The #1 Bestsellers Collection 2011(258)

“Strip,” he said when he set her down.

She glared at him. “I will not.”

“Fine. I’ll do it for you then. Not like I don’t know my way around your body.” Adam reached for the buttons on her shirt, but Gina slapped at his hands. Didn’t hit him very hard, since she was shaking and so cold her teeth were chattering.

“You might want to wait until you’re stronger to make a fight of it,” he said tightly and reached down to turn the faucets on the hot tub. He flipped up the latch to set the plug and turned back to her while hot water rushed into the tub.

He began tearing the buttons from her shirt and peeling the sodden garment off of her. “You’re half-frozen.” Then he undid her bra, leaving Gina to clasp one arm across her breasts in a useless bid for modesty.

“A little late for maidenly concerns, don’t you think?” he asked as he shook his head at the defiant glare shooting out of her eyes.

“I don’t want you here,” she said, and her words might have carried more weight if her voice hadn’t trembled.

“Tough,” he said, kneeling down in front of her to tug off one of her boots. “What the hell were you thinking? Why did you go out today? You saw the storm. Heard the forecast.”

“I thought I had time,” she said, reaching out to slap one hand on the counter to keep her balance while he lifted first one of her feet, then the next. “I needed to—”

“What?” He looked up at her from where he knelt in front of her. Still furious, still relieved, still battling both sensations, he grumbled, “Needed to what?”

She shook her head. “Doesn’t matter now.”

It irritated him that she wouldn’t tell him what she was thinking. Where she’d been. What had put the look of utter devastation on her face and in her eyes. He wanted to … damn it, he wanted to make her feel better. When the hell had this happened? When had he begun to care what she thought, how she felt? And how could he stop it?

Shaking his head, he tugged off her boots, then her socks and went to work on her jeans. The denim fabric was so soaked, it was hard to maneuver and he had to put some real effort into dragging them down her thighs and calves. Cold water ran in rivulets down her pale, blue-tinged skin. She shivered again and Adam fisted his hands to fight the urge to caress her, to warm her with his touch.

Instead he hissed in a breath. “You’re cold to the bone.”

“Pretty much.”

Behind them, hot water rushed into the gigantic tub and steam rose to fog the bay window, shutting out the night, sealing them into that one room together.

“Get in,” Adam said flatly.

She looked at him. “First you get out.”

“Not likely,” he told her and picked her up as if she weighed nothing, then plopped her down into the tub. Gina sucked in a gulp of air as warm water met her cold legs, but an instant later, she sat down and let that heat reach down inside her and somewhat ease the cold that seemed locked deep.

Gina closed her eyes and leaned her head back, focusing only on the delicious feel of the hot water surrounding her tired, aching, freezing body. She heard Adam hit the switch to turn on the hot-tub jets, and an instant later, she felt hot, steady pulses hitting her poor, abused body like tiny, miraculous blessings.

Okay, he was bossy and irritating and right now, the last human being on the face of the planet she wanted to be alone with, but he’d been right about the hot tub. And she wanted to thank him for turning on the jets. When she opened her eyes to do that, though, she saw Adam peeling out of his own wet clothing. “What are you doing?”

He glared at her and tugged his jeans down to join the wet shirt he’d already tossed to the floor to lay atop both pairs of boots. His broad chest ran with water and droplets of the stuff fell from the tips of his wet hair. “What the hell does it look like?”

“I know just what it looks like,” she said and scooted back in the tub as far from him as she could get. Yes, her body was starting to fire into life, but it wasn’t as if she wanted it to happen. It was simply a biological imperative. See Adam naked, go all hot and tingly.

God, would it be that way forever?

No. Eventually if she could go without seeing him for ten or fifteen years, she’d probably be able to control her reaction to an occasional sighting. At the moment, though, she was having a hard time fighting down her body’s urges. Despite the warnings and dire predictions her brain kept screaming.

He stepped into the tub, settled against the side opposite her and as the frothy water splashed at his bare chest, he looked at her and said, “I was worried.”