ELENA
The ride back to the hotel was quiet.
Not the comfortable kind of quiet. The kind that buzzed with tension, heat pooling just under the surface of my skin. I kept my hands folded in my lap like a proper diplomat—like a woman who hadn’t just spent the last hour wrapped around her lover in a steaming hot spring, pressed skin to skin beneath a moonlit sky.
I stared out the window, pretending the frost patterns were more interesting than the way Derek’s thigh brushed mine every time the SUV hit a bump. It wasn’t even intentional, probably. But it didn’t matter.
Every touch was electric. Every inhale I took carried the scent of him—wet pine, heat, the barest edge of want. Goddess, I could still taste him on my tongue.
Across from us, Joe sat with the eternally patient expression of
