All I understand is I just had the best orgasm of my life.
With a Yeti.
And gods help me—I want more.
Chapter
Nine
The Migoi carries me boneless and—I’m pretty sure—drooling out of the pool and into a smaller cavern where a fire burns merrily. My clothes and boots are laid neatly out to dry around it.
He sets me on my feet, swaying, and eases my tank top up and off from where it’s bunched above my breasts. I push down the ruined scrap of red lace panties still clinging to my hips.
He steps back to stare, hunger carvedinto every line of his face and burning in his gaze. His silver eyes rake over every inch of me like he’s starving.
My cheeks flush, heat prickling beneath my skin as I instinctively hunch forward, arms sliding in to cover the curves Ben always criticized.
The Migoi growls and swats my hands away.
“Mine.”
The single word lands like a brand against my skin. Well, this might prove more complicated than I thought.
As much as I want to stay here and fuck the time away, I need to find theSilene vitalis. But I can’t go anywhere. Not yet. Not while my only clothes are still dripping dry by the fire. Not while my muscles still shake from exertion. And certainly not while this primal creature looks at me like I hung the stars.
Maybe just a day or two more. Surely I deserve that after all that has happened.
When I sway again, he scoops me up with that now-familiar ease. His heat presses through me, his velvety skin soft against me. I could get used to this as a mode of transport, I think as he carries me to a massive bed heaped with furs and settles me down on the side facing the fire.
I reach for a pelt, but instead he pulls me closer against his chest. His rapidly-hardening length settles between the cleft of my thighs like it belongs there.
When I shiver, his velvety skin morphs into a thick pelt, and wraps around me like a blanket. Snug in my personal fur coat, with a living furnace at my back, I drift off to sleep.
I dream of silence, of suffocating, crushing white. The air in my lungs turns sharp and deadly. I know what’s coming—my oxygen will run out while my strength fades. My mind whispers that this is how I die. Cold. Alone.
A scream claws its way up from my throat.
The bed rustles violently. I sit up just in time to see the Migoi crouched in front of me, claws extended, silver eyesreflecting the dim light of the fire as he scans the room for danger.
Every inch of him bristles. His fur is even longer, making him appear larger—like a startled cat built to kill. What would that be, a saber tooth tiger?
Despite the terror still pulsing in my veins, a surprised giggle slips from my mouth at the thought.
He whips his head around at the sound, and the look on his face strips the smile from mine. His expression is lethal. A pure apex predator.
This is the guardian the mountains fear.
Then he softens. The fur retracts, and his claws disappear. In the space of a breath, the beast fades, and the protector returns.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper. “I was dreaming of the avalanche.”
In an instant, he’s beside me, pulling me into his arms and making me feel small, cherished.
“Tell me,” he murmurs into my hair.
As he traces the tips of his claws up and down my spine, I say, “I was trapped. The dark… the silence. I couldn’t move. Couldn’t breathe. I knew I was going to die.” My voice shakes. “I had to choose whether to give up or fight.”
“But youdidfight. That’s how I found you. Singing something about backing your ass up. Poorly, I might add,” he adds.
