suddenly craved something sweet. Since Brooke was out of the question, he’d just have to head down to Quail Village to the quaint bakery there and settle for confections of the pastry kind.
WHEN MARC RETURNED an hour later, the other snow-mobile was gone, the lights in the cabin were on, and the kitchen was filled with the rich aroma of freshly brewed coffee. Tugging off his gloves, he stepped into the warm kitchen and closed the door to the mudroom behind him.
Brooke and Jessica turned from the counter to face him, and he smiled. “Good morning, ladies,” he greeted them, setting the pink box of pastries on the oak table.
“Morning,” Brooke replied in her normal, good ol’ sister-in-law tone, then turned her attention back to pouring the steaming brew into the two mugs on the counter.
Ryan walked into the kitchen, and Jessica instantly honed in on the other man. “What could be good about waking up to a lawyer trying to negotiate time in the bathroom?” she asked, stirring cream and sugar into her coffee.
A lazy smile creased Ryan’s lips, and he lifted a brow over a dark brown eye glimmering with amusement. “I did not try and negotiate time in the bathroom.”
“What was I thinking? You’re absolutely right,” Jessica conceded humorously. “Divorce attorneys don’t know how to negotiate, they trounce their opponents, which is exactly what you did to me.” Wandering over to the table, she peeked into the pastry box and selected a bear claw. “And just to set the record straight, Mr. Matthews, your ‘I’ll only be a minute’ turned into twenty.”
Marc met Brooke’s gaze, and they both suppressed a grin at the obvious undercurrents between the sparring couple.
Retrieving a cup from the cupboard, Ryan filled the mug with coffee. “I didn’t take that long,” he countered mildly.
Jessica crossed the room and stopped beside Ryan. “How can you tell when a lawyer is lying?” she asked sweetly, then replied before Ryan could. “His lips are moving.”
With that victorious remark hanging in the air, she left the kitchen.
Marc chuckled and shook his head, feeling a twinge of sympathy for his good friend who was more used to women sweet-talking rather than mocking him.
Ryan joined him with his own deep laughter. “She’s not much of a morning person, is she?”
Brooke grimaced in apology. “No, she’s not.”
Picking a jelly-filled doughnut from the bakery box, he took a big bite, chewing contemplatively. “You know, as crazy as it sounds, I find her very stimulating.” On that note, he headed back into the living room, a grin curving his mouth and a challenging light sparking in his eyes.
As soon as Marc was alone with Brooke, silence, and a slow building awareness, settled between them. He still stood across the room, near the table, and she leaned against the far counter, looking at him over the rim of her mug as she casually sipped her coffee, but the charged energy that arced between them was unmistakable.
The instantaneous, intimate connection still startled him on an emotional level. Physically, he wasn’t so surprised at his reaction. He’d always thought of Brooke as beautiful, and sensual in an understated way—her marriage to his brother hadn’t blinded him to her allure. He was first and foremost a man who liked and appreciated women, and as such it was difficult not to notice the curves that made her intrinsically female—especially now, when the turtle-neck sweater she wore clung to firm breasts, and black leggings molded to the swell of her hips and those long, slender legs that had consumed too much of his thoughts lately.
But it was the warmth in her blue eyes that made his heart beat faster and caused a riot of emotions to clamor within him—wants and needs he’d denied himself for eight long years. Wants and needs he had no business contemplating now, or ever, not when he’d resigned himself to the kind of life-style that didn’t include the kind of commitment a woman like Brooke demanded…and deserved.
But those sensible thoughts did nothing to douse the undeniable desire that had taken up residence in him since that kiss they’d shared. While Brooke currently displayed admirable restraint and nonchalance regarding their situation, Marc experienced a contrary surge of recklessness that battled his willpower to resist her.
Shrugging out of his jacket, Marc laid it over the back of the chair, and turned to direct his gaze at Brooke. “Got enough coffee left for me to have a cup?”
“Uh, sure,” she said, a bit breathless, he suspected, from the rippling heat they’d generated in the short span of time they’d been alone.
He watched her retrieve another mug from the cupboard and pour in the last of the coffee, her hand trembling ever-so-slightly while she tried to regain her composure. Crossing the small space that separated them, he pushed his fingers through his tousled hair and away from his face, the strands still chilled from his morning ride to the village.
She turned back around, startled to find him standing beside her. With a remarkable recovery, she handed him the cup, her gaze holding his.
“You lied,” she said, the accusation low and husky.
The mug stopped halfway to his lips. The very notion that he might have deceived her about something unsettled him. For all of his faults, he valued honesty, demanded it, in himself and others. It was a personal trait he’d insisted upon after that crisis in his life eight years ago.
“I did?” His confusion was evident in his voice.
“Yep.” She nodded slowly, seriously, though there was a twinkle in her blue eyes that softened her complaint. “I thought you said you and your friends would be gone before we got up.”
Relief coursed through him, and he grinned. “My intentions were honorable, I swear. But we got in after midnight, and I had no idea that the guys would be slow-moving in the morning.”
She strolled over to the table and surveyed the baked goods, selecting the chocolate French cruller he’d picked specifically for her. “Wild evening at the lodge?”
“We had a good time.” He took a long swallow of coffee, then shrugged, knowing he could have had a better time, if he’d been in the right frame of mind. If his mind hadn’t been on Brooke. “Dinner was decent, and they’ve got a great band in the bar. What did you girls do last night?”
“Talked and relaxed,” she said vaguely, then took a bite of her doughnut. Her eyes closed for a brief moment. Sheer enjoyment etched her features, and a tiny moan curled up from her throat.
Her tongue darted out to catch the chocolate at the side of her mouth, and he experienced an overwhelming urge to lick the icing off himself and nibble at the smear on her bottom lip.
Marc’s gut clenched tight, his reserve of willpower quickly dwindling. She had no idea just how erotic she made eating a French cruller seem, and her lack of self-consciousness or inhibition made him wonder about her response in bed, beneath him, with him sliding deep inside her—
Whoa. He cut off those intimate, forbidden thoughts, but the image lingered vividly in his mind.
On a satisfied sigh, she blinked her lashes open, saw him staring at her, and a becoming shade of pink colored her cheeks.
He leaned a hip against the counter,
