“I need some space, Ford.”
After a moment’s hesitation, he stepped back.
She undid her skis and rose, stacking sore bones over swollen joints with the help of petrified muscles.
“Okay?” he asked.
Good question. It all hurt, but pain was the new normal. She did a quick check, opened and closed her hands, rolled her head, tensed her shoulders, stretched her leg, and ran through a few exercises to see how the bum knee was doing. Aside from stiffness in the knee, she was fine. All systems functioning. “Amazing.”
Under his ski mask, his eyes crinkled. “Here.” He shoved an open bottle into her hands and it was almost warm. He must have kept it against his skin, under his coat. Or close to it.
“Are you laughing at me, Ford Cooper?”
“Hell no.” He leaned so close the wind had to work hard to keep them apart. “But I am smiling.”
The miracle was that, despite everything, when they took off again, she was smiling, too.
Chapter 26
Despite a few hiccups, they managed a whopping eleven miles, with occasional stops to shove calories into their mouths.
Every time Coop looked back at Angel, slowly but steadily plowing across the ice, his respect for her rose. He’d seen the woman’s feet, for God’s sake, rubbed raw. They were more blister than skin at this point. He had enough blisters of his own to know what she was up against. And, though she hid it well, her limp had gotten worse in the past day or so.
By the time they stopped and pitched the tent, they were both bent double from the effort of battling the constant headwind.
He glanced at the shelter, where Angel’d already heated water, made dinner, and had started on physical therapy exercises for her knee.
Or she could be in the sleeping bag, waiting for him. He dug faster.
A long shiver that had little to do with the cold worked its way down his body, trying its best to get him hard.
Not gonna happen out here.
In there, however, the rules had changed. The life-or-death situation had flipped a switch in him, moved the paddle in a pinball game, opening a new path. In the tight confines of their bed, his debilitating need to control himself had been blown apart.
Damn, it was liberating.
He was drunk on it.
Now, in the bright light of day, he could see that he’d let his excitement get the better of him. Dangerous. Losing sight of his rationality in forty or fifty below could kill them both. But if the kissing motivated her, somehow, to ski eleven miles instead of seven, then…
And here he was, making excuses for wanting her, like a horny teenager.
With the protective ice wall as high as it would get, he trudged the few steps to their home—a tiny, low bright-orange cone in the middle of this vast white expanse—crawled into the vestibule, then hesitated for a few seconds before unzipping the tent itself. He was dying to rush inside and show her where his mind had been all day. And that scared the crap out of him. He could almost stand not to eat if it meant they’d curl up in that bag together and see how good they could make each other feel.
All of this screamedbad idea!Or at least half screamed. The other half saidwhy the hell not?What could possibly be wrong with finding physical comfort with a consenting adult out here on the ice? They weren’t hurting anyone by being together, were they? Unless… Crap. He hadn’t considered the possibility of her having someone back home. Had she ever mentioned a husband or boyfriend? Seemed unlikely, considering her long stay here, but people did crazier things.
In front of him, the tent opened and he blinked, wondering just how much time he’d spent between the flaps. His eyes scanned her sunburned face—bad idea—the taut line of her shoulders—bad idea—the plump little Cupid’s bow mouth, turned slightly up at the corners despite the long day’s slog—bad idea. She was smiling like she was happy to see him.
That gripped him in a place no woman had ever touched.
“You get stuck?” She gave him a full-on grin, loosening the tension in his chest and tightening other parts farther down.Bad idea? Nah!“Here. Hand me that ice and get in here before we freeze our tits off.”
And just like that, the teenage boy was back in charge, picturing what she’d look like naked. She grabbed the container and set it down, and without waiting to take off his frost-stiffened layers, he had her in his arms, his mouth on hers, wishing he could press her up against a wall and strip her right here. Wishing what they were doing was real and not just a dream wrought of ice and danger.
When he finally managed to wrench himself away, she backed up and pressed her fingers to her lips. “Whoa.”
Yeah. Whoa.
