get it. You are trying to make me relax.”
“You’re brilliant as well as beautiful.” His hand brushed against her hip. “Is it working?”
Katya’s breath caught in her throat. The way his work-roughened fingers slid across her tender skin, aroused new sensations, making her body more alert, more sensitized to his nearness. “Somewhat,” she lied, again. “I have never lain naked with a stranger before.”
“That makes two of us. I usually get to know the women I sleep with before we climb into a sleeping bag together.” His voice lost all hint of humor. “Short of freezing to death in a blizzard, we didn’t have much choice.”
A shiver wracked her body and she pressed closer to him, absorbing his warmth, her skin tingling everywhere it touched his. “Good choice.” She inhaled the earthy scent of leather and male, noting the smoothness of his chest, not a hair on it. His nearness sparked a charge of electric current in her that made her want to explore more of his incredibly sexy body.
When was the last time she’d felt this drawn to a man? Never. The closest she had come was when she had been in lust with a politician’s son back when she was nineteen. A time when all was right with her world and her country.
With her future a black hole of uncertainty and danger, how could she be this attracted to a stranger?
In the rock-solid confines of the cave, with the warm glow of a flashlight chasing away the severe darkness, Katya felt safe for the first time since she’d been on the run. Safe enough to think of something or someone other than simple survival.
With her body heating rapidly, Katya fought for something to break the tension and silence. “Is the weather still bad outside?”
“Listen…” He held his breath and cocked his head to one side. “Wankatanka, the Great Spirit, is angry.”
Katya listened, concentrating on the silence. At first she heard nothing, then a thin, lonely wail whistled through the cavern, carried on a blast of frigid air that had found its way into their cocoon. Katya tugged at the edges of the bag, pulling it tighter around her shoulders, her face pressing close to the man’s chest. “I suppose it’s still bad out there.” She snuggled closer, the lonely sound of the wind emphasizing the chill still present in her body. His warmth enveloped her and made her feel safe and nervous at the same time. “You still haven’t told me your name.”
“Maddox.” His hand spread across her hip, his arm tightening, drawing her closer to his heat. “Maddox Thunder Horse. You’re trespassing on the Thunder Horse Ranch.”
“Maddox.” She tipped her head up to stare into eyes as black as the cave when it had been the darkest. “Pleasure to meet you. Please accept my sincere apologies for the trespass.” Her lips curled upward on the corners. “Thunder Horse is a different kind of last name.”
“I’m a member of the Lakota Nation. My father’s people were known for their strong horses.”
“You are a Native American? Is the ranch on a reservation?”
“No, my father’s father purchased the ranch from a retiring rancher fifty years ago. Since then, the Thunder Horses have added to the acreage.”
As he spoke, his hand smoothed back and forth over her hip, climbing up to her waist and back to her hip, cupping her bottom.
The more he touched her, the hotter she got, her breath coming in short gasps as if she could not quite catch it. With nothing but her bra and panties between her and the large man holding her in his arms, all manner of wicked thoughts filled Katya’s head. Her father would be appalled. “Do you have to do that?”
“What?”
“What you are doing with your hand?”
He jerked his hand away. “I was warming the cold skin. But if you’re warm already, I can stop.”
Immediately, Katya regretted saying anything. The heat his hand generated warmed her in many more ways than she could have imagined. “No, it felt nice. And I am very cold.” And alone.
She could hear the echoes of her father preaching to her. Someone of her breeding should never find herself alone and naked with a man not her husband.
Sadness gripped her anew. The father who had driven her crazy with his archaic ideas of decorum could no longer dictate her life. Nor could he hold her in his arms and tell her everything would be all right. Boris Ivanov had been murdered two weeks ago, his limousine ambushed by a lone shooter taking him out in a single shot. The news reported his death as an automobile crash. Katya’s inside sources told her otherwise.
A tear slid from the corner of her eye and dropped to the smooth skin of Maddox’s chest.
He looked down at her, a frown drawing black brows together. His arm settled around her, his hand resting on her hip, his feet touching hers in the bottom of the bag. “What’s wrong? Are you in any pain?”
He rubbed his foot along her calf, the warmth helping dispel the chill of her father’s death. She shook her head. “No.”
“I checked you over for frostbite. You looked okay a few hours ago.”
She sniffed, disturbed in a very visceral, but not unpleasant way at the thought of Maddox inspecting her body while she lay semi-comatose. As his foot stroked her calf, she stilled her father’s voice in her head, urging her to draw away. She liked the feel of his feet on her legs and especially his hand on her hip. A little too much for having just met the man. “I’m fine. Really.”
“Then why the tears?”
“No reason.” She sniffed again. “It’s just…” sniff, “my father was mur—died.” Katya sucked in a shaky breath and blew it out, attempting to pull away from the man’s chest to keep from letting more tears drop onto his naked skin. Hadn’t her father taught her better? Never let the public see you express untidy emotion. He had classified tears as unnecessarily messy. “I’m sorry. Ivan—” She bit down hard on her bottom lip and started again, struggling at lying to this man. “Evanses do not cry.”
Maddox pulled her back in the crook of his arm. “I’m sorry about your father. I lost mine not too long ago.”
Katya settled her cheek against his chest again and tilted her head up to study his face.
“I wish I could have said goodbye.”
“Me, too.”
High cheekbones, a rock-hard chin, dark skin and longish black hair gave away his heritage. The man could easily step into the past, hunting buffalo and living off the land. Again, his earthiness reassured her in the confines of the cave. He appeared to be in his element, completely capable of surviving in the harsh environment. Unlike her.
Having been raised surrounded by bodyguards, servants and political dignitaries, she had always relied on her social skills to survive. In the Badlands of North Dakota, social skills were less in demand and more of a hindrance. If she wanted to survive, she had better do as Maddox Thunder Horse said.
“How much longer do you think the storm will last?” she asked.
“Weather in the Badlands has a life of its own.” He
