Page 336 of Steamy Ever After

“Overland?” There’s no way I’m leaving the road.

He tilts his head, looking at my feet with those weird goggles. “There’s no way you’re making it in sneakers.” Gripping his chin, he seems deep in thought.

I take the opportunity to wrap myself in his jacket. A deep woodsy scent fills my nostrils and has me taking a deep breath. The faint aroma of male sweat, sultry and dark, smells divine. I tug at the collar and pull it close. Shamelessly, I take another inhale. His chuckle brings my head snapping up.

“It works better when you zip it, not sniff it.”

Getting caught smelling his jacket, searing heat fills my cheeks. No man deserves to smell that good. Thankfully, he turns his attention to my feet, which gives me one last opportunity to take in his dark and sultry scent.

“We need to do something about your feet and the snow.” Bending down, he unfastens the white gaiters over his boots.

“I can’t take those.” I hold out a hand, palm up, in refusal.

“You’re taking them. Impossible to hike cross-country in sneakers, and I’m not carrying you.”

Instead of handing me the gaiters and making me figure out how to secure them around my calves, he kneels and taps the top of his thigh.

“Put your foot here, and we’ll see what we can do.”

A little hesitant, I don’t argue. Especially when this stranger is going out of his way to not only give me, literally, the coat off his back, but his gaiters as well. He snaps the top and bottom buttons then tacks down the Velcro strip binding the whole thing together. He proceeds to pull an elastic tab over the back of my heel and settles it against the sole of my shoe.

“Try not to drag your feet, or the strap will slip off. These should keep most of the snow out of your shoes.”

When I put my foot down and test the elastic strap, he stands. His size intimidates me, and I can’t help but take an involuntary step back. I’m what I call tall enough for my feet to reach the ground, which means I’m short and more than a little self-conscious about my five-foot-three frame.

Standing so close, I crane my neck to see his face, or what little there is to see. He hasn’t removed the goggles or the fabric covering his nose, mouth, and chin. But the real reason I step back is because of the strange thing being so close to him does to my insides.

Needle-thin flakes fill the air, more snow coming down. I zip the jacket, not because he told me to, but because I want to keep the residue of his warmth, and maybe some of his scent, inside the jacket.

“Shouldn’t we call someone?”

The road still looks far better than a hike cross-country. I swallow the lump of fear rising in my throat.

The deep rumble of his voice rolls back toward me. “Cell reception sucks this far from town. Don’t worry, it’s a short hike to Bert’s.”

He heads off the road, waving for me to follow. Leaving the safety of the road goes against my better judgment, but he knows two things I don’t.

First, he knows where we need to go. Left to my own devices, I would have hiked into the wilderness and froze to death or run into another pack of wolves.

Second, I follow for another, more unsettling reason. This man knows what he’s doing. His confidence fills me with a sense that everything will be all right.

“How far?”

“Two miles.” Behind us, another piercing howl fills the night sky. The man stops and turns around. “Damn wolves. Come on, let’s get a move on.”

LLAMAS

Two miles, he says. Just a little further, he says. It feels like we’ve been hiking for ten miles instead of two. My feet are lead bricks. Every step is a massive investment of energy.

I want to curl up into a ball and just—stop.

But the man who shot the wolves sets a relentless pace.

We hike cross-country for well over an hour, and nothing but rolling white stretches out in front of us. The sky is a featureless gray. Backlit by the moon, the clouds glow with a faint, ethereal light, providing barely enough illumination to show the way.

Which way that might be, I have no idea.

Snow drifts downward, piling up beneath my feet. We aren’t back in blizzard-like conditions, but this overland travel is challenging.

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