6

      Idon’t have anything else to compare you to. Caine had never heard so much hopelessness contained in simple truth. The tension left her body. Ah, hell.

      He slipped his hand under her head, the wealth of hair acting as a cushion between her skull and his palm, and dropped his forehead to hers. For sure he liked her better when she was fighting. This lack of passion left him fumbling for a way to restore it. His kept his whisper so low, the words didn’t drift farther than her ear. “I think I mentioned before, that’s your whole problem.”

      A stick popped in the fire. She jumped. He pulled her closer, the length of her feeling too fragile to him, the surrender in her body there for all the wrong reasons. He brushed his lips across her cheek. Her muscles grew tighter. “Easy, Gypsy.”

      She didn’t move, didn’t respond, just held herself there as if waiting for a death blow…which in her mind, maybe she was. He slid his hands between them, found the bunched mess of her skirts. A soft whimper broke past her lips. He tugged the skirt down as a second whimper joined the first. “It’s all right, Gypsy. No one’s going to hurt you.”

      Least of all him.

      The kiss he dropped on the corner of her mouth spurred the confession from her throat. Her knee drew up with the tension he could feel growing tighter and tighter. “I don’t like this.”

      “I know.” He ran his hand down her arm, under the bump of her elbow and back up. Resentment for the coat that kept his hand from her skin was his uppermost emotion until he got to her wrist. The flesh was cool. He circled the narrow joint and slid his fingers lower, meshing his fingers with hers. Her hand was like an icicle in his. “Jesus Christ.”

      She was freezing.

      “What?”

      “I’m not doing a very good job taking care of you.”

      He was so used to living on the trail, the discomfort of sleeping on the cold ground hadn’t even registered with him. He had the muscle and mass to withstand the cold, but there wasn’t anything to Desi. Just delicate flesh and fragile bone. Son of a bitch, no wonder she was freezing. He went to work on the remaining buttons on the coat, opening them with neat efficiency, ignoring the way she seemed to stop breathing as he did. When he had it open, he slid his hand inside. Where he expected to feel the warmth of her skin he found a coldness that alarmed him more. Building the fire wasn’t an option as it would draw attention and wouldn’t warm her nearly fast enough anyway, which only left one other option.

      “Hold on a minute.”

      He reached into his boot and drew his knife from its scabbard. The blade winked in the faint light. Her big eyes went round with horror as he said, “I’ll have you all taken care of in just a moment.”

      He slit the front of the poncho to make room.

      She frowned up at him. “What are you doing?”

      He turned the poncho around and put the knife back. She was cold and scared and almost out of fight, but she kept her head. A man had to admire that. She was something. “Making you a nest.” He held out his hand. “Kneel up.”

      She grimaced as she did and he felt like a heel for making her move at all. He steadied her the last two feet with a hand on her ribs just under her breasts. Christ, his hand about swallowed the widest part of her bone structure. Compared to him, there really was nothing to her.

      He lifted the poncho and dropped it over her head. A tug and her head popped through the opening. Her hands came up against his chest as he worked his fingers under her hair and lifted the mass free of the neck. She leaned forward as he got the last foot free and he decided he liked her like this, giving him her weight and the illusion of her trust. Someday, it would be for real.

      He glanced over his shoulder, shifted them a couple of inches to the left and then with only a “hold on” to warn her, hooked an arm under her buttocks and leaned back. Her short nails scraped his chest as he caught their combined weights on his elbow, and a quick glance determined her little gasps were from fear, not pain, as he took them down the last couple feet, not stopping until he was resting supine to the ground, his head supported by the leather saddle, her weight a welcome warmth atop him. Her head rested just above his breastbone, her legs falling naturally between his.

      “Better?” he asked.

      The shake of her head was immediate. “No.”

      He frowned. “You hurting anywhere?”

      “No, but I liked it better before.”

      “You were cold.”

      He said that as if it mattered. Desi lifted her hips as he yanked the coat out from under her, wincing as a button scraped her inner thigh. Tracker had fetched her a dress but with only one layer of petticoats, it wasn’t much protection from anything.

      Caine patted her back. “Sorry about that.”

      “What are you doing?”

      “Getting you comfortable.”

      On top of him? “You intend for me to sleep this way?”

      “You got a better plan?”

      “The ground was working just fine.”

      She could hear his hair swish across the leather as he shook his head. “The cold would sap the life from your bones.”

      “You’re on the ground.”

      “I’m a lot bigger with a lot more muscle to take the cold.” His hands slid up her thighs under the coat. “You’re just a little bit of a thing.”

      He was right about one thing. He was warm, very warm, and if his hands weren’t gathering up her skirts as she lay there, she might have been able to enjoy the heat radiating off him. “Why can’t you let this go?”

      “Because you’re afraid of what I’m going to do, which is loco, seeing as I’d cut off my arm rather than hurt you.”

      “So you intend…”

      She just couldn’t put into words what he intended to do. “I intend to let you experience my touch so you can stop dreading it.”

      “The others—”

      “can’t see a thing, which means they won’t have any idea anything is going on over here other than sleep unless you make a fuss.”

      The thought was little consolation. She pressed her face into his chest as his palms curled around her thighs with only the pantaloons to protect her modesty. He pulled and her thighs separated on either side of his thighs. She could feel his cock—hard and hotter than the rest of him—pressing up into her groin. She shifted to the side to relieve the pressure.