She truly was clueless up here. “No, I’m going to piss in the snow. Then I’m going to get non-pissed-in snow and fill the kettle with it so we can have drinkable water. Does that work for you?”
“You’re being condescending again.”
“You’re being thickheaded again.”
She glared at me and I glared back. Finally, I claimed victory again when she turned her back on me to stare at the fire.
“I’ll be back,” I told her.
“Don’t hurry on my account,” she said with her own drawl.
Yeah. Me. Olivia. Stuck in a cabin for what might be an extended amount of time.
Not good.
And we hadn’t even gotten to the sleeping arrangements yet.
4
Olivia
“I’m not getting in the sleeping bag with you. Just give me the blanket,” I told him again the second time he insisted.
We were standing on either side of the rolled-out sleeping bag, both of us with our hands on our hips in fighting mode.
Noah closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose.
“Okay,” he began. “I’m going to walk you through this rationally and logically. You’re an engineer. These things should appeal to you.”
“Condescending,” I pointed out again.
“The fire is going to die out eventually. The storm is not letting up. We need our combined body heat to keep us warm. This is basic survival.”
I hated that he was right. “I’ll stay up and keep the fire going.”
“You won’t. The cold will lull you into sleep. Now, I want you to consider the day I’ve had. I had to callyouin to get a second opinion. I had to deal with the fact I was taking you out to a rig that could have potentially exploded. Because you were right. Having two of us out there meant we could work faster. Still, I was responsible for putting you in danger. I then had to blow out my best producing well, and I don’t have any clue what started the problem in the first place. That’s pissing me off. There was my little walk through the ice bath, barefoot, with you on my back. While you dropped our only method of communicating with our team into the water. I’m tired. I need to keep my strength up to be able to handle these next few days, and I need you to cooperate with me.”
I sighed. “Fine.”
“Good.”
“I wasn’t trying to be unreasonable, I just thought we would be fine in separate beds.”
“Let’s be very clear about this. We’re not in a bed together. We’re surviving in a sleeping bag. That’s all we’re doing.”
Yep. That’s all we were doing. Surviving in a sleeping bag. Definitely NOT sleeping together.
“Maybe we should sleep end to end.”
“You liked my feet that much, did you?” he taunted me.
“Hey, I was trying to help you out back there. Your feet were really cold.”
“They were, and you did help. It was really selfless of you to give up your body to me that way.”
Ugh. Give up my body to him. Why was it that when he said anything like that, my head went to dark and dirty places?
I sat on the sleeping bag he’d unzipped fully. I had removed my boots and my coat to use as a pillow. He’d done the same. He laid down next to me and pulled the blanket over us. Then he pulled me closer against his chest.
