She looked up at me, eyes huge. And suddenly my hands were on her cheeks, thumbs rubbing across under her eyes as if brushing away invisible tears. My fingertips touched the edges of her hair, the start of that tight, pinned-back efficiency….
I leaned down. I felt my lips part and saw hers do the same. Saw her breathing quicken—
What am I doing?
I quickly drew back. One more thump of my pounding heart and I’d have kissed her. If we kissed, I wasn’t going to be able to stop. I’d undo her, every button of her prim outfit, every strand of that tightly-drawn back hair. I wouldn’t stop until she was naked and gasping under me, right here on the goddamn forest floor….
And then what? When we reached safety, there were only two outcomes: I hid away up here and she lied about where I was, risking her career. Or she turned me in to the cops.
Either way, I’d never see her again. And I couldn’t take that. Being this close to her, hearing that silken voice, smelling her soft perfume...that was driving me crazy. But getting even closer and then losing her...that would be worse.
“Come on,” I said, turning away. “Let’s find a place to spend the night.”
21
Kate
Boone picked out a spot where we could camp, a clearing well off any animal trails where bears might roam. Then, while I collected wood, he stalked a bird. I caught little glimpses of him through the trees: I couldn’t believe how someone so big could move so silently, creeping almost in slow motion, testing each step for noise before he committed his weight. Then, when he drew within arm’s length of his target, he suddenly moved too fast to follow: there was a flash as the knife blade caught the light and then the bird was dead in his hands.
I got him to show me how to build a campfire: if we were going to be out here for a few days, I didn’t want to be completely reliant on him. He patiently showed me how best to stack the wood, then lit it with one of the road flares. I wasn’t sure about eating the bird, at first. But when Boone roasted it on a sharpened stick, the smell made my mouth water. We feasted on the rich, gamey meat, fragrant with wood smoke, and it was amazing.
As the sun sank below the horizon, the dark seemed to close in around us. That’s when I realized that dark in Alaska isn’t like dark in New York. A city never really gets dark: it’s almost as alive at night as in the day, with people and traffic and lights. The forest, though...that became a different place at night. One that made you realize why man invented fire, and why he huddled inside caves when the sun went down. I couldn’t see anything outside the little circle of warm light the fire threw out. But I could hear.
“Snowy owl,” said Boone listening. Then, “That’s a moose.”
And then a different sound cut through the night. A sound that reminded me of a dog, but that turned into a long, drawn-out howl that no dog could match. The other animals went instantly quiet.
Boone’s eyes met mine. He didn’t need to say what it was. Even I’d heard wolf howls, in horror movies. It sounded distant, though—
An answering howl came back, from much closer to us.
“Don’t worry, they won’t bother us,” said Boone quietly. Then, “You’d have to be injured, and run into a pack—”
I nodded quickly. I wished he’d left it after they won’t bother us. “Everything’s so different,” I said, looking around at the darkness. “Alaska’s so...big.”
He looked around in surprise, as if he’d never thought of it that way.
“Maybe not to you,” I said. I glanced down at myself. “You’re the right size for this place.”
He frowned at me as if I was wrong. As if I wasn’t too small. That lit an unexpected warm glow inside me. “Why’d you come?” he asked.
He was speaking more, now, his voice coming more easily each time, but it was still a little awkward. He still sounded like a man who was used to doing, not talking. But even with that awkwardness, I could hear something in his question. He wanted to know why I’d come...and he was glad I did. The warm glow expanded.
“Because I’m stubborn,” I said. And I told him about my suspect back in New York and coming here in my vacation time and then trying to get to Fairbanks to chase down the witness. I looked around at where we were and shook my head. “Stupid. If I’d just stayed at my desk….”
“I’m glad you’re stubborn,” he said, his voice a low rumble. “If you hadn’t been on that plane, I’d be dead. Couldn’t have gotten out of those chains on my own.”
“I keep thinking about the pilot,” I said, staring at the fire. “I just can’t believe...Weiss killed him like it was nothing. He was happy to kill us because we were in his way.” I looked off into the distance towards where I thought Nome might be. “And now he’s going to get away with it.”
Boone poked at the fire. “He’s got money,” he said. “If you’ve got enough money, the law doesn’t apply.” His voice wasn’t bitter. Bitterness must have come years before, in the first few months of his exile. By now, the injustice of it had eaten deep into him like acid, leaving deep, ragged scars. I wondered if they could ever be healed.
I stared at him, the flames lighting that gorgeous, strong jaw in oranges and yellows, like he was a stone statue cast into hell. I’d spent my whole life believing in the system, believing in justice. I couldn’t imagine what it must be like to have your faith in it utterly destroyed.
I finally said what I’d been thinking for hours. “Mason...you have to fight,” I said quietly. “You have to clear your name. When we get back, I can help you.”
He shook his head.
“I can try to get you an appeal—”
“No.” His eyes were blazing, furious...but it didn’t feel like the anger was directed at me.
Why won’t he even consider it? I couldn’t figure it out. But I knew I had to tread carefully, so I changed the subject. “How do you even find your way, out here?” I asked. “What if the sun’s behind a cloud? What if it’s night?”
He met my eyes and I saw the anger slowly fade away. And then, for the second time that day, I thought I saw him smile.
“What?” I asked.
He leaned a little closer and reached out his hand. His finger and thumb touched my chin and I melted. Oh God. Is he going to—
He pushed, tilting my head up to look at the sky, and I gasped.
It hadn’t occurred to me to look up. In New York, there’s nothing to look at.
Out here, the sky was a sparkling carpet of light, a million tiny points set against a backdrop of blues, purples and pinks. I hadn’t known there were that many stars.
For the rest of my life, when I looked up at the sky in a city and only saw a muddy, orange-tinted glow, there’d be something missing.
“Holy shit!” I breathed. I just sat there for a second, drinking it in, as the fire crackled.
“Recognize anything?” His low voice came from off to my side.
I stared up at the stars. “Not much,” I admitted. Then, “Is that the North Star?” I pointed.
I heard him inching closer. And closer. I didn’t look, didn’t want to take my eyes off the sky. And then he was behind me, leaning in, his big arm stroking along the length of my slender one. When he reached my hand, he gently took it in his and moved it to the side. “That’s the North Star.”
I swallowed. The night was getting cold but his big, warm palm was cupped around my knuckles, his heat soaking into me. “What else is there?”
He moved closer, close enough that his body brushed my back. I guessed that he was on his knees, behind me. “There’s the Great Bear.”
“Where?”
He put his head alongside mine, so he could see what I saw. Still, I didn’t glance at him. If I looked at him, I might spook him. It seemed crazy, the idea of little me spooking the big, muscled military vet. But that’s how it felt.
“There,” he said. And drew it with his finger.
“That’s a bear?”
And he chuckled, a sound like huge, war
m rocks grinding together. “You have to use your imagination.”
I wondered how long it had been since he’d chuckled. I suddenly didn’t want this to end. “Show me something else.”
He went silent. I wondered if I’d pushed too hard.
Then his legs slid either side of mine until he was sitting right behind me, his chest warm against my back, his groin pushed up against my ass. Suddenly, I could barely breathe.
“What star sign are you?” He asked. He was so close, I felt each syllable as a hot little blast on the back of my neck.
“Libra,” I said, my voice catching. My back was so warm, with him pressed there.
“Very appropriate,” he murmured. He pointed. “There. We’re almost too far north but you can just see it.” He drew the shape of the scales for me in the sky.
“It’s beautiful,” I said. I twisted my head a little, gazing around at the sky. “The whole thing’s beautiful.”
And I felt my braid brush his cheek, and I froze.
And he froze.
And I felt those blue eyes on me, tracing down the side of my face and down my neck. He didn’t say anything but his gaze rode the aftershock of my words.
Beautiful.
I felt him come closer and closer, until his lips must have been a half-inch from my cheek. And then he slowly exhaled: a long, drawn out sigh of frustration. And I felt his body change, every muscle going tight in anger.
He wanted to. Oh, God, he wanted to, with an intensity that made me melt inside. But he couldn’t.
And for the first time, I started to feel the shape of something. Maybe it was learning how to read people at the FBI. Maybe it was all the time we were spending together. But there was something going on with this man, deep beneath the surface, something that went beyond the injustice that he’d suffered.
“Can I ask you something?” I said, my voice quavering.
I felt him nod.
“Why’d you run?” I paused a second, then continued. “I mean, I know they found you guilty. Okay, you think it’s useless to fight it and appeal. But...why run? I mean, living like this, all the way out here...you can’t have a life. You can’t have anything. Why not take the jail time? At least then, eventually, you could be free.”
He was silent for a long time. I felt the tension build and build in his body, his chest pressing hard against my back as he took in long, slow, furious breaths. Anger that was turned inward. Anger at himself, at something he saw as a weakness.
“I couldn’t let them put me back in a box,” he said at last.
And then he surged to his feet. My back was suddenly cold.
“We should get some sleep,” he told me.
22
Kate
Boone walked around to the far side of the fire and began to lay down. So we were back to that: him on one side, me on the other, like in the cave. But for the first time, I had a hint as to why. Something more than us being on opposite sides of the law. Something deeper and much more painful.
I slowly sank to my knees, looking down at the ground, then flinched as I saw a beetle scuttle across, right where I was about to lie. Urgh. By now, Boone was curled up on his side, his big form wound around the fire like a sleeping panther. I lay down facing him, my body more like a nervous cat.
I couldn’t get comfortable. It’s weird how wrong it feels, to sleep without anything on you, without a blanket or a comforter. And the temperature was dropping rapidly. God knows how cold it would have been if I’d stuck to my guns and we’d stayed up at the crash site. Down here, the cold wouldn’t kill us...but that didn’t mean I’d sleep well. My front was warmed by the fire but my back was freezing. I could feel all my muscles slowly chilling: by the time I woke up, they’d have set like concrete.
“Cold?” Boone’s voice. I couldn’t even see him, through the fire.
“I’m fine,” I lied. And pulled the jacket he’d given me tighter around me. It did absolutely nothing to help. A few moments later, I gave my first shiver.
A huge, dark shape rose up on the other side of the fire. Heavy footsteps moved towards me. I felt him staring down at me. Then: “I could keep you warm. If that’s okay.”
I looked up at him. His face was in shadow, unreadable. Was he playing games? No. One thing about Mason: he was refreshingly free of all that.
I nodded.
He started to step over my body to get behind me. But when one foot was either side of me, when he stood over me like a colossus, he paused.
I was staring into the fire but I knew he was staring down at me.
I knew because I could feel every single stitch of my clothing being scorched from my body.
There was no doubt about how he felt about me. He wanted to grab me as much as—I flushed—as much as I wanted him to. But he was keeping that lust contained.
Just barely.
He stepped fully over me and lay down behind me. Then he shuffled closer and I gasped as his hard body pressed against mine. He was so big, he covered my back completely. His shins pressed against my calves and feet. His thighs pressed against my hamstrings. His groin nestled against my ass. When he inhaled, I felt his chest fill and press against my back. And when I shifted my head a little, I felt my braid press against his collarbone.
“Better?” he asked.
I nodded. Now my back was warm. But the fire was dying down and a chill wind was blowing through the trees and numbing my front.
“Still cold?” he murmured after a while.
I hesitated. Then nodded.
Three beats of my heart.
“Lift up,” he told me, tapping my waist.
I pressed into the ground with my shoulder and ankles, hoisting my hips up off the ground for a second. I wasn’t sure what he had in mind.
His arms reached around me and unzipped the borrowed jacket. He stripped it off me and then I heard him putting it on. What? Now I’m colder!
His arm hooked under me. His other arm hooked over the top of me. He dragged me back towards him, until we were pressed tight. Then he closed the sides of his jacket around me and zipped me in with him, his arms crossing to hold me in a hug.
It was the warmest, the safest, I’d felt since I’d gotten on the plane. No, wait. Scratch that.
It was the warmest and safest I’d felt in years.
His heat spread through me, melting me, until I wanted to just soak right into him. I could feel his slow breath stirring the loose hairs which had broken free of my braid.
And I slept.
I woke what must have been hours later. Long enough for the fire to have died to a glow. Long enough that my body was comfortably lethargic from sleep.
I opened my eyes and found myself looking into another pair. A pair that glowed yellow in the darkness. A pair that floated only a few feet off the ground.
I stayed absolutely still as the wolf stepped out of the darkness.
I went cold, my chest tightening. But with Boone holding me, I wasn’t scared. He said the wolves wouldn’t bother us and I trusted him.
And he was right. The wolf didn’t come any closer. It just stood there, white and gray fur lit up by the fire. It was beautiful and wild. Utterly untamed.
But I realized it wasn’t what had woke me up.
Boone was muttering behind me, almost in my ear. That’s what had attracted the wolf’s attention. At first, I thought he was talking to me. It took me a few minutes to realize he was talking in his sleep.
It should have been cute. The muscled giant, mumbling about sex or some ex-girlfriend, giving me juicy secrets to tease him with the next morning. But it wasn’t like that at all.
His arms had gone rock hard around me, every vein standing out. And the words weren’t sultry confessions of love. They were guttural pantings and pleas.
He was having a nightmare.
I unzipped the jacket to give me room to move, then twisted around in his arms until I was staring at him, our faces only a few inches apart. His forehead was creased with wo
rry, his face shining with sweat despite the cold. As I watched, his mouth twisted into a grimace. Wake him? Don’t wake him?
He drew in a shuddering breath, his face contorting, and I felt my stomach twist in response. I couldn’t watch him suffer. He’d put his body between me and the bear. He’d risked his life on the cliffs to come down and grab me.
“Mason?”
He didn’t seem to hear me.
“Mason?”
This time his face twisted and his breathing became labored but he still didn’t wake.
“Mason?” And I reached out and brushed his cheek.
His eyes snapped open faster than I would have thought possible. But they didn’t seem to see me. His hands grabbed my waist and he rolled us over. My back hit the ground: I oofed as the air was knocked out of me. Then he was on top of me, straddling me, and something was in his hand. Something that caught the light.
The homemade knife stabbed down, aimed straight at my heart.
23
Kate
I shouldn’t have had a chance. I was smaller than him, weaker than him. he was operating on pure, murderous instinct.
But I have instincts, too. Ones my dad helped me hone on a judo mat in our backyard, for hour after hour after hour. My wrists came up and crossed, braced under his forearms, before I was even aware of it.
The knife jerked to a stop, the point just pricking the front of my blouse. But Boone simply increased the pressure, leaning into the move, forcing the knife downward. I pushed up against him, giving it everything I had. But the knife pushed slowly down. The point made a neat little cut through the fabric of my blouse and sank between my breasts until its tip was millimeters from breaking the skin. I groaned and heaved, terror lending me strength, but he was way, way bigger than me.
“Mason!” I sobbed in desperation. “It’s me!”
He growled and pressed and I felt my arms weaken—
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