Chapter Fifteen
ARIS
We had done the camp wash an hour before—Nash's field wipes, two each, set out on the gear crate without comment the same way he sets out two mugs of coffee.
The routine is his. I have adopted it gratefully.
The air in the tent is charged, and the repaired antenna we shoved to the corner has nothing to do with it.
The man sitting cross-legged on the sleeping bag does.
My hand is still on his face. The rough stubble of his jaw is against my palm. Heat radiates from his skin. His pulse is steady and heavy beneath my thumb.
We've spent two weeks dancing around this.
Two weeks of "friends," of shared chores, of carefully averted eyes and accidental touches that felt like burns.
We've survived storms, starving herds, wolf encounters, and near-drowning, and built a world out of snow and silence where the only laws are physics and survival.
And Nash Hollister is one of the variables I no longer pretend I can solve for.
"Aris," he says again, his voice a low rumble that vibrates through my fingertips. "If we do this …"
"I know," I whisper. "If we do this, we can't go back."
"We can't undo it," he warns. His hazel eyes are dark, dilated, searching my face for any sign of hesitation. "I can't be your guide tomorrow if I'm your lover tonight. The lines get erased. The professional distance … it's gone."
"The lines were already erased," I say, trembling but sure. "They were erased when you pulled me out of the river. They were erased when you held me in the snow while I cried over a piece of aluminum."
I slide my hand into the hair at the nape of his neck, the strands soft against my fingers. "I don't want lines anymore, Nash. I'm tired of lines. I just want you."
Nash makes a sound, half groan, half surrender, and the last of his restraint snaps.
He moves for me like something in him just broke loose, his hands tangling in my hair as he pulls me to him. His mouth crashes onto mine, not gentle, not tentative, but starving. It's a kiss that tastes of relief and adrenaline, of weeks of suppressed hunger finally allowed to feed.
I gasp against his lips, opening to him, and he deepens the kiss, his tongue sweeping into my mouth with a possession that makes my toes curl.
There's no grace in it at first. We're clumsy with urgency, bumping against the low ceiling of the tent, knocking over the spool of baling wire.
It doesn't matter. Nothing matters but the heat of his body against mine and the way his hands are moving over me like he's trying to memorize my shape through the layers of wool and fleece.
He breaks the kiss to breathe, pressing his forehead against mine. His breath is ragged, his eyes squeezed shut, his hands gripping my shoulders hard enough to bruise, but I welcome the pressure. It feels like an anchor.
"God, Aris," he rasps. "I have wanted to do that since the moment you walked into the lodge in those city boots and looked at me like I was a bug."
I laugh, a breathless, choked sound. "I thought you were an arrogant jerk."
"I was," he admits, kissing my nose, my eyelids, my jaw. "I am. But right now I don't care about anything except this."
The words hit me harder than the kiss.
"Neither do I," I whisper back.
He pulls back slightly, his hands framing my face.
The lantern light casts shadows across his features, catching the sharp angles of his cheekbones and the intensity in his gaze.
"Are you sure? You're vulnerable right now.
You're scared, you're exhausted … I don't want you to wake up tomorrow and regret this. "
"I have never been more sure of anything," I say. "Not the data. Not the grant. Just this."
I reach for the hem of his thermal shirt. "Take it off."
Nash doesn't hesitate. He pulls the shirt over his head, tossing it into the corner of the tent.
I stop for a second, just looking at him. I've seen him shirtless before, glimpses while changing, moments by the fire, but this is different. This is permission.
His chest is a map of his life, broad, defined by hard labor, and marked by the wilderness. A faded white line on his shoulder. A darker jagged mark on his ribs. Stories I don't yet know. He wears his survival on his skin, utterly different from the soft, polished men I date in Seattle.
I reach out, tracing the scar on his ribs with my fingertips. He sucks in a sharp breath at the contact.
"You're beautiful," I whisper against his skin.
"I'm battered," he corrects, rough. "I've got too many miles on me."
"You have history," I say, pressing a kiss to the center of his chest, right over his heart. I feel it knocking against my lips, quick and hard. "And you're about to freeze if you don't come here."
He lets out a low laugh and reaches for me, his hands steady and sure as he helps me out of the oversized wool shirt I've been wearing. The cold air of the tent bites at my skin, a sharp reminder of the hostile world outside, before he pulls me against him, skin to skin, heat to heat.
The sensation is overwhelming. After weeks of layers, of barriers, the contact is electric. I wrap my arms around his neck, pressing myself against him, seeking heat, seeking him.
Nash groans, lowering us back onto the sleeping bags. He hovers over me, bracing his weight on his forearms, creating a canopy of warmth and muscle. He looks down at me with a reverence that makes my throat tight.
"Aris," he whispers, like the word costs him something.
He kisses me again, slower this time, savoring. His hands move over my body, learning me. He touches me not like a scientist observing a specimen, but like a man discovering a miracle. His calloused palms against my soft skin create a friction that sends sparks racing along my nerves.
My hands explore him in return, learning the topography of his back, the tension in his shoulders. He is so solid. So real. He is here, now, undeniable.
When his hand slides down to my waist, to the band of my thermal leggings, he pauses, asking a silent question.
"Yes," I breathe, lifting my hips. "Yes."
We shed the rest of our clothes in a tangle of limbs and urgency. The cold air is forgotten, banished by the furnace of our bodies.
When he finally settles between my legs, the weight of him is grounding, perfect. I look up at him, at the face I've grown to trust more than my own instincts, and my eyes sting.
"Nash," I whisper.
He looks at me, his eyes dark with passion and protectiveness. "Stay with me, Aris. Stay right here."
He enters me slowly, watching my face, giving me time to adjust to him. It feels impossibly full, impossibly right. A gasp tears from my throat, and my hips arch instinctively to meet him.
"That's it," he growls, his control fraying. "God, that's it."
He begins to move, and the world narrows down to this rhythm. The tent, the snow, the wolves, the broken antenna, it all fades into white noise. There is only Nash. There is only the slide of skin on skin, the catch of his breath, the friction, the heat.
It's not gentle lovemaking. It can't be.
We are two people existing on the edge of survival, and we come together with the desperation of people who know that tomorrow isn't promised.
I claw at his back, needing him closer, deeper.
He grips my hips, driving into me with a primal force that shakes me to my core.
"Aris." He says my name like a chant, like a tether.
The tension coils tight in my belly, a spring winding up. I wrap my legs around him, pulling him down, needing his weight, his sweat, his everything. I am drowning in him, and for once in my life, I don't want to be rescued.
"Let go," he whispers against my ear, his voice ragged. "I've got you. Let go."
And I do.
I shatter. The release hits me like a rogue wave, dragging a cry from my throat that echoes in the small space. I cling to Nash as the pleasure rolls through me, terrifying and beautiful, stripping away the last of my defenses.
He follows me seconds later, groaning my name as he finds his own release, his body shuddering against mine.
We collapse together, limbs heavy, both of us breathing hard. Nash rolls his weight to the side but keeps me pulled tight against him, pulling the sleeping bag up to cover us.
The silence returns to the tent, but it's different now, heavy and sated, the tense waiting of the last two weeks gone out of it. The air smells of sex and musk and us.
I lay my head on his chest, listening to his heart slow down. My own body feels heavy, liquid, completely undone.
For a long time, neither of us speaks. There are no words for what just happened. To call it "sex" feels inadequate. To call it "making love" feels too domestic for the raw, elemental thing we just shared.
Nash's hand moves up and down my arm, a rhythmic, soothing touch. He presses a kiss to the top of my head.
"Well," he says, his voice vibrating in his chest. "We definitely crossed the line."
I trace the scar on his chest with my finger, following the jagged curve. "Do you regret it?"
He tightens his arm around me. "Not for a second. You?"
"No." I close my eyes, savoring the warmth. "But you were right."
"About what?"
"The lines. They're gone. I can't look at you as my guide anymore. I can't look at you as … as just Nash."
"What am I then?"
I look up at him. His hair is messy, his lips are swollen, and he looks at me with an openness that steals my breath.
"You're a man I could love," I whisper.
The words slip out before I can stop them. They hang in the air, terrifying and true.
Nash goes still. For a second, I panic. I've gone too fast. I've pushed too hard.
Then his expression softens, melting into something that looks like wonder.
"I tried so hard not to," he says quietly. "I told myself you were a client. I told myself you were leaving. I told myself we were too different."
He brushes a strand of hair off my forehead. "But I think I was falling for you from the moment you lectured me about the meat in that stew."
Tears prick my eyes again. "That was my worst moment."
"It was honest," he says. "You were fighting for what you believed in. Even if you were wrong."
I laugh, a watery sound. "I was so wrong."
"And now?"
"Now I don't know what happens," I admit, the anxiety creeping back in. "The mission … the wolves … Seattle …"
Nash shifts, propping himself up on one elbow so he can look down at me. "Seattle feels like a different planet right now."
"It is," I say. "It's coffee shops and faculty meetings and traffic. It's my entire life, Nash. Everything I've worked for."
"Does this …" He gestures between us. "Does this fit in Seattle?"
The question hangs there. Does Nash Hollister, a man who tracks wolves and builds cabins, fit into my life of symposiums and grant committees?
"I don't know," I say honestly. "But I know that Seattle doesn't have this. It doesn't have … the quiet. It doesn't have you."
Nash traces my lip with his thumb. "My granddad used to say that you can't be in two places at once. If you try, you just end up tearing yourself in half."
"Is that what we're doing?" I ask. "Setting ourselves up to be torn in half?"
"Maybe," he says. "Or maybe we're building a bridge. Bridges are hard to build, Aris. They take a lot of work. But they get you across the river."
He leans down and kisses me softly. "We fixed the antenna today. We figured out the impossible. Maybe we can figure this out too."
"We fixed the antenna," I agree, my mouth curving against his shoulder.
"Tomorrow," Nash says, "we deal with the rest. We get the collar off Waldo. We deal with the pack. But right now …"
He pulls the sleeping bag tighter around us, cocooning us in our own private world.
"Right now," he whispers against my mouth, "you need to sleep. And I need to hold you."
I settle back against him, fitting my body to his like we were made for this. The fear of the future is still there, lurking at the edges of my mind—the grant, the wolves, the inevitable goodbye at the floatplane dock.
But as I drift toward sleep, wrapped in Nash's arms, I know something.
Thaddeus always said that in nature, adaptation is the key to survival. You change, or you die.
I came here to study how a caribou adapted to a changing world. Instead, I'm the one who changed.
And for the first time in three years, I'm living life instead of observing it.