Page 42 of Undoing His Innocent Enemy (Hot Winter Escapes)

She wasn’t loving it any more though, as she struggled to get free of his hold—but only exhausted herself more—while he carted her back to the house like an unruly child.

They were both panting when he finally dropped her on her feet in the garage.

His cheeks were flushed from the cold, and the exertion, his heavy breaths matching her own. But she could see the harsh expression and it sparked the feeling deep in her chest she remembered from her childhood... When her da had arrived home from work, or the pub, in the kind of mood they all knew would cause trouble. For everyone.

She’d cowered then. But she refused to cower now.

She wasn’t a little girl any more. And Logan, for all his high-handed ways, was not her father. But even so, she felt the pressure in her chest, that hole in her stomach, caused by the feeling of inadequacy, of judgement, which had made her feel small in the face of a man’s temper.

‘How long were you out there?’ he demanded again, as if he had the right to question her decisions. Her autonomy.

The fury burst free, incinerating the anguish.

She dragged off her head gear, the balaclavas and the goggles around her neck, and threw them at his chest. He ignored them.

But he couldn’t dodge her outrage.

‘You bastard!’ she shouted as she shoved the camera in its box with clumsy hands and placed it on the ground. The camera he’d all but forbidden her to use. The camera he could have broken with his stupid stunt.

Once the camera was safe—no thanks to him—she ripped off her gloves, all five pairs of them, and threw them at him too.

He barely blinked.

‘I was working.’ She ground the words out to stop from screaming. She tore down the zip on her snowsuit, began to struggle out of the layers as he continued to glare at her as if he were her keeper. ‘And I wasn’t finished.’

She didn’t care about his anger. It would be a cold day in hell before she cowered before a man ever again. Especially a man who had been gone all day, without a word of when he’d be back.

‘It was getting dark,’ he shouted back, his own voice rising—the stony expression belied by the fire in his eyes as he threw off his own layers. His pectoral muscles heaved beneath the clinging nylon of his thermal undershirt as he kicked off his boots, and his ski-pants.

The spike of awareness as his big body was revealed only infuriated her more.

‘There are bears, wolves and also the threat of storms, like the one which brought you here,’ he growled as if he were speaking to an imbecile, his anger making a muscle tic in his jaw. ‘They come from nowhere without warning. Even a hundred yards from the house you would be in danger.’

‘So what? How is that any of your concern?’ she replied, the rage making her body heat spike, even though she stood before him now in nothing but her thermal tights and undershirt.

She saw the awareness shadow his gaze as it roamed over her. And felt the answering hum in her abdomen, that hot, melting sensation between her thighs that meant her body was readying itself for him. Even though she hated him in that moment. Or wanted to hate him. For making her feel like that girl again—scared of being chastised.

He glared at her. ‘You know it is my concern. When you are here, you are mine.’

‘Well, that’s where you’re wrong, fella,’ she yelled back, hating the dark possessive look in his eyes, the way his gaze raked over her with a sense of ownership. And the way her heart hammered her ribs in heavy thuds because a part of her wanted it to be true. The weak, needy part of her she thought she’d destroyed long ago. ‘I belong to no one but myself,’ she said, determined to convince herself as much as him. ‘And I’ll not be taking safety advice from a man who lives in the middle of nowhere alone. And can’t even deign to tell me where he’s been.’

She turned on her heel, to march away, so furious now—with herself and the stupid wayward emotions battering her—she was about to explode.

‘Don’t!’ The low demand broke over her and reverberated in her chest, stopping her in her tracks.

Then his fingers grasped her arm and pulled her round. He pressed her back against the garage wall. His forehead touched hers, his staggered breathing hot on her neck, as he dragged her clumsily into his embrace. But then the hard ridge of his arousal pushed into her belly, making the heat flare at her core. She slammed her palms against his chest, determined to push him away, to deny that bone-deep yearning that had troubled her all day, and made her a woman she didn’t recognise. A woman who needed his touch, his presence, his validation.

She struggled to get free of him—and the emotions that had sneaked up on her in the last ten days without warning, and which she had no clue how to navigate.

But then he murmured, ‘Please, don’t...’

She stilled, shocked by the raw plea in his voice.

‘You had icicles on your lashes,’ he said, his tone rough as he cupped her cheek, his hand warm against her chilled skin. ‘I was scared you were dead.’

What?

She gripped his undershirt, registering the fear and anguish on his face.

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