Page 20 of His Wood Her Fire

Gloria DeSoto was mine.And there was no fucking way I was letting her leave without telling her.

I worked outside during the day, watching her move about the kitchen and living room.

But I had no plans to proceed with my mission—aka Get Gloria.

That was, I didn’t have any plans.Not until I saw her packing.

Eyes narrowed, I waited for the cover of dark.Then I got to work.

Chapter Ten-Gloria

Ishould have known better than to go to sleep with sex and Christmas on the brain after another round of Hallmark Christmas movies.

All night long, my dreams were filled with visions of a certain sexy Santa doing explicitly naughty things to me while snow fell outside, and Christmas carols played in the background.

A noise startled me into waking, and I would have screamed if not for the big, frying pan sized hand that clapped over my face.

“Easy there, Slick.It’s me,” growled a familiar voice.

“I’m gonna let go of you now, so please do not scream.”

I narrowed my eyes, trying to see him in the dark.

What the hell was he doing here in the middle of the night?

“What the hell?”I squeaked, sitting up in bed.

It’d been plenty warm last night, so I was wearing a t-shirt and undies, but I immediately regretted those choices as frigid air met my warm skin.

“No need to get angry, Slick.The generator is out,” he grumbled, handing me the pair of pajama pants I’d purposely left on the chair beside the bed for morning.

“The generator?How’d you know?”I asked, taking my pants from him without staring.

It wasn’t fair that he looked so good in his red and black flannel.His long hair was tossed casually over one shoulder, and that soft beard of his looked as though he’d been running his fingers through it.

Wish I could do that.

Wish I had the right to touch him.

Kiss him.

Trace the outline of the tattoos I knew he had on his chest and arms.

Shit.

I shook my head, trying to clear it.I needed to convince my brain I was, in fact, awake, and this was not part of those naughty dreams I’d been having.

“Yeah.It started snowing around three and I went outside for some firewood, noticed your cabin.Now, come on, Baby, hurry and get dressed so you don’t freeze in here.”

“But the cat,” I started.

“I got Frou-Frou all settled over at my place already.I just need you to pack a bag, Baby.”

I chose to ignore his flippant use of a term of endearment with me when I clearly was not any man’s baby.

As I shrugged on the pink flannel bottoms with bright white snowflakes printed all over it, Bo grabbed my chin with two fingers, forcing me to look at him.

“What?”

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