on his senses, a sultry tone that caressed the quiet like mist.
“Mmm-hmm.” He wasn’t up to coherent responses yet, not with his blood still slugging through his veins like lava and his thoughts racing with what he had known all along.
Giving in to this was not smart.
“How do you do it?” She let her head roll back against his shoulder, so she could peer up.
“Define it.” Good. He’d shoved two words out. Of course his voice sounded like gravel over broken glass.
“Live in the shadows. Live a half life.” She exhaled another breathy sigh that had such power over him. “I don’t know what else to call it.”
He was so not up to philosophical questions right now. Not when the simple feel of her hair trailing down his arm felt monumental, as if their sex had only scratched the surface of years of lusting and when he recovered he was going to be a whole lot hungrier than before.
He dragged his gaze to hers, buying himself time because he couldn’t wrap his brain around anything beyond the arms she draped tightly around him, as though he were her anchor.
“Half life?” Two more words and an inflection that made them a question. He was making progress.
Her lips tucked at the corners as she considered him, looking thoughtful. He could see the sprinkling of freckles across her nose and cheeks even in this light. Those freckles were the bane of her existence. Once she hadn’t noticed them, but with the constant media attention now, she spent time in front of the mirror trying to conceal, blend or beat those freckles into submission.
She would be mortified he’d noticed.
He thought freckles suited her and hoped she never found a way to cover them. They were a reminder of the free-spirited girl she had once been, a girl who had danced through the meadows and splashed through streams.
The girl who had grown up to be a woman bold enough to make love to him.
“You guard me,” she finally said. “You live with me. Your schedule is my schedule. You don’t leave my life to go live your own. I don’t know anything about your upbringing or your family, and I can count on one hand how many times you have taken a vacation since Oskar died. That leaves you with a day off here and there and then only when I’m entertaining dignitaries in my glittering shell, with the royal guard and media smothering me.”
“Glittering shell?” He knew what she meant.
“The compound.” She waved a dismissive hand. “That doesn’t seem like much of a life to me. So, a half life.”
He nodded, considering.
She waited, and shivered.
“I need to deal with the fire.” He found the words to seize an opportunity for escape. Only the knowledge that they might freeze to death spurred him to get up off his ass and back to reality. There was another part of him that felt he would be okay with freezing to death as long as Mirie was in his arms.
But she complied and untangled her naked self and scooted back against the wall. Her skin gleamed pale in the failing firelight, and his crotch danced a little jig at the sight she made with her long legs stretched out before her, her hair threading around the swell of her lovely breasts.
Christ, he was in trouble here.
That thought was unavoidable as he used the last of the kindling. He’d be heading outside again soon. He should plunge himself into the snow while he was out there. He didn’t think even the blizzard would cool him off.
He coaxed more of the sappy kindling to life with the glowing embers, carefully stoking the fire back while he considered Mirie’s words.
And the stab of pride at her opinion of him.
He had a life even though she couldn’t see it. He served his country and carried out his mission objective. He had only sacrificed the normal life he had never been much interested in anyway, for a much more noble cause.
Like Mirie herself, although she had been born to her cause. But she didn’t see his life from his perspective, and she didn’t sound as if she was all that content with her own.
Loneliness was eating away at her bit by bit.
He wasn’t surprised.
“I guess from your perspective it doesn’t seem like much of a life.” Distance helped him get a grip.
“Sounds a lot like my life.” She finally pulled on the cloak to cover her exquisite nakedness.
He snorted while tucking a branch deep into the embers.
“What?” she asked.
“I thought the same thing.”
He hadn’t meant the admission as an invitation, but she took it as one. Suddenly, she was covering the small distance between them, kneeling before the growing fire, stretching out her hands to embrace the heat.
Drew only heaved an inward sigh. He wanted her to warm herself, wished her nearness didn’t test him and her discontent didn’t add to his defenselessness against her.
She saw only how he trailed after her around the clock, not living a life that would fit anyone’s description of normal. Because she didn’t live a normal life, either. She had once run through these mountains, flirting with the boys, giving her virginity to the one she had allowed to catch her.
Now she gave herself to the only man within her grasp to stave off the grief of her losses. What a waste.
“You’ve been working on a miracle,” he said, hoping to lend her perspective. And some encouragement, which she didn’t hear enough as far as Drew was concerned. “Once the government stabilizes and the economy shows some improvement, you’ll get back to a normal life again. Then, so will I.”
She faced him with a scowl. “By the time this political situation stabilizes, I’ll be ready for the grave like Bunică.”
“Your Royal Highness,” he chided.
To his surprise, she scooted toward him, coming up full against him and wrapping her arms around his waist. “Drei, call me by my name.”
Her breasts pressed against his back, and for a man who’d just spent himself in a big way, Drew’s body was on red alert again before he had a chance to suck in a breath.
He was in such trouble here. The very thought of her name on his lips collided with the memory of his body inside her, and he found himself clutching the stick hard enough that the damned thing broke. Wet wood. Go figure.
But it was the anchor he needed to resist turning around and grabbing her, pulling her against him and going for round two. There’d been no contact with the general. It was just the two of them, stranded here, alone.
She was upset. He got that. He also understood her isolation. He saw her life up close. He lived it. His own wasn’t much better except for the occasional furloughs. But unless they got back to normal between them, this “interlude” could only cost them. And cost big.
They
