“There’d be plenty of room if you hadn’t forgotten your tent,” he hisses back, unzipping his coat. He shrugs it off his shoulders, and as he moves, I’m hit by the smell of him: warm, fresh-cut cedar and a pheromone-spiked muskiness that makes me think of leather work gloves and denim (but notsweat,of course). Honestly, whatisit about men who smell like trees? At what point did biology decide wood was the go-to scent for making men smell attractive? It’s intoxicating, but I willnotlet my eyelids flutter.
“I told you, I didn’t forget it, and if we ever make it back alive, I can’twaitto prove it to you,” I grumble, taking off my own coat and shoving it down by my feet.Damn, it’s cold in here. Unfazed, Forrest begins unbuttoning his ski pants. I try not to stare as he works them down over his hips, revealing a skintight merino base layer that leaves little to the imagination.
“Just like you didn’t forget your extra Nalgene?” he says dryly, pulling my attention away from his crotch.
“It seemed redundant. I didn’t know what it was for,” I say, shoving my own ski pants down despite the aching cold. If he can handle it, so can I.
“So since you didn’t know what it was for, you decided it must be pointless?” he asks, handing me his own extra water bottle, which, he explained earlier, will act like a heater in my sleeping bag. I set it aside while he pulls off the fleece he’s wearing. It drags his base layer up with a static crackle, and something lurches low in my stomach as I catch a glimpse of olive skin and dark hair. He yanks off the fleece and pulls his shirt down, but not before he catches me staring.
I look away quickly as blood warms my cheeks and set about unclipping my sweaty sports bra beneath my shirt. All awkwardness aside, there’s no way I’m sleeping in boob prison.
“You’ll find that I think pretty much everything about campingis pointless,” I say cheerfully, pulling my arms through my damp shirtsleeves and bra straps.
As we maneuver ourselves into our overlapping sleeping bags, I’m shocked by how cold the silky fabric is. I expected it to be warmer than the frigid air inside the tent, but somehow it’s even colder. I snake an arm out and grab the hot-water bottle, but despite curling around its radiating heat, I can’t stop shivering. My damp base layers and even my socks seem to be freezing and stiffening all around me. Forrest reaches up and shuts off the lamp hanging from the top of our tent, plunging us into absolute darkness, and I will my body to warm up.
“Good night,” Forrest says grumpily as he turns on his side and puts his Denali-sized back toward me.
“?’Night,” I say, trying not to let him hear my teeth chatter. Outside, the wind howls, and despite the pit we’re in, the walls of our tent shake.
Long, miserable minutes pass, but the hot-water bottle I’m relying on to warm me up is losing heat quickly. I begin moving around in the sleeping bag, trying to generate some kind of body heat, but a deep chill from the snow-packed ground rises through the floor of the tent directly into my sleeping bag. My teeth begin to chatter harder, and I can just make out my breath swirling in clouds above my face. Forrest turns over in his sleeping bag to look at me. In the dark, his faint outline looks as big as a polar bear’s.
“Jesus, Margot, are your teeth making that racket?”
“I’m f-fine.” My voice shudders.
“Goddammit,” he says quietly. I hear the scratchy sound his beard always makes when he scrubs a hand over it. It stops, and suddenly, his warm hand is on the side of my face instead. I practically whimper when he slides it into my sweat-dampened hair and curses under his breath again. “You took your hat off,” he scolds. To my dismay, he lets go of me and turns the overhead lamp on.
Whatever he sees in my face draws his eyebrows together with worry. He quickly grabs my hat and pulls it over my head before I can insist on doing it myself. Then, without warning, he presses two fingers to the pulse in my neck and closes his eyes, counting. When he opens them again, his expression is grim.
“Okay, here’s what’s going to happen,” he says, removing his hand and meeting my gaze. “You’ve got all the early signs of hypothermia, so you’re getting into my sleeping bag, and I’m going to warm you up.”
I want to ask him if this line works on all the ladies he takes ice camping, but I’m shivering too hard to form any words. I manage a nod, and he unzips his bag. I try to unzip mine, but my numb fingers aren’t working properly, so he does it for me. Immediately, every wisp of warmth vanishes, and a deep shudder racks my body. Forrest quickly reaches up to turn the light off, and a second later, he’s pulling me against him, his big arms wrapped tight around my body. My eyes drift shut, and I’m no longer in Alaska but stepping out of my overly air-conditioned house and onto my sun-drenched patio during the height of an L.A. summer. I half-moan into his chest, shivering uncontrollably, and his hands move over my back, trying to rub warmth into me.
“God, you’re freezing,” he says into my hat. “You should’ve told me you were so cold.”
“Why? So you c-could point out another reason I don’t belong here?” I stammer, snuggling deeper into his warmth. I can’t seem to get close enough.
He exhales and holds me tighter, welding our bodies together. “Your base layers are damp. Itoldyou not to sweat.” He pauses, trying to regain his patience. “Margot, listen. I swear I’m not trying to make a move, but you’re at risk of hypothermia. The best way to warm up is skin to skin.”
“Like,n-naked?” I squeak. The part of my brain that’s dedicated to raising red flags hoists about eleven in quick succession. Ithought this trope train was stopping at One Tent, but apparently, it’s headed all the way to Strip for Body Warmth. “No way,” I say nervously.
“I know it’s not ideal,” he says in a strained voice. “But I can’t see anything, and we’d only need to take our shirts off until you warm up.”
“J-just our shirts?”
“Yes. We need to warm your core.”
A small, hysterical laugh escapes me.Warm my core?He’s clearly unfamiliar with romance vernacular, because I’m positive that’s thelastthing he wants to help me warm up. I’m about to tell him my “core” is already toasty enough, but then the biological need not to freeze to death joins forces with the hollow ache I’ve been fighting ever since I first laid eyes on him. It’s a fight that’s only gotten harder with every new piece of evidence that he isn’t the imitation romance hero I’ve imagined him to be, but the genuine source material. He tucks my head closer to his chest, and my resistance finally crumbles.
“Okay,” I whisper.
“Okay,” he repeats, and I can hear his heartbeat thump like a kick drum in his chest. “Lift your arms above your head,” he rasps, and as I obey, he slides my shirt up and over my head in one swift movement.
I inhale sharply as my clammy skin is exposed, and my nipples tighten painfully without even my bra to protect against the cold. He makes quick work of his own shirt, and a moment later, both of our layers are abandoned and his arm is sliding beneath my bare waist to pull me in close. He pulls up the sleeping bag’s zipper behind me, and every inch of space between us vanishes.
I’d thought lying against him with clothes on felt incredible, but it’s nothing—nothing—to this. His skin is so deliciously hot that I feel almost scalded by him. He’s preternaturally still as heholds me, but as my temperature rises, I can’t stop moving against him. My face burrows into the heavy curves of his pectorals, huffing his spicy evergreen scent, while my hands greedily search for every pocket of his warmth. Unknowable minutes pass, and when I finally, finally stop shivering, I realize what my hips are doing when his hand slides down to roughly grip them into stillness.
“Please,” he says, his voice a ragged whisper above my head.
