“Going outside to gather more firewood,” he says, his brogue assaulting my back, so startling in its nearing vibrations, I actually flinch. He places his coffee mug in the sink, arm brushing mine as he does. I have goosebumps. I can fucking see them. “It’s supposed to start snowing more in a couple hours.”

“Mhm, okay.” My voice sounds annoyingly breathy as I scrub the same spot on the pan I’ve been doing for minutes now.

James is still standing right the fuck next to me, and I can feel him staring at the side of my face. I’d love to turn and see what he wants, but I just know I don’t possess the means to do so normally. If I look at him right now, I fear he’ll be able to see all the sickening perversions living in my brain.

So I just keep washing as he finally slinks past me toward the back door, his scent lingering in the air even after he’s gone.

It’s mouthwatering. Masculine and heady, like hemp and citrus and fire. I’ve been smelling it my whole life, and now it’s my favorite smell.

Ugh. Someone call the shrink.

That’s probably the other reason I stopped going to therapy. I was always terrified that I’d accidentally blurt out something alluding to my hidden ravenous crush on my guardian. And I can’t have that. No one can know.

It’s my dirty, shameful secret.

As I finish up the dishes, my gaze lifts to the window above the sink. James is outside, carrying wood from the shed and piling it up on the back deck. I can’t see the deck from right here, but I already know that’s what he’s doing. From here, I can only see him when he trudges through the snow to the shed in his big work boots, deep chocolate brown suede coat, gloves on his hands, and a hat I bought him for Christmas last year resting atop his mane of dark, shaggy hair.

I bite my lip, hands washing on auto-pilot while I’m swept up in yet another trance watching him. The hair on his angled jaw and down his throat is growing out. I love it. He’s fuckhot in many ways, but none more than with a few days of stubble turning into a barely-beard. It looks rough and rugged…

Imagine how it must feel on bare skin…

Blinking hard, I shake myself out of it as best I can. But it doesn’t quite work, and I’m still staring at him… Hauling a pile of wood in his arms like a sexy Paul Bunyan, muscles surely constricting beneath all his layers of clothes. It’s freezing outside, but he might be sweating a little from the exertion…

The cut up lines in his chest and abs dewy and glistening.

I swallow down a soft moan that wants to erupt from my throat as my cock swells in my jeans.

And then a sharp slice of pain tugs me back to reality when I realize I just cut myself on a knife in the sink.