“The one who booked you this vacation?”
“Yeah. Ashlyn. She kept me sane the last few years.”
Gentry leaned against the mantle, his back to her as he said, “She wouldn’t like me for you if she knew me, Trouble.” Then he cast her a quick, blazing-eyed glance over his shoulder and straightened his spine. With a plastered smile, he asked, “Are you ready?”
“Do I look like cat woman?” she asked, standing and dusting her bottom off. Her all-black skintight outfit was the oldest she had, but she also cared about being cute for Gentry. He looked like a runway model, and right about now, she looked like a starless night in a pushup bra, who was sporting some seriously obvious panty-lines.
He huffed a laugh and shook his head. “Trouble, you don’t want to be a cat around me. You look sexy as fuck, though.”
She gave him a cheeky grin. “Then yes, I’m ready right meow.”
Gentry chuckled and rushed her, picked her up with his forearms resting right under her butt cheeks. “Oh, right meow?”
Blaire let off a little hiss and gripped her claws into the back of his neck.
“Retract those claws, kitty cat, or you’ll be asking to get fucked against the table over there.” Gentry’s voice had gone silken, filled with promise.
The smile fell from her face. Whoa, he was good at putting hot images into her head. Her, naked, boobs down on the table, legs locked and splayed. Him driving deep inside her, hard, his face focused as he gritted out her name, his powerful body flexing with every thrust...
Gentry’s nostrils flared slightly, and the expression on his face turned serious. He settled her on her feet and backed off. He wouldn’t look her in the eyes anymore. “Come on, Trouble. We have to travel to get where we’re going.”
Blaire was still unstable, swaying slightly, and all her brain cells were currently focused on the churning sensation low in her belly. “Wait, what? I thought we were fixing up the cabins.”
“We are and we aren’t. I’ll explain on the way.” He plucked her thick winter jacket off the coatrack by the door and held it out for her, waiting.
It was hard keeping up with his mood swings, but she accepted his help with her coat and then pulled on her gloves. Now she was good and ready for the short trip to the truck.
He led her out the door and down the stairs.
“Geez, overprotective,” she teased light-heartedly to lift the tension between them. “We’re just going to the truck.”
“False, we’re hiking.”
“Hiking?” Blaire blurted, her breath frozen in front of her face. “It’s freezing out here.”
Gentry didn’t say anything as he led her to a wide trail through the woods. There were tire tracks, so why the heck were they walking at nine o’clock at night? “Um, a wolf lives out here,” she reminded him, looking back longingly at the safety of the cabin. She’d left the main light on, and the soft glow was beckoning her back.
“You’re safe with me,” Gentry said without turning around.
He was hard to keep up with, though, and even with the traction of her snow boots, she was slipping on the layer of ice beneath the snow, but Gentry didn’t seem inclined to wait for her. Whatever survival-of-the-fittest nonsense he was pulling, she wasn’t playing.
Bending down, she scooped up a big handful of snow, packed it tight, and chucked it at him. When the snowball exploded against the back of his jacket, Gentry froze like a gargoyle.
He turned slowly, his eyes narrowed to little, green slits.
“I used to play softball. I was pretty good,” she bragged with a curtsy.
When Gentry stalked closer to her, bending smoothly to pick up snow, the cocky grin fell from her lips. “No, I was just playing. I just wanted attention!”
“You got it. You have all of my attention, Trouble. Why are you running?”
With a squeal, she high-kneed it off the trail and headed for the cover of the trees. A snowball hit her in the side, and she burst out laughing and made one of her own. He was jogging parallel to her through the trees. He looked like he belonged in these woods, while she was tripping on hidden tree roots every three steps or so. The forest echoed with their laughter as they chucked snow at each other and ducked behind trees. Gentry was fast, almost unnaturally so. One second he was twenty yards away, and the next he appeared from behind the towering maple tree she was about to hide behind as if he’d been there all along. With a remorseless grin, he plopped snow on top of her hair.
She gasped at the frigid sensation that trembled down her spine. “Gentry!” she exclaimed breathlessly.
“Mmmm,” he said, more of a rumble than a word. “I like when you say my name like that.
“Like what? Angrily?” she screeched, scooping more snow.
He stood there in the moonlight, legs splayed, dick huge and pressed against his jeans, with the most confident smile she’d ever seen on anyone. “Apparently, I find anger sexy.”
“That’s not how it’s supposed to work, Gentry!”
When she pelted him with a snow ball, he flinched but didn’t flee. He was laughing instead.
The snowball fight clearly over, she tossed him a fiery glare, which she was trying to hold because his smiles made her want to smile for some irritating reason.
“You still mad?” he asked from right behind her where he pressed his body against her back. His hand was in her snow-speckled hair, angling her neck to the side to give him access to suck her hard there, and ooooh, that felt so freaking good.