Page 202

Utterly and completely.
She stretched up on her toes, and before her nerve could desert her, she leaned in, and pressed her mouth to his.
CHAPTER FIVE
Adonishadbeenon the receiving end of any number of kisses. Passionate, cruel, expert. But none like this. There was an innocence to Stevie’s kiss. It was fresh, like the air. Like the snow.
Unspoiled like all the landscape around them.
It made him forget about the pain in his leg. It made him forget that they were stuck in an unforgiving wilderness. Or perhaps it made it seem like it was a good thing.
Like this was what they had both needed in their lives in that moment. Though he couldn’t explain it.
He had lived the last thirty-five years with little feeling.
Especially since his mother’s departure.
And in all the years since, he had sought external pleasures to give him the feelings that his own heart could not.
But now he felt like he was being warmed from the inside out. And that was all Stevie.
He had told her the truth when he’d said he had never met a woman like her before. Indeed, he had not met another person like her, regardless of gender.
And so he kissed her, like he was starving. Which he was. Like they were dying—which they might be.
It might well and truly be his last meal, he realized.
They were freezing, of course. And it would be cold if he stripped her bare. But they had sleeping bags. And he was grateful for that at least.
He was irritated that he didn’t have a full range of motion, but they managed to get back into the plane together. They didn’t have to worry about the fire. It would burn itself out with all the moisture around.
Stevie took a sleeping bag, and laid it down, then put another unzipped sleeping bag wide over the top of it, grabbing the ends of both, and zipping them together into a larger cocoon.
“That is a brilliant trick.”
“Pretty basic camping skills,” she said. “But perhaps necessary.”
“Believe me when I tell you, I would like for all of this to have much more finesse. But I am…hampered.”
“I’m worried,” she said, her eyes wide, “that I’m going to do you harm.”
“If you do, it will be worth it.”
He began the process of lowering himself down, and getting into the sleeping bag, while Stevie did the same. She was much more nimble and agile than he was. She unzipped her coat, and took it off, setting it beside the bag. She looked at him, her eyes wide.
“Take your clothes off, please,” he said.
He was not one to saypleaseusually. But there was something so earnest about her that it compelled him to be softer than he normally would be.
He beckoned her to him, and kissed her mouth. She was warm and soft against him, and he parted her lips and tasted her deep. She was so sweet.
This strange little pilot, who had saved his life, and kept him alive here in this vast wilderness. And this wasn’t what he had joked that it would be earlier when he had first talked about the two of them making the most of their situation. This wasn’t about her being the last woman he might ever see, may ever taste, though, of course, he couldn’t help but think about that. It was about her. Because if he didn’t have her, he would not be able to die a happy man, whether that was now or forty years from now.
She whimpered, and gasped as he bit her lower lip, kissed her chin, down her neck.
Then he gripped the hem of her top, and pulled it up over her head.
“Not too cold?”