Page 17 of Snowed In With the Mountain Man
Gone was the carefree mountain man. He was miles away from the Yoda she’d accused him of being. Right now he was all emotion, and she could have sworn she felt it coming off him in waves as he turned to face her.
Anger, yes, but it was on her behalf, and it was… more. There was a possessive heat in his eyes that did nothing to help her body’s absurdly primitive response. The fire in his gaze and the way it raked over her face, lingering on her lips, colliding with her eyes…
She couldn’t swallow.
She could barely even breathe!
His brows drew down, and the heat melted into something nearly as fatal. Concern. Protectiveness. Affection.
“Are you all right?” His voice was soft and husky.
She had to draw in a deep, long inhale, and even then her pulse still roared out of control.
“I’m fine,” she breathed. “Totally fine.”
His lips quirked a bit. “Totally fine, huh?”
She nodded, her tongue coming out to wet her lips. This was just ridiculous. She was not some spineless nitwit who went all weak at the knees when a guy turned caveman over her.
Nope. No, sir. Not her.
She swallowed hard.
Now if someone would just tell her knees that…
The bartender set the two beers down with a clink. “On the house,” he grumbled. When Dahlia gave him a startled look, he winced. “Sorry about that.”
She shook her head. “Totally fine.”
She grabbed her beer and turned to her table, ignoring JJ’s teasing echo behind her. “Totally.”
She sank into her seat and tried to focus on the TV. The hockey game was still in full swing, and she'd usually be fully absorbed, her eyes chasing that torpedo puck as it shot across the ice. But after a second of unbearable silence, she couldn’t take JJ's watchful stare a second longer. She had the most unnerving sensation that he was seeing too much—that he was seeing straight through her—so she turned and caught his stare.
“I don’t need you to defend my honor, you know.” She was trying her best to sound strong despite the fact that her insides were butter in a frying pan. “I can fight my own battles.”
He studied her for a long beat, then leaned forward until he was resting on his elbows, which put him far too close. “I wasn’t defending you.” He shook his head, but then gave away his lie with a lopsided smile that made her belly do a backflip. “I was actually doing it for Bobby’s sake. I knew if he didn’t back off, you’d scratch his eyes out, so you know… I was really savinghim.”
“Oh really?”
“Uh-huh. For sure.”
She tried to keep a straight face.
Oh, did she try.
But his bobbing head, his barely contained grin as he peeled at the label on his beer bottle… she lost it.
She burst out in a laugh so loud and carefree it shocked not only him but herself as well. Clapping a hand over her mouth, she met his smiling gaze, trying to rein in the giggles tickling her belly. It shook and fought her until she managed to clear her throat and settle on a controlled smile.
With a demure eyebrow raise, she turned her attention back to the screen but couldn’t help muttering, “You’re ridiculous.”
His voice held a world of amusement. “Whatever you say, ma’am.”
6
JJ was officially having too much fun.
He dipped his head to hide a smile when Dahlia shot up out of her seat to celebrate a score.
