Then she saw him.
Korrak stood at the stove with his back to her, his broad shoulders moving with efficient precision as he tended whatever was creating that incredible smell. Golden morning light caught in his hair, and there was something profoundly domestic about the scene that caused her chest to tighten with an emotion she couldn’t name.
He looked solid. Grounded. Like a man who belonged exactly where he was, doing exactly what he was doing.
The sight of him stopped her cold, suddenly hyperaware of how she must look—barefoot, bare-legged, wearing nothing but his shirt that hung loose and revealing on her smaller frame.
Korrak sensed her presence immediately, his shoulders tensing before he turned. When their eyes met, something electric shot through the space between them. His ice-blue gaze dropped to take in her appearance—the expanse of leg beneath his shirt, the way the cotton clung to her curves—and for one unguarded heartbeat, hunger blazed across his features with raw, primal intensity.
Heat flooded her cheeks as she watched his jaw clench, watched him deliberately turn back toward the stove as if the sight of her was too much to process.
“I should—I can go get dressed,” she stammered, her voice still rough with sleep.
“Don’t.” The word came out rough, and she watched his hands still on the spatula he’d been wielding. “It’s fine. I’m glad the shirt is comfortable.”
The simple words carried weight—like the sight of her in his shirt was something he’d been imagining all night long.
Her pulse hammered as she moved closer, drawn by the domestic intimacy of the moment and the careful way he was not looking at her legs.
“You didn’t have to cook again.”
“I wanted to.” He plated eggs and bacon with movements that spoke of long practice living alone. “Figured you’d be hungry after a good night’s rest.”
They ate in a silence that thrummed with unspoken awareness. Every time their fingers brushed reaching for the coffee pot, electricity sparked. Every time she caught him watching her, heat pooled low in her belly.
The urge to tell him everything rose in her chest like a tide—about Bracken, about the documents, about the months of running and the fear that followed her even here to this frozen sanctuary. The words pressed against her lips, desperate for release.
But fear crushed the impulse before it could take shape. If she told him the truth, he might decide she was too much trouble. Too dangerous. Too likely to bring chaos into his carefully ordered world.
And she couldn’t survive that. This was her last hope.
“I should get dressed properly,” she said when they finished, the words tasting like retreat.
Back in his bedroom, she pulled on yesterday’s jeans and sweater with mechanical precision, each piece of clothing feeling like armor sliding back into place. By the time she emerged, the guarded city woman had returned, the soft creature who’d stretched languidly in his bed carefully locked away.
“Ready to head back?” Korrak’s voice was carefully neutral, but she caught the way his eyes lingered on her face, searching for the woman who’d stood in his kitchen wearing only his shirt.
“Yep. More than ready.”
The ride to the research outpost in his Jeep felt loaded with everything they weren’t saying. Winslet stared out the window at the pristine landscape, acutely aware of Korrak’s presence beside her.
The urge to confess everything rose again, stronger this time.Tell him about Bracken. Tell him about the danger. Tell him you’re not who you’re pretending to be.
But the words died in her throat. If she told him, he might send her away. And where would she go then?
“You’re quiet this morning.” His voice was careful, offering her an opening without demanding she take it.
“Just thinking about the day ahead.”
He didn’t press, and she was grateful for that even as part of her wished he would. Wished he would demand answers, force her hand, take the choice away from her.
When they finally reached the outpost, she found herself reluctant to leave the warm sanctuary of his vehicle. Something about stepping out felt like stepping back into danger, even though rationally she knew she was safer here than anywhere else on earth.
“Thank you again,” she said, her hand on the door handle. “For everything.”
“Anytime.”
The word carried promise and warning in equal measure, and she fled before she could do something catastrophically stupid like ask him to take her back to his cabin and never let her leave.
