to snow. One flake. Another. They landed in his hair, on her shoulders. Because of the design of the house, the front and side windows rose too high above the ground for easy access. They headed toward the rear of the house.
She might have a higher proportion of body fat, but he was accustomed to physical discomfort, and he moved more gracefully. In the reflection from the security lights, she saw that his lips were beginning to turn blue. Her fingers had cramped so painfully she lost her grip on the frozen towel and it fell. He stumbled on a patch of frozen ground. “Jesus, Liv . . .”
He said it like a prayer, and for a moment she forgot the cold. But only for a moment. “Don’t be a j-j-jerk.”
He raised his arms in mock surrender and turned toward the back door. It had glass panes, and while she looked in the snow patches for a rock to break the glass, he tried to see through it. “There’s a dead bolt that needs a key. I’m going to have to kick the door in.”
The door was metal, and kicking it in didn’t seem like it would be all that easy, not even for him.
She stood, shaking so much she could barely speak. “H-h-how about th-th-this?”
She held out a key.
“Where’d you get that?”
“I saw a r-r-rock that looked different. Tell your f-f-friend, if his fake rock didn’t fool me, it won’t fool a b-b-burg . . .” He had the door open, and she gave up trying to get the word out.
They rushed inside, closing the door behind them. Grabbing her arm, he pulled her through the house and up the stairs. “Of all my life experiences,” he muttered, “I never imagined myself wandering around in the Colorado mountains with only a pair of boxer shorts, my old Nikes, and a naked diva.”
“L-l-life is strange.”
The master bedroom’s walk-in shower had slate walls, a river-rock floor, and a stone boulder to sit on. Moments later, they were both inside. He adjusted the water, running it cool until their frozen bodies adjusted to the temperature, then gradually making it warmer. Finally, he flipped on the overhead rain fixture.
The water cocooned them. He was naked except for those silky boxers molding to his skin. How could a healthy woman be standing next to him and not look? She was hogging most of the spray, and she moved aside to let him in. As steam filled the room, the water painted his dark hair to his forehead and turned his eyes into green sea glass. She wanted to touch. To have him touch her. She wanted to slide her hands down that incredible chest, to kiss him. She wanted everything his body offered.
“I’m trying to be a gentleman and keep my eyes straight ahead, but can I look now?”
She yearned to have him look. To have him see the same beauty in her body that she saw in his. But she was more vulnerable than she’d ever been, and throwing herself into an ill-fated affair with a man she was growing increasingly fond of—no matter how tempting—would take her into a whole new universe of self-destruction. “You really should model for a bodywash commercial.”
“Already done it.” He kept his gaze fixed on her face, beads of water clinging to his lashes. “Now can I look?”
He made her knees weak, and the heat that had crept back into her body turned to flame. Calling on every ounce of her legendary self-control, she forced herself to reach for one of the towels hanging at the end of the shower. “Sorry, soldier. I’m not into self-destruction these days.”
“Self-destruction? What are you talking about? How about two people having a good time?”
As she tucked the towel between her breasts, she grew even more aware of the way the silky fabric of his boxers detailed his body, showing her exactly what she was turning down. She gripped the towel as if it were a life vest. “I’m on a long-term sabbatical from