Riding Colton wasnothinglike riding a horse. He was roughly horse-sized, so Jo thought it should be, but it really wasn't. There was something much more predatory about the way he moved: the way he crouched to launch himself upward, and the way that once he left the earth, his feet moved through the air like a predator chasing something down, not a prey animal running. His wings strained far more than they'd done when he'd flown alone, and Jo's heart hammered in her chest at the feeling of his great muscles bunching and releasing as he reached for the skies.
Then all at once he was fully airborne and comfortable, the change unexpected and remarkable. She buried her face in his mane, a little afraid to look down and hiding it by inhaling the scent of him. Somehow he smelled like himself both as a chimera and a human: warm, comforting, a little wild, like the wind was always caught in his hair. Jo held on, suddenly and strangely feeling safer than she ever had in her entire life. She didn't know how that could be with a near stranger, with a man who shifted back and forth into a mythological animal, but it was true.
And it was true that although they would only know each other a few days at most, his absence would leave a hole in her heart that would never heal.
It was that, of all things, that made her lift her face from the thick warmth of his mane. If this was the only chance she had to experience life with Colton Drew, to experience the kind of lifehecould lead, then she didn't want to miss a moment of it.
Wind tore tears from her eyes as soon as she lifted her head, and her cheeks went numb almost instantly, but it was worth it. They flew north just above the treetops, Colton's feet loping along like he leaped from one tree to another. They were still climbing, following the line of trees to the lowest place between the mountains—off to her left, now; to the west, but not very far west. Jo twisted to look over her shoulder, and from just this little extra height, she could see how the mountains stretched far to the south of them.
A little extra height,she thought, and laughed. A lot of the trees they were flying over were Douglas firs, which grew to over seventy feet tall, even in the cold mountains. They weremuchhigher than they'd been, in other words. No wonder she could see for what felt like forever.
Colton clearly knew where he was going, but Jo had no sense of their speed. It seemed fast; it wascertainlyfaster than either of them could walk, even if there wasn't deep, heavy snow to fight their way through. She glanced back once more, seeing that their camp site had long-since been left behind, and then she hid her hands and face in the thick heat of Colton's mane again, and didn't look up until he finally landed.
She wassocold by then. Colder than she realized, because she thought she could get off his back gracefully, and instead simply fell, arms and legs too numb to respond.
Somehow, Colton caught her. He shifted even as she fell, and he caught her in his arms, nestling her against the warmth of hisbroad chest. His breath caught over her head and he whispered, "Jesus, you're freezing," with enough worry that her sluggish thoughts concluded maybe something waswrong. He strode away from his landing site, Jo still in his arms, but she couldn't get herself to look up. She was so tired, and so cold. Colder than she should be. A slow realization finally trickled through as Colton said, "I'm sorry, I have to put you down for a minute so I can get the shelter put together."
Jo nodded. She didn't think she could get any colder, anyway. Thickly, slowly, with great concentration, she said, "Wind chill," and then nearly fell asleep from the effort. She hadn't taken into account wind chill, that was the problem. Flying was colder than walking because—well, becauseshewasn't doing the flying, and because the speed they traveled at was so much faster, and therefore, so was wind chill.
Colton said, "I know," in a low, urgent voice. "NowI know. I didn't think of it. Stay awake, Jo. Tell me a story. Anything. Tell me why your parents named you after a Dolly Parton song."
Jo chuckled, another low thick sound. "Met there." With effort, she took a deeper breath and mumbled, "They met at a Dolly conchert. Josh…Josh is too."
"Josh? Your brother's named after a Dolly Parton song, too? Tell me about that. Stay awake, Jo, please."
"Josh'a," she slurred. "S'famous shong. Her first nummer one hit. So that's ush. Josh an' Jolene."
"That's great," Colton said. "Almost got it set up now, Jo. Stay with me, okay? Tell me something else."
She gave a little hiccuping laugh, said, "I like you," and had enough clarity of thought for a moment to think,well, that's embarrassing.
"I like you, too," Colton said more strongly than expected as noises rustled in the background. "You're an incredible woman, and I'm sorry I got you into this. I've got the tent set up and theblankets down on the floor of it. I'm going to get you inside now, all right, Jo?"
"Uh-huh." She lifted her arms like she was a kid, then, embarrassed, started to pull them back down, but Colton reached down to catch her around the ribs and lift her effortlessly.
"That helped, thanks. Of course, this is awkward, so I'm going to have to kind of shove you in, okay? I'll try not to hurt you."
"I can crawl!" She could not, as it turned out, crawl, but she tried, and between the two of them she flopped face-first into the tent and inched her way toward the back so Colton could come in. He did so immediately, pulling the zippers closed, and even as cold as she was, she could feel it warm up instantly. "You must beshowarm," she slurred admiringly.
He gave a rough, worried-sounding little laugh. "I am. I really warmed up during that flight. Listen, Jo, you're scary levels of cold, okay? I need to get you into the sleeping bag. I need to getusinto it."
Jo nodded wisely. "Naked."
Colton coughed, and she managed to open her sleep eyes enough to see him blushing deep red. "Naked would be best," he admitted. "Body heat and all that. I'm warm and you're not."
"I know. Hyop… po… hypo..." She gave up on the difficult word. "I'mcold."
"Yeah. Yeah, you are. Do you mind if I undress you?"
Jo fumbled her fingers at a zipper, realized she was still wearing gloves, and let her hand flop to the side. "Nope! 'cause I can't! Too hard!" She was shivering despite all her layers, and couldn't remember if that was good or bad. She thought maybe it was both: it meant she was way too cold, which was bad, but also it meant she still had the energy to shiver, which was good.
Colton, with delicate but extreme efficiency, pulled her gloves, boots, coat, snow pants, sweaters, thermal layers, socks—everything down to her underwear—off, and as the layers came off Jo started shivering in earnest. "I know," he said desperately. "I know, I'm so sorry, I'm sorry, sweetheart, but it'll be better in a minute. Let me help you get into the sleeping bag." There wasn't much room in the tent, but with some effort he slid her into the bag like he was putting a pillow in a case, and a very short amount of time later, he slithered in next to her, wearing nothing but underwear himself, and then zipped them up before wrapping his arms around her and putting a thigh over hers.
He wassowarm. His skin against hers felt like it was on fire, he was so warm. Jo's shivering got much, much worse very fast, and Colton hugged her tight as she jolted and jerked convulsively. Somewhere in there she managed to say, "B-b-b-bra," and "un-nuh-nuh-underw-w-w-wire."
Colton gasped, swore, and unfastened her bra with expert efficiency, removed it, and threw it out of the sleeping bag before pulling her close again. "Sorry. I didn't think about the cold metal."
Jo nodded, or maybe just shivered in a nodding-like motion, and for a long time didn't think or do much else. She could feel Colton's skin getting cooler, and wanted to protest, because makinghimcold seemed worse than justherbeing cold, but she couldn't make herself talk. After a while, she started to realize his skin wasn't burning against hers anymore, which either meant he'd gotten way too cold or she'd warmed up a lot. She tried to ask which it was, but sleep suddenly claimed her, and when she finally awakened, she was warm and felt much,muchbetter.
