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Now he needed a distraction.

“What flavor of ice cream?” he roughed out.

“Peaches and cream.”

Christ. He wasn’t going to live through this storm after all. Meadow was going to kill him with how damn tempting she was.

Before she asked anything else that would spur him into lurid visions involving her pinned underneath him, he returned to talk about the only thing that could stop him now.

Forest.

“I met your brother at our first post. We were both assigned there. Two baby seamen just getting our footing among the older, more experienced Naval officers. I never knew anybody like Forest before. I came from Jersey. I was rough and scrappy. Willing to fight anyone who poked at me.”

She was completely still, but he couldn’t stop thinking about his cock molded to her round bottom.

“Forest was less hotheaded.”

She issued a low laugh, almost echoing with sadness. “He always was the peacekeeper in our family. The levelheaded one.”

“I can see why.”

She looked up at him. And fuck if he didn’t almost slam his mouth over those plump lips and claim them.

But one taste would have him laying her down on the floor of this cave and taking all of her.

Every. Delicious. Inch.

“I miss him a lot.”

His mind scrambled to figure out what she was talking about. Forest. They were talking about her brother.

The one he’d promised to be there for even in death, by helping keep the ranch alive.

Not by fucking with his sister.

Her stare burned up into his. Her lips ripe and ready for kissing.

“Tell me one more thing, Colton.”

His chest heaved against what he knew were two hard, perky nipples.

“What’s that?”

“Tell me why I’m not good enough for you.”

Chapter Eleven

Meadow wasn’t just warm—she was on fire. For Colton.

When he loosened his hold on her, she knew she’d messed up by asking that question. As usual, her mouth was a wrecking ball against anything she wanted. Right now, she wanted the big, hard cowboy who’d saved her from being stranded in the storm—probably from freezing to death too.

He held himself stiff.

His posture wasn’t the only stiff thing.

He may deny wanting her, but his body told her differently. Oh, he wanted her all right.

She just had to get him to see it.