Before she could react he strode past her, pausing at the cave entrance only to admonish her, “Stay in the bag and keep warm. Later you’ll have to move around a little, but for now stay put. If you need clothes, there’s an extra shirt of mine and a sweater behind you, the rest will have to be dried.” He swung around.
Joey called after him “Where are you going?” Her voice was very small. He stopped with his hand on the cold rock wall of the cave entrance.
“Out for firewood. I’ll try to build a small fire at the cave entrance, you’ll need hot liquids and something to eat as soon as possible.”
He didn’t pause again when Joey’s final words trailed after him, shredded on the wind that buffeted snow against his face.
“I knew we should have brought my stove!”
Joey huddled back into the warmth of the sleeping bag as Luke disappeared, wondering if he’d heard her rather weak attempt at humor. It was hard to be funny when she was just beginning to realize that something very serious had happened. Not only the hypothermia, but something even more frightening.
She remembered coming out of a daze, one she’d hardly been aware of, to feel Luke’s hard body pressed into hers from behind. The shock of it had penetrated slowly, and by then some of the soft words he had spoken had connected. Stay awake, stay awake, he’d told her gently, over and over. She had obeyed without realizing it. When she’d come back to herself, to full realization, the first thing she knew was that Luke was most definitely aroused.
It had been utterly impossible not to notice the firm male length of him trapped between their bodies. The confusion had passed quickly, and even before she could ask him what had happened, her own body had reacted to the feel of him. A rush of desire had momentarily blocked the logical need for answers. For a nearly unbearable instant she had been certain he would know how very ready she was for him, how much she wanted to feel him inside her. When she’d finally been able to turn and face him, his eyes had been so bleak that she had pushed back the primitive emotions and settled for practical questions instead.
Even then he’d been obtuse about the whole thing. Joey felt herself flush with mingled discomfiture and a very definite desire to feel his body against hers again. It was hard to say which feeling was stronger. Just another of many moments of confusion she had experienced since the first day she’d met Luke Gévaudan.
Joey rolled over in the bag, very much aware of the appealing male smell that permeated the half of it where he’d lain beside her. She pressed her nose to the lining and breathed it in. She still didn’t have a full grasp of what had happened, but she knew Luke hadn’t stripped her, and himself, for their mutual pleasure. He’d spoken of something even she knew was dangerous.
Luke had been angry, though whether with her or with himself hadn’t been clear. It had been something of an overreaction, like so many of his moods—like the brittle way he’d kept his distance ever since they’d found the wreckage. The message she had begun to glean from all that she’d learned of him began to make sense. He was afraid, that was clear but of what? Of being hurt, of being abandoned—of opening himself? Joey drew the edges of the bag more tightly about herself and grimaced. That was something she understood all too well.
A slow resolve came to Joey then. It wasn’t safe or logical, but it was most definitely real. It had been growing with every day they’d spent on the trail together, had begun to coalesce at the foot of the mountain where she’d laid her parents to rest. This last experience had confirmed the undeniable truth of it.
She had asked herself what she wanted, and now she was certain.
She wanted Luke. That much was fact. As for the rest—it was still too new, too overwhelming. There were some things she was not yet ready to face.