“Wildflower,” Liam groaned, and my nickname soothed the panic creeping up my throat. “You haven’t been drugged. It’s just weed.”
“I’ve never done weed in my life!” I hissed.
The laugh he’d clearly been holding back burst free, and he said, “I thought you knew!”
“Well, I didn’t,” I pouted, crossing my arms over my chest, willing myself not to cry.
I didn’t like being high, and I definitely didn’t like coming to this state unknowingly. We were in an unfamiliar place, surrounded by nothing but these rock-and-clay deposits for miles. It would take ages for any sort of help to reach us.
My panic swirled higher, coiling around my heart and lungs, making it difficult to breathe. My breaths came in short gasps. With a whispered curse, Liam pulled me to him, one hand anchoring in my hair while the other rubbed soothing circles up and down my back.
“Shh,” he murmured. “It’s okay. Nothing is going to happen to you. I promise I’ll keep you safe. Just take deep breaths.”
With his heartbeat beneath my ear, his warmth wrapped around me, and his gentle words slicing through my hysteria, my heart rate gradually slowed. As it did, I noticed he was swaying us side to side, his arms tight and unyielding around me.
He must’ve felt me coming back to myself because he pulled away slightly, swept aside the tent flap, and said, “C’mon. We can share.”
The adrenaline crash was coming, and I didn’t have it in me to protest, to remind him that this was a terrible idea. Instead, Inodded and ducked inside.
The space was barely tall enough for me to stand upright, the flyaways atop my head brushing against the ceiling, which meant Liam had to hunch to get in here. Along one side were his bags, and the rest was dominated by a blowup mattress with a pile of blankets atop it.
Still cocooned in my sleeping bag, I merely shifted his blankets to the side and curled into a ball on one side, attempting to make myself as small as possible.
Liam loomed over me for a moment, making some sound I couldn’t decipher the meaning behind before he laid down next to me.
The silence was deafening.
As soon as I’d settled, my anxiety rose again when I realized what a bad idea this had been. I was a grown woman; I should’ve been able to sleep in a locked vehicle by myself. Instead I’d made a scene like some damsel in distress.
I trembled in my sleeping bag, the fabric doing nothing to ward off the midnight chill, as I waited—and waited and waited—for Liam’s breaths to even out. Once he was asleep, I could sneak back over to the van and forget this ever happened.
But then Liam did something that made it impossible to move.
He rolled toward me and sat up, head hovering just over my left shoulder as he said, “You’re freezing.”
“No shit, Sherlock,” I quipped through chattering teeth.
“We could…cuddle,” he whispered. “You know, for body heat.”
I thought back to him appearing in the tent opening, how hewas wearing nothing but boxers, and how fucking warm I’d been when he held me. He clearly wasn’t cold. Meanwhile my toes were minutes from falling off, and my jaw was starting to hurt from clenching it against my shivering.
He was hot—in more ways than one—and while I knew I’d probably hate myself for it in the morning, I scooted back in acceptance.
“For…body heat…” I stuttered out, unzipping my sleeping bag and shifting out of it.
The damn thing clearly wasn’t doing its job anyway.
Liam wasted no time in gathering me to his chest and tucking the blankets around us. They were warm from his body and smelled like him, some heady mixture of pine and a masculine scent I couldn’t name. I shifted around so I faced him, pressing my cold nose against his pecs and sliding my icicle toes between his calves.
He tensed only briefly before saying with a chuckle, “Make yourself comfortable.”
I responded by pressing my hands flat against his abs, the muscles there jumping against my touch. Liam’s free hand, the one not resting under my head, brushed up and down my arm, back and forth in a hypnotic rhythm, then slipped it over my shoulder, his fingertips dancing along the bumps of my spine. Lower still it traveled, over the gentle swell of my hip until it came to rest on the curve of my behind.
“You do realize that’s my ass, right?”
“Really?” He flexed his fingers in an exploratory squeeze, a hum of satisfaction rumbling through his chest. “I hadn’t noticed.”
Then he pulled me even closer, hooking my thigh over his hip.
