The fire crackles, but Mara’s still shivering.
She’s trying to hide it. Curling tighter against the stone, pulling the vest closer. But I see the tremors running through her frame. Hear her teeth wanting to chatter despite her efforts to still them.
“You are cold,” I say.
“I’m fine.”
“You are lying.”
She huffs out a breath. “Okay, yeah. I’m freezing. Happy?”
I’m not. The admission bothers me more than it should; this fragile female struggling against elements I barely register.
I move before fully thinking it through. Settle beside her, pull her against my chest. She stiffens.
“K, what—?”
“Be still.” I wrap the cloak around us both, tucking it snugly across her shoulders. Then my arms follow, holding her firmly against my warmth.
She relaxes by degrees. I feel the moment tension bleeds from her muscles, replaced by something closer to surrender. Her body fits against mine in ways that feel inevitable. Predetermined. Like puzzle pieces finding their natural arrangement.
The scent of her fills my lungs… soft woman. Something floral. Bright. Living. It does something to the hollow space in my chest, filling it temporarily with sensation that isn’t loss.
“This is very chivalrous of you,” she murmurs against my shirt. “Very ‘damsel in distress.’”
“Youarein distress.”
“Fair point.” Her voice carries that particular lilt I’m learning means humor. “Though I prefer ‘badass survivor’ to ‘damsel.’”
“You can be both.”
“Flatterer.” She shifts, finding a more comfortable position tucked under my chin. Her hand rests against my chest, palm flat over my heart. “You’re basically a furnace. How is that even possible?”
I have no answer, so I say nothing.
My body knows how to hold her. The realization strikes without warning—where my hand should rest at her hip, how toangle my chin so she fits perfectly beneath it, the way my arm curves around her waist like it’s traveled this territory before.
Muscle memory divorced from memory itself.
I should move. Put distance between us. This intimacy is unearned, built on nothing more than circumstance and cold mountain air.
I don’t move.
“This doesn’t mean anything, right?” Mara says after a long silence. “Just practical survival stuff. Body heat and all that.”
“If that is what you need to believe.”
She stills. I feel the shift—the way her breathing changes, shallows. She’s no longer simply accepting warmth. She’s aware. Of me. Of the space between us that isn’t space at all.
Her fingers curl slightly into my shirt. Testing. Or claiming. I can’t tell which.
“K…” She sounds uncertain. Searching.
“Sleep, Mara.” I keep my voice even, though something in me wants to tighten my hold. Wants to ask what she feels, this strange pull between us that has nothing to do with survival. “You are safe.”
“That’s what worries me.” The words come out so soft I almost miss them.
I don’t know if she means the operatives below or something else entirely. Something building between us despite the impossibility of it. Despite the fact that I don’t even know who I am.
