Faked (Ward Family #2)(39)

"Those smell good," I told him. "Thank you for doing that."

He glanced over his shoulder—now covered with a black-T-shirt—and grinned crookedly. "That's the beauty of having low expectations of men like me, huh? Follow a simple set of directions on the side of a box, and I have the undying gratitude of a beautiful woman."

"Men like you?" I repeated as I poured a steaming cup of coffee. "Who's dangling bait for compliments now?"

His answering laugh was a short bark. I watched as he deftly flipped the pancakes. When two were ready, he slid them onto a waiting plate and jerked his chin at me. "Go ahead."

The pancakes were perfect. Fluffy and sweet and warm, and I watched Bauer make himself a stack double the height of mine. I raised my eyebrows meaningfully before he took his first huge bite.

"What?" he muttered around a mouthful. "I need my energy."

"For what?" I waved my fork around the small cabin. "We're stuck."

His eyes took on a devilish gleam.

"What?"

"How long has it been since you've worn snow pants, princess?"





About an hour later, Agnes watched me with green eyes full of judgment and disdain. Her tail flicked lazily as I turned sideways, looking at myself in the bathroom mirror.

"This is not my best look."

She meowed.

"I know. I know I look ridiculous, but trust me, it wasn't my idea."

Bauer came back from outside, stomping his boots on the towel he'd laid by the cabin’s entrance. "You're still getting dressed? Come on, Claire Ward, this snowman won't build itself."

He was so excited about his idea. Even though going out in a snowstorm sounded awful, I knew the fresh air would probably keep him sane.

"These snow pants are huge on me," I told him.

"For what we're doing, you'll be fine. I'm just glad Scotty had something that worked for you."

Disgruntled, I looked at his perfectly fitted attire. I was drowning in a set of brown snow pants and winter coat straight from the seventies while Bauer looked like he'd jumped from Snowboarding Magazine with what he'd rummaged out of the back of his Jeep.

"I don't know that I'd go so far as that," I mumbled. While he laughed under his breath at me, I struggled to figure out how to tighten the strap on the waistband of the pants. "But you keep laughing, mister. When these fall off and you have to carry my ass back inside so I don't freeze to death, you won't think it's so funny then."

The sound of Agnes's disgruntled mewing was my warning that Bauer had slipped his boots off and was approaching me. She held her ground this time, though her ears flattened slightly as he came closer.

I sighed and dropped my hands. "I give up. I think this style was retired before I was born. I'll just have to moon the forest."

"Don't be so dramatic. You're wearing leggings underneath." He stopped and tugged his gloves off with his teeth. His eyes met mine, and I felt an involuntary flip in my belly. "May I?"

I found myself nodding slowly.

Bauer smelled like cold and ice and fresh air, and there were flakes of snow caught in the dark stubble lining his jaw. His hands tugged on the inside of the waistband of the snow pants, and I sucked in a sharp breath when his knuckles brushed my stomach.

He was so much taller than me, he had to dip his head to see the tiny flap of fabric that had evaded me. Though his fingers were larger than mine, thick and long, he found a small slit inside the lining of the pants and twisted his wrist.

My entire body was on fire.

Flames. All over.

If I thought I was hot when I woke up, when he did that wrist turn thing, it felt like Bauer tossed me straight onto the burning logs. To keep my raging thoughts at bay, I focused on his hands. On one hand was a clover. For luck, I was sure.

On the other hand, a lion. My fingers—I wasn't entirely sure when they decided it—started tracing the line of its mane.

Bauer froze.

"Wh-why a lion?" I asked.

His breath was uneven, and he carefully grasped the edge of the elastic strap that would tighten the pants around me. "Lions are the top of the food chain. They fear no one and nothing in their natural environment."

The skin on the top of his hands was warm from his gloves, and the veins that ran along the surface were pronounced. Such a weirdly masculine thing to have veins like that.

"Every time I see it," he continued in a rough voice, slowly tightening the pants, which tugged my hips closer to his, "I'm reminded to channel that kind of fearlessness."

My eyes lifted to his, which were trained on my face was such focused intensity that my face flushed instantly. He wouldn't kiss me unless I made the first move.

He'd channel the lion as he moved through life, except with me.

This, he'd leave in my hands, and it was a heady rush of power to know that I was capable of something like that from a man like this.

Bauer searched my gaze deeply, then moved from my eyes to my lips. "Be sure, Claire."

I blinked slowly at his rough command.

No, not command. It was a plea.

Since night one, he'd been completely honest with me that this was what he wanted. That was how certain he was.

Exhaling slowly, I broke the gaze and felt the slim tips of butterfly wings as they fluttered through my whole body. Was I ready to leap?