Yes. Yes, she was.
Chapter 11
Jason had onlyhimself to blame.
He could have turned down the Wests’ offer of a night at the ranch and gone back to McBride’s. He’d be shooting the shit with Zach over a couple of beers now instead of wondering how he was going to keep his hands off Winona.
God, she was perfect. Everything about her made him want her—the gentle curves of her breasts, the flare of her hips, her slender legs, the way her gaze moved over him. But he’d been down this road before, and it led nowhere.
None of those women were Winona.
They sure as hell weren’t.
Winona started toward the door. “This water is going to feelsogood after hiking in the cold wind.”
“Yeah,” he managed to say, following her, his eyes drawn to the irresistibly sweet mounds of her ass, which shifted enticingly as she walked.
She opened the sliding glass door and stepped outside into the snow without the slightest hesitation.
Jason had never walked barefoot in snow before. “That’s cold.”
“Don’t tell me a little snow is too much for a Desert Person,” she teased. “In the winter when we do theinipi—our name for the sweat lodge ceremony—we often have to walk barefoot through snow. When I walk from the lodge to the women’s tipi to change afterward, my hair and clothes freeze almost instantly.”
He couldn’t imagine that. “Don’t you worry about hypothermia?”
“We’re so warm from the lodge that the cold feels good.” She held the handrail and stepped down into the hot water, her sigh of pleasure as she sank up to her chin sending a rush of blood to Jason’s groin. “Oh, this is wonderful.”
Jason did his best to hide his growing erection as he made his way down into the water, the heat sending tingles of pleasure up his spine. “Is now the time to tell you I’ve never been in a hot tub before?”
She gaped at him. “Never?”
“Never.”
Snow fell steadily from the sky, melting on the surface of the water and landing in their hair and on his bare shoulders, the forest around them silent. Even the coyotes were quiet now. Overhead, storm clouds hid the stars. It felt magical.
Or maybe that was Winona.
She moved toward him through the water and ran a finger over the scar on his shoulder, concern on her pretty face. “Is this where you were shot?”
His pulse tripped.
He looked down at the line of heat her fingertips traced over his skin. “Yeah. A trafficker took a shot at me from behind some rocks. It wasn’t bad—just a deep graze.”
“I bet it was painful.”
“At the time, I was just pissed.”
“Did he get away?”
Jason shook his head. “The Wolf pack surrounded him and brought him in.”
She ran her fingertips over his tattoo. “Does this mean something?”
He watched her as her fingers explored the maze, his blood hotter than the water now. “It’s the Man in the Maze. The little guy here is I’itoi, who helped Creator make our people. He’s a bit of a trouble-maker. We call him Elder Brother. The maze represents the journey of life and death—the choices we face, the unexpected turns, the dead ends. The center represents your dream, the purpose of your life, the end of your journey.”
Lips he wanted to kiss curved in a smile. “I like that.”
Then she touched the scar above his left nipple. “Were you shot here, too?”