Page 7 of Snowed in with the Alien Pilot

“We can’t land here,” he argued, even as his hands moved to assist with the stabilizers. “The conditions?—”

“I grew up in these mountains! I know what I’m doing!There!” She banked hard to the left, and he barely held in an undignified yelp as the horizon tilted drastically. She dropped their altitude so quickly his stomach lurched, but her control never wavered. “Survey cabin. It’ll have everything we need to wait out the storm.”

Before he could form a coherent argument, she was already executing a landing approach that would have made veteran pilots weep. The small structure she’d spotted was barely visible through the worsening conditions, but she maneuvered toward it with unwavering certainty.

The landing was rougher than usual, but given the conditions, it was nothing short of miraculous. Evelyn had the engines powered down and unstrapped herself before the last shudder passed through the frame. She paused long enough to grab an emergency pack from behind her seat before heading for the door.

“Evelyn, wait—” But she was already gone, the door slamming behind her with enough force to make the entire aircraft shudder.

“Draanthingwoman is going to get us both killed,” he muttered as he grabbed another of the packs and hurried after her.

At least if they both died out here, he wouldn’t have to explain to his commander how he’d managed to lose a precious human female in a storm.

6

The cabin door whooshed open, admitting a stumbling Evelyn and a blast of arctic air. Her frozen fingers trembled as she fought with the handle, relief flooding through her when it finally sealed with a soft pneumatic hiss.

“Life form detected,” a gentle female voice filled the space. “Initiating environmental controls. Current interior temperature: minus two degrees Celsius. Adjusting to optimal human comfort level.”

Three steps. That’s all it had taken for her feet to lose sensation during her dramatic exit from the plane. Now, pinpricks of pain shot through her toes as she limped to one of the practical metal chairs. The delicate straps of her heels might as well have been welded shut for all the good her numb fingers were doing.

The door crashed open again, bringing with it a swirl of snowflakes and Rhade’s thunderous voice. “What thehelldid you think you were playing at with that stunt? You could have gotten us both?—”

The words died as suddenly as they’d begun. Evelyn kept her head down, refusing to acknowledge him as she wrestled with her shoes. A shadow fell across her, and he was kneeling before her. His large hands engulfed her frozen ones, pushing them aside with surprising gentleness. The heat of his skin against hers sent violent shivers through her body.

When she finally looked up, the intensity in his silver-flecked eyes stole her breath. The diplomatic mask he usually wore had vanished, replaced by something raw and unguarded. His gaze roamed her face like he was committing every detail to memory, and she felt exposed in a way that had nothing to do with the cold or her thin dress.

“Let me help,” he murmured, his earlier fury dissolved into a tenderness that made her heart stutter. His fingers made quick work of the buckles, easing first one shoe and then the other from her feet. He cupped her icy toes between his palms, and the sensation drew an involuntary gasp from her lips. Without a word, he shrugged out of his uniform jacket and draped it around her shoulders.

Blessed warmth seeped into her frozen muscles, and she clutched the edges closer. His scent surrounded her – something alien and spicy, mixed with leather and metal that was uniquelyhim.

“Latharian uniforms are thermo-regulated.” His voice was a low rumble that seemed to vibrate through her bones. “I could survive the vacuum of space in this. Earth’s weather is hardly a challenge.”

“The weather satellites must be malfunctioning.” Evelyn tried to ignore how his jacket’s residual heat wrapped around her like an embrace. “It shouldn’t be this cold.”

“Current exterior temperature: minus fifteen degrees Celsius,” the cabin’s AI chirped helpfully. “Interior temperature now at fifteen degrees Celsius and rising.”

His hand came up, brushing snow-dampened hair from her face. His fingertips left trails of fire across her skin that had nothing to do with temperature regulation. Those silver-flecked eyes bore into hers, seeing past the carefully constructed walls of the Academy Commandant to the woman beneath.

“Are you alright?” Concern roughened his voice. “When K’raan grabbed you, I thought—” He paused, something dark and heated flickering in the backs of his eyes. “Was he right? Have you truly never taken a mate?”

She jerked away, anger flooding back through her veins. Surging to her feet, she forced him to take a step back. Then another, and another as she followed him, jabbing a finger into his bare chest. “That is none of your business!”

Her finger connected with warm, smooth skin, but she refused to be distracted. “I don’t need you or any other man to look after me. I’ve been handling difficult diplomats since before you showed up on Earth!”

His back hit the cabin wall, and he looked down at her.

“K’raan isn’t just some difficult diplomat.” His voice dropped to a dangerous growl. Despite his controlled stance, power radiated from him like a fusion reactor about to go critical. “He’s dangerous.”

“I know exactly how dangerous he is,” she snapped, punctuating each word with another poke to his chest. Her rational mind screamed warnings – she was poking a warrior who could snap her in half without breaking a sweat. But she didn’t care. If anything, his restraint, his careful gentleness, made her even angrier. “I also know how to handle him without resorting to violence!”

“He put his hands on you.”

Fury blazed in Rhade’s eyes blazed, the silver flecks flickering like flames. His gaze raked over her face again, his intense look making her skin tingle. No one had ever looked at her like shewas the most fascinating but also the most frustrating thing in the universe, all at the same time.

“And I was dealing with it!”

She was close enough to feel the heat radiating from his body. The cabin’s environmental controls said something in the background, but the words were lost beneath the thunder of her pulse in her ears. All she could focus on was Rhade... the rise and fall of his chest, the way his muscles tensed beneath her finger, and the intensity of his gaze that stripped away every defense she’d ever built.

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