Page 95 of Death Valley

“Basic survival,” I say with a shrug, lowering my mouth to her neck. “Body heat is the most efficient way to fight hypothermia in the field.”

“It’s also efficient at leading to sex.”

I can’t help but laugh against her skin as I lay a kiss there. “Yes, well that too.”

I pull back and she kisses me, silencing any further response, her lips soft and insistent. We have no business doing this—again—with Eli’s life and everything else hanging in the balance. But I find myself kissing her back anyway, drawn to her warmth like a moth to flame.

Her hand moves down between our bodies, sliding against my stomach and lower still, heat trailing in its wake. I bite back a groan when she wraps her fingers around my cock. She squeezes gently before parting her thighs slightly, guiding me into her, slow enough to drive me crazy. Her eyes are locked on mine, unguarded in a way that makes my chest ache more than I care to admit.

We stay like that for a long moment, barely moving, just soaking in each other’s heat and breath and pulse. Warm. She’s so fucking wet and warm. I could stay like this forever.

Then a soft sound escapes her lips as we start moving together in the smallest of motions—hardly more than tiny shifts of our hips—but somehow it’s even more intense than the rushed desperation of last night.

I lower my mouth to her neck again, drinking in the faint salt of sweat on her skin and the sharp intake of breath against my ear. Every movement is quiet and careful but strung tight with need—a taut wire that’s ready to snap at any second.

“Jensen,” she whispers again, my name breaking on another breathy sigh as she pulls herself closer around me.

I lose track of time for a while after that. Everything narrows down to the heat of our bodies pressed together, the slow rhythm building between us until it starts unraveling into something sharper and less controlled.

She comes first, clenching around me with a muffled moan that she hides against my shoulder. The feeling and sound of it undo me completely—my own release crashing over me like an avalanche, leaving me shaking and empty and fucking alive.

We’re both breathless when it’s over, tangled around each other in the sleeping bag. When I finally catch my breath enough to speak, I feel absurdly grateful for the warmth of her and the relative safety of the cabin. For a moment I can almost pretend I’m back at the ranch with her nestled in my room. Fuck, if only I knew the life I could have been living. Now that I’ve tasted it, so simple, so sweet, I think I’d do anything to have it.

“Is that something you learned from your father?” she asks, her voice gentle. “The hyperthermia thing. You know, all these survival skills?”

The question catches me off guard. We’ve never really talked about my father—I’ve mentioned his death, but not what came before. Not what he taught me, or what I lost when he died.

“Yeah,” I say after a moment, my voice rougher than I intended. “Ran in the family, you know? He taught me everything about these mountains. How to read them, how to survive them. He loved it up here, spent every moment he could away from the ranch, exploring.”

“You must miss him,” she says quietly.

The simple acknowledgment unlocks something in my chest, a pressure that’s been building for years. “Every day,” I admit. “He wasn’t perfect—had a temper, could be hard on me when I messed up. But he was a good man, you know? Taught me what that meant. How to live with integrity, even when it’s difficult. Even when he was forced to make choices he didn’t want to.”

“It must have been hard to have someone like Marcus take such control,” she says.

I tense slightly, instinctively defensive at the mention of Marcus’s operation. Then I force myself to relax. There’s no point in pretenses now, not after everything we’ve been through. Not when we don’t know the horrors that lie ahead for us.

“It was,” I say. “For him and for me. He always told me a man’s word was his bond, that honor mattered more than anything. When he died, the ranch was already in trouble. Debts piling up, the property remortgaged. We’d owned that ranch for generations, but I had no idea he’d taken out credit against the house in order to pay Marcus back. I was just a kid, really. Eighteen and suddenly responsible for everything—the ranch, my mother. And Marcus offered a way out, even though I knew he was the reason my dad was under such duress to begin with. So I took it.”

“And now you’re trapped,” she says, understanding in her voice.

“My own damn fault,” I say, staring at the ceiling. “I knew what I was getting into, even if I told myself otherwise. Kept thinking it was temporary, just until I got the ranch back on solid ground. That I could do a better job than my father did, that I was bold enough to handle Marcus in ways he couldn’t. Then I told myself I would do it just until my mother’s medical bills were paid. Then just until…well, there was always a reason to keep going. To keep compromising.”

“You were trying to save your home. Your family. Your legacy.”

“At what cost, though?” I ask, meeting her eyes again. “I became the kind of man my father would be ashamed of. The kind who looks the other way, who makes excuses, who values survival over integrity.”

She’s quiet for a moment, studying my face with those perceptive eyes. “Is that why you push people away? Why you live so isolated up here? At first I thought maybe the people in town were protective over you, but now I see that maybe it’s because they don’t know who you really are.”

The insight is uncomfortably accurate. “Easier that way,” I admit. “Hard to let people close when you’re ashamed of who you’ve become. And I didn’t want to drag anyone else into Marcus’s world. It’s safer to keep to myself.” I pause. “Don’t tell me you’re a psychologist as well.”

“I’m no psychologist,” she says. “In the bureau I’m part of the Violent Crime Unit. Missing Persons. We have psychologists working along with us, and you learn to pick up on things, when it comes to the criminals, when it comes to the victims.”

“And, so you’ve been examining me.”

“Can’t help it,” she says, reaching out and brushing her fingers over my forehead. “But even before allthis,” she says, gesturing vaguely to encompass our current situation, “you seemed…lonely. Like you were holding yourself apart from everything.”

I consider denying it, but what’s the point? “When my father died, it broke something in me,” I say quietly. “The ranch, Marcus, my mother’s condition—they’re all reasons, but they’re also excuses. Truth is, I was afraid to care too much about anyone again. Afraid to lose them like I lost him.”

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