Risk It All

by Katie Ruggle

  Just staring at him was rekindling the heat inside her. “It’s safe—pregnancy-wise, I mean. And otherwise, at least in my case.” She waved a hand at her body, even as she mentally sighed at her not-very-smooth delivery. “If you’re okay…?”

  “I’m clear.” As if her words had flipped a switch, his need for her was burning in his eyes. “You’re sure? Even though I’ve brought you nothing but trouble?”

  “There’s nothing I want more,” she said completely honestly. Then a grin tugged at her mouth. “And you haven’t just brought me trouble. You also brought me an orgasm. Any chance of repeating that?”

  With a laughing growl that only Henry could pull off, he dove for her, flattening her to the bed in a way that reminded her of their play-wrestling the night before. Instead of tickling her, though, he kissed her everywhere, making her sigh and moan instead of laugh. The tension built inside her again, heat and pleasure rising until she was frantic for him.

  She urged his face back to hers, needing him too badly for his light caresses. When she kissed him, his intensity matched hers. All teasing disappeared, leaving only raw hunger. She clutched his shoulders, digging her fingertips into the unyielding muscles of his upper back, trying to pull him impossibly close. Any space between them was too much.

  When he slid into her, it was perfect, as if they were made to fit together. Her legs wrapped around his hips, pulling him even more tightly against her, and he groaned his pleasure against her mouth. All her worries fell away, and she didn’t think about all that was wrong with being with Henry. Her entire being was focused on what was truly, incredibly right.

  The feel of him, inside her body and out, was simultaneously stimulating and comforting, and she felt at that moment that she could spend the rest of her life connected to him. She’d never felt like this with anyone else, not even a hint of the almost desperate connection that attraction and danger and proximity had caused.

  He rocked into her again, and she arched, pleasure tightening her muscles and heating her skin. Her hands swept down his back, needing to feel as much of him as she could reach before he drove into her again. She clutched his shoulders, loving how broad and heavy and safe he felt, as if he were a wall protecting her from the rest of the world.

  His hips picked up speed, and she lost herself to the incredible sensations building and growing until it felt like her skin couldn’t contain that much pleasure. As she tipped over into another orgasm, she gasped his name, and his movements grew wilder, as if his ever-so-tight control had finally snapped.

  Even as she rode her climax, she opened her eyes to watch him come, not wanting to miss the moment when his impassive mask melted away completely, leaving only pleasure so intense it was almost painful to see.

  They rested together, chests heaving against each other as they caught their breath. Even as limp and wrung out as she was, Cara couldn’t stop touching him, running her fingertips over his corded wrist. As her breathing eased and her skin started to cool, Henry gathered her against him in a hug so encompassing and careful that her heart filled with affection and something even stronger. Unable to resist, she pressed her lips to his, trying to convey without words how tender and strong her feelings for him were. He kissed her back with gentle ferocity, their eyes meeting when they finally shifted away.

  “I hate to say it…” His voice was rough.

  “We need to go.” She finished what she knew he was going to say. “I know. Our timing sucks.”

  A smile flickered over his face and then disappeared. Although his impassive mask descended, this time it was different. She could still see the lingering warmth in his gaze as she reluctantly climbed out of bed. The floor was freezing on her bare feet, shocking her back to reality as she hurried over to the dresser. The previous evening, she’d thought that wearing someone else’s used socks was weird—even if they had been washed. This morning, she didn’t care about that. All she wanted was a barrier between the icy floor and her toes. Teetering on one foot and then the other, she yanked on a pair of thick woolen socks.

  “Wear layers today.” Henry’s voice was closer than she’d expected, making her jump and almost lose her balance. Placing her now-stockinged foot back on the floor, she nodded, but he was facing away from her, stretching. His corded arms reached up toward the ceiling as the muscles in his back stood out in defined relief. Cara suddenly found her mouth was dry, but she was unable to pull her gaze off him. He glanced over his shoulder, probably because he was still waiting for a verbal reply.

  “Right,” she hurried to say, dragging her gaze back to the open drawer. She couldn’t keep watching him without wanting an immediate repeat of what they’d just done, but Abbott wouldn’t wait for them to leave their cabin love-nest. She needed to get her head back in the game and be sensible. “Layers.”

  When she looked at him again, he was already halfway down the spiral stairs, with just his head and shoulders showing. “What time do you think it is?” She hated the feeling of not knowing, of not being able to just glance at her phone and see the numbers. Once they managed to get back to Langston, she vowed to never take her phone for granted again—and to never put it down. If she had to hang it around her neck on a chain, that’s what she’d do. If she’d picked up her phone before answering the door the night she was kidnapped, everything would’ve turned out differently.

  “About six.” He continued down the stairs, and Cara watched him, infatuated by the graceful way he moved and the heat and tenderness in his eyes when they landed on her. She waited for the top of his head to disappear before she shook herself out of her Henry haze and threw on a T-shirt. She slipped down the stairs after him and headed to the bathroom to clean up. Once she finished and opened the door, she immediately searched him out where he stood in the kitchen, his gaze locked on her. Even though she knew she was being ridiculous, she couldn’t tear her eyes away until she climbed the stairs again and he disappeared from view.

  Without the distraction of watching Henry, the cold air of the loft was much more noticeable, so she started adding layers. When she had on so many clothes that she felt like a well-stuffed sausage, she stripped the sheets off the bed and carried them downstairs. Henry was in front of the woodstove, messing with something in a pan.

  “That smells good,” she said as she headed to the bathroom, determined to act normal. The only response she got was a distracted grunt, which oddly made her smile. It was just so Henry. At the thought, she mentally caught herself. Don’t think that you know him, her practical side warned. Twenty-four hours on the run and one night in bed together are not a relationship. Even as stupid as she knew she was being, she couldn’t help but feel connected to him.

  Dropping the sheets on the floor, she was hit by a pang of guilt at the sight of their dirty laundry, and she wished there was a washer in the cabin. The thought made her give an amused snort. “Bathroom’s not enough for you now?” she asked herself under her breath. “Getting a little greedy, aren’t you?”

  “What?” Henry asked, glancing over his shoulder before quickly returning his attention to the pan.

  “Nothing. Just telling my inner princess to chill.” He gave her another look, but she just smiled and shrugged. “I wish we didn’t have to leave the very nice cabin owners a pile of dirty laundry.”

  His own shrug wasn’t at all concerned. “The cash’ll make it all better.” Wrapping a dish towel around the handle of the pan, he carried it to the kitchen counter where two plates were waiting. He dumped a huge pancake onto one of the plates. “Here. Eat.”

  She watched him return to the woodstove with the pan and a bowl of batter before turning to the beautifully browned pancake that covered the plate. “Did you actually cook on that thing? I’m impressed. I mean, heating soup is one thing, but how’d you even regulate the temperature to not char the outside and leave the inside raw?” There was a bottle of syrup—the fake, sugary kind that had a r
eassuring amount of preservatives in it—on the counter, and she spread it liberally over the pancake. Using a fork, she cut out a bite-size piece, realizing that she might have spoken too soon about the insides not being raw, but it was cooked and fluffy and perfect all the way through.

  “Dumb luck,” he said, making her laugh. She pressed her fist to her mouth to keep from sending chewed bits of pancake flying across the counter.

  “Well, your luck is on point today,” she said once she’d swallowed. “Which is a good thing, considering our situation.” The reminder made her stomach lurch, but she ignored her worries and shoved another bite of pancake in her mouth. She’d need all the fuel she could get before they headed out.

  He made a sound she took as agreement as he worked a spatula underneath the half-cooked pancake currently in the pan and flipped it with a competence she found strangely attractive. Shoving another bite in her mouth, she poured them each a glass of water as she glanced around the kitchen.

  “I don’t suppose you found any coffee?” she asked hopefully. When he shook his head, she sighed and took a long drink of water. “Oh well. That’s just my needy princess side again.”

  Since he was turning toward her, pan in hand, she saw the quick flash of his smile. He dumped the newly cooked pancake onto his plate and left the pan on one of the kitchen stove burners to cool. They finished their meal in silence, although it was surprisingly comfortable. After the kiss and the bed-sharing and the unconscious cuddling and then the very conscious and intense sex, she’d expected more awkwardness, but it was as if they’d settled into their own weird routine, in which they cooked and ate and ran from kidnappers and sometimes kissed and did…other things.

  The memory of that moment—well, several long moments—in bed with his head between her legs made her cheeks heat, and she ducked her face to hide it, concentrating on her last bite of pancake.

  “Something wrong?” he asked, because of course he noticed the exact thing that she wished he wouldn’t see.

  “No.” She grimaced when the word came out too quickly to be believable. “Except for, you know, everything outside this cabin.” Waving her empty fork in a circle above her head, she indicated the mountains around them. As beautiful as the wilderness was, she couldn’t forget that they were being pursued by potentially murderous thugs.

  As if he’d needed the reminder as well, his mouth hardened, and he reached toward her empty plate.

  “Nope.” She snatched up her plate before he could take it and then reached for his, catching it at the same time he did. They both held on in a polite sort of tug-of-war. “You cooked, so I clean up.” When he didn’t yield, she gave a little tug and added, “Besides, you’ll know better than I do what would be useful to bring with us.”

  At that, he released the plate, and she took the dishes to the sink. As she washed, he prowled the cabin, creating a pile of supplies on the table. Steam rose from the hot water filling the sink as Cara scrubbed a plate and watched him dig through the closet by the front door. She couldn’t seem to get enough of watching him, and she was pretty sure the feeling was mutual, judging by the way his gaze kept returning to her. The scene felt strangely cozy, and she hurried to say something to break the too-comfortable silence before she was overwhelmed with warm and ill-timed thoughts.

  “I don’t suppose there’s a backpack somewhere in here?” She refocused on the sink so she could rinse the plate without dropping it. “That’d be useful to carry all of the supplies.”

  “Not really.” There was an odd note in his voice that made her turn to look at him. Henry held up a dark-green pack by one strap.

  “What is that?” Cara felt her eyebrows draw together as she turned her head to the side to get a better look. When she realized what he was holding, she started to laugh. “A fanny pack?”

  Making a wordless sound that managed to convey all of his disgust, he returned it to the closet.

  “Oh no,” she said, still trying to control her amusement. “You need to wear that. I need to be the only person in the universe who has seen wild and dangerous Henry Kavenski wearing a fanny pack.” Just saying the words made her crack up again.

  “No. My pockets will hold more than that thing.” The gleam in his eyes made Cara stop laughing. She didn’t trust that wicked look of his. “You should wear it.”

  “Nope.” She held up her wet, soapy hands as if to ward off the pack. “You know I’m already going to be the anchor around your albatross’s neck. You don’t want to be weighing me down any more.”

  He blinked, still looking more amused than she felt comfortable with. “Anchor around my albatross? I don’t think that’s the saying.”

  Waving a hand in dismissal, she turned back to the sink and drained the water. “The albatross thing never made any sense to me. They’re birds. They can fly. Why would they hold you back? An anchor, now, that makes sense. That would definitely slow a bird down.”

  She heard his snort behind her but focused on wiping the cast-iron pan. When that was done, she cleaned the rest of the kitchen and then moved to scrubbing the bathroom. By the time she came out, Henry had extinguished the fire in the woodstove and was sweeping the floors. The pile of supplies was gone except for their two water bottles, but the fanny pack was nowhere in sight, so Cara assumed that he’d managed to get everything to fit in his pockets after all.

  “Put those on,” he said, pointing toward a pile of clothes next to the closet.

  “I don’t know if I’ll be able to move if I add even one more layer.” Despite her words, she stepped into the bright-pink insulated coveralls. They were slightly long and baggy on her, but, like all of the other clothes she’d borrowed—well, taken—they’d work until she had access to her own closet again. The boots were especially welcome after her trek in Henry’s coat sleeves the day before.

  “Will these fit in your pockets?” he asked, holding out the water bottles. She tried, skeptical that they’d be deep enough. To her surprise, the bottles slid right in, with only the caps poking out of her side pockets. She pulled on a hat and gloves that he’d set out for her, and then waited for him to do a final sweep of the cabin. In all her heavy layers, she was warm enough that sweat made her scalp prickle. When he placed some bills on the counter, she pulled off her gloves and hurried over to write a quick note on a paper towel with a pen she’d found in a catch-all drawer. She hesitated, trying to think of what information to reveal and what to keep hidden. Finally, she decided to just keep it short and sweet.

  Thank you, cabin owners! Your place saved our lives during a snowstorm.

  Best wishes from two lost hikers

  As she set the note by the cash, she noticed that the bills were all large and there were several of them. It would more than cover the clothes, food, and other items they’d taken, with enough left over to have the place professionally cleaned. She slid a sideways look at Henry as he pulled on a pair of borrowed gloves, torn between approving his generosity and suspicion about why he was carrying so much cash and how he’d gotten it.

  “Is that money from the envelope of cash Layla gave you at the bus stop?”

  His head whipped around as he fixed her with a sharp stare. “How’d you know she gave me cash?”

  Cara couldn’t keep her smugness from showing. “I didn’t…until now.”

  The corner of his mouth twitched, but she didn’t know if it was from irritation or amusement. “No, that money isn’t from Layla.” He waved her toward the door, his expression set in a way that made it clear she wasn’t going to get any more information out of him. Making a mental vow to press him for more details later, she hurried out of the cabin.

  As she stepped outside, Cara turned and gave the interior a final glance. As much as the first cabin had been a place of budding nightmares, this one had been a welcoming safe haven, the place where she and Henry had kissed for the first time. It had given them an escape
from the storm, and she knew she’d always remember it fondly, as she would a treasured vacation spot. Knowing what dangers lurked outside its walls, she was sorry to leave the cozy little place. She’d definitely miss the bathroom.

  Henry shifted his weight, and she took the hint, closing the locked cabin door behind them just as the sharp crack of a gunshot echoed through the trees.

  Chapter 15

  Cara ducked automatically as shards of wood and bark exploded from the aspen tree a few feet from her. Henry grabbed her arm and yanked her toward him. Wrapping an arm around her shoulders, he hustled her along the path toward the trees. Hunched over, Cara ran, trying to keep up with Henry’s longer legs.

  Another shot rang out as they reached the tree line. Pulling her behind him, he took cover behind a pine and crouched. She followed him down, huddling as close to the ground as she could, hoping to present the smallest target possible. A loud blast made her jerk back. Only then did she realize that Henry had a pistol in his hand and was returning fire.

  Clamping her hands over her ears, she moved as close to his back as possible. As much as she didn’t want to be in the line of fire, she hated that he was using his body to protect her. The thought of him getting shot made her jerk in horrified reaction. He must have felt it, since he reached behind him to pat the side of her leg in reassurance.

  Resisting the urge to grab that hand and squeeze it tightly, she stayed still, not wanting to distract him or throw off his aim. There was a pause in the shooting, and the silence that fell over them was so deep it made Cara uneasy.

  Henry picked up something off the ground and held it back behind him, offering it to her. Confused, she accepted the rock with shaking fingers, not sure what he wanted until he made a throwing motion. Comprehension dawned, and she rose slightly to steady her base of support. Using every ounce of skill she’d honed during four years of high-school softball, she chucked the rock as far as she could throw it.