when lying belly down on thin ice!
‘You understand?’
She nodded. ‘But the rope … is it such a good idea …?’ She looked from the rope looped around her waist and followed it to his washboard-flat middle. ‘If anything goes wrong we are tied together.’ She didn’t want to be responsible for pulling this good Samaritan into the icy water.
‘Then we shall just have to make very sure that nothing goes wrong, won’t we?’ he inserted with the impatient air of someone not used to having his instructions questioned. ‘You are ready?’
She nodded, thinking there were some things a person was never ready for, but he had made it pretty clear she had very little choice.
The progress they made seemed torturously slow, though she knew it couldn’t have taken as long as it felt. Each time she felt she could go no further because her legs were shaking or she just couldn’t feel them her rescuer was there, encouraging her, though his encouragement at times bordered on coercion.
CHAPTER THREE
FINALLY on solid land, Rose simply lay there for several moments, too euphoric at being safe to even register the cold that every flutter of wind was driving deeper into her bones. Then, pulling her shaking knees up to her chest, she heaved herself into a sitting position, hugging her arms around her body.
The dark stranger was beside her. He had hunkered down to her level and was casually balancing on his heels with the inbred grace of a natural athlete.
‘Thank you so much; you saved my life.’
She found it slightly off-putting that there was not a flicker of expression in the spooky silver-grey eyes trained on her face.
‘I’m Rose, by the way, Mr …?’
Mathieu looked into the incredible amber eyes brimming with gratitude and innocent as a kitten, which could not be more different from the reckless, sexual challenge he recalled last seeing in those same eyes. If she intended to pretend they did not know one another it was nothing to him. He supposed it was just possible that she didn’t—his upper lip curled in fastidious contempt—she had been very drunk that night.
The win had clinched him the champion’s medal for the fourth year running. So for that reason alone the evening of the gala reception at the embassy would have lingered on in his memory, even if he hadn’t returned to his hotel room later that night to find a naked woman in his bed.
A woman who had smooth skin like cream, long hair the colour of pale caramel and golden eyes.
The golden eyes that were looking at him now.
‘Can you walk?’
She blinked at the abruptness of his question and the smile faded from her face. She was philosophical about the hostility in his manner. His life had just been put at risk because of her. He was bound not to look too kindly on the person responsible for his close encounter, although the level of cold disdain in his body language did seem excessive. He was looking at her as though she were something offensive on his shoe!
She attempted to struggle clumsily to her feet. ‘Of course.’
Mathieu, who had realised the moment he had formed the question that she could probably barely feel her limbs, never mind walk, ignored her optimistic assertion and bent to scoop her up. As he gathered her to him he was aware first of softness, then, before he had time to wonder at the heat that exploded inside him—cold, icy cold.
A glance revealed her skin had an unhealthy bluish tinge, which was hardly surprising considering what she had been through. He was well aware of the danger of hypothermia. It was imperative that she warmed up quickly.
‘I … what are you doing?’ Rose stuttered as she found herself slung unceremoniously over his shoulder.
‘Preventing you getting hypothermia. The Land Rover’s parked just up on the track,’ he explained, mentally assessing the time it would take him to reach it.
He didn’t say anything. Not another word until they reached the vehicle, which did not surprise her. What man could speak with an overweight—and that was dry—blonde over his shoulder? What did surprise her was that he could keep up a brisk running pace the entire way and still not be breathing very hard.
Pulling open the door, Mathieu dumped his shaking burden in the back seat before going around to the driver’s side and switching on the engine, sliding the thermostat on the heater to full.
‘Get the wet things off.’ He barely glanced in her direction before leaving the front of the Land Rover.
He returned a moment later carrying a metallic survival blanket and a heavy cable-knitted sweater, which he flung in the seat beside her. His dark brows drew into a straight line as he assessed her progress.
‘Did you not hear me? I said take those things off,’ he said, sliding into the driver’s seat and turning around.
Heater on full, the cab was hot, but Rose was still shaking. She actually couldn’t imagine ever stopping, ever being warm again. ‘Sorry. My fingers,’ she said, holding out the slim, pale tapering items under discussion apologetically; like the rest of her they were shaking. ‘I can’t f-feel them.’
His dark eyes slid from her face to her fingers. There was a tiny pause before he heaved a sigh that suggested exasperation. ‘Then I suppose I’ll have to do it for you.’
‘Do what?’ The dumb routine was a self-defence mechanism, because she knew if she let herself consider in any serious way what having this man remove her clothes, even in a totally clinical, I’m-saving-your-life sort of way, might feel like, she might do or say something terminally embarrassing.
There was a blast of cold air in response to her question, then another as the passenger door opened and he slid in beside her so close that their thighs touched and slammed the door shut.
The thigh beside her own had all the give of a steel bar. He was an extremely tall, athletically built man and pretty much all of him looked equally hard. He was the sort of man who could make an auditorium seem small!
This was not an auditorium, it was a hot, steamy tin box on wheels, and it wasn’t just his physical presence that made it uncomfortable to share the enclosed space with him, it was the raw sensual energy that cloaked him like a second skin. Though she couldn’t help noticing that his first skin was pretty special.
Embarrassed by the direction of her thoughts, she flicked a sideways glance at his classical profile, her nostrils quivering as she tried not to inhale the subtle male scent of his body. His presence made it impossible to concentrate on anything else but … well, anything but him!
He was totally overpowering and not at all, she reflected, trying to co-ordinate her actions, a comfortable man to be around. When their glances connected, his slightly impatient, she looked away biting her lip because she knew she was acting like some gauche schoolgirl.
For God’s sake, Rose, anyone would think from the way you’re acting that the man is trying to seduce you.
She swallowed and lifted her head determined to match his pragmatic manner as he shifted in his seat so that they were facing one another.
She
