No.She reared back, dislodging that possessive arm and letting in enough cold and sunlight to make him open one of his eyes. The iris lazily focused on her, and the pupil, she was relieved to see, was reactive. It went pinprick small against the glare. “What the hell are you made of, woman?” He grimaced. “Barely human.”
“I’m not the one running around carrying me everywhere.” She started to lean back and dropped again when the movement put all the focus on her nipples, rasping through chest hair. It made her pulse frantic, her insides heavy with desire.
He coughed out an approximation of a laugh, and she felt a twang of something beyond embarrassment or discomfort or even the attraction simmering in the infinitesimal space between them.
It was warm and squiggly and way more uncomfortable than lust. It contained morefeelingsthan she was used to. Like lust squared.
Without another thought to her nudity, she threw off the cover and rolled from him—right back into the sharp, cold, gravelly nightmare of the lake shore. “Shit!”
“You okay?”
“What are these stupid rocks?” she said, much angrier than the pain in her shins warranted.
He grunted. “I’m not sure.”
“What kinda tour guide are you?”
He let out another low laugh. “Got an extra toothbrush in my bag. Does that help?”
“Five stars.” She didn’t watch him stretch and then jolt when the pain hit his side, didn’t want to see the thick curves of his chest or the curled hair that had set off that ache in her nipples. “But honestly, look at this place,” she blustered, struggling to stand, naked and turned on and really, really unhappy about the situation. “When I asked for rustic,” she said, with a good dose of forced humor. “I figured there’d at least be walls, you know?” He smiled, the white of his teeth stark against his dark beard. It sent a liquid rush to her belly—and lower. “The yeti’s a nice touch, though.” She reached into the pack and pulled out the first item of clothing she found—a long-sleeved thermal T-shirt. “With that pelt, you’re like a…hipster Paul Bunyan or something. Hipster barbarian. Barbarians of Instagram.” If anything, the cotton highlighted the two sharp points of her breasts. She forged ahead, intent on distracting him—or her, mostly—from this unfortunate want. “You look like Jason Momoa and Tom Hardy had a baby and…” His puzzled expression made her stop. “You don’t have any idea what I’m talking about, do you?”
He shook his head, bringing her focus down to his mouth. In the dawn light, with sleep still marking his features, it didn’t look hard at all. It looked soft and pliable.
What am I doing getting sidetracked by the sexy yeti?She drove her attention up to his eyes and forced a good dose of iron into her next words. “Can you move?”
He lifted the bag and looked down at himself. “Need a minute.”
It took her a beat to understand what he meant. Then, of course, her eyes shot down before her brain had caught up with it. After that, her eyes raced up to meet his—which was another mistake. The man was freaking gorgeous. She knew that, could see it in the perfection of his body parts, the symmetry of his features. The unruly hair and beard barely hid what was underneath. She recalled the pictures of him from before. The ones showing a man being sought for all those murders. His face had seemed too perfect back then, his smile too golden, eyes too limpid. Too good to be true.
This truth, though, of a smooth stone gone rough was so much more appealing. His beauty plucked a chord deep inside her—the answering call of a person who’d become less, not more, polished by life. Sanded down not to a smooth center but a pitted, jagged, broken core that very few people ever saw. If any.
“How old are you?” she asked without realizing she’d even opened her mouth to speak.
“Thirty-nine.” He raised his head and lowered it, as if in pain.
“You okay?”
The sound he made wasn’t even close to a laugh. “Alive, aren’t I?”
“Any frostbite or anything?”
He concentrated for a few seconds—probably wriggling fingers and toes. “Think I’m good.” A pause, during which he avoided her gaze. “Thanks to you.”
“What kind of man doesn’t tell his partner when he gets shot?” She huffed, pulling on a second dry layer from his pack. “You were wounded and youcarriedme.” Shaking her head, she threw him a dirty look. “Jackass.”
He was so quiet, she almost didn’t hear him say, “Partner?”
“What?”
Ready for a confrontation, she turned to meet his eyes, only to find that there wasn’t an iota of aggression there. “This you breaking my balls, Leo?”
She snorted. “That’s right.” The fleece she pulled on was too big and it smelled like him. Ignoring the goose bumps, she threw one his way.
“Good.” He smiled, catching her in his spell before the shirt landed on his head. When he lifted it off, though, he didn’t look quite so happy. In fact, if she had to pinpoint exactly how he looked, she’d say guilty as hell.
Which didn’t bode well for this partnership thing.
Chapter 19
