Instant Temptation
Page 28

“Yeah.”
Her voice was husky, too, as if she knew what she did to him and maybe, maybe he did something to her, too.
“Good,” he managed. “Glad you’re okay.”
Because he wasn’t.
Not even close.
The mountains were never silent, and that night was no exception. The wind whistled through the treetops. Animals rustled. Crickets chirped.
But he got a big, fat nothing from the woman across the fire from him. After a long minute, he let out a breath and told himself she wasn’t going to climb into his sleeping bag the way she’d climbed into his truck all those years ago.
Because apparently a guy only got lucky like that once in a lifetime.
CHAPTER 9
Harley tossed and turned, but no matter what she did, she couldn’t get warm enough. “Dammit.”
“What?”
“N-nothing.”
“You’re cold.”
She sighed at TJ’s low, knowing voice from across the flames. If she lifted her head, she’d be able to see him by the fire’s glow, which would be a bad idea because he looked gorgeous by the glow. She’d been noticing all night. She’d been noticing other things too, like how the muscles of his chest and arms flexed when he tossed wood onto the fire. Or when he did things like wrap her in his jacket and slice an apple with his knife and offer it to her.
Hell, who was she kidding? He looked gorgeous when he breathed.
And they were alone up there, on what felt like the top of the world.
At the sound of movement, she lifted her head in time to catch TJ rise from his sleeping bag. He’d removed his shirt and wore only those faded, battered Levi’s, disturbingly low on his hips. She watched as he cranked up the fire with minimal effort on his part, his body like poetry in motion, oozing testosterone and sex with every heartbeat.
“That should help,” he said, poking at the flames with a big stick, those muscles she loved bunching in a way that made her mouth water.
He was edible all half naked like that. He could give a dead woman an orgasm.
And she was far from dead.
He added another log and crouched low, stick in hand, watching the flames. His hair fell over his forehead, curling at the back of his neck. He hadn’t shaved that morning, and probably not the day before either, and he looked almost impossibly handsome as his eyes flicked to her. “Better?”
She blinked. “Um, what?”
Still hunkered down in front of the fire, he let out a breath. “You’re still a popsicle, aren’t you?”
“I’m still a popsicle,” she whispered.
“I’m not.”
Oh boy.
“You could come over here and we could share body heat.”
Uh huh. And that wouldn’t be all they shared either. Not with the amount of crazy chemistry they had.
There was a rock under her hip.
And she couldn’t feel her toes.
She curled into a ball and told herself to ignore both the rock and the shivering of her limbs. She managed it, too, for at least half an hour after she’d heard TJ slip back into his sleeping bag. But then came a howl, long and eerie, and she jerked. Just a coyote. Probably one of hers. They don’t attack humans.
Mostly.
Another cry, sounding more like a mountain cat. She gasped, leapt out of her sleeping bag, and in nothing but her bra and panties, dove into TJ’s before she could take another breath.
Just as she’d known it would be, his sleeping bag was higher quality than hers, far cushier, bigger, and toasty warm.
TJ hissed out a breath when she pressed her icy feet to his, but otherwise didn’t say a word, just wrapped his arms around her and pulled her in against him.
He’d stripped out of his jeans, but wore boxers, and was deliciously warm. “Cold?” he asked quietly. “Or scared?”
She tilted her head up and met his gaze. His hair was still over his forehead, almost in his eyes, pretty much inviting a woman to push it back for him.
To resist, she tightened her fingers in a fist against his pecs, which didn’t really help since he was built like a kickboxer, all hard and lean and mind-bendingly perfect. She took a deep breath, which meant she inhaled his scent. Problem was, in spite of his being outside all day long, he smelled like rain and mountain and man, and so…yum it made her take a sniff, and then she couldn’t seem to stop herself. She was breathing him in like he was her private stash of crack.
He ran a hand up and down her back. “Harley? You hyper-ventilating?”
“No,” she said weakly, and dropped her forehead to his chest. Oh, God. Big mistake. Because her mouth was only a fraction of an inch away from his skin. If she so much as breathed, she’d have her lips on him-oh look at that, she breathed.
A lot.
TJ let out a long, shaky breath of his own. “You’re shivering.” He ran his large, warm hand down her arm until he reached her hand. “And your fingers are ice.” He held them in his, gently rubbing his thumbs over her skin.
Harley closed her eyes. Getting into TJ’s sleeping bag had been a bad idea. Such a bad, bad idea she moved to get out of the bag, but he tightened his grip. “Shh,” he said, and giving up the resistance, she pressed her face into his throat and let her eyes drift shut. Her teeth were chattering and she was shaking, though honestly, she was no longer certain it was just from cold.
In fact, she was pretty sure it wasn’t the cold at all, but him.
“Breathe,” he murmured into her hair, rubbing soothing light circles on her back. “Breathe deeper.”