Page 45 of Snowed In

“See? Nothing but a big softy,” he said, wiggling against me until he was content.

“Yeah, well, you can’t be both a criminal badass and the little spoon. You hafta pick one.”

“Easy,” he said through a yawn. “You can be my big spoon anytime, Detective.”

“Yeah, right.”

I slid my hand to his chest and puzzled at the level of comfort between me and the man I thought I’d put away for life. Seconds later, I was out.

Chapter Four

Jesse

It was still snowing outside. We’d only seen this amount of snow in this part of Texas maybe one or two times in the last hundred years. After getting up—fucking ouch—and causing a minimal amount of trouble, I’d checked Rafferty’s phone. The cell service was still down, and frankly, I was surprised that we still had water and electricity. Either way, I was warm, comfortable, and being hosted by a surprisingly sexy man.

If I was being honest, I hadn’t felt this safe in a really long time.

I got back into bed, watching his face as he started to rise to the surface. He blinked a few times until his eyes focused on mine.

“Mornin’,” he said, yawning through half of it.

“Merry Christmas.”

“Shit. It is Christmas, isn’t it?” He blinked. “You been up long?”

“For a bit.”

“I should be happy you kept your promise about not killing me in my sleep, then.”

I sent him a sharp grin, then shifted my eyes downward. He followed the movement, finally clocking the knife in my hand, right at his throat.

“I did say that you’d be awake and looking right at me.”

“Mm. That you did.”

As he spoke, he made a quick gesture that I didn’t quite follow. Suddenly, the knife was in his hand.

“I see you found where I hid one of the knives.”

“The planter on the back porch was an inspired choice,” I said, shivering. “Though it’s so fucking cold outside.”

He shifted, looking out the window. “Damn. That snow is still coming down pretty hard.”

“I do love a white Christmas, but cell and Wi-Fi are still down.”

Rafferty scrunched his nose. “You went into my phone?”

“You really should change your settings.”

Glaring at me, he reached behind him without looking and took the phone off the nightstand, right where I’d left it.

He used facial recognition and thumbed open the photographs.

I kind of hoped he wouldn’t find those until after I was gone, but he seemed to enjoy the dirty selfies I took.

“I’m not erasing these,” he said, locking his phone and putting it back on the nightstand.

“Call it a Christmas present from me.”

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