In Bed with the Bachelor (Bachelor Auction Book 5)(8)
“In the car,” he said. “Now.”
“Terrence is not a douche,” Michaela said stoutly, crossing her arms over her chest and wishing she were wearing several more layers beneath her winter jacket as the Marietta wind slapped at her. “And even if he was, I’m engaged to him, so your default assumption should be that I’m into that. So why would you go out of your way to insult someone’s fiancé?”
“Michaela.”
He gritted out her name and there was nothing the least bit sweet or appealing about it. It was about the furthest thing from nice she’d ever heard. And yet for a moment her legs felt as if they might go out from under her, toppling her sideways into the nearest snow bank.
Ice, she told herself sagely. Nothing but ice.
Definitely not the sound of her name, all sandpaper and whiskey, sliding over her and abrading her skin as it went—
“Look up.”
She did as he commanded because that was far preferable to policing her own distressingly wayward thoughts just then. She tipped her head back and looked up at the Montana sky, which was clouded over and swollen with portent.
“It’s going to snow,” Jesse said, very distinctly, as if he was beginning to suspect she was not very bright. She couldn’t help but agree with that assessment. He made her feel like a fool. “Soon and at great length. You can either get in the goddamned truck and try to beat the storm with me, or you can sit here for however long it takes them to dig out. Your choice, but you need to make it now.”
She felt like Little Red Riding Hood, peering at a set of sharp, gleaming fangs, telling herself it wasn’t a wolf when she knew very well that he was. Of course he was. But her other alternative was more time away from work, which was always a headache, and more time with her family meant it would really be more like a migraine. Michaela loved her family. She did. But none of them seemed to understand that she was no longer thirteen and that she was, in fact, capable of making her own decisions. She was tired of explaining what she did for Amos, just as she was tired of defending Terrence to them. Jesse Grey might be a jerk, but he was the fastest way home to her actual life, where she was highly-valued in both her professional and private arenas and no one required her to defend anything.
Michaela got in the SUV and sat there questioning her life choices while he shut her door behind her, like some dangerous remnant of an old school gentleman. She told herself she found that infantilizing and offensive—but the warmth that twisted around in her belly suggested otherwise.
Something restless and worrying snaked through her, making her shiver, as Jesse loped around the front bumper, still scowling. She thought his face might actually be stuck that way—that it might in fact be medical. And she didn’t understand why that failed to make him the slightest bit less attractive.
That restless thing kicked at her, swelling up like a high tide about to break and swallow the shoreline—
Michaela pulled out her cell phone with a hand that was absolutely not shaking, and, if it was, it was obviously because of the wind chill and nothing else, and called Terrence.
It went straight to his voicemail. Again.
“Hi sweetheart, it’s me!” she all but sang into the phone, and she could hear her voice was much too high and certainly too loud as Jesse swung into the driver’s seat next to her. It got worse when he slammed his door shut, because then they were trapped there. The two of them. In the muted quiet of the SUV’s interior.
This time, Michaela knew exactly what it was that danced over her skin, making her stiffen. Pure, unadulterated panic.
“So the strangest thing happened,” she continued, talking into the phone even as Jesse turned that scowl of his on her again, except this time he was much, much closer and she could smell him, soap and snow and man, while their eyes locked. “There’s a gigantic snowstorm coming in and everything’s shutting down, which means I could be stuck here for days if I don’t drive out now. And luckily, there’s this guy—”
“I’m sure that’s a great comfort to your fiancé,” Jesse muttered, still holding her gaze with his, even as he swiped that hat off of his head and let his dark-blonde hair do what it would. “As it would be to anyone. Some random guy.”
“—this friend of the family—”
“I grew up in Billings. I’m not from Marietta. Your aunt knows my relatives but she doesn’t know me, personally, from a can of paint.”
“—this weird, socially awkward guy who might or might not be some kind of questionable painter,” she said tartly, and had to remind herself she was leaving a message, especially when Jesse’s hard mouth kicked up a little bit in one corner. Just the littlest bit, and yet her heart soared as if she’d won some kind of Olympic event. “He and I are going to drive home. That sounds insane but really, it’s only about ten hours or so.” Jesse’s brows lifted as if that was funny. “I looked it up,” she told Terrence. She was definitely talking to Terrence. “So I’ll see you in ten hours! Yay!”
Michaela ended the call, and she should have turned away then, clearly. She had no idea why she just sat there, practically nose to nose with this man, as if neither one of them had anything better to do. As if this was at all safe, this thing she refused to acknowledge was swirling around in what little space was between them.