Free Snowbound Summer (The Logan Series Book 3) by Sally Clements Page B

if Declan left any.”
    At the mention of her brother,
Nick shook his head. “I doubt it. Those he would have taken with him to Andalucía.
And if you suggest going and trying to find some in your parents’ room…” He
wrinkled his nose. “You’d get the same response as you did when you gave me
your father’s underwear.”
    “Oh boy.” She eased away a
little. “I vote we use it later.”
    “That’s if I even have one in my
wallet.” There was a hidden pocket, which could be filled or could be empty.
    “If not, we’ll just have to be
creative.”
    He loved this discussion.

Chapter
Nine
     
    Getting carried away in the heat of the moment was one thing—discussion
about the finer points of contraception quite another. Summer couldn’t pretend
to herself that she hadn’t thought through sex with Nick any longer. Couldn’t
blame drink, or circumstances. Who’s going to know? She brushed off the
anxiety clenching her stomach muscles tight. In Brookbridge everyone knew everybody
else’s business; you had as much chance of keeping a secret as you had winning
the lotto. But up here, sequestered from the rest of humanity by the elements,
with the nearest house a couple of miles away, their secret would be safe.
    No-one need know. It didn’t have
to mean anything.
    Still, the discussion has altered
the mood from uninhibited to reserved. She still wanted him, but the desperate
edge had been eroded from her desire. Maybe they should get on with the jobs
for the day that needed to get done before nightfall. It would be dark by five
or six, more than enough hours then to explore each other.
    She climbed off the sofa and put
her clothes back on. “You need to eat and drink something hot.” She filled the
saucepan and put it onto the woodstove. “And we should try to find out when the
electricity will be restored.”
    “Summer…” He reached a hand out
to her. “Come and sit down here for a moment.” He patted the sofa.
    She didn’t want to. Didn’t want
to get drawn in. “No...I’ll just...I’ll make some coffee.” She had no idea what
she was getting herself into here, no idea at all. There was a pile of reasons
they shouldn’t do this, a pile as high as the Christmas presents that would be
under her brother’s Christmas tree. And only one reason they should. Because
they wanted to. Desire. Nothing more than that. No love, no happy ever after.
No even pretense of a relationship. It was damned depressing.
    “We can wind back time to before
I woke up this morning. Pretend all of that never happened.”
    He looked so serious her heart
twisted. “Do you want to do that?”
    He shook his head. “No. I want to
take you to bed, and be creative. But you have reservations...I can see them in
your eyes.”
    Summer cleared her throat. “It
would just be sex.” Laying down ground rules.
    “No, it wouldn’t.”
    And getting them stomped on.
    “There’s no way being with you
would just be sex,” he said. “We’ve known each other for years, we have a
deeper connection, it would...”
    “Be just sex.”
    His eyebrows pulled together. His
forehead wrinkled. And his mouth turned down at the corners. “How could it be?”
    “It would have to be—”
    A loud buzz reverberated through
the kitchen table. Then again. Nick grabbed his cell phone and stared at the
screen. “It’s Declan.” He put the cell on the table and let it ring. “I can’t
talk to him now.”
    “If we do this, you can’t tell
him. Ever.”
    His eyes widened. The phone kept
ringing. “I can’t keep a secret like that from Declan. He’s my oldest friend. Why
would we need to hide it anyway? Okay, it would be a shock, but once Declan and
our families get used to it…”
    Get used to it? “Neither
your family or mine will understand that you and I had a quick fling.” She
brushed her hair back from her face. “They’ll think it was sleazy. They’ll
judge us.”
    “Judge you, you mean, don’t you?”
His mouth compressed