think it’s going to rain?” he said, like he couldn’t tell a joke when he heard one. Because his mood was apparently so foul he couldn’t even picture a reason to be in a good one. “Are you nuts? You walked somewhere in this? You look like you just got pulled out of the Hudson.”
Laughing a little, she swung the bags up onto his table. “It was only about half a mile. I think. I don’t know. I’m better at judging distances from the air, less good at it from the ground. Though since I’ve only been flying a couple years and been on the ground the rest of my life, you’d think it’d be the opposite.”
For a normal person, it probably would’ve been, but Penny had learned young to judge distance by how far she’d be able to walk or roll her wheelchair. It was more a can-I-make-it-that-far? measuring system than something with math and numbers. Being now able to easily walk a mile, or whatever, in the pounding rain was something to celebrate. Not that he needed to know all that. It certainly wouldn’t help put him into a better mood. He might even start fussing over her health—like her family still did on occasion, even though she’d been in remission for years.
“Niagara Falls is coming off the roof.” Even though Gabriel’s words were complaints, his tone had taken on that sardonic lilt that let her know that even in the dark he was shaking his head and saying words he really didn’t expect to mean anything to her. Might even be rolling his pretty brown eyes.
“Yep. But what was I going to do, call a cab to go the equivalent of a few blocks? Rain’s not going to kill me.” She hoped. But, goodness, she needed to warm up. Which...she didn’t have a plan for. No spare clothes.
“Your teeth are chattering,” he noted.
“I don’t know how you can see anything in here, it’s dark.”
“I can hear them clacking.”
She clamped her mouth shut to control the noise and finished piling her dripping bags on the table so she could dig out the candles she’d purchased. Candles meant fire, meant light, and especially some kind of heat.
“I know you’re trying to be nice.”
“I am,” she chirped, felt her voice wobble with her involuntary jaw wobbling, still determined to give Dr. Grouchy a better evening than the universe had conjured for either of them. Finding the matches and grabbing one of the candles, she created fire. And light. “Saw a strip mall on the way here with one of those cheapo general-store places beside a liquor store.”
Clack. Clackity. Clack. She gritted her teeth until her jaw tensed and felt more under control. She kept the rest of it short. “Got supplies. You could play along, pretend you’re someone who doesn’t hate f-fun. M-might s-surprise y-you.”
The last several words stuttered out and she gave up trying to pretend. She was cold. During her brisk walk in the downpour she’d stayed more or less warm. Standing around made the chill seep into her, and life become decidedly less livable.
Outside the storm continued to rage, and when a gust blew against the side of the building, she looked over and noticed Gabriel was in his underwear.
Gabriel was in his underwear.
How had she missed that?
Putting the candle down, she smooshed her wet hair back from her face, where it was obviously obstructing her vision, and looked at him. Beneath his carefully zipped flight suit he’d been hiding all that?
Even as dark as the room was, she could see the definition of abs in his rich, brown skin. Wide, solid shoulders. Hip flexors. Good God, the man had chiseled hip flexors.
Which would be something she could spend time appreciating as soon as she got warm.
“Did you get something dry to wear in that?”
“Would be wet if I had. But I think you have the right idea.”
She fumbled for her zipper, fingers suddenly stiff and wooly, and failed to sufficiently grab the tab to draw it down three times in succession. Her fingers just slid right off the end when she pulled. A mild sound of alarm was all it took to set him into motion, and suddenly he was in front of her, taking over.
Under any other circumstances, she might hesitate to strip down to her undies with the partner she’d been actively trying to ignore her attraction to, but him peeling the sodden, freezing material down her arms at least provided an excuse for the wash of goose-bumps she knew were as much to do with him undressing her as her looming hypothermia. When he knelt to help her with the boots, she put her hands on his shoulders, and immediately wanted to mash her whole body against his. The man was hot, in every sense of the word.
At least that fear that had been pitting through her was gone now. She wasn’t feeling...all that hesitant anymore either. “How do you feel about underwear hugging? You, me, mashed together. You’re giving off heat like a space heater and I really like that about you right now.”
“I’m a normal temperature. You’re just cold. It doesn’t have to be freezing temperatures to get hypothermia. You know that.”
Yes, she did.
Despite the irritation lingering in his voice, his touch was gentle. Large, strong hands cupped the back of each leg as he helped ease her clothing off.
Beneath her suit, she generally dressed for comfort. That meant white cotton bikinis and a snug strappy tank top. Being endowed with modest curves had advantages, one being the ability to skip confining undergarments, especially under such unstructured clothing as a flight suit.
She puffed as he stood back up and she had to clamp her arms to her sides to keep from flinging herself at him. “Yell at me later.”
“I will. After you’ve had a shower and warmed up.” And he sounded like he meant it.
Gabriel pulled her back sometimes, providing a special kind of stoicism that balanced her out. She was used to some measure of grumpiness when she did something he found dumb, but after the day they’d had the idea of him yelling at her made her stomach churn.
“Do you hate me?” The words erupted from her mouth before she could give them a proper spin around in her head, and even though she’d just told him to yell at her later.
“Hate you?” He shook her sodden flight suit out and draped it over the other chair, then looked back down at her, his still handsome scowl flickering in the light of the candle. “Why on earth would I hate you?”
“Because I almost crashed us. I couldn’t... I couldn’t outrun it. I thought... But then the wind...” She faltered around, and suddenly the words caught up with her emotions, and she knew she was crying by the hot rivers on her frigid cheeks.
“You did outrun it,” he said, his voice gentle. One strong arm wrapped around her, propelling her toward the bathroom. “You got us here. It was supposed to go south of us. Everyone said so.”
Everyone said so. She nodded, squeezing her eyes tightly shut to stop that horrifying leaking. But it wasn’t enough. Several big, gulpy breaths later, she gave up and turned to fling her arms around his waist.
Everywhere their skin touched, she grew warmer. The firm wall of his chest under her cheek, the strong arms that immediately came around her wrapped her in heat.
She
