“I sure wish hallucinations came with temperature control,” she muttered to her biceps.
The figure moved. She blinked a couple of times, waiting for it to fade. But it came closer.
And closer.
The closer it came, the more sure she was that this was pure fantasy, woven by a generous mind eager to give her a sweet escape.
“Let’s go,” the fantasy ordered. She wasn’t surprised it sounded like Blake. All her fantasies revolved around the sexy SEAL. Most were naked, though, and the only shivers involved were sexually inspired.
“Sure, I’ll go with you,” she bartered in a teasing tone. Might as well humor her mind, since it’d gone to all this trouble of creating her dream man. “But if I do, you have to reward me with kisses and sexual delights. I’ve done the calculations. By showing up at the party and outing yourself as forbidden fruit,” she informed the hallucination, “you deprived me of at least twenty-seven orgasms. I figured that’s how many I’d have gotten before the heat ran its course.”
The figure froze for a second, then he shook his head as if clearing his ears of static.
He looked like a walking arsenal, with an automatic weapon slung across his shoulder, pistols at both hips and a slew of scary-looking devices on his utility belt. He wore a white snow-camo jacket and hood with a cloth mask covering the lower half of his face. All she could see were his eyes. They were the same vivid blue she remembered, then they grew distant again. Assessing, constantly shifting around the room, and almost as cold as the snow outside.
“Twenty-seven, hmm?” He stepped over to the door, his moves slick and silent. He pressed an ear against the wall, checked some gadget in his hand, then gave her a commanding wave of his hand as if ordering her to stand.
“Tell you what, let’s get the hell out of here, and then we can talk about payback on those orgasms.”
“Payback is double,” she decided then and there. Why not. It was her fantasy after all.
For a brief second, she saw amusement flash in those bright eyes. For that instant, she felt the same connection that’d zinged between her and the real Blake Landon almost a year ago. Her heart sang with joy, so sure it’d found its perfect match.
Silly heart.
Then he shifted, shrugging a pack off his back. He dug into it, pulling out things even more tempting than fifty-four screaming orgasms.
Warm clothes. Thick socks, heavy boots and a coat.
She moaned. A heavy coat, with a furry hood.
This fantasy just kept getting better and better.
A cold wind whipped through the room. Ice showered her back and freezing snowflakes flecked her hair and face.
Slowly, terrified if she moved too fast he’d disappear, Alexia raised her head off her arms.
He was still there.
She blinked.
He held out the socks and boots.
Wetting her lips, she hesitated. Then, having to know one way or the other, she reached out. The wool socks were like fire, hot and welcoming.
The boots waggled. Her gaze flew from the sturdy cold-weather footwear to the man’s face. He was real? He was here to rescue her?
Alexia’s mind couldn’t seem to take it in.
Thankfully, though, her body was all over the idea, grabbing the socks and yanking them over her frozen toes.
“You’re real?” she whispered, reaching out for the boots.
“As real as you are, sweetheart. Let’s get our asses in gear. We have five minutes before this place is blown to hell.”
She should be scared, shouldn’t she?
Or relieved?
Excited or ecstatic or grateful.
Maybe the weather had frozen her emotions, too, because she couldn’t feel a thing.
Except the cold.
Like moving through a dream, Alexia snuggled herself into the warmth of the white camouflage winter gear. Her brain was foggy as she tried to accept that Blake was real. The possibility that he was a figment of her desperate imagination didn’t stop her from following him to the window, though.
Her movements were stiff as she took his hand to help her climb onto the chair, wishing she could feel him through their thick gloves, her body feeling as if she’d just recovered from a vile flu.
He was real.
He was here.
She was rescued.
“Is there a team outside?” she asked. As much as she wanted out of this room, she knew there was an arsenal pointed at the window, armed guards who’d be thrilled to use her for target practice and a seriously strong chance that she’d break a leg crawling out a second-story window.
“We’re on our own,” he said quietly, stepping up to the window, too, and using his infrared binoculars to check the landscape. “There’s a rope hanging just outside the ledge. Do you see it?”
“On our own?”
How was that possible? SEALs operated in teams.
Suddenly her brain sparked to life. Like a limb waking, the tingles were painful as she tried to figure out what was going on.
“Where’s the rest of the team? Your backup?” It was unfortunate that her words came out shrill with an overtone of hysteria. But, well, she was pretty close to hysterical, so it was only to be expected.
“We’re the team, you and I. We’re not going to need backup because nobody’s going to be paying us any attention in—” he glanced at his watch again “—four minutes.”
He wasn’t hysterical. She frowned, peering at his face to try to see if his mellow certainty was an act or if he was really okay with being a one-man rescue show.
The more she looked, the calmer she became. As if she was absorbing his confidence and strength. Granted, he was almost completely shrouded in warm winter gear. But his voice, his stance, his entire persona were one hundred percent assured. He was trained for this, she told herself. He’d done hundreds, maybe thousands, of missions in much riskier situations. He’d served during wartime, for crying out loud.
But that was him.
She was pretty much a wimp.
“We’re really on our own?” she whispered. Then, with a shaky breath, she glanced at the rickety desk and sad stool. Maybe she should stay here.
“Do you trust me?”
Her gaze flew to his face. Covered in goggles, surrounded by a cinched hood, she could barely make out his features.
