Page 93 of Death Valley

I don’t feel good. I feel like I’m being burned alive after being frozen solid. Every inch of my skin is hypersensitive, nerve endings coming back online with screaming protests. I bite my lip to keep from crying out.

Jensen’s hands move in slow, firm strokes along my arms, my back, generating friction and heat. The sleeping bag traps it all, creating a cocoon of gradually increasing warmth. Minutes pass, perhaps longer. Time feels strange, elastic and stretching.

Slowly, excruciatingly, the pain begins to ebb. Warmth seeps back into my core. My shivering, which had been violent enough to rattle my teeth, begins to subside. I become aware of my surroundings again—the crackle of the fire, the howl of wind outside, Eli’s steady breath from the cot, and the solid presence of Jensen wrapped around me.

And then, with awareness, comes the rest. The intimacy of our position. The feeling of his skin against mine, every point of contact electric. The way his breath stirs the hair at the nape of my neck. His arm wrapped around my waist, hand splayed against my stomach.

“Better?” he asks, voice low and rough in my ear.

I nod, not trusting my voice. I’m alive. The immediate danger has passed. But a different kind of danger has taken its place—the awareness of him, of us, of everything unresolved between us.

“Thank you,” I manage finally, moving my head to glance back at him.

He gives me a lopsided grin, the flames from the fire dancing in his eyes. “I should be thanking you. You giving me one last piece of heaven before we meet hell.”

We fall silent, the only sounds our breathing and the storm outside. I should pull away. Should rebuild the walls between us. But I’m tired of walls. Tired of fighting—him, myself, the world.

“Jensen…” I don’t know what I’m asking for. Don’t know what I’m offering. It’s different this time.

His hand moves from my waist to my face, fingers tucking my hair behind my ear with unexpected gentleness. “We might not make it out of here,” he says softly. “You know that, right?”

I do know. The odds are stacked impossibly against us—the hungry ones hunting and herding us, no horses, Eli’s condition, which might go one way or the other.

We’re running out of time, out of options.

Out of luck.

“I know,” I whisper.

He moves so that I’m beneath him now, on my back, my breasts pressed up against his chest. He lowers his head so that his forehead touches mine, the gesture startlingly intimate. “If these are our last hours, I don’t want to spend them with lies between us. With hurt feelings and regrets.”

My hand finds his face, mirroring his touch. The beard on his jaw is rough against my palm. “No more lies,” I agree. “No more regrets. I’m done running from them.”

His mouth finds mine, and it’s both familiar and brand new. A softness, a tender exploration, the barest hint of his tongue tracing my lower lip. I open to him, hungry, desperate to feel alive in a way that has nothing to do with survival. His kiss deepens, becomes something ferocious, claiming and giving all at once.

His hand slides from my cheek down my neck, grazing my collarbone before cupping my breast, thumb brushing over my nipple. I arch into the touch with a gasp, heat pooling between my legs.

“God, Aubrey,” he groans against my mouth. “You’re too sweet for me.”

The fire’s warmth and the sleeping bag have coaxed his body back to full temperature. He’s blazing hot now, all firm muscle and hard lines pressing into me. His knee nudges between my legs, opening me for him as his lips leave mine to trace the line of my jaw, the curve of my throat. Every nerve in my body is extra awake now, alive with sensation.

He moves lower still, capturing a nipple between his lips that draws a ragged gasp from my lips, while his hand travels south to the bare skin of my hip. I’m not cold anymore—far from it—but I still shiver as he trails his fingers down my thigh, thenback up the sensitive inside until they’re right where I need them most.

I’m already wet for him. The realization is heady after everything: how much I want him, want this. He groans again as he finds what he’s looking for with skilled fingers that circle and stroke and tease until I’m gasping beneath him.

“Jensen,” I breathe, a plea, a prayer, a surrender.

He answers in kind, shifting his weight to align himself at my opening. His eyes meet mine, searching for something—permission, maybe, or forgiveness. I give him both with the lift of my hips and the arch of my back.

He presses into me slowly, an exquisite agony as he fills me inch by inch. I clutch at his shoulders, nails digging into his skin with the intensity of it all. When he’s fully inside me, we both still for a moment that stretches like eternity. It feels too much and not enough all at once.

“Fuck,” he gasps, face buried in my hair. “You’re perfect, darlin’.”

Then he starts to move, deliberate and unhurried at first. The friction is delicious torture; every thrust sends shockwaves through my entire body. I wrap my legs around him, pulling him deeper, harder. He grips me tighter in response, our bodies falling into a rhythm that’s frantic and frenzied and so fucking right.

The world narrows to just us—the feel of him inside me, the sound of our breath mingling, the heat building unbearably between us. The rawness of it is overwhelming. Every nerve ending sparks white-hot as we surge toward the edge together.

He shifts his angle slightly, hitting a spot that makes me cry out and sees stars behind my eyes. I cling to him as if he’s the only real thing left in this collapsing universe.

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