Husband Fur Hire (Bears Fur Hire #1)(30)

“I didn’t sleep that well last night,” she said carefully.

“Why not?”

She gulped the sweet fruit down and stared out the window, too chicken to look at him when she said, “I was thinking about you.”

Ian took another bite, and the crunching of the apple was the only sound in the truck for a while. “Thinking about me how?”

Elyse licked her lips. “Thinking about you, like I wished you would come into my room and sleep with me. Beside me. Sleep beside me.”

“Did you…?” Ian canted his head and left the unfinished question hanging in the air between them.

“Did I what?”

“Never mind.” He made his lips into a thin line and shook his head. “Nope. Not appropriate for a first date.”

“I thought you didn’t know anything about first dates, and besides, we’re engaged, remember? Ask me.”

“Did you touch yourself?”

Heat blazed up her neck and landed in her cheeks. “God, Silver.” She definitely couldn’t meet his gaze right now, so she kept her focus on the evergreens that blurred by.

“You don’t have to answer.”

“Yes,” she answered on a rushed breath.

He inhaled sharply, and she huffed a laugh, shocked that she’d just admitted that out loud.

“Did you think about me?” he asked in a low gravelly voice that brushed chills over her skin.

Elyse covered her burning face when she whispered, “Yes.”

“Shit, woman,” Ian said, adjusting his dick and then gripping the steering wheel in a choking grasp. He was smiling so big right now. “Next time you feel like a slumber party, you let me know and I’ll be in your room in a second flat. I was trying to give you space.”

“In case I cried again?”

Ian nodded. “I listened for it last night. I had trouble sleeping, too.”

Finding her bravery, she asked, “Did you touch yourself?”

“No, and now I’m going to f*cking explode. I’ve thought about you a lot.”

“A lot?”

“Yeah,” he murmured, leveling her an honest glance before he pulled his attention back to the road. “An embarrassing amount a lot. It’s hard to focus on the things I need to get done.”

“I feel close to you,” she whispered, terrified he would reject her sentiment.

Ian squeezed her leg again, this time higher up her thigh. “Me, too. I’m trying to take things slow with you, though.”

“Why?”

“Because I want to do this right. Cole is still kind of fresh for you, and I don’t want to be a rebound f*ck.”

Elyse laughed in shocked surprise. “Ian Silver, you are nobody’s rebound. No one else compares to you.”

“Not even Cole?”

“Especially not Cole. When I think about him now after spending time with you, I’m even more disappointed I stayed in that relationship as long as I did. I’m not crying over that man anymore.” She took the apple from his hand on her thigh and chomped another bite.

Ian looked over at her several times, but whatever he was searching for on her face, she hadn’t a clue. At last, he murmured, “Good,” and took a sharp left onto an old dirt road right before they got to the Galena welcome sign.

“The river is that way,” she said, jamming her thumb behind them.

“I told you, woman. We’re going to bear country.”

Elyse’s mouth dropped open as she stared at the trio of small bush planes in front of them. “Did you hire a pilot? Ian, that’s expensive.”

Ian chuckled mysteriously and pulled the truck to a stop in a clearing near the landing strip. With a wicked grin, he opened his door and said, “Come on.”

She helped him carry the nets and the basket of food he’d packed, as well as her hiking pack, but the closer they walked toward the planes, the more confused she became. If they were flying, there was no pilot here. Perhaps he was running late.

But Ian pulled a set of keys from his pocket and unlocked one of the planes—a red and white four-seater, and everything started to make sense. “You fly?”

“I do.”

“And is this your plane?” Her voice jacked up another octave.

“It is.”

“You’re a bush pilot?” Any higher, and her voice was going to crack.

If his beaming grin was anything to go by, Ian was utterly amused. “I’m going to take you to my favorite fishing spot. The salmon have already run this year, but we can still get some fish in the freezer. And when hunting season starts in a few days, I’ll go out and get you some red meat. Caribou and deer. Maybe even a moose. Along with the beef we butcher and the vegetables from the garden, you should be good all winter. And if things get tight at the end, you can take a few chickens. You won’t go hungry if I get lucky on my hunts.”

“And what about you?”

Ian’s face went serious, and he busied himself with loading the back of the plane with their equipment. “I meant we will be good all winter.”

Elyse narrowed her eyes at the back of his head. Mmm hmm. He’d been slipping up like that a lot. She opened her mouth to call him out on it, but he turned abruptly and kissed her into silence. As he eased away, he whispered, “I’m sorry. It told you I don’t always say the right things.”