He pressed his forehead against the back of her head, breathing hard. “I want that. More than anything right now. But are you sure?”
“Yes. Yes, I’m sure.” When he didn’t answer, she added, “We’re two consenting adults. There’s nothing in our employment contracts that says we can’t be together, and it’s certainly not against the law. And if you do ever try to take advantage of me at work—my dad’s a lawyer and he’ll sue you for everything you have.”
He laughed, a deep, sexy chuckle that had her squirming back against him. He slid his hand beneath the waistband of her long underwear bottoms and began to fondle her. She closed her eyes, seeing stars. He was kissing her neck again, doing amazing things with his fingers. Then he slid one finger into her, and she dug the nails of one hand into his thigh. He stilled. “Do you want me to stop?” he asked.
“You’d better not.”
He laughed again and began to stroke and fondle in earnest, until she was gasping, back bowed against him. “You feel amazing,” he said, his lips against the back of her neck. Those whispered words, and his skilled touch, were her undoing. She climaxed hard, straining against him.
He held her for a long moment before he slid his hand to rest over her stomach once more. She was warm clear to her toes, but feeling a little guilty, too. She tried to reach back for him, but he stilled her hand. “Let’s just stay like this,” he said.
“That doesn’t seem fair.” She could still feel his erection, hard and insistent.
He blew out a breath. “We don’t have a condom, and we don’t have room in this sleeping bag to do what I’d really like to do. I can wait.”
This simple statement left her momentarily speechless. The men she had been with before were not ones to wait. She was more often the one waiting on them, and sometimes left unfulfilled altogether while they snored beside her. “I’ll make it worth the wait, I promise,” she said, then felt embarrassed at the boast. As if she were some femme fatale.
He chuckled again, a sound she was growing to like very much. “I’m sure you will,” he said. He pulled her close. “Now get some sleep.”
SCOTT WOKE ASgray light was just beginning to filter through the trees. It had stopped snowing, and overnight the fire had died down. At least the campfire he had built had died down. He was still burning for Lily, who slept deeply, curled against him. He carefully lowered the zipper on his side of the sleeping bag and eased out. The cold hit him like an electric shock, butstaying in there with her would have been worse torture. He pulled on clothes and began poking at the fire.
Lily groaned and rolled onto her back. “What time is it?” she asked.
“I don’t know,” he said. “Early. Stay there until I get the fire going.”
She ignored him and wriggled out of the bag, then gasped as the cold hit her. She hurriedly dressed while he tried not to watch, though his gaze kept drifting back to her slender form. “I’ll be right back,” she said, and moved off into the woods.
When she returned he had the fire blazing, and it was his turn to move into the woods to relieve himself. While he was there, he circled their camp, looking for any sign of a predator—human or animal. He found none.
“Breakfast is coffee,” she said, and nodded to the cup of snow she had set beside the fire to melt.
His stomach growled, but he nodded. “We should reach Axis Ridge in a couple of hours,” he said. “Then we can drive to the resort.”
“I would have thought someone would have come looking for us by now,” she said.
“The weather yesterday made searching difficult,” he said. “But it’s clear now. They should be able to get a helicopter up. With luck, they’ll spot us on the road. That will speed things up.”
They drank their coffee and packed their belongs. Scott was putting out the fire when she grabbed his arm. “Listen!”
He stilled, ears straining. At first he heard nothing, then thought he heard a distant bark.
Then an ear-splitting whistle almost deafened him. He looked over to see Lily, pinkie fingers hooked in the corners of her mouth. She whistled again. “Shelby!” she shouted.
A commotion to their left had them both moving in that direction. The blonde Malinois burst into the clearing andalmost bowled Lily over. Hunter was right behind her and leaped into Scott’s arms. He staggered back and hugged the dog tightly. Until now, he hadn’t allowed himself to admit how worried he had been about the dog.
“Lily!” Jackson staggered from the woods. He was disheveled and pale, tears streaming down his cheeks.
Lily rushed to embrace him. “Oh, Jackson, I’m so glad to see you,” she said. “We were so worried.”
“I… I got lost,” he sobbed. “I… I thought I’d never…never see you again.”
Scott was already raking up coals and feeding wood onto the fire. “You’re safe now,” he said. “Let’s get you warm, and you can tell us what happened.”
He put warm rocks from the fire under the boy’s feet, and Lily wrapped her sleeping bag around him. They heated water and gave him a cup of weak coffee. “You won’t like the taste, but drink it,” Lily said.
He drained the cup and held it out. “Can I have some more? And do you have anything to eat? I’m hungry.”
Scott’s own stomach rumbled again.
