Page 50 of Cabin Fever Baby

I was a dead man.

But what a way to go.

FOURTEEN

4 Days til Christmas

I plopped on the couch,crisscrossing my legs under me with a blanket and the bowl in my lap.

Now it felt too weird to tell him about my family. Not to mention, Kent going all feral on him, for God’s sake.

Not that he hadeverloved any of my boyfriends—why should that be different?

And for God’s sake, Hudsonwasn’tmy boyfriend. He was my lover.

Mytemporarylover.

I swallowed my tongue as he came in with that towel over his shoulder, the white thermal shirt pushed up at his forearms. His torso was so long and muscled. That perfect taper of shoulder-to-waist ratio.

What did he even see in me? I was definitely not the workout queen type. I was blessed with a good metabolism and running around the various venues kept me trim-ish.

But when he looked at me, there was no denying the attraction that flared between us. Especially when those dark eyes locked on mine as he padded into the living room.

Even his long, bare feet were attractive. That was just unfair.

He stopped at the coffee table and picked up the remote. “Think the Kings are playing in an hour.”

He settled beside me and turned on the massive television over the fireplace. The various frames that appeared to be stacked above the mantel were actually one solid piece that hid the television.

I dipped into my bowl of food, humming at the salty, creamy concoction. It was the perfect winter storm kind of meal.

“So, I should be packed and gone before your brother gets here?”

I hunched my shoulders at Hudson’s tone. “Sorry about that. Kent thinks he’s my dad sometimes.”

“Was your dad not around?”

“Oh, he was. He worked a lot. Rawlings was an industrial town on the outskirts of the Catskills. Most people came around for the skiing during the winter months. Some of the more enterprising people in my town converted those big colonial mansions into bed and breakfast-type places, but mostly, people worked at the mills.”

“Like your dad?”

I licked the back of my fork, savoring the thick sauce he’d made. His dark eyes flicked to my tongue then his jaw worked a bit before he looked down at his bowl.

It was easier to distract him with sex than to talk about the people most important to me. I had guarded them so long that it was foreign to actually share things about myself.

Protecting my family from a too curious public was just second nature now.

I’d learned the hard way that some people only wanted to know things to add to a click-bait article about Q or Rio.

“He did. It was a paper mill, and he always took the overtime shifts. My brothers were all into sports, and gear wasn’t cheap.”

“Kent too?”

“Not really.” I dragged a piece of chicken through the mushrooms at the bottom of my bowl, trapping them along the side to scoop them up all together. I finished chewing thoughtfully.

It had been a long time since I’d thought of those days. Kent and I had started working as soon as possible. Neither of us had wanted to burden our parents when we made our own money.

“There was a B&B near our house. Kent was always helping out over there. He learned how to love old houses and their cantankerous ways. The older man, Mr. Bellows, who owned it taught him all there was to know about woodworking. I helped out cleaning for some extra cash. It was better than working in town.”