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But Cooper Landry unclothed had to be.
In seconds he was standing there, silhouetted against, the dim glow of the fire, stark naked. He was beautifully shaped and generously endowed—so marvelously made that she couldn’t help her gaping stare. He quite literally took her breath away.
He draped the articles of discarded clothing on the bush, then pulled a pair of socks over his hands and ran them over his body, drying it thoroughly—everything— before removing the socks from his hands.
Kneeling, he tore into one of the backpacks looking for underwear. He pulled on a pair of briefs, all with a supreme lack of self-consciousness, much less modesty.
When he turned toward her and noticed that she hadn’t moved, he frowned with irritation. “Come on, Rusty. Hurry up. It’s damn cold out here.”
He reached for her sweater, which, so far, was the only thing she’d taken off. She handed it to him and he hung it up to dry. Holding out his hand for more clothes, he snapped his fingers quickly and repeatedly to hurry her along. “Come on, come on.” Casting one anxious glance up at him, she pulled the T-shirt over her head and passed it to him.
The cold air was a breathtaking shock to her system. Immediately she was chilled and started trembling so violently she couldn’t handle the button on her one-legged trousers.
“Here, let me do that, dammit. Or I’ll be standing out here all night.” Cooper dropped to his knees and straddled her thighs. Impatiently he pushed her hands out of the way so he could unfasten the button and pull down the zipper. With a detached air he eased the trousers down her legs and tossed them haphazardly toward the nearest bush.
But he was brought up short by what he obviously hadn’t expected. A pair of extremely feminine, extremely scanty bikini panties. He’d seen the lace-edged leg, but that was all. For what seemed like an eternity, he stared at them before saying gruffly, “Take them off.”
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sp; Rusty shook her head. “No.”
His face became fierce. “Take them off.” Rusty shook her head emphatically. Before she could brace herself for it, he pressed his open hand directly over the triangular scrap of silk and lace. “They’re wet. Take them off.” Their eyes, like their wills, clashed. It was as much the chill in his stare as the chill in the air that prompted Rusty to slide the damp garment down her legs.
“Now dry off.”
He handed her a cotton sock like the ones he’d used. She ran it over her lower body and her legs. Keeping her head bowed, she groped blindly for the underwear Cooper handed her. He hadn’t chosen long johns because they would chafe her injury. She pulled on a pair of panties similar to the ones she’d just taken off and which were now dangling from the lower branches of the bush, fluttering like a victory banner the morning after a fraternity beer bust.
“Now the top.”
Her brassiere was just as frivolous as the panties that matched them. The morning she left the lodge, she had dressed in clothes befitting her return to civilization. After having to wear thermal underwear for several days, she had been good and sick of it.
Leaning forward, she grappled with the hook at her back, but her fingers were so numb from the cold she couldn’t get it to open. Muttering curses, Cooper reached around her and all but ripped the hook from its mooring. The brassiere fell forward. She peeled the straps down her arms, flung it away and faced him defiantly.
Beneath his mustache, his mouth was set in a hard, unyielding line. He paused for only a heartbeat before he began roughly rubbing the cotton sock over her throat, chest, breasts, and stomach. Then, reaching around her again, he blotted the sweat off her back. They were so close that her breath stirred his chest hair. Her lips came perilously close to touching one of his distended nipples. Hers, hard and peaked from the cold, grazed his skin.
He pulled back quickly and angrily dragged a thermal top over her head. While she was working her arms into the sleeves, he ripped the damp fur they’d been lying on off the pallet and replaced it with another one. “It’s not as soft, but it’s dry.”
“It’ll be fine,” Rusty said hoarsely.
Finally they were cocooned again. She didn’t resist when he pulled her close to him. She was shivering uncontrollably and her teeth were chattering. But it wasn’t long before they began to warm up. Their bodies were in chaos because of what their eyes had seen. Erotic impressions lingered in their minds.
Lying in his embrace fully dressed had been unnerving enough. Lying there with him wearing only underwear wreaked havoc on Rusty’s senses. Her fever had broken, but her body was burning like a furnace now.
His bare thighs felt delicious against hers. She liked their hair-smattered texture. Because she was braless, she was sharply aware of his hand resting just beneath her breasts, almost but not quite touching them.
He wasn’t immune to the enforced intimacy. He’d exerted himself by switching out the pelts and changing clothes so quickly, but that wasn’t the only reason he was breathing heavily. His chest swelled and receded against her back rhythmically but rapidly.
And then there was that other inexorable evidence of his arousal.
It prompted her to whisper, “I don’t think I need to... uh...prop my leg on top of yours.”
A low moan vibrated through his chest. “Don’t even talk about it. And for God’s sake, don’t move.” His distress was obvious.
“I’m sorry.”
“For what? You can’t help being beautiful any more than I can help being a man. I guess we’ll just have to tolerate that from each other.”
She honored his request and didn’t move so much as a muscle. She didn’t even reopen her eyes once they were closed. But she did fall asleep with a tiny smile on her lips. Inadvertently, perhaps, but he had told her that he thought she was beautiful.
