Page 33 of Hotter on Ice

Henning tipped his head back and laughed. All morning in that room, he had watched as another man touched her. Even lay with her. All for the camera. But tonight, he would be the one to lie with her for real in that bed. Hell, this woman understood how his mind worked.

“I thought you’d like that,” she said, chuckling. “I want to be here with you.”

She grabbed his hand, glove in glove, and started down the hallway toward the Viking Room. They stopped in front of the reindeer pelt that covered the doorway.

“Not a lot of privacy in this place,” he said, holding the fur curtain aside for her to enter. When she passed by, he leaned in to press his mouth against her neck. “You’re not very quiet, you know. That’s not at all a complaint, by the way, just an observation.”

She laughed. “You’re not either. Between that and the layers of clothes we’ll need to keep on, I think we’re going right to sleep tonight.”

Yeah, right. No books or TV or anything else to distract him. And just the idea of her body next to his on the Viking bed was making his cock hard. How the hell was he going to fall asleep?

The room felt bare without the people and the equipment that had filled it earlier. The bed itself stood out in the center, its rounded hull and sea dragon bow rising up out of the snow, as if it were floating. Henning walked over to inspect the setup. The pelts had been replaced with two puffy sleeping bags, zipped together, and when he lifted them he found a mattress on top of a short platform. He breathed out a sigh. Thank fuck they weren’t sleeping directly on the ice.

Alya followed him over to the bed and started to unzip her snowsuit.

His eyes widened. “What are you doing?”

“We’re supposed to stuff everything except our boots at the bottom of the sleeping bag, right?”

“But that sleeping bag is about zero degrees right now. You’re going to need some body heat to warm it up,” he grumbled. “Let me go first.”

Henning shucked his boots and climbed onto the ice ship, slipping into the sleeping bag. Once he was inside, he shoved his gloves to the bottom and then unzipped his snowsuit, wriggling out of it until it was at his feet.

“Fuck, it’s cold,” he said, shivering.

The cold was everywhere, and for a moment, his muscles tightened, and his breath stopped. A vision of Sanjay on the floor next to him came without warning, blood gushing out of his neck, dying right in front of him.Hell, no.Henning was not going to let this happen tonight. If he just focused on Alya, warm and safe next to him, he could get through this. Just breathe in and out. The warmth of his body began to spread, and his breath came back.Focus on this moment, nothing else.

Henning took off his extra fleece and made it into a pillow for them both. Then he rolled onto his side and looked up at her. That flash of dread apparently hadn’t shown on his face, or at least she hadn’t seen it, so he waggled his eyebrows at her. “Okay, baby. Time to climb in and strip.”

Alya pulled off her boots and then slipped into the sleeping bag. It was a tight fit, good for keeping the warmth in but not ideal for undressing. Henning pulled down her zipper, and they moved and shifted until her snowsuit and gloves were at the bottom of the sleeping bag, too. Then, finally, they were facing each other.

“You better hope I don’t need to use the bathroom anytime soon,” she said, smiling up at him. “It’s going to be a project.”

Henning chuckled and slipped his arms around her, pulling her close, against the warmth of his body.

“Mmm.” She sighed, snuggling in. “Very nice.”

It was all so good, her soft body, the sound of her satisfaction, the peace of having her all to himself like this, so, of course, his cocked stirred again.

“Ignore that,” he grumbled.

“I’ll try, but it’s what I’m thinking about, too. We need a distraction.” She moved against him, and he groaned. “Let’s talk.”

“I’m not much of a talker under regular circumstances,” he said. “And with the most amazing woman lying next to me? I’ve got nothing.”

Her eyes widened, as if his words had taken her by surprise. Then she brushed her lips against his.

“Let’s have an AMA session,” she said. “Anything is game, and you have to answer truthfully.”

“I can ask you anything?”

“Anything.”

Well, that was one way to distract him. There were things he’d rather not talk about, but in exchange for being able to ask her anything? Yeah, he could do this.

“I’ll go first,” he said. “Tell me about when you moved to Los Angeles.”

“I was ten and Natasha was eight,” she said. “We still spoke Russian together, so we didn’t make a lot of friends. My mother’s acting career was taking off, and she was caught up in that. All I had was Natasha for a long time. Probably why we’re still so close.”