Page 42 of Fight

He looked over at her while he crouched over the contents of their backpacks in the dim light. “You’re cold,” he said. Digging through the pile of containers and canisters, he pulled out a sleeping bag and looked at her expectantly. “We need to get into this together and warm up. Are you okay with that?”

Lena hesitated for a half a second before nodding her head in agreement. “I don’t think I’m in any position to not be okay with that,” she said in a chattering broken voice.

He smiled at her slightly and rolled the sleeping bag out between them. Dropping the light blanket, Lena flinched harshly at its loss before crawling over the sleeping bag and quickly sliding inside it and huddling in the fetal position. Jake got in behind her and her heart sputtered a bit as she felt his large body move against hers. He laid next to her in a big spoon position, and bent his right arm at the elbow.

“Here, put your head on my arm,” he instructed in a deep voice. She obeyed and laid her head on his thick bicep as he wrapped his left arm around her midsection and pulled her close to him. She could feel the fabric from his boxer briefs and the light hairs on his chest as she tried to relax her shivering body against his warm, muscular frame. At this point, she couldn’t tell if her shivering was due to the cold, or the shock of being in this position with Jake.Probably a little bit of both, she decided.

Lena took a deep breath in an effort to calm down as Jake whispered comforting sounds and words in her ear, trying to calm her. After a few minutes, her heartbeat started to slow down and her body started to feel warm, content, and still. It was so comforting to lay there in his arms, listening to the soft words he whispered in her ear against the hard, rhythmic sound of the thick raindrops hitting the top of the tent.

She eventually stopped chattering completely and was as relaxed as if she’d just finished a hot toddy in front of a roaring fire. She laid in his arms in this sleepy, dreamy state with nothing but the feeling of his heartbeat at her back, and his breath on her ear. Even the sounds of the rain seemed to have faded away. This was so much better than the blanket cocoon she’d imagined when huddled in her hermitage.

She might have fallen asleep for a few seconds, she wasn’t sure exactly. But when she finally opened her eyes after she felt his head move up, she looked up to see him staring down at her in the dull light from the flashlight. He was only a few inches above her and there was concern floating around the different colors of his eyes.

“Hey,” he whispered softly.

“Hey,” she replied with uncertainty as she moved onto her back so she could look at him more fully.

“Are you okay now? Warmer?” he asked deeply, the sound making a rumbling vibration in his chest that she could feel against her body. His arm was still wrapped around her with his hand resting on the curve of her waist.

She exhaled a deep breath before responding. “Yeah, I’m fine…physically. My pride on the other hand...”She lowered her brows in concentration. “How did you know I was here? And how did you get here?”

He let out an annoyed growl and rolled his eyes. “I saw Daniel at the resort this afternoon and…he told mewhere you were after some…persuasion. I had just finished a hike with some guests when I saw him, so I grabbed some extra supplies and came out here to look for you.”

“Jake,” Lena said in an awe struck voice. “That’s so…you came out here to look for me after you’d already spent the day hiking?”

“Yeah,” he said, a red color spreading over his cheekbones. “Of course. You didn’t think I was just wandering around the woods and happened upon you, did you?”

“I don’t know what I thought. You were just…here all of a sudden. I really haven’t had much of an opportunity to think about the why.”

“I had an idea where you were based on what Daniel described to me, but luckily you tied that hoodie to the tree, otherwise I may have walked up the path a bit further,” he admitted.

Lena started rubbing the silky fabric of the sleeping bag and looked down bashfully. “I can’t believe you came out here for me. You’re an angel, you know that?” she asked with a solemn face.

“I thought I was Satan?” he asked, his face taking on an exaggerated, questioning look.

“Well,” Lena said with a laugh. “Technically, Satan was an angel, so they’re not mutually exclusive.” She sighed and looked at him thoughtfully for a second before she suddenly remembered something. “Wait a minute? Why was Daniel at the resort? He said he was going to get a hold of Annie.”

“I guess he was trying to figure outhowto get a hold of her. He was talking to Maggie when I saw him. Did you not give him her phone number or anything?”

“No,” Lena replied sheepishly. “He was pretty mad at me, and I wanted to get rid of him so badly that when he stormed off I kind of just let it happen.”

“What happened?’

Lena sighed and tried to look anywhere other than Jake’s face hovering above hers. Even in the faded light, he was so close she could see him pretty clearly. This was so embarrassing, but it seemed like she was forever doomed to look like an idiot in front of him.Maybe I’m being punished for something I did in a past life, she pondered wistfully,I should just embrace it. She’d always wanted Jake to think that she was strong and capable, but it seemed she was always going to be acting a complete fool in front of him.

“He was angry with me from the start. I thought we were friends and we were doing this…friendlyactivity together. But he insinuated it was something more as early as the car ride this morning.”

Lena recalled the horrific smile that had frozen on her face when Daniel had reached across the center console of his car to put his hand on her leg.Since it was so bright and early in the morning and she was literally in the process of sipping her coffee in an effort to sharpen the patience and grace the world required from her, her reaction to this had quite possibly not accommodated his fragile ego as much as was required.

In fact, she had roughly and wordlessly grabbed his hand and dropped it a few inches away back on the center console. Daniel had been displeased, to say the least, of how his attention was received.

Finally meeting Jake’s eyes again and seeing the question in them, she groaned in acceptance. “Okay, he touched my leg and I…let him know it was unwelcome, which caused him to be a little upset with me.”

“I’m going to kick that guy’s ass,” Jake muttered with a curse, which caused Lena to issue a massive eye roll. That was pretty rich coming from the guy laying next to her in a sleeping bag in nothing but hisunderwear.

“No, you’re not.Okay? It was a misunderstanding and it’s over.And I’m never getting in a car with him again anyway.”

“Lena, it was more than a misunderstanding. He shouldn’t have put his hands on you.”

---