Uncharted by Adriana Anders

Chapter 28

Leo couldn’t count all the ways she’d been tired. There’d been studying for college courses tired and boot camp tired, there’d been survival training, drag your ass through cold rivers just to pass tired, and the electric exhaustion of a long flight over water, refueling in the air. She couldn’t bring herself to dwell on the desolate, lonely, sleepless hours right after Mom died. And the more recent time spent at Dad’s bedside. Tired because a few ill-timed seconds of shut-eye could mean never seeing him again.

Then there’d been the hypervigilant exhaustion of almost dying, dodging bullets for hours, doing her damnedest to keep an unseen enemy at bay from the relative safety of her grounded helo. In that case, the only thing between her and death had been her quick reflexes and three Navy SEALs. The bravest men she’d ever met.

And now this unplanned journey. The run over breaking ice, plowing straight into briars, collapsing on the ground with this man… The damn bear. She’d thought that was the worst this would get.

Wrong again, Eddowes.

Visibility was down to nothing, the path they trod so steep, every step was a risk they shouldn’t be taking.

But every time she considered yelling up at Elias and demanding they stop for the night, she was met with the sight of his big, broad back, hunched against the winds, soaking from the weather, but still stalking inexorably on. And if he could do it, well then, so could she.

I like him.

With frightening suddenness, her foot slipped out from under her and she was down, her knees and palms and head all ringing from the abrupt contact with solid earth.

She tried to get up and slid, not from the slime, but because she was literally knee deep in a rushing brook. Had this been here a minute ago?

Her eyes couldn’t focus on a single part of the slope, but when she leaned her head back and took in their surroundings, it was all rushing brook.

More like waterfall.

Another failed attempt at rising sent her facedown in the stuff. And now she was terrified. There hadn’t been a river here seconds ago. Was this runoff from the mountain?

It was pouring down and when she looked ahead, there was nothing to see. Back was the same thing, just a screen of rushing water and night, finally laying its dark curtain upon them.

She pushed up onto all fours, shaking, scrabbled at the slippery stones, and got a handhold on something that didn’t roll down the hill.

“Not far,” he’d told her a little ways back, and she’d believed him. So, rather than lie there, the way her body demanded, or try to get up again, which was futile at this point, she forged ahead at a crawl, climbing in the steep places, pulling herself up over ledges, helping Elias with the dog when Bo needed a boost.

Not far.

One tiny handhold in the stone, two fingers in, pull up.

For what felt like ages but was likely just a millisecond, she teetered on the edge, her body undecided—could her muscles power her up or would gravity take over?

Her muscles failed; she lost purchase, slithering down those few last hard-won feet. As her body grappled, she stretched, reaching so hard she could have sworn her bones cracked, fingers, toes, elbows, every part of her was in the fight, trying their damnedest to hold on to something—anything.

And then she stopped, with a bone-jarring abruptness, one wrist caught in a viselike grip. The rest of her dangled above nothing but air.

***

Elias was on the ground, bent over the side of the mountain, holding Leo up with one hand. His feet, which had found a crack in the rock, were his anchor.

Their anchor.

“Other hand, Leo.” Frigid water flowed around him, over him, pummeling her, trying its best to end them like everything else in this place.

She threw her head back, took a face full of the stuff, and swung it down again. “Can’t.”

“Find a foothold. Push up.”

He felt more than saw her breathe, as if their joined hands were plugged into each other, bringing their vitals together—pulses and air, shared from contact.

In that place that would decide if she lived or died.

“Find one?”

She didn’t have to shake her head for him to feel the answer.

“On the right, put your foot out. Bend your leg.”

She did it, her toes reaching for that elusive place, while the deluge tried to drown them.

There was a moment when he thought she’d slip again—was worried she wouldn’t make it—and he decided right then he’d rather go with her than be left here alone.

Muttering obscenities, he pulled one foot from its slot to get that extra inch, giving himself to the mountain in a way he’d never dared before. If he could swing her, maybe. Or get her under the arms…

Without both legs mooring him to the top, his body shifted, his efforts more about balance now than security. Stretching his reach with his left hand, he felt the bandages at his side give, the wound open up, the pain providing extra propulsion in a way he couldn’t begin to understand.

He dipped lower, slid his hand under her arm, and, with a roar that tore open the night, swung up and back.

There was nothing for a few seconds. No sound, no pummeling waterfall, no death or fear or plummeting to the ground.

And then, with a whoosh, he was back in his body, Leo tight in his arms, trembling on the edge of a cliff.

He ripped off his glove and slid a hand around her neck, covering her pulse.

Alive. Cold and hot and whole.

She lifted her head, and though he couldn’t make out her features, her breath pelted his throat, the rhythmic press of her breasts to his chest, the wet coil of her arms winding around his neck. He dipped when she tugged, wrapped himself around her sopping body, and held as tight as he could.

They sagged into each other, shiny and wet and shuddering. Vibrating with the thrill of breathing for another short while. He planted one hand on her ass, tight, demanding. The other held her still by the nape.

“I do like you, Elias. I like you a hell of a lot,” she whispered, the sound harsher than anything she’d ever let out, like she’d lost her voice on that cliff. “Please kiss me.”

He strained up—to hell with the wound and the weather and the world trying to kill them—and drank from her lips. Gulped, consumed. Her mouth was cool against his, her lips demanding, and her tongue when it touched him was a brand.

A tiny, barely cognizant part of his brain knew this wasn’t real—this was danger pushing them together. Nature trying to make them mate or some shit like that. Bear attacks as aphrodisiac. Adrenaline like a drug, screaming, Hell, why not? You’re not gonna make it anyway.

They rolled away from the unsheltered edge, through the actual waterfall, and into the recess behind it. It was suddenly staggeringly quiet and close, the water like a wall separating them from reality, the air in here still except for the cyclone of their mingled breaths. When she wound up on top again, he cupped both ass cheeks in his hands, reveled in the tight squeeze of her thighs around his waist.

This was ridiculous. They couldn’t screw here, in what was barely a pocket at the top of the mountain. They’d die if they didn’t get dry and warm. Now.

Although there was something poetically right about being wet with her again—a strange bookend to the longest few days in history. Completing a cycle.

As if on cue, the wind howled, picking up the snowmelt and blowing it over them with the force of a million little fists, while she straddled him like something from his dreams.

She’d get up now, out of self-preservation. They both would.

He tightened his hold on her butt and then with a strange, belly-deep fear, reached for her wrists, wrapped them with his hands, held them as if her life depended on it. Her curves plastered to his front, her mouth hungry against his, her hands caught in the circle of his.

Alive!He felt the thrill through every pore, every nerve, every cell in his body.

Alive!She responded, her legs and arms and lips an embrace.

Alive!Not so high above them, lightning flashed, and seconds later the ground shook, as if even the sky had to show a sign of agreement.

“This is stupid,” he muttered against her.

She nodded, gasped, the sound uncharacteristically shaky, and rubbed her cheek into his.

“Need to get warm.”

Her “yeah” was a whisper, barely audible with the wind chiming in. “Dry first. Dry. Warm.” She ground against him, scalding in that place where their bodies met.

He could only grunt in response, pulling her tight to where he was hard and needy and hot enough to warm them both. “Yeah.”

Water dripped from her face onto his, into his mouth and eyes. He closed them and held her for a few terrible moments, where he actually considered being idiots to death.

“This…” He swallowed. “You feel so good.” He didn’t want her to move, but if she didn’t get up, they’d be caught here in this sexy, stupid brush with mortality. “Just want to keep kissing you. Touching you. Can’t stop.”

“Same. I’ve known you, what? Four days? Or five?” She rubbed her nose to his. Hers was an ice cube.

“Four.”

“Four days.” Shuddering hard, she spoke into his ear. “We’ve got to stop meeting this way, Elias Thorne.”

All he could do was laugh.