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  Releasing her hips, he rose up to meet her, his hands sliding into her hair to bring her mouth to his.

  Her permission to move.

  So she moved. She rocked her hips, then again when he guided her into a rhythm that had her bursting wildly. Even more startling, he came with her. Simultaneous orgasm. It was amazing, soul-shaking, and revealing, almost too much so, and she tried to bury her nose into his throat, but he held her face, letting her see every single emotion as it hit him—the sheer, unadulterated desire, the hunger, the heat such as she’d never known, and perhaps the most devastatingly intimate emotion of all . . .

  Affection.

  And with his arms banded tight around her, holding on to her as if she was the most precious thing in his world, she stared back into his eyes and gave him the same.

  8

  Well, holy shit, Danny thought as Hope flopped off him, gasping for breath.

  From flat on his back on the floor of the shed, Danny did his own gasping for breath as he stared up at the ceiling. He couldn’t have been more stunned if he’d just been hit head-on by a moving freight train. He’d just had the best sex of his entire life. On the ground. In the great outdoors. In the wilds of Colorado.

  In the snow.

  God, what he’d give to be able to shout it from the rooftops of all the assholes who’d ever given him a hard time in his school days for being the nerd.

  Nerds unite.

  Smiling helplessly, he rolled toward Hope. She had her pants on one leg, hanging off the other, her jacket half on and her top shoved up to her chin.

  God, she was hot. And gorgeous. And sweet. And blurry. Where the hell were his glasses?

  She’d flung an arm over her eyes, and was still breathing like she’d just run a marathon, which gave him a ridiculously dopey grin.

  And the urge to nuzzle. Yeah, he wanted to draw things out, snuggle, cuddle, the whole bit. Maybe even go for round two. To that end, he scooted closer and slid a hand up her bare leg to her hip—

  Sitting straight up, she pushed his hand away and began to right her clothing.

  “Hey,” he murmured, softly. “Are you—”

  His shirt, the one she’d ripped off him only a few minutes before, hit him square in the face.

  “Hurry,” she said.

  He pulled the shirt down. “Before the bear comes back?”

  “Before someone decides to take a stroll and see us.”

  “In four feet of snow?”

  “We’re out here, aren’t we?” She jammed her foot back into the one boot she’d managed to tear off. To hurry him along, she tossed his jacket over as well. “Why aren’t you moving?”

  “My bones dissolved. Hope, that was—”

  “Fun,” she agreed, not looking at him as she laced up her boot. “Thanks for that, I feel much better now. More relaxed.”

  “Okay, good, but—”

  And while he was still stuttering, she stood up and walked off, her boots crunching in the snow as she went, muttering something about how that back door to the kitchen had better no longer be locked.

  He lay back to resume his staring up at the ceiling, but something was under his ass.

  His glasses.

  He put them on his nose and sighed. They were bent to hell. “Thanks for that,” he said, repeating Hope’s words, then laughed at himself.

  Something brushed his foot then, and picturing the bear, he leaped up, his pants still at his thighs—

  And met the surprised gaze of one very curious deer, peering into the shed with huge doe eyes.

  “Jesus,” Danny said shakily.

  Which was apparently too much for Bambi, and she took off, leaping like the picture of grace through the snow across the open yard.

  Danny let out a breath and yanked up his pants—a guy needed balls of steel for this place. Giving himself a pep talk, including one about not letting himself think too hard about what he and Hope had just done—or how fast she’d run from it—he managed to get back to the B&B. He let himself in the kitchen door and came face to face with yet another audience.

  Lori and Ben.

  They were sitting on the counters sipping steaming coffee, but what he noticed most was their matching grins.

  “Hey,” Lori said sweetly.

  “Hey.” Danny looked out the window and saw to his relief that the shed was not visible from here. He turned and divided a look between husband and wife as he shrugged out of his jacket. “So I suppose neither of you know how Hope got locked out of here a few minutes ago.”

  “Um, what?”

  “The door,” he said. “It was locked.”

  “Huh.” Ben lifted a shoulder. “Odd.”

  Lori nodded. “Odd.”

  He gave up and headed across the kitchen to the coffeepot. “I’m going to go check on the road conditions.”

  “Sure,” Lori said. “But you might want to tie your left boot and rebutton your shirt.”

  He’d buttoned his shirt wrong. Perfect. He fixed that and bent to work on the boot.

  “Must be a helluva wind out there.”

  Danny straightened and met Ben’s steady, even gaze. Yeah. It’d been a helluva wind all right, and its name had been Hope. “Do you happen to know if the roads have been cleared?”

  “Yes, but it’s going to be dark soon. You really going to head out?”

  “Yeah.” He needed to. Hope was a big girl, she’d made that clear. She didn’t need nor want his help. And though she couldn’t possibly deny the fact that she’d enjoyed their little outside tussle, he knew she was also over it.

  Over him.

  She’d be okay. She knew what she had to do to keep this place out of the clutches of her brother. He looked out the windows again. He told himself he was tired of wide open skies and no skyline. Tired of the lack of Starbucks and no New York pizzeria.

  But the truth was, the place had grown on him.

  And so had Hope.

  “Roads might be icy,” Lori said gently. “And it’s going to snow some more. We’re awfully short-handed. . . .”

  “Well,” he heard himself say. “If you’re short-handed . . .”

  When Hope needed to avoid thinking about something, she’d found that nothing beat manual labor. To that end, she stood on the roof of the shed as the sun sank behind the mountains, shoveling the thick snow off the flat roof so it wouldn’t collapse. She had the back floodlights on to see, and brain blessedly blank, was happy in her own little world, where there were no sexy nerds, no evil stepbrothers. . . .

  Someone climbed up the ladder. A knit cap-covered head popped up.

  Danny.

  He tossed up a second shovel. “I know, you don’t want my help. Too bad.” With that, he climbed the rest of the way up, straightening with slow caution as he looked down at the ground. “Huh.”

  She raised a brow as he lost some of his color. “Afraid of heights?”

  “No, of course not.”

  “Of course not,” she repeated wryly when he sank to his knees and closed his eyes. “Okay, big guy. You just stay there, I’m nearly done here anyway.”

  “No. I’m going to help.” Resolutely, he used the shovel to pull himself back upright.

  Hope stared at him, feeling some more of those unwanted emotions clogging her throat. He was so different from any man she’d ever known. Loyal, intellectual, sharp-witted . . . and strong. So damn strong, from the inside out; strong of mind and character, strong of heart and soul, and that . . .

  That was new for her.

  He didn’t care what people thought, didn’t care about anything except doing the right thing, and damn if that wasn’t the sexiest thing about him.

  It was also more than just a little terrifying given what had happened the last few times she’d opened up and let someone in.

  And in any case, she was strong, too. She reminded herself of this very fact as she resumed shoveling snow off the roof. She ran this place on her own and she’d find her own answers, without spendi