“I need this.” She snuggles closer.
I smooth my palm down her spine to rest at the small of her back.
Does she mean warmth or me? Either way, I won’t bother arguing with her.
“You have me.” I tuck her trembling body close.
She tilts her hips into mine, bringing us flush.
Christ. It’s all innocent, all in the name of keeping her warm, keeping her alive, keeping my own damn heart from stopping, and yet my cock jerks.
Bellamy’s hands spread over my bare stomach. A gentle, hesitant, searching touch that causes my muscles to tense. Then she’s sighing, sighing, her face in my chest. She adjusts her legs, wriggling them around my thigh, her heat soaking into me, the wetness gathering there obvious.
Fuck.
Desire, lust, love rockets through me. But I keep my cock in check. I need her safe. Need her warm.
She could have died out there. I could have lost her forever.
Flashes of that day in the hospital come back to me, and my stomach takes a nosedive. Bellamy bleeding, the doctor’s warning: I could lose them both. Hitting my knees in that waiting room, begging someone up there to hear me, to take me first. Pleading with them to not take my girl. I close my eyes, fighting down the panic in my throat, and focus on the present. On the woman in my arms. Bellamy. My bluebell.
Safe. Alive. Here.
“Bell.” Her name’s a ragged moan, falling from my mouth. My hands run up her cold arms.
She lifts her face, amber eyes watery beneath dark lashes.
Overcome, I lean in. I kiss the apples of her cheeks, the tip of her nose, her eyelashes. Anything that needs warmth, I’ll give it.
“Hank.”
It’s all we have the strength to say. Her name. My name. An oath. A beckoning.
She presses up on tiptoes, moving closer. There’s a shock of cold as her mouth meets my cheek, then warm, searing heat. The only thing hotter than the fire in the cabin is the fire between us.
I turn my head, our lips barely touching.
She pulls back a fraction. Looks at me like she can sense it. Everything I’ve been wanting to say all these years. Maybe she can.
A battle of wills blazes between us. I want to kiss her. But I don’t.
My hands itch to part the blanket and explore every inch of her beautiful body. It’s been three years since I’ve touched her, but it feels like a lifetime.
Instead, I pull her closer, my arms banded around her hips. Her heart thumps steadily against me as she warms. Her cheek pressed to my chest, resting over my heart. Her long lashes dark on the curve of her pale cheek. Eyes closed. She’s exhausted.
I move, gently, carefully, and she doesn’t protest.
We settle on the rug in front of the fire. I tuck her fiercely against my chest, keeping her cocooned in the blanket, the curve of her ass nestled against my already-aching dick. Her head falls back on my shoulder. Firelight dances across her pale face. She stares up at me with dark, sleepy eyes and a smile.
“We’re on the ground.”
“We are.”
“I can’t move, Hank.” Her voice is rough and scratchy. A sexiness to it that I like.
I let out a shuddering exhale. “Good. That means you’re warm.”
“Thanks to you,” she says, her bottom lip quivering.
