“That must be the goal of these pagan fertility decorations, right? All the rabbits? This is a room for procreation. Not nature’s way, mind you, because if you can get it up while looking at these baby animal pics you might need to be in therapy, but instant, magical pregnancies.”
Michael manages to catch his breath. “I’m sure most newlyweds who reserve this cabin are more focused on their partners and the bed, and not the rabbits.”
He might have a point. If he’d been carrying me in here to have sex, I probably wouldn’t have thought about anything but getting him naked and on top of me. Just the idea of it is arousing.
Of course, this is when my body reminds me why we came up here in the first place. It wasn’t for a good time, and now it’s an emergency. “You seriously need to let me down now.”
“Seriously?” Still smiling, he takes several steps inside and then slowly lowers me until my feet touch the hardwood floor.
The air between us crackles with energy and desire. The chemistry I felt the first time I looked at him is still there between us. I haven’t felt anything like it before or since. Only with him.
“I’ll wait right here.”
The moment is ruined. “What? No.Why?”
He pushes the door open wide enough that I can see the promised land of plumbing. “Do you really want to argue about this right now?”
I really do, but I really can’t. “Shit. Fine. But hum or something.”
His fierce eyebrows lift and his smile grows at my expense again. “You want me to hum?”
“Or something.”
“Whatever you say, Win.”
I close the bathroom door on his face and make a wobbly, painful beeline to the toilet while Michael hums outside the door.
“Whatever I say, my ass,” I mutter under my breath. If that were the case, he’d be downstairs with the radio on and a load of laundry running for good measure.
My head falls back as I take aim for myself with a soft groan of relief.Finally.
I know there’s at least a half bath downstairs and therefore no reason for me to be up here in the first place, but I doubt I would have made it there under my own steam in time anyway. There. I said it. I needed his help.
I’m not a big fan of being vulnerable, though since December that feeling has been a near-constant companion. Maybe even before that, when my schoolroom stopped being my safe space. Then Bex got hurt, and it threw my world order entirely out of whack. Things and people I trusted, the security I believed we’d all managed to wrap ourselves in, were ripped away. And I wasjust getting my balance again when I came here and found the pub beast—otherwise known as Michael the Mystery Guest—lying in wait for me.
Finishing up, I wrangle with the drawstring to keep the loose-fitting sweatpants from falling off my skinny frame, limp over to the sink to wash my hands and accidentally glance up at my reflection.
I’m surprised I don’t scream, because the horror cannot be overstated. That’s not me. That’s some ghostly, scratched-up and zombified stranger, with hair that’s been styled by a wind tunnel full of demons.
Looks like my snowed-in, pornographic Hallmark movie just got canceled due to bad casting. No wonder Michael is treating me like an invalid. I look like I’m halfway toHadestown, and not in a sinful, soulful, someone-would-risk-hell-to-get-me-out sort of way.
Priorities, Winnie.
Fine. Sure. Priorities.
But what if I’m vain and shallow? What if hard, sweaty, life-affirming sex is one of my priorities after this morning’s scare, and I’d rather not do that looking like a ghost of Christmas past?
I suppose it doesn’t matter to anyone else that I could have died but am instead snowbound for the night with a man I never thought I’d see again. Opportunities like that fall out of the sky every day, don’t they? And who cares that, even before my sabbatical, I hadn’t had sex for a while, what with lesson planning, after-school detentions and study groups, or those in-services the principal always seems to schedule when I even think of having a fun night out.
There hadn’t been time in the last two months either, since Bex left the hospital and didn’t want to go back to her apartment. She, Connor and I had all temporarily moved into Val’s bighouse for her recovery. None of us wanted to be too far away from each other after the scare.
I was there to distract her during the day and hear what she couldn’t share with the others. Connor was on heavy lifting and moral support. Val moved Bex into his bedroom and slept on a cot beside her in case she had nightmares while I was sleeping. She had them a lot. And she clung to him those first few weeks. He was the one to rescue her, and he seemed to be the only person who could bring her back from that dark place she’d go to after her dreams.
Wow. That was some serious off topic inner monologuing, and I’m sorry. Like I said, there’s been a lot going on and I’ve been too frustrated and distracted to get any. Though I’m not even sure why it matters when I look like this.
You know why.
Because Michael is outside the bathroom door waiting to see if I’ll need him. Still humming like I asked him to. Still planning to feed me.
