But the path to it is a veritable icebox. It’s twenty-eight degrees, which is forty degrees less than I like. “What if we get locked outside?”
Owen jiggles the doorknob. “The door is unlocked. We’ll be able to get back inside. Also, hello? There’s a code. So we’re good.”
“We better get back inside. I’m going to have to sleep curled up by the fire all night.”
“Everything is going to be fine, you sun worshipper. And the water is going to feel amazing. Didn’t you just want to have fun tonight?” he says, nudging me. “Make the best of being snowed in?”
Fun.
This is fun.
We’re just having fun.
The word tugs on my heart a bit, because I think I want a little more than fun.
But I don’t want to be a buzzkill.
“That is the operative word, isn’t it? That’s what tonight is all about, right? Fun?”
“That’s what you said,” he tosses back, in a tone I can’t read.
“True. I did say that. And I’m having a blast,” I say, but I also want to tell him that the kitchen and the fireplace was so much more than fun. That pleasuring him and being pleasured felt like more than just sex. That it felt intimate. That it’s making me think of all sorts of arrows being fired by Eros. “So, the hot tub is part of making the best of tonight?”
Owen takes a beat, and in those few silent seconds, I swear the cogs are whirring in his mind, then he nods. “When else are you going to be trapped in a cabin in the snow with a jacuzzi just waiting for you and a hot guy to join you in it?”
I make a mental note that he didn’t answer the question.
But I also don’t press.
There might be a reason he didn’t answer.
Besides, he makes a damn good point. Will I ever have this chance with him again? “Let’s do it.” I open the back door and a blast of arctic air hits me. “I’m dead. It happened. You witnessed my death tonight at nine p.m. on a Friday.”
Owen grabs my hand and links his fingers through mine, and tingles whoosh down my back—from him holding my hand as we run to the hot tub.
This is so freaking boyfriend material, I can’t stand it. Only, I so can.
When we reach the hot tub, we drop our towels, then Owen goes first, and, as I scramble in too, I watch him like the perviest hawk in existence. His Greek god-like frame sinks into the water, his sculpted ass disappearing first, then his back—mmm, yes, I want my hands on that back when he’s under me. He spreads his arms behind him, and tips his forehead to the spot by his side. I scoot right next to him, wrapping my arms around myself.
“Are you really cold, River?”
“I told you. I’m like a jungle cat. I’m not equipped for this kind of brutal weather.”
“But the hot tub is nice and toasty, isn’t it?”
“It’s like swimming at the equator,” I say as the heat of the bubbles and the water slide over my skin even as my face remains cold. But the effect works. I’m warmed up in a few seconds. It doesn’t hurt that he shifts toward me, rubs my shoulders, then drops a kiss to my nose.
My pulse surges, and my heart squeezes at the same time. He’s doing all sorts of things to my insides. Making my organs jump around.
“You’re awfully affectionate,” I say.
He tenses, then lets go of me. “Do you not like it? Affection?”
I scoff. “Are you kidding me? I love it.”
Owen smiles, like I’ve stolen the sun for him, given it to him as a gift. “Good,” he says, then takes off his glasses and sets them on the edge of the tub. He closes his eyes, lifts his face to the night sky. Like that, with his eyes shut, I study his handsome features. Those lips I got to know intimately tonight. The strong lines of his jaw. His carved cheekbones. Those eyes that see inside me.
“How long have you worn glasses?” I blurt out.
His eyes fly open. “Since I was four,” he says.
The image of a young Owen in glasses is almost too much for me to handle. “You must’ve looked adorable.”
“Yeah, I looked fantastic. A near-sighted kid who could barely see a thing, tripping all over in his own house, needing glasses at a ridiculously young age.”
“Can you see without them at all?” I ask, suddenly eager to gobble up every last fact about Owen Hayes. I’m desperate to know him better, to hear the secrets no one else is privy to. I want him to share the hidden corners of his heart and mind just with me.
“A little. Everything’s kind of blurry that’s more than a few feet away,” he says, squinting as he stares in the distance at the hills coated in snow. “All I see is a canvas of white.”