That’s when I realise how cold I am. The tent is freezing. I can’t feel my feet at all. My limbs are vibrating.
“You woke me up with your shivering,” the quiet voice says, almost huskily, as if it might wake someone up. It’s so gentle it’s like a kind of lullaby. “You’re freezing, you loon. You need to warm up, fast.”
I hear a zipping sound in the dark. It’s not clear what it is until I feel hot, firm skin collide with my arms. I’m too cold to think about anything. The heat is exquisite. I roll over, attaching myself to it as more zipping occurs. Limbs are rearranged. My face finds somewhere cosy, safe, as arms wrap around my body.
“It’s ok,” the voice says as I drift back off to sleep.
Chapter Seven
My face nestles further into the warmth. I’m swaddled like a baby, wrapped tight inside my sleeping bag. Usually, I would find this claustrophobic, but somehow the heat emanating off my pillow is settling me, melting my mood into a lazy puddle.
That is, until my mind slowly awakens. I move my leg and collide with a knee. A long, firm thigh thatdefinitely does notbelong to me is entwined with mine. I tense all over, my heart racing, heat pouring through me like my body is harbouring a volcanic eruption. I scramble, my legs and arms pushing against the boiling body beside me.
“Let me out!” I squeal.
“Jesus,” the voice grunts as my knee collides with his unfortunates. “Argh!”
I somehow manage to spin around, unzipping the impossibly tight sleeping bag, and rolling to the other side of the tent.
I suck in a breath.Bugger. It’s so cold outside of my cocoon. “Ugh, shitting shit.”
“Whatare youdoing?” James growls, zipping himself back up. “You’re unhinged, I swear.”
I grab at my discarded fleece, dragging it over my head. There’s absolutely no way this can end well. He’s going to remember this moment of weakness and hold it against me forever.
How did I end up in his sleeping bag?
Last night starts to come back to me. I remember the voice. The warmth embracing me… Oh god! A rush of embarrassment pours through me. I want the ground to open up and swallow me whole. I need to escape.
James has turned over and is quietly breathing again as if he’s fallen back to sleep, so I slide my trainers on and escape the tent out into the freshest air I’ve ever experienced. It eclipses my senses. There’s a crisp breeze racing through the valley, slicing at my cheeks. I stand tall, watching a huge bird swoop down towards a shallow river that curves around the hills. My hair is loose without an Alice band to hold it back. The wind lifts it, forcing me to tuck it behind my ears.
This is surreal. How am I waking up here? There’s not another human being in sight. Except, that is, for the man in the tent who is never, ever, ever, going to let me live last night down. I slap my hands to my face to cover my eyes. How have I gone from despising the man to using his body as a personal radiator in a space of twelve hours?
I let my hands fall to my sides and shake my limbs out. I find our bags, tucked under the front awning of the little tent, and take out a protein bar. Another thought hits me like a brick being thrown from a tall building.
An involuntary sob leaves my lips as I realise there’s no caffeine in our bags. No tea, no coffee, not even caffeine gels. I’m going to have to rely on water. I’m going to have to push through inevitable withdrawal symptoms.
“Stop freaking out,” comes a ragged voice from within the tent.
I try. But another sob climbs my throat, forcing its way out of me. I walk away, towards the treeline again where I find my bra, chilled from being left out, damper somehow despite the dry night. I tuck it into my fleece pocket to warm before daring to put it on. I perch on the cold, hard ground at the top of a steep incline that’s smattered with thorny bushes, their wildflowers awakening within, showing off their colours in this early summer sunshine. Hugging my knees, I focus on a patch of bluebells, swaying lightly in the breeze, to ground me. A squirrel scurries past, pausing to eye me up, then shoots back into the overgrowth.
I hear the tent opening again. A scrunched-eyed James clambers out, squinting across at me as he clumsily puts his trainers on. I look away, swiping at my eyes with my sleeve, sniffing. At least he’s put a top on now. The memory of his bare chest pressing against me in the night makes me momentarily nauseous. Not because it wasn’t nice, but because it was sort of, really, really nice.
He sits down beside me, unwrapping his protein bar too and taking a bite. “You were shivering and mumbling incoherently. I didn’t know what else to do.”
“Let me die?” I suggest, still refusing to look at him, rocking myself gently.
“I’m not going to let you die,” he says, softly. I look back across at him as he rubs his tired face. His black hair is slightly lighter than usual in its dry, floppy mess. Tawny shades linger at the roots as if he’s got natural highlights. I have a sudden urge to reach out and touch it. I guess I’m overreacting. Surely what he did was kind. I’m lucky he runs at a sweltering temperature compared to me. “It wouldn’t be any fun to tell everyone at work how we cuddled in the same sleeping bag if you were dead.”
And my mood dissipates. “You’re such an arse!”
He laughs. “Whatever. I wasn’t even going to make such a thing of it, but you latched on. You wedged your face right in. What was I supposed to do? Push you away?”
“Yes!Yes, James.”
“You were just cold, it was methodical. What are you so worried about? And by the way, there’s no way I can win in this situation because not only did you panic and knee me in the balls this morning, you also would’ve gone for me if I’d left you shivering.”
I frown into the distance. “It’s always about you, isn’t it?” I quip. “Are you really going to tell everyone?”
