Alone With You (Cabin Fever Series Book 1)

man uncomfortable in his own skin. Memory ran through him like a spark-spitting current. She imagined a misdiagnosis, an attempt at last-minute treatment, a botched resuscitation, and an inevitable ending, a lost patient on the table with monitors flat lining. As an emergency-room doctor, he’d seen lots of death, but this one he blamed upon himself.
She said, “That’s why you left the profession.”
“She had Brazilian purpuric fever.” His voice darkened. “It’s rare without antecedent conjunctivitis, but I should have seen it.”
There he was, a glimpse of the man inside, angry at himself.
“A doctor isn’t effective when he’s second-guessing himself. That’s why I left the profession. Let’s stop talking about this.”
“Do you want to stop talking? Or do you just think that’s what I want?”
“I don’t need any more company in my own private hell.”
She glanced at the birds, looking all the more lifelike in the swinging of the bare bulb, and understood that he was carving beauty to fill the hollow left by the tragedy. How long had Logan been carrying this guilt? She remembered him saying something about having left the profession six months ago. It was no wonder he’d set himself apart from the world. No wonder been so furious at John for double-booking this cabin. She understood the need to hide away when life hurt.
She’d been the ass.
“I said I was sorry before. For snooping.” She approached him. “But I’m not. I’m glad you shared this with me.”
She looked up into his drawn, stony face, the bruised eyes. Beyond the shed, a wind whipped the boughs, swirling them around, splattering raindrops through the door.
“Let’s go back now,” she whispered. “Let’s go to bed.”
Then she slid her hand down his arm and grasped his cold hand, weaving her fingers through his.

CHAPTER TWELVE
Jenny drifted up from sleep. A finger of sunlight warmed her face. Early-morning light seeped through the blinds to chase the darkness from the room. She basked in it with a contented sigh, pleased to stretch out in this comfortable bed under cool sheets for a little while longer. She felt loose-jointed, limber, settled happy in her skin. She absently brushed a lock of hair off her cheek and her elbow hit something hard.
She blinked her eyes open to find Logan looking down at her, watching her with an intensity that suggested he’d been watching her for some time. He rubbed his chin, where she’d accidently knocked him, rasping his fingers against the stubble. The morning light gilded him like a Roman god.
“Morning, beautiful,” he murmured in a voice that sounded like a thousand pleasures. She must be dreaming the look in his eyes, so different from the pained wariness of the night before. Now he looked down upon her with an expression of easy familiarity. Caught in that hazy state between sleep and waking, she felt her whole body open to all the glorious possibilities his perusal offered. Her heart warmed from within.
“Hey, you.” How unguarded he looked, not a trace of last night’s discomfort lurking in those eyes. “Did I oversleep?”
“I don’t know what time it is.” He didn’t roll over to check his phone. He didn’t move at all. “I don’t care what time it is, Jenny.”
She had a rigid routine to her mornings, but she didn’t feel even a tiny bit of reluctance about ditching it right now. The work she had to do in the lab could wait a little while longer. Hell, she could spend the whole day with Logan, just for the physical pleasures his smile promised. Still clinging to her senses was the scent of ozone and mineral rain on his skin last night, when they’d come in from the shed, stripped off their clothes, and slid their skins against each other under the cool sheets. They’d made slow love as rain pattered on the windows, and then sank into sleep entwined, his knee across her thigh, her legs between his.
A gleam lit his eye, like he could see exactly what she was thinking. He pressed closer until their lips were a breath apart. Her throat tightened, her chest lifted, and every sense focused on the lips only a touch away from hers, and the intensity of his look as he did. Her thoughts flew away at the brush of his mouth. She lifted her head off the pillow, straining toward his kiss. Gentle waves of pleasure rippled from his touch, washing through her so intensely that she bent her knees at the sensations, curling up around her body’s core. They had kissed many times—had spent most of yesterday locking lips—but he’d never kissed her with such sweet restraint.
This felt like a first kiss.
His lips slid away to her cheek and then to her temple as he wrapped an arm around her and drew her close. She molded against the muscular bulk of his body, her head in the nook of his throat, her breasts softening against his solid chest, their legs wrapping around one another as if from muscle memory. She ran a hand up his hard pectorals and let her fingers rest upon the ball of his arm. She listened, holding her own breath, to hear his sigh as he buried his face in her hair.
Her eyes drifted closed and words rose to the tip of her tongue.
I love you, Logan.
She held the words in, her lashes tangling in his hair. It was too soon for this. She’d known him for barely a week. They’d spent most of it in a sexual haze, until last night in the shed. She knew better than to be thinking about something as foolish as love, even if they had spent the whole day pleasing each other, and the evening sharing secrets. She was deluding herself, for hadn’t they both agreed that this relationship led nowhere beyond the present moment? She was losing herself now, drugged by sleep and satiation, enticed by the comfort she felt in his arms.
She eased back, out of his embrace, as diplomatically as she