"Yeah." His arms tightened around me. "Couldn't explain why. Just felt like I had to be here. Like something was waiting."
The hum pulsed between us, warm and steady. I could feel it now—not just in my chest, but everywhere our bodies touched. Like electricity humming through a live wire.
"I know the feeling," I said quietly.
We lay there as the storm raged outside, and slowly—so slowly—his shivers returned. Good. His body was fighting again. The chemical heat packs were doing their job, and so was I, pouring warmth into him through every point of contact.
But somewhere along the way, the clinical necessity shifted into something else.
I became aware of his hands on my back—not just holding, but touching. His fingers traced slow patterns through my base layer, absent and deliberate at the same time. My breath caught.
"James."
"Sorry." His hands stilled. "I wasn't—"
"Don't stop."
The words escaped before I could catch them. His fingers resumed their movement, and I felt the change in his breathing—no longer labored, now deeper. Intentional.
The hum sang.
"You're warming up," I said. My voice came out rougher than I intended.
"Yeah." His lips were close to my ear, his breath a warm ghost against my skin. "Starting to feel a lot of things."
I should have pulled back. Should have reminded us both that this was survival, nothing more. That we were stuck in a tent inthe middle of a blizzard with a mountain to climb and a mission to complete.
Instead, I lifted my head and looked at him.
His eyes were dark in the dim light of the headlamp, pupils blown wide. Not from cold anymore. The shivering had stopped, replaced by a different kind of tension—coiled, waiting, watching me like I was something precious and terrifying all at once.
"Lumi," he breathed.
I kissed him.
I didn't decide to do it. My body just moved, closing the distance between us, and then his mouth was on mine—cold at first, then warming fast, then hot. His hands slid up my back, pulling me closer, and I made a sound I'd never heard myself make before.
The hum exploded.
It roared through me like wildfire, like a dam breaking, like every moment of wanting I'd been suppressing since orientation suddenly set free. James groaned against my lips and rolled, pulling me on top of him, and the new position pressed us together from chest to hip.
I could feel him. All of him. The evidence of his wanting unmistakable even through our layers.
"God, Lumi—" He broke the kiss, gasping. "Tell me to stop. Tell me this isn't—"
I kissed him again.
He stopped talking.
His hands found the hem of my base layer and slipped beneath, palms flat against my bare skin, and I arched into the touch like I'd been starving for it. Maybe I had. Maybe I'd been starving my whole life and didn't know it until now.
"You're so warm," he murmured against my mouth. "So goddamn warm."
I laughed, breathless. "That's the point."
"No." He pulled back enough to look at me, his eyes fierce. "Not the point. Not even close."
His hands slid higher, tracing the curve of my ribs, and I shuddered. Not from cold. Never from cold again.
