What if he was saying he’d changed his mind? What if he was trying to tell her he wanted to take a risk? With her. And that he wanted her to take it, too?
With him.
“Mom, look who’s here! I told Karen we’d probably be out here today and to come find me.”
Megan yanked her hand out of Gabe’s so quickly her glove almost came off in his hand. One of the girls from Megan’s soccer team lifted her goggles.
“Hi, Ms. Harris.”
The girl’s mother was a few seconds behind on her skis and after Gabe helped her up, Megan quickly made the introductions. Fortunately, she knew Julie was happily married, so the appreciative gleam in her eyes when she looked at Gabe weren’t anything more than being a normal female.
Damn him. Megan had to admit he really was irresistible, looking just as good in snowboarding gear as he did in jeans or his fire gear.
She couldn’t bear to think how good he’d look without anything on at all.
“Karen hasn’t been able to stop talking about a sleepover with Summer all day.”
Megan’s brain stuttered away from the imagined picture of a naked Gabe to what Julie had just said. “A sleepover?”
“Sorry,” the other woman said, “I should have asked, is there any chance I could steal your daughter for a night of staying up too late and eating too much junk food at our cabin? I know the girls would just love it.”
Normally, Megan wouldn’t have blinked at the offer. Summer and Karen got along great and while she didn’t know Julie that well, she wasn’t at all worried about leaving Summer with her for the night.
What she was worried about, however, was the thought of being alone again tonight. And not just for a few hours. All night long, just her and her lonely bedroom, with Gabe one floor away, all alone in his bedroom.
It was a recipe for disaster.
“That’s really sweet, but—”
Summer and Karen had boarded over by then and the combined “Please!” and “Pretty please!” from the two girls wasn’t something Megan could selfishly ignore just because she didn’t trust herself not to do something reckless with the gorgeous man beside her.
“You know what, I’m not going to be able to do much more than soak in the bathtub tonight anyway,” she said, gesturing to the snowboard at her feet. “I’m sure the girls will have a lot of fun.”
After they arranged for Julie and Karen to pick up Summer at five, and Summer followed them down the mountain, Megan was working to prepare herself for one final run down the hill when Gabe said, “So you’ve got a big night in the bathtub planned, huh?”
She couldn’t miss the husky note in his voice, especially when he pulled off his glove and reached out to slide away a lock of hair that had blown in front of her mouth.
And when she trembled at his touch, Megan made a quick calculation and decided it was far safer to hurtle down the hill on the snowboard than it could ever be to risk letting him touch her like that again.
Or worse, beg him for more.
Chapter Eleven
Gabe let Megan turn down his invitation to dinner that night, knowing she was right. One night alone together had been barely manageable. One more just might push them over the edge.
Especially since he couldn’t push the fantasy image of her in the bathtub, the warm water and soap suds sliding over her naked curves, out of his head.
Nine o’clock found him sitting in the bar with a couple of guys having a burger and drinking a beer, listening to them talking about the girls they’d been hitting on out on the slopes that afternoon.
“Hey,” one of them said after they’d all gotten another refill from the well-endowed waitress that both of his buddies were clearly hoping to get it on with later, “Did you know Zach is doing house calls now?” At Gabe’s frown, Dick explained, “I dropped by to have my tires rotated and while we were shooting the shit, he was talking about some girl he’d met the night before who had the same tires. Got a flat so he went by her place to fix it for her.”
Gabe stopped with the beer halfway to his mouth. He’d forgotten all about his brother’s offer to fix Megan’s tire.
“Jesus,” their other friend John said, “she must have some great ass for Zach to head over to her house to change her tire.”
Gabe slammed the beer down so hard on the table it sloshed out onto his hand. They all knew what a dog his brother was, that the only reason he’d go change a woman’s tire was as some kind of screwed-up foreplay.
Seconds later Gabe was in front of Megan’s hotel room door. He couldn’t think straight, couldn’t see anything but Zach pulling Megan into his arms and seducing her.
Oh, hell no.
She was his.
He slammed his fist into the dark brown wood and when she opened the door, he stepped inside, caught the edge of the door in his hand, and pushed it shut behind him almost before she could register what had happened.
“Gabe?”
She was standing in front of him wearing nothing but a towel, her hair wet, her shoulders and arms still covered in droplets of water.
“You can’t date my brother,” he growled. “Any of my brothers.”
“What are you talking about?”
He advanced on her even as she backed up to get away from him. “Zach. He went to your house on Sunday.”
“He fixed my flat tire.”
“I’ll bet that’s not all he wants to fix.” He had her almost pinned against the wall by then. “He’s going to ask you out. The answer is no.”