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“Just a bad dream.” Shivering, I tugged the blankets around me. Drenched in a layer of sweat, I was colder than ever.

“You’re freezing.” He scowled, moving closer.

“Can we light another fire?”

Though, even as I asked, I knew the answer. There wasn’t enough wood.

“Not yet.” His tone was soft. “Best we preserve what we have.”

“Yeah.” I knew he was right, but my quivering limbs begged to differ. I needed warmth from somewhere, and I needed it soon. “But I’m so c-cold.”

“Let me help.” His body grazed the edge of the bed, his face only just visible in the periphery of the beam’s intensity, and I noticed he’d undressed from the waist up.

“H-help how?”

“I don’t feel the cold.” He chuckled. “I guess that’s part of the reason I’ve been so good at the job.”

“So?” I wasn’t following his train of thought.

“So, you can have some of my body heat.” Placing the flashlight on the bed, he stared at me.

“Sh-share the bed with you?” I thought we’d had that conversation already.

“You’re making it sound illicit.” His stare hardened. “When that’s not how I mean it. I’m just saying, I’m hot and you’re not.”

He reached for my hand, encasing my pale fingers in the weight of his larger and considerably warmer palm. “See.”

Ididsee, or ratherfeel.

Even though there was only a single shaft of light in the space, the temperature of his palm was suddenly everything. If all of Eli was as warm as his hand and he wrapped those long, lithe limbs around mine, I’d be toasty again in no time.

But it will mean sharing the bed with him.

My breath hitched. Contemplating sharing with him while the memory of Chelle’s recriminations rang in my ears stung. Even though I knew she hadn’t really said those words, they’d still injured me. Not least because the absence of Chelle in the cabin could only mean one thing—that I’d invented those insults for myself. Somewhere, deep down, I believed my attraction to Eli was, at least in part, to blame for what had happened to her and the others.

The twisting knot of energy in my tummy reinforced the doubts. If I hadn’t felt that tug to Eli, I might have been kinder to James. If I hadn’t been eyeing the rugged good looks of our guide, then maybe I could have talked him and Miles down from the edge of the clearing.

Maybe, maybe, maybe...

I wasn’t sure any of my mental ramblings constituted the truth, but they were lodged there in my psyche, regardless.

“Youarewarm.” I clung to his hand.

“So?” Leaning toward me, his face came into view. Twinkling with a mischievous glint I’d never noticed before, his eyes persuaded me that it wasn’t half as cold as I thought. There, in that moment, his gleaming gaze seemed able to warm me without even the need for touch. “Is that a yes?”

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