Page 49 of Billionaire Lumberjack's Bride

He flinches at my words and pulls his hand away from my face, shutting down again instantly, putting that wall firmly back before I can pick away at any chips I may have made it in. “Are you warming up?”

The violent shaking stopped a while ago, and pressed up against him in the still-warm water, I could almost forget the trauma I just endured if I weren’t still randomly shivering every few minutes and breaking out in goosebumps remembering the bone-chilling cold.

“Yeah…I feel a little better…”

He stares at the open door where Whiskey sits watching us, rather than looking at me. “We should get you in bed.”

Those words could have such a different connotation, but after all the warnings he’s given me, I know not to take them that way. Silas has drawn a very firm line, and I don’t have any intention of crossing it and making things more uncomfortable between us.

I nod my agreement. “Okay.”

He returns his gaze to me. “Can you sit up by yourself?”

With my hand planted against his inked, firm chest, I try to push off to sit up in the tub, but a massive wave of dizziness engulfs my head immediately, making me waver.

His strong hand slides around me and holds me upright, and he watches me, waiting for me to catch my balance and ensure I’m okay. He slowly pulls his legs from around me and stands in the tub, hand still keeping me steady.

Water pours from his soaked jeans, and I follow it down to see his boots submerged under him. “Your boots are soaked.”

He glances at them and offers a half-shrug that makes the scene on his chest move like the real ocean. “I have others.” His lips press together in a firm line as he stares at me, his body tensing more the longer we lock gazes. “I’m going to have to take these off so I don’t traipse water through the entire cabin.”

It takes a second for me to understand what he’s saying and why.

Silas Bolton is about to strip in front of me, and I’m not sure either of us can handle that right now.

I grab onto the water nozzle and place my other hand on the edge of the metal trough tub to keep myself upright, then squeeze my eyes closed, giving him the privacy he needs to get out of his wet clothes and hopefully also shed any lingering awkwardness tonight may have caused.

The water sloshes around me as he kicks off his boots. The air thickens around us with the sound of the button on his jeans popping and the zipper going down.

I hold my breath.

A big splash hits me, and my eyes snap open.

To Silas Bolton in all his glory.

The tattoos and scars cover himeverywhere. Not just his chest and back and arms, but swirling over his rock-hard abs and down his thighs and…

I suck in a sharp breath and squeeze my eyes closed again.

Shit.

There’s no way he didn’t notice that.

The water sloshes as he climbs from the tub, followed quickly by a rustle of fabric. “You can open your eyes…again.”

Busted.

Reluctantly, I open them to find Silas standing on the bathmat with a towel wrapped around his waist, barely covering anything and precariously secured with a single tuck at his side. “Are you okay for a minute while I go get dry clothes?”

I nod because I can’t seem to form words, staring at my husband and the myriad of scars that cover him under the ink. It would be easy to blame my inability to look away on my brain still slowly coming back online as my body fights to regain some normalcy, but that would be a lie.

Silas Bolton is hauntingly beautiful.

It would be impossible foranyoneto look away.

He turns and stalks from the bathroom, and I sink back into the water as low as I can on top of his pants and boots still lying on the bottom. Whiskey trots over, resting his head on the side of the tub, examining me closely.

“Jesus, I really fucked things up tonight, didn’t I, boy?”

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