Free Something Has to Give by Maren Smith Page A

to the master bedroom, took up his position on his favorite side of the battlefield, shucked down to his underwear and lay down in the dark with his eyes closed. Unfortunately, tonight sleep wasn’t quick in coming.
    Although normally right on his heels at bedtime ready to fight for her half of the mattress, tonight Elsie stayed downstairs for a long time. He could hear her puttering around in the kitchen, the clatter of dishes, the soft bump of shutting cupboards, continued on for hours longer than it should have taken anyone to clean up after such a small meal.
    He wondered if she were still crying.
    No, he didn’t. She was the interloper. He couldn’t care less if she was crying. In fact, she should cry. The more miserable she was, the sooner she’d leave.
    He punched his pillow twice and tried to find some measure of comfort in what was fast becoming a truly uncomfortable situation. And he couldn’t figure out why he gave a damn. He was the wronged party, here. Why should he give a damn if she was miserable? Shouldn’t that be his goal? Why was he so conflicted?
    The bedroom door opened, briefly flooding everything in pale hallway light before she clicked it off. Once again, the room was plunged into darkness, albeit not as dark as most nights. The moon was out and a silver glow reflected off the snow to brighten everything. Lying on his side with his back to her, Quint folded his arms across his chest. He didn’t say anything, but then, neither did she.
    Softly closing the door, she sealed them into the tomb-like silence of the bedroom. The smothering quiet only seemed to amplify the whispered rustle of her discarding clothes. He didn’t need to face her to know what was happening. He could hear each piece as she stripped down and his imagination was more than capable of filling in the blanks. He could hear the folds of white cotton as she pulled her shirt up over her head and the rain of her long hair falling back down onto her bare shoulders. He heard the practically inaudible clip of her bra being removed. His mouth watered at the thought of those perfect breasts being revealed; he almost groaned when he heard the flow of her thigh-length nightshirt being donned to cover them again. He wasn’t facing her, but he could well imagine what she looked like with every soft curve illuminated in snowy moonlight as she got ready for bed. Already his cock was stirring, rising, taking notice.
    Down, boy. Please, dear God, stay down.
    The click of a zipper scaling down its teeth doomed all his efforts to pretend there was no beautiful, maddening, and entirely too-kissable woman getting naked just behind him.
    “It’s snowing again,” she said softly , sitting down on the edge of the bed to remove her shoes, socks and jeans. She left them in a kicked off little pile on the floor, right where he’d no-doubt trip over them first thing tomorrow morning. He tried to be irritated about that, but his mind stubbornly locked on the indisputable realization that for her pants to be on the floor they would first have to not be on her, and after that, all he could see in his mind’s eye was the white cotton gusset of panties lying like a second skin over the curves and folds between her naked thighs.
    “Good for the snow,” he replied, trying to sound every bit as disinterested as he definitely was not.
    Her heated glare burned in between his shoulder blades an instant before the mattress jostled. She threw herself down beside him and he knew when she was fully prone, not because her heel kicked the back of his calf (which it did), but because she once more yanked the pillow right out from under his head and then, with a mighty jerk, ripped both sheet and blankets off the top of him. She had herself thoroughly swaddled before he could do more than growl a sigh.
    He started laughing again, but not because he was amused. He sat up, rolling over, his palm itching even before he saw the bump of her bottom rounding up under the