Page 29 of Stranded with the Surgeon
She had done precisely that for two days now. Another few minutes probably couldn’t hurt, and it seemed far less time than that when Guy stopped and put her gently onto her feet.
‘Hot pools,’ he said. ‘As good as a bath, I promise.’
He was pulling off his own clothes as he spoke, and Jennifer stared. Maybe it was the relief of being still being alive after such a harrowing experience, or maybe her brain had ceased to function in any normal fashion, but Guy suddenly seemed the most desirable man Jennifer had ever seen in her life.
He stripped down to boxer shorts and Jennifer wasn’t surprised to see the lines of hard muscle without a trace of fat on him anywhere. Then he dropped the shorts and Jennifer felt a hot wash of acute embarrassment. Not that Guy seemed to share it. He slid the jacket from her shoulders.
‘You may as well leave your undies on,’ he said calmly. ‘They’re soaked anyway. You can take them off when we’re back at the hut.’
He led her into one of several steaming pools and held her when her legs wobbled. He found a spot that allowed him to sit and hold her with the water level up to their necks.
‘Don’t let any of the water get up your nose,’ he warned. ‘New Zealand’s hot pools are notorious for causing amoebic meningitis.’
They stayed there long enough for the warmth to reach Jennifer’s core and for her brain to start taking a more active interest in her surroundings again.
Too active. She was sitting almost in a naked man’s lap. A man who was a loner by choice and despised the type of person he thought she was, but a physically extremely attractive man. Someone who had, undoubtedly, saved her life. More than once.
The force of the gratitude she had no way of adequately conveying remained with Jennifer as they made their way back to the hut. She stayed by the stove, wearing Guy’s leather jacket and nothing else while she waited for her clothing to dry and the baked beans and tinned casserole Guy was heating to be ready to eat.
The warmth from burning coal soon heated the whole interior of the small building, but neither of them wanted to move far from the source of the heat. Guy put mattresses from the bunks on the floor and they sat there to eat.
‘Feeling warmer?’
‘Yes, thanks.’ Jennifer tugged at the jacket, which was long enough to cover her decently but still left a rather long length of thigh exposed. ‘I’ll be glad when my clothes are dry.’
‘They’ll take a while yet. I’ll make us a cup of tea. Do you mind having it black?’
‘Hardly.’ Jennifer’s smile was wry. ‘I’m not sure that I’ll ever take having milk in hot drinks for granted ever again. Or even having hot drinks.’
‘There’s a lot of things you might not take for granted,’ Guy agreed quietly.
Jennifer nodded, her gaze catching his. ‘Like being alive,’ she murmured. ‘I have you to thank for that, Guy.’
‘You managed it by yourself,’ he countered.
‘I wouldn’t have without you pushing me. If I hadn’t been trying to prove I wasn’t some useless, soft townie, I would have given up before I even climbed onto that snow slope.’
‘You never know what you’re capable of until you really try. You’re not soft, Jenna. Not by a long shot. And you’re certainly not useless.’
‘I felt useless,’ Jenna whispered. ‘Waiting for Digger to die.’
Guy closed his eyes and Jennifer winced at having caused him pain. She reached out and touched his face, offering a touch instead of words because she knew that she could never find the right ones to convey the turmoil of emotions hanging between them.
He seemed to understand. He caught her hand and held it against the roughness of stubble on his cheek. Then he turned his head and she felt the contrast of the softness of lips as he pressed them against her palm.
* * *
Jennifer’s quick intake of breath made him glance up and catch her gaze again, and that was a big mistake. She looked like a child. Huge, blue, vulnerable eyes.
All the pain of loss, the determination to survive and the gratitude for his assistance were stamped clearly in the blue depths, and for a moment Guy was lost. It was an automatic gesture to take her into his arms, but he was running on more than instinct as he responded to her upturned face and covered her lips with his own. And suddenly making love seemed the only thing they could possibly do. An affirmation of life, maybe, that only they could share.
They had been through too much together to be considered strangers, but they would probably never see each other again when this was over, and that didn’t matter. With every touch they were confirming that something good still existed despite loss. That the effort to survive had been worthwhile.
Jennifer seemed as hungry for the physical release as Guy certainly was. They had a pocket of time in which they were still isolated from reality, and Jennifer exceeded the qualities of any partner Guy might have conjured up to provide a fantasy. Pale, soft skin felt like silk beneath his hands. Surprisingly full breasts tasted like honey and the faint musky scent of her arousal drew him irresistibly closer.
He wanted Jennifer more than he had ever wanted any woman, and yet he was able to go more slowly than he ever had before. To take care not to hurt her arm or her feet. To touch and taste and linger in wonderment at how poignant the sharp sensation of desire could be. And she was as generous a lover as he could have wished for.
She returned every touch and answered every incoherent murmur. She took over the lead every time he paused so that it became a kind of dance. A courtship ritual that would never lead beyond brief fulfilment – but that simply didn’t register as significant because they had just spent so many hours together taking each moment as it came.
