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She crossed her arms over her chest. There was no “we” here. “I don’t need you to rescue me.”
His hand closed over her biceps in the dark, and he pulled her up to her knees. Man, he was strong. “Yes, you do. Now come on, I’m freezing my ass off out here.”
Lexie gave up. It didn’t seem like Tom was going to take no for an answer, and it would be stupid to turn down the prospect of a dry place to sleep. Plus, his grip on her arm was pretty firm, and she didn’t feel like getting into a wrestling match with the guy in the middle of the night. She followed him into the darkness.
He unzipped his tent flap and ushered her inside. Tom had what the outdoors industry generously referred to as a “four-man tent,” which meant it was big enough to sleep two adults comfortably. She knew from peeking inside during the daytime that he’d set it up to be cozy. He had a much bigger sleeping pad than hers, and he covered it with a sheet and his unzipped sleeping bag.
It was a palace compared to her little red sarcophagus. She could barely sit up in her tent, and Tom’s had a roof high enough at the peak for her to stand up straight. She’d scoffed at the waste of carrying so much weight just to sleep a little more comfortably, but she was starting to see the point.
“Get undressed,” he said gruffly.
“What? No!” There was no way she was getting naked in front of Tom.
“For Christ’s sake, I’m not coming on to you. Your clothes are wet. Get undressed, and I’ll give you my sleeping bag liner to wrap up in. I’ll turn around so I can’t see anything.”
It was a nearly pointless gesture toward chivalry anyway, considering how dark it was inside Tom’s tent, but it eased her mind. “Okay, fine.”
r /> She waited for him to turn away, then removed the long-sleeved thermal shirt and long johns she’d been sleeping in, dropping them on the tent floor with a muted thud. Her wet, clammy skin immediately broke out in goose bumps, her nipples drawing tight, and she shuddered. “Where’s the liner?”
A white shape emerged in front of her eyes, and she grabbed it, brushing Tom’s fingers in the process. The brief contact was enough to send a little shock wave through her body, making her nipples ache and the breath catch in her lungs. Get a grip, Lexie. She’d never been so aware of a man in her life. It was ridiculous.
She moved as far away as she could within the confined space and laid down to wriggle her way into the bag. Tom’s sleeping pad was downright cushy compared to hers, and she sank gratefully into it, turning away from him. The liner bag was silk, light as a feather and soft against her skin. And it smelled like Tom, a blend of practical soap and musky male skin she’d grown familiar with over the past weeks—but never like this. His smell filled her head and surrounded her in a way that made her skin tingle and her crotch start to throb. Did he sleep naked in this liner beneath his sleeping bag? Did he think about her in his tent as often as she thought of him in hers? She shuddered again, for entirely different reasons this time.
Down, girl.
Rustling noises from Tom’s direction told her he was lying down and arranging the sleeping bag. “Come here,” he said roughly, and she felt a strong forearm wrap around her torso. “I’ll warm you up.” Before she understood what he was trying to do, she was curved against his body under the covers.
Oh, no. No, no, no. She struggled to pull away, but he kept his arm clamped tight around her waist, and she had to give it up.
God, he was radiating heat. And he was right, she needed to warm up. This was how they did it in the survival books, wasn’t it? Another person’s body heat was the best way to raise your core temperature. And Tom had body heat in spades. She could feel it burning through the thin silk that separated them, feel his legs molded to hers, his hard chest against her back, his breath on her neck.
Tom could really warm a girl up fast.
This close to him, she could hardly think. It was all she could do to keep drawing air into her lungs, one breath at a time, willing herself not to react. But her body wasn’t listening to her brain. His hand cupped her ribs an inch below her breast, and she ached for him to slide his fingers over her nipple. The throbbing between her legs grew insistent and wild. She had to concentrate hard to keep her hips from pushing back toward him, closing the only gap he’d left between them.
Breathe in. Breathe out. Don’t do anything stupid.
She didn’t know how long they lay like that. A few minutes? Half an hour? It felt like an eternity—an eternity in which every muscle in her body tensed with awareness and she battled her arousal. Her crotch was slick and hot, jungle drums were pounding in her blood, and she had to keep reminding herself why it would be a bad idea to turn in his arms and beg him to kiss her. She was pretending to be married. More important, Tom was actually kind of a jerk, and she needed to avoid jerks. The TransAm mattered more than getting this man between her legs, feeling all that heat moving over her and into her and Omigod this is torture.
The whole time, she kept trying to figure out what Tom was thinking. Was this just Wilderness Survival 101, or was he feeling it, too? And if so, was he going to do something about it?
Please, please let him do something about it.
Wait, no, cancel that. That was her libido talking. She didn’t want him to do anything about it. She didn’t even want him to know there was an “it” she wanted him not to do anything about. Though if he didn’t know, and this was a one-woman party, how pathetic was that?
She was pretty sure he knew. He was still as stone behind her, but he was breathing awfully fast for a guy who was lying down in a tent. She guessed there was a good reason for those two inches between her butt and his pelvis. A big, hard reason.
But even without that intimate contact, the heat between their bodies kept building until she couldn’t even remember what it had felt like to be cold.
When she was sure she couldn’t take it for another second without embarrassing herself, his arm tightened around her, and he whispered in her ear, his voice a husky rumble that made her toes curl. “See, Lex? I can be nice.” She felt his mouth on her neck, trailing nibbling kisses along a path to her shoulder, melting her bones and leaving her weak.
She knew she ought to put up a fight, but her body surrendered to him without so much as consulting the control center. She arched her neck to one side, offering him new territory to explore, and she was sorry to feel nothing but cool air against her skin. He’d drawn away. The sleeping bag rustled as he sat up. His hand slipped to her waist and stroked over her hip, moving down her leg to squeeze her toes. She couldn’t help it, she moaned a little.
“You’re warm now,” he said in a choked voice. “Sleep tight.”
And then he turned his back to her and moved as far away as he could get without leaving the tent.
She didn’t know whether to be relieved or hurt. She was both, about equally. She was also wide awake and deeply conflicted about what had just happened.
