INSIDE THE cabin, the air was warm from the fire, but Lily felt frozen for a moment—arms stiff, breath too shallow—as she stared at the knife Jeremiah placed on the mat between them.
Not sharp. Not lethal. Training-grade rubber.
But he might as well have laid a live wire between them.
“You’re already tense,” Jeremiah murmured.
He stood a foot away, arms folded, chest rising slowly with each steady breath. His voice was soft, but his presence wrapped around her like heat—the kind that crept under her skin no matter how much she tried to ignore it.
Lily swallowed. “I’m not tense.”
Jeremiah’s brow lifted slowly. “You flinched when the knife touched the mat.”
“I didn’t flinch.”
He stepped closer—too close—and she felt the warmth of his breath on her cheek, the scent of pine and smoke c
