Total pages in book: 146
Estimated words: 141951 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 710(@200wpm)___ 568(@250wpm)___ 473(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 141951 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 710(@200wpm)___ 568(@250wpm)___ 473(@300wpm)
She did manage to wriggle one arm out from beneath the quilt. Only to instantly find the chilly air waiting to kiss her skin the minute she was free from the warmth their close bodies provided. A chill raced through Delaney.
“Oh,” she breathed, quickly jerking her arm back into the safe, cozy confines of the quilt and Lucas.
That time, she did wake him up.
His snores stopped.
She peered up to watch his brown eyes blink away the dreams—good ones, she hoped; he deserved those. Lucas let out one hard breath before his chest tightened and so did his arm around her.
Delaney laughed as he crushed her into his warmth once more. The sound caught his attention, and that dark stare of his found her safe in his arms with only the top of her head peeking out from beneath the blanket over top of them. Recognition bloomed in his features, and all at once, he seemed to understand that he had kept her tangled with him all night. Not that he did anything about it.
Their legs remained interlocked.
His arm didn’t loosen.
Her perfect cave stayed intact.
“Good morning,” he grunted out.
Not unhappily.
That, at least, gave Delaney some joy.
She didn’t think he shouldn’t be sad—especially about his brother—but a part of her couldn’t help but try to put a smile on his handsome face or light happiness in his eyes all the same. Anything at all to take his mind away from that dark, lonely place. If just for a moment …
“Morning,” she whispered back, grinning. “It feels a little cold?”
Lucas’ brow lifted, and his head rolled back on the pillow while he stretched the arm high that he’d slept with it tucked under his head on the pillow. “Fuck, let’s hope the fire’s not all the way out, huh?”
Oh, yeah.
There was that.
“Don’t tell me you can’t build a fire,” she joked.
Without warning, the hand that Lucas had been stroking up and down Delaney’s spine jumped to her side where he tickled her mercilessly under the quilt until she squealed for peace. The second she said stop, he did, replacing his palm flat over her sleep shirt at her spine.
“Mean,” she gasped, “that’s so mean!”
“Can too,” he muttered, using his thumb and forefinger to rub his eyes until he blinked down at her again. “I can build a fire, thank you.”
Oh, he took that personally.
Delaney snickered. “Got it, big man.”
“Mmmhmm,” he rumbled in a deep, sleepy hum that did wonderful things to Delaney’s body. “And don’t you forget it, either.”
How could she possibly forget?
She figured out exactly why he preferred the larger couch downstairs when the size of him practically swallowed both of them in the combined twin beds. If he wrapped around her, she didn’t think she would need a blanket in bed with him. And there was the not-so-little matter of the thick ridge bulging in his sleep pants that she had felt pressed against her belly from the time she had opened her eyes that morning.
Even if she was trying to ignore it; his very large, and prominent, erection made that hard. No pun intended.
Lucas came to the same understanding of his predicament from his close quarters with Delaney at the same time—by chance, he’d stretched, and the movement drove their bodies firmly together. Her wiggle, and shift against him, brushed her hand along his drawstring pants, and erection.
“Jesus,” Lucas breathed, his eyes flying wide as he instantly tried to put distance between the two in bed. Not that he went far before almost toppling off the side of the bed. He caught himself—barely—but the sudden movement tore the quilt off enough that there was no mistaking the cold in the cabin.
“Sorry,” he muttered.
“Give me the blanket, you’re gonna freeze me out,” she demanded.
His morning wood was the least of her concerns.
And the easiest thing to deal with, being honest.
Lucas reduced himself to embarrassed chuckles as the two resituated in the bed, protected from the cold and comfy tucked together under the quilt. In the same position as before; Delaney demanded that, even reaching to pull Lucas’ arm back around her.
“Warm cave,” she mumbled into his chest, tucking herself there like a kitten in a ball while her legs slipped in between his as they had been before. “Not moving.”
His laughter rumbled like thunder.
“I can’t believe I was awake for at least two entire minutes before I figured out I had a hard-on,” he grumbled from outside the quilt.
Delaney grinned wickedly. Maybe she liked the disbelief and awkwardness coloring his voice, if only because he missed a bigger part of the picture that she saw just fine.
“Or sex isn’t the first thing on your mind in the morning—even if that part of you thinks differently,” Delaney returned quietly.
Not so low that he couldn’t hear it.
Lucas inhaled deep, and let out an equally slow, trepid exhale. “And as you say that very thing to me, I feel every word coming out of your lips brushing against my chest, and I can’t say you’re right at the moment. My dick’s still hard, I know it now, and—”