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CHAPTER16
SEVEN YEARS
Ireleased a long, embarrassing moan as I stretched out my aching legs. I blinked my eyes open and felt my body tucked inside a warm sleeping bag. The sun hadn’t risen yet and darkness swelled inside the tent. Albeit summer, sleeping outside in the deep woods was not always a warm experience. I think I shivered more with my voice than my body.
A zipper cut through the silence and someone stepped inside the tent, a chilly breeze floating in behind him. “I hear someone’s awake. You feeling okay?” Austin asked in a tired voice.
“I don’t remember what happened,” I grumbled. “And I’m naked again.”
“It’s normal.”
“Did you sleep outside?” I asked.
“I didn’t sleep.”
“Isthatnormal?”
He chuckled and I sat up, rubbing my eyes. “I feel good though. Rested. My feet kind of hurt.”
“You ran hard. Why don’t you get dressed and we’ll head out.”
I fell on my back and disappeared inside the sleeping bag, shivering. “It’s too cold. Wait until the sun comes up.”
Austin crawled down to my feet and then I felt his hands on either side of me. I wrapped my arms around my naked body and froze when the zipper was slowly pulled down.
“What are you doing?”
“I can’t see a thing, Lexi. I want you to trust me.”
I believed him whenever he said “trust me.” I’d never had a reason not to trust Austin. So I lay there, fully exposed, and Austin Cole lifted my legs and placed my cold feet against his warm stomach.
He hissed and then quickly covered my toes with his large hands.
“Oh my God, that’s heaven,” I moaned with a sigh of relief.
“I run on hot,” he said in a thick voice.
My nipples immediately hardened, and while I knew it was from the draft, I began to have serious doubts about how true that was. I could only imagine what we looked like—me lying nude in front of him with my feet on his…
“Austin? Are you naked?”
His stomach rocked and his whole body began to shake. A low laugh built up until he opened his mouth and puffed out my fire with his laughter. I smiled and wiggled my toes against his firm abs.
“I put on pants an hour ago,” he said. “Today we’re going to see Ivan of the Kizer pack.”
“What’s your pack’s name? Cole Pack?” I snorted. “Sounds like a compress.”
He squeezed my ankles and I moved my feet around to a warmer spot, mostly so I could hear him hiss again from the chill of my icy toes.
“It would usually go that way, but if the name is already in use, we have to choose another. Cole is an active pack in Houston, so I could either come up with a new name, or have one assigned. The Council was going to give us Skinner,” he grumbled. “I didn’t like that.”
“Is it a big deal or something?”
His voice was low and raspy—that bedroom voice that made me shiver. “It should mean something. We’re the Weston pack.”
I scarcely breathed. The silence became so deafening that sunrise would have sounded like a volcanic eruption. After a few smooth strokes of his hand that warmed my skin, Austin crawled outside to allow me to get dressed. I rolled to my side and felt around for the lantern as he zipped up the tent. When the light switched on, it threw my shadow against the smooth lining, piercing my eyes. I fumbled around in my small bag for some clothes.
If we were meeting a Packmaster today, he was just going to have to accept me in a pair of jeans and my strapless shirt. It was undeniably a cute top with elastic around the edges and turquoise patterns mixed with black flowers. Summertime in the South was nothing to mess around with; I’d just thought we’d be sleeping in a hotel with room service and movie channels.
