Snowy Mountain Nights by Lindsay Evans

her form clad in a pale blue long-sleeved shirt. She sighed and tossed the sweater behind her. “Why do you keep it so hot?”
    â€œI like it hot.” Garrison unabashedly stared at her newly revealed skin, the seductively angled clavicles, her slender arms. “I grew up in Tampa, where the weather is consistently warm most of the year. Even though I’ve been in New York since college, I never got used to the cold.” He shrugged without apology. “I keep my apartment warm year-round.”
    â€œI’m sure that only encourages all the women you entertain to take off their clothes around you.”
    â€œAll the women?”
Is that what she thought he was about? “Why would you say that?”
    She laughed, curling a finger around her necklace and moving the charm—a star?—back and forth across the chain. “Are you fishing for compliments, counselor?”
    â€œNot at all.” Garrison dipped his eyes below the slow and seductive motion of her finger at her throat. Her skin was luminous in the firelight. “I am simply curious what you think of me.”
    A touch of color moved under her cheeks. “I think you know very well what I see.” She tilted up her chin, facing him head-on with her forest-dark eyes. “You’re an attractive man. There’s an undeniable masculinity about you that I imagine women find hard to resist.”
    â€œDo
you
find me hard to resist?” He raised an eyebrow, teasing. Assuming she wouldn’t play the game.
    â€œI do.”
    Her reply stunned him into silence. For the first time, he didn’t have a ready answer. This was what he wanted, but he had not really expected to get it. Garrison cleared his throat. “Is that why you’re in my cabin at this time of night?”
    She blushed again but did not back down. “You knew it was me at your door. Is that why you answered without a shirt?”
    He smiled, warming to their game. “You know answering a question with a question won’t lead me astray from my original point, don’t you?”
    â€œI’ve heard that you’re relentless. In your work.”
    â€œIn play, as well.”
    She shook her head, a spasm of a smile moving over her mouth. “I don’t think I’m in your league.”
    â€œYou’re very wrong about that.”
    â€œSo...” Reyna drawled out the beginning to an abrupt conversation change, making no attempt at subtlety. “What made you decide to become a lawyer?” Their game was over then.
    He allowed her to retreat. “My mother,” Garrison said. “She raised me on her own with very few resources. I wanted to thank her properly for all the sacrifices she made for me over the years. I wanted to be able to give her the things she never had. Short of becoming a crime boss, being a lawyer seemed one of the easier ways to provide for her and for myself.”
    Her eyes widened as he spoke. He could tell that he had surprised her.
    â€œI would’ve never thought you came from a single-parent home.”
    He shrugged. “It’s nice to know you thought of where I came from.”
    â€œConversation with you never goes where I assume it will,” Reyna said.
    â€œThat’s good. I am a lawyer, but I like to think I still managed to escape being boring.”
    â€œYou’re never that.” She smiled again. But he could sense the discomfort in her. A restlessness that had not been fully eased by their small talk. “I did think you were boring before, but not now.”
    â€œWhat about you, Ms. Allen?” He teased her with her last name. “What made you decide to become a tattoo artist?”
    Her wry laughter filled the cabin. “Desperation.”
    â€œReally?” He didn’t hide his surprise. “You don’t strike me as the desperate type.”
    â€œAfter the divorce, that was the only job I could find. It was either take that