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. . .

Winter

Fifteen years ago

[Declan]

“You’ve been eye-fucking me.”

“In your dreams,” she scoffs, meeting my reflection in the mirror.

Standing in the open doorway to the second-floor bathroom, steam filters into the hallway from her recent shower. However, the real heat is her, and I help myself to enter the small, cramped space, stepping up behind her and closing the door behind me.

Dressed only in a pair of joggers and nothing else, I came up to this bathroom to brush my teeth because I left my toothbrush in here earlier. Flirting with her is much more fun than routine flossing and adds an extra gleam to my smile.

Keeping up the pretense, I reach around her, grazing her arm as I grab my toothbrush out of the cup filled with a collection of them.

With my other arm, I stretch around her opposite side for the tube of toothpaste, essentially surrounding her, while using dental hygiene as my excuse to be so close to her.

“No, in my dreams, we’re actually fucking.” My gaze locks on hers through the mirror.

Her silvery eyes flick upward to meet mine.

Fresh from the shower, her hair is a riot of long tangles and raven waves, and my fingers itch to comb through the recently shampooed mess.

She smells like fresh snow and Christmas.

Her skin is honey-hued despite the wintery month, but with my brazen retort, her sweet flesh darkens.

A swirl of pink blends with the bronze color, transforming her skin to rose gold.

I’ve never been so cocky, but something about this woman makes me bold. Makes me speak my mind and confess my sin.

I want her. My best friend’s younger sister. Forbidden fruit. But it is winter, and I am starving.

Her brother, Isaiah, and said best friend, is getting married at the end of this week. Being that Isaiah and I are like brothers from another mother, I’ve been included in the intimate gathering of the Baker family in their Colorado home, a second house to their primary one in Vegas.

India and I have been playfully taunting one another for days. While I am a player on the baseball field, I am not one off it. I don’t sleep around like some of the other guys on my team. My eyes have been on a certain someone for a while now, even though she is five years younger than me.

She is captivating. Funny. Headstrong. Beneath the playful actions and flirty attitude, though, is someone smart and driven, confident in a way that glows from the inside outward.

I don’t have a tenth of the unbridled determination she has, and I am a professional ball player, where grit is practically my middle name .

“Gonna do something about those dreams?” That smart mouth of hers, sassy and direct.

My gaze drops to the dip of her cotton camisole, where the hint of her breasts peek above the soft material.

Where her skin is still damp and glistening with golden flecks, like her lotion contains specks of glitter.

Her arms are long and delicate, and her hands rest on the edge of the sink. More like clutch at the inner bowl.

Still watching her in the mirror, I lower my head and breathe against the crook where her neck meets her shoulder. Where that wintery fresh scent is the strongest and tickles my nose, which hovers less than an inch from her flesh.

“Stop tempting me,” I groan, low and gravelly, accusatory even, like she can prevent the natural beauty she possesses.

“How have I been tempting you?”

Our eyes meet once more in the mirror. Silver saucers compared to blue slits.

“By existing.”

Allowing the tip of my nose to make contact with her skin, I skim along the column of her throat, and she tips her head to the side. Can a shoulder be sexy? Hers is.

“You want me to stop existing?” A teasing smile greets my gaze as I look at her face one more time through the mirror.

“I want to extinguish this flame between us.” This craving needs to stop. This longing for her should be doused.

She scoffs. Her eyes contain a playful twinkle, the sterling color reflecting back at me with an extra shine. “We’re only a flicker.”

“ You’re a damn wildfire.” She’s dangerous and mesmerizing.

With that, she spins, her eyes hesitant a second as her gaze roams my face.

What does she see in me? Why has she behaved so boldly herself? Daring me with every spark in her eye and lazy curve of her smile to do something about this unquestionable attraction between us.

When her hands coast over my flesh, shivering pebbles break out despite the heat of her touch. I whisper-hiss, “Sizzling.”

There is no denying we are burning hot for one another.

“Where’s Isaiah?” Her eyes track her fingertips as they move over my pecs. Her question about her older brother— my best friend —should be the thing to drown out the inferno building between us.

“Out cold.”

“Keeping up the temperature metaphors?” She arches a narrow brow while her gaze remains on my firm chest. Her fingers trace large circles in opposite directions around the firm muscles.

“That’s not the only thing up.”

A sharp, short laugh bursts between us, the sound rich and throaty and blanketing over me. The sound makes me thirsty, savage even. I want to drink it in.

Cupping the side of her neck, I glide my thumb along the front of her throat and the underside of her jaw, forcing her chin upward. “Tell me to get out and I will.”

I’ll respect that I’m pushing flirtatious words beyond mere talk.

“Don’t you dare.” Those silver eyes narrow, glaring and firm.

“Dare me ,” I whisper, recalling the drinking game we’d played earlier that revealed she hasn’t been kissed in almost a year.

“Kiss me.”

Challenge accepted .