Tangled Web: A Small Town Romance (The Cortell Brothers Book 6) by Giulia Lagomarsino (an ebook reader txt) 📕

“Isn’t every life worth saving?”

She shrugged. “Sure, but is it worth it for me to risk death to save you? See, I want to live a very long life and I can’t waste my cat lives on someone that’s unworthy.”

“Your cat lives?”

“Yeah, you know, cats are said to have nine lives. I feel like maybe I’ve used a few of those already, which means I don’t have as many to spare.”

I tried to wrap my brain around what she was saying. She was just talking in circles around me.

“We’ve been seeing each other for a few weeks.”

She nodded. “And in that time have we slept together?”

“Yes.”

“And was it good?”

“Fucking amazing.”

She smirked at me. “Well, based on the evidence you’ve presented, I would say I would most likely take option number three, and try to pull you out of the way to save both of us.”

I hadn’t considered that as an option. “Well, that doesn’t exactly answer my question.”

“Yes, it does. If the sex is really as good as you say, then either of your options wouldn’t give us what we both want, which is more sex.”

I frowned, wondering if that’s all this was to her. Sure, I had thought she was a murderer up until this morning, so I had no right to judge her feelings, but I couldn’t help part of me that was pissed at her for just wanting sex. Shouldn’t there be more between us after the last few weeks?

“Right, so just sex…” I nodded, partially glad that I got that cleared up.

“Andrew—“

“You know, we’re never going to get out of here,” I said, cutting off whatever she was going to say. “We need a plow to get down your driveway.” I pulled out my phone and saw there was still no service. “I’m guessing that something’s wrong with the cell tower.”

“Can we just talk about this?”

“The snow?” I shrugged. “Not much to say really. It is what it is. I guess we just hunker down until someone comes to rescue us. Maybe tomorrow I’ll start shoveling the drive if no one comes by.”

“That’s not what I meant and you know it. You’re purposely misunderstanding me.”

I turned to her and gave her a blank stare. “I wasn’t misunderstanding anything. This is sex,” I said, forgoing the preamble of what we were really talking about. “It’s fine. I mean, your husband just died and I’ve never been much for dating anyway.”

She shoved the covers off and shuffled over to me, straddling my thighs. Her arms snaked around my neck as she leaned in to kiss me lightly on the lips. “It’s not just sex. Don’t put this on me, like I’m acting like this means nothing. Next time you want to know something, don’t give me a scenario of us walking down the street and getting hit by a car.”

“It was a crosswalk,” I muttered.

A small smile tilted her lips. “Only because I said it first.” And then her lips were on mine and she was kissing me hard. Her fingers slid through my hair and her breasts pressed up against my chest. When she pulled back, panting hard, she grinned at me.

“Does that answer your question about how I feel about you?”

I shook my head slightly. “I think I’m gonna need clarification.”

Lorelei

Wrapped up in Andrew’s arms the whole night, I barely felt the cold of the room. We had been keeping each other warm since our talk yesterday afternoon, only getting up to use the bathroom. Andrew insisted I stay under the covers as he got us more to eat and drink. I didn’t even laugh when his dick shriveled up from the cold. It was freezing. There was no sense in pointing that out.

I stared into the fire that was still burning hot. Andrew must have gotten up throughout the night and added more logs to the fire. I rolled over, pulling the comforter tighter around us and stared at Andrew. His face was relaxed in sleep and I ran my fingers over the scruff of his jaw. He usually had some scruff on his jaw, but it was thicker now, like it had been a few too many days since his last shave. I found I liked it on him. I also liked that he wasn’t wearing his beanie all the time. I liked seeing his hair and running my fingers through it whenever I wanted. I was going to have to convince him to stop wearing it. Besides, he would start getting bald spots if he wore a hat all the time. At least, that’s what happened with guys that wore baseball hats constantly.

A chime jerked me out of my thoughts and I scrambled for my cell phone, but it wasn’t mine that had gone off. I snatched up Andrew’s and tried to open it, but it was locked.

“Andrew,” I shook him.

He woke groggily, pulling me tighter against him. “Not yet. Just a few more minutes.”

“Your phone chimed.”

His eyes flew open and he snatched the phone out of my hands, opening it up. “I have service. Eric messaged me.”

He dialed his brother’s number, leaving it on speakerphone. “Andrew?”

“Hey, man.”

“Are you okay? Joe said you didn’t make it home, and I couldn’t reach you on your phone.”

“I’m stuck over at Lorelei’s. We’re a little snowed in.”

He snorted. “Funny, I remember you telling me that this wasn’t going to be a big storm.”

“Yeah, rub it in,” he said, running his hand down my back slowly. “Any chance you can plow us out?”

“That’s not very likely. There’s another storm coming in. I just got us plowed out, but the roads are a disaster. Do you guys have enough supplies?”

He glanced at me and I nodded. I should have enough food and water for a few more days. “Yeah, we should be good.”

“How are you other than that?”

“We’re good,” he said in a hurry, so I piped up.

“No, he’s not. He fell and hit his head. I stitched him up, but he was