5. Evie
“How about: My Sleepover with a Wild Man?”
Rowan grunts from where he’s sprawled on the brown pelt. His bare chest is tan in the firelight, but he’s sharper somehow without all the dirt and dust. Like he’s come into focus since his dunk under the waterfall. “Veto.”
Damn.
“Okay, okay. Um… Late Night Cave Confessions?”
Rowan scoffs, craning his neck to give me a look. When his piercing gray eyes find me in the gloom, shivers race down my limbs, and I bite my lip, huddling deeper into the mound of blankets on his cot. My body’s been all weird and squirmy ever since we both stripped and bathed in this same small cave, but I’m trying to hide that fact.
“That’s even worse,” he says.
I didn’t get a peek at Rowan naked or anything—not that I tried.
But that doesn’t mean I’m not dying of curiosity.
“Stranded with a Cryptid?”
“No.”
We’ve been at this since we finished dinner—a simple savory stew of meat and vegetables that somehow tasted better than any restaurant meal I’ve had in my life—and I’m starting to think I’ll never find an angle for my article that Rowan likes. Still, he seems happy enough to keep chatting as night deepens, with one arm pillowed beneath his head. His arm muscles bulge, one ankle is propped on his bent knee, and his dark hair sprawls across the pelt.
He put those jeans back on after his makeshift shower. They’re not especially tight, but even so, my gaze keeps flitting to all the places where the denim hugs his body. If Rowan’s upper half is anything to go by, his legs must be strong and toned too.
The fire pops, its golden light licking over his bare skin.
“Evie?”
I swallow hard, my throat suddenly so dry. When I drag my gaze back up to his face, Rowan watches me steadily.
“Hm?”
“I said you should get some rest before your hike down tomorrow.” My stomach sinks, but he keeps talking. “Going down is harder on your joints than coming up. Your body needs sleep to heal after your fall.”
Yeah, yeah. I know he’s right, but… bleurgh.
Can’t Rowan at least pretend that he’s not counting down the seconds until I leave? I haven’t even thought about the future once since setting foot in this cave, not really, and here he is already making plans to say goodbye.
Will he miss me at all? Will he think of me ever?
“Are you warm enough?” Rowan sits up, like he’s going to give me his pelt too. The last warm thing in this whole cave—he’ll pile it on me and then freeze to death at my feet. The end of a noble cryptid.
“I’m fine,” I lie.
Because no, I do not want to steal this man’s pelt, and yes, the hot bath chased away my shivers for a while. But the fact remains that this is a cold, stony cave with a breeze whistling through, and I am a spoiled city girl who’s used to central heating and fluffy bed socks. Even bundled up in scratchy wool blankets and re-dressed in my stinky clothes, the chill is settling into my bones.
“Tell me if you get cold,” Rowan orders. The ring of authority in his voice sounds so natural. Like he was once a man used to being in charge. “I’ll build the fire bigger.”
If he adds another single log to the beast of a fire that he’s built, the flames will scorch the ceiling.
“I’m fine,” I insist. “Seriously, I’m toasty warm. Night, Wild Man.”
Rowan settles back down on the pelt, watching me through narrowed eyes. I roll over on his cot and fiddle with the blankets until my breathing slows.
* * *
Cold.
So cold.
I wake up shuddering, my whole body vibrating on the cot. Icy needles prick my bones, and my fingers and toes are numb. My teeth clack together, chattering nonstop like some windup toy.
It’s dark in the cave, the candles snuffed out on their makeshift shelves. The only light comes from the fire, shrunk to a third of its earlier size as it gnaws on the last few charred logs. White ash fills the bottom of the fire pit.
My eyes take in these details, cataloging my surroundings, but it takes my brain way longer to catch up with what I’m seeing. A cave. An actual, honest-to-god cave, complete with a weirdly handsome wild man sprawled on a brown pelt on the floor.
Rowan, my sludgy thoughts finally provide. His name is Rowan. He’s the Wild Man of Starlight Ridge, and he saved me after a fall on the mountain yesterday; carried me here to his secret home where he fed and cared for me.
I mean, if this is all just a vivid dream… 10/10. Would dream again.
Burying deeper into the blankets, I stifle a groan. It’s no use. I’m chilled to the marrow.
“Rowan,” I hiss, reluctant to wake him despite calling his name. “Rowan.”
Forget not wanting to be any trouble; forget not demanding extra heat like a spoiled princess. If I don’t warm up soon, I’ll leave Rowan with a few frostbitten toes to remember me by.
My host makes a low noise in the back of his throat, turning his head toward the sound of his name. He’s half-wrapped in the pelt now, the brown fur twisted around his body like a fluffy taco shell, but he’s still bare-chested beneath. One nipple is exposed to the air, pebbled and hard, and the skin on his chest and arms is goose-pimpled.
The madman.
Who lives like this by choice? Who chooses to freeze every night in a mountain cave when hot running water and central heating exist?
My limbs are stiff as I push upright, gathering up my blankets in shaking hands. Screw this.
“You asked for it,” I mutter, shuffling across the lumpy stone floor. When I stub my numb toe I barely feel it, cursing in the gloom, and I’m cranky as hell by the time I reach Rowan and his pelt.
He’s so handsome down there in the soft firelight, even with that overgrown beard, and he’s frowning as he sleeps—like drifting off to slumber took him real effort.
Too bad.
“Wakey wakey, sleeping beauty.” I crash to my knees at Rowan’s side, too cold to be graceful. “Human popsicle incoming.”
Gray eyes fly open, piercing me in the firelight. His frown deepens, and Rowan shakes his head slightly, like he’s brushing off the cobwebs of his dreams. “Evie? What—?”
“You said to tell you if I got cold.”
Rowan jerks upright, snapping into action, and grabs my hand from the tangle of blankets. He curses when he finds my icy fingers, then shoves his brown pelt down so that it slaps against the stone floor.
“Lie on that. Wait—” He drags it closer to the fire. “Okay, lie there.”
The wind moans outside the cave as Rowan strides to his wood stash, snatching up chopped logs. Watching him rebuild the fire is like watching a master at work—all flawless efficiency, despite his tired eyes. He knows exactly how to position each log to make the flames catch, exactly how to stoke the ashy remains to coax out a few sparks, and only a few minutes pass before the fire crackles merrily, warming the air once more.
The pelt is so close to the fire pit, it’s almost too hot—but a groan of pleasure escapes my lips, and I hold up my frozen hands to help them thaw. Lying on one side like this, the whole cave seems tilted.
“You should have said sooner.” Rowan sounds pissed as he stomps around, setting a stash of wood beside us then rounding the back of the pelt. My mouth forms a surprised ‘O’ when he lies down behind me. A strong arm reaches around my waist, yanking our bodies close together, and there’s an answering tug low in my belly. “Why did you let it get this bad?”
“Because I was asleep, you donut. It’s not like I had much choice.”
His breath ruffles the hair by my ear. “But you could have said something earlier. Before we said goodnight.”
That’s true. A large part of me knew I was in for a cold night earlier, but I never suspected it would get this bad. How could I have known?
It’s not like I’m experienced in the wilderness, with a prior track record of sleeping in caves. Not like I knew how cold it would get, and how the stone walls and floor would make things worse, and that toughing it out until morning wasn’t an option.
I was trying to be brave, damn it. Self-sufficient. No trouble.
Instead I’m being spooned by the fire by a grumpy mountain man. He even digs through the blankets and tosses them over both our bodies, before sealing my back against his bare chest.
His naked, warm chest.
My eyelids flutter, and I press back against him instinctively. Even my hips give a little wiggle, coaxing him closer without input from my brain.
“Better?” Rowan asks. He sounds hoarse.
I pull a face at the fire, but… this is better. Way better. My limbs are thawing already, pins and needles prickling through my toes as they come back to life, and with Rowan’s heat pressed against my back, the shivers are finally subsiding.
“Your teeth have stopped chattering,” he notes after five minutes or so.
“Yeah. I can’t believe you sleep bare chested.” Somehow in the last few minutes, our fingers have tangled together, and now I stroke his squared knuckle with my thumb. “Is it a man thing? Like you’re proving how manly you are by surviving the elements?”
A long-suffering exhale tickles my neck. “I run hot, that’s all. Don’t overthink it, Evie.”
Overthink it? Ha! It’s hard to think at all with the wall of hot muscle sealed against my body. When I focus I can feel individual abs back there.
“This is all going in my article, obviously.”
Rowan nips my shoulder in response, and the shock makes me yelp and press back harder against his groin. And… yep. There’s no denying it. No mistaking what I feel, especially now my ass isn’t numb from the cold.
The Wild Man of Starlight Ridge is aroused. No, not just aroused—he’s harder than granite back there. His rigid length presses against the front of his jeans, digging into my left butt cheek, and if I bite my lip any harder, I’ll draw blood.
Don’t rub on it.
Don’t beg for his touch.
For once in your life, be cool.
“It’s a natural biological reaction,” Rowan mutters, and he sounds embarrassed, but he doesn’t loosen his hold on me. “Don’t read into it. And don’t worry, I won’t try to… I’m not going to…”
“I know.” My cheeks burn hot as I pat his hand, and I’m not sure whether that’s from the roaring fire or the needy ache swirling in my belly. “You’re in your monk phase. I get it.”
His sigh gusts my hair across my cheek. I lift our tangled hands and tuck it behind my ear with a secret smile.
“Go to sleep,” Rowan mutters, curving tighter around me on the pelt. And despite the lumpy ground beneath us, despite the faint ache in my ankle and the weird sensations of my body flashing from freezing cold to sweaty-hot, despite the drum of the waterfall and the distant mournful howls echoing across the mountain range… I do.
The last thing I feel before sleep tugs me under is a tickly, bearded mouth brushing the skin beneath my ear.