"They won't watch us all night. Don't sleep tonight and I'll get you away," Kier murmurs, his back to me as he stands at the one small window of the cabin Frank has given to us for our involuntary stay with the Stones.
I continue tapping out my text to Dayne since he asked for me to keep him updated. Now that I've met the alpha of this pack, I want someone to know what's happened to me if I'm never seen again.
"Doubt it. And I'm tired, so I'm definitely sleeping. If you want to stay up all night, that's up to you."
"I'm not staying up for my benefit, and getting you away is a little hard to do with you sleeping your way through the rescue."
Finished with my lengthy text, I roll onto my back and bring up my emails. "I don't need rescuing."
When the floorboards creak, I know Kier has turned from the window to face me. "Maybe you do-after all you did just volunteer me to challenge the alpha of this pack," he comments drily.
Briefly, I lower my phone so I can meet his gaze. His eyes are, to my surprise, not on my naked body, but focused on my face. "You didn't have a problem with it when you were trying to pin the guy down for a date and time."
He snorts. "After what you said, it wasn't like I could tell him no."
"Well, I don't see why you came back here then. How else would you have dealt with this messy mess if not through a challenge?"
When he doesn't respond, I glance up at him, just in time to catch his eyes shifting away from my breasts. I grin at him. "See something you like?"
His glare would be enough to terrify most people, but I'm not most people. "I'm wondering if you're cold. And why is it the first thing you did when we stepped through the door was strip?"
I cross one bare leg over the other before going back to responding to emails. "I only have one outfit, and if we're going to be here for a few days, I'm going to have to look after what I have, which means washing my underwear. Daily."
Kier tugs his flannel shirt over his head and tosses it at me. "Well, that's no excuse to take off all the rest of your clothes. Here."
I catch it before it can hit me in the face and calmly set it on the bed beside me. "I'm not cold. Now, how come Jaxon wasn't foaming at the mouth at the opportunity to get revenge for you killing his brother?"
I wasn't expecting his cool response to Kier's challenge during dinner. He casually informed Kier that he was busy and such a challenge could wait until he had the opportunity.
"He's not stupid. His brother was, which is what got him killed. No, Jaxon will want to wait until he can be sure he's going to win before taking me on."
"Why did you kill the brother then, if not to become alpha?"
But Kier doesn't respond, so I look up from my phone to discover he's back to peering out through the window. "They don't look like they're going anywhere," he mutters.
I assume he's not going to answer my question, which is fine. I didn't expect him to open up to me so soon when he's always clammed up at any mention of what brought him to Hardin.
Instead, I wriggle around as I try to get comfortable on a bed that's a little firmer than I'm used to. "Told you."
Kier growls low in his throat and jerks the curtains closed before turning away. "And who are you texting, anyway?"
I respond to another email. Well, respond is probably a bit rich. I delete an email that's been clogging up my inbox for months because I wanted to remember the big candle sale coming up. That's when I notice the sale happened a month ago. Oops. And all because I failed in my attempt to start bullet journaling.
Nathan warned me my love of stickers would turn my journal into a sticker book and that's exactly what happened. Not that I'd ever admit it to him.
"Nathan," I respond instantly.
Kier is silent for a beat. "He still hunting out the keys for the handcuffs?"
I put my phone to one side so I can examine the pink furry bracelet I'm still wearing, and so for that matter is Kier. "I think I should tell him not to bother. This is growing on me."
"I could pull it off for you."
My eyes go to Kier's tanned forearms, probably one of the sexiest parts about him other than his face and hot body. There's something about a guy who works with his hands that appeals to me. Or maybe it's the resulting muscled, sexy forearms that do it for me, and Kier's arms are no joke.
"I'll just bet you could," I murmur.
"It's late," he snaps, startling me enough that I jerk my gaze to his face. "Time for bed."
"But aren't we going to talk about this situation? You know, work through a plan of attack or something?"
He stalks toward the bathroom. "There's no plan. Well, actually there is: get you away from here before Jaxon decides to use you against me."
I sit up and stretch, long and slow. "And how could he do that?"
When my eyes return to Kier, he's stopped a foot from the bathroom door and his focus is on my breasts. He's always shown an open appreciation of them in the past, with his mouth and his strong hands, something I wouldn't mind him doing again.
"A trick, most likely. Are you sure you aren't cold?"
I glance down at my pebbled nipples. "Nope. There's another reason for those."
Kier doesn't ask me what that reason is. He doesn't need to. It's never taken much to spark the arousal between us, and the thought of us sharing a cozy-okay, overly cramped-cabin is enough to do it. His sexy forearms did the rest.
"Go to sleep." He turns into the bathroom but immediately stops. "Why are your panties on the sink?"
"I told you I didn't have any other clothes, so I have to handwash what I'm wearing. Hopefully, they'll be dry in the morning because I'm not exactly thrilled at the thought of stepping into wet underwear."
"It's a lace thong. It'll be dry," Kier says, with a weird note in his voice.
"I hope so. I have no desire to be wandering around pantyless."
Kier steps into the bathroom and closes the door behind him. "I'm having a shower."
"A cold one?" I call out.
When he doesn't respond, I smile as I sprawl across the bed, taking up as much space as possible. "Operation Fluffy Handcuffs Part Two is a go," I murmur beneath my breath.