CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER FIVE
Adonis had been on the receiving end of any number of kisses. Passionate, cruel, expert. But none like this. There was an innocence to Stevie’s kiss. It was fresh, like the air. Like the snow.
Unspoiled like all the landscape around them.
It made him forget about the pain in his leg. It made him forget that they were stuck in an unforgiving wilderness. Or perhaps it made it seem like it was a good thing.
Like this was what they had both needed in their lives in that moment. Though he couldn’t explain it.
He had lived the last thirty-five years with little feeling.
Especially since his mother’s departure.
And in all the years since, he had sought external pleasures to give him the feelings that his own heart could not.
But now he felt like he was being warmed from the inside out. And that was all Stevie.
He had told her the truth when he’d said he had never met a woman like her before. Indeed, he had not met another person like her, regardless of gender.
And so he kissed her, like he was starving. Which he was. Like they were dying—which they might be.
It might well and truly be his last meal, he realized.
They were freezing, of course. And it would be cold if he stripped her bare. But they had sleeping bags. And he was grateful for that at least.
He was irritated that he didn’t have a full range of motion, but they managed to get back into the plane together. They didn’t have to worry about the fire. It would burn itself out with all the moisture around.
Stevie took a sleeping bag, and laid it down, then put another unzipped sleeping bag wide over the top of it, grabbing the ends of both, and zipping them together into a larger cocoon.
“That is a brilliant trick.”
“Pretty basic camping skills,” she said. “But perhaps necessary.”
“Believe me when I tell you, I would like for all of this to have much more finesse. But I am…hampered.”
“I’m worried,” she said, her eyes wide, “that I’m going to do you harm.”
“If you do, it will be worth it.”
He began the process of lowering himself down, and getting into the sleeping bag, while Stevie did the same. She was much more nimble and agile than he was. She unzipped her coat, and took it off, setting it beside the bag. She looked at him, her eyes wide.
“Take your clothes off, please,” he said.
He was not one to say please usually. But there was something so earnest about her that it compelled him to be softer than he normally would be.
He beckoned her to him, and kissed her mouth. She was warm and soft against him, and he parted her lips and tasted her deep. She was so sweet.
This strange little pilot, who had saved his life, and kept him alive here in this vast wilderness. And this wasn’t what he had joked that it would be earlier when he had first talked about the two of them making the most of their situation. This wasn’t about her being the last woman he might ever see, may ever taste, though, of course, he couldn’t help but think about that. It was about her. Because if he didn’t have her, he would not be able to die a happy man, whether that was now or forty years from now.
She whimpered, and gasped as he bit her lower lip, kissed her chin, down her neck.
Then he gripped the hem of her top, and pulled it up over her head.
“Not too cold?”
She looked at him and shook her head.
“Good.”
He unhooked her bra, and revealed small, perfect breasts. They were beautiful, just as she was.
He moved his thumb over one of the tightened buds, and watched as her face contorted with pleasure. There was something so fascinating about the way she was experiencing this.
She looked amazed. Filled with wonder, and he couldn’t help but allow the same feeling to echo inside of him.
Such a strange thing, when he could not recall sex filling him with wonder in the years since he had first lost his virginity.
And yet now, he felt it.
Perhaps that was the glory and miracle of their survival. Perhaps it was all the everything.
“Take the rest off,” he said. She complied, her eyes never leaving his as she wiggled out of her jeans, and he assumed all else beneath the sleeping bag.
She began to attack his shirt, undoing the buttons, and once she had exposed his chest to her gaze, she moved her hands over him reverently.
He let his head fall back, the pleasure doing so much to blot out the discomfort in his leg.
He helped her shrug his jacket and shirt off his shoulders, leaving his chest bare, and she leaned over him, kissing him on the mouth, and then scattering kisses over his chest, his stomach.
When she looked back up at him, her cheeks were flushed, her eyes bright with excitement.
“Yes?” he asked, feeling a strange surge of amusement at her enthusiasm.
“You’re just beautiful,” she said. “And I want to make the most of it. The most of this.”
“As do I.”
He hauled her upward, up, so that she was seated on his mouth, where he began to devour the heart of her.
If this was going to be his last meal… So be it.
She gasped, her hands going to his hair, as he held her fast and pleasured her.
She made a sound that might’ve been one of protest, but it shifted quickly enough, to one of need. He devoured her. Until she cried out his name. The name she didn’t even know. The one she had given him.
Until she was shaking and sobbing.
She didn’t even know his name. And yet for some reason, that made it all feel real. It made it all feel…that much more powerful.
Undeniable.
* * *
He moved her back down his body when her cries had subsided, and kissed her, her naked body crushed to his. He undid his belt, the closure on his pants and freed himself.
“Take me inside you,” he said, his voice hoarse.
She looked at him with an unknowable expression on her face, but moved, and he felt the head of him go against her hot, slick channel.
For all that he had thought he would die of pain just yesterday, he thought now he might die of pleasure.
She began to sink down onto him, and paused for a moment, then resolutely brought herself down over him, a cry on her lips as she did.
He reached up, and grabbed hold of her head, brought her mouth down to his and kissed her savagely, as he moved, as he claimed her even as he lay prone.
They would survive this. He was determined of that. Because a world that contained pleasure like this was too beautiful to leave.
He whispered those words against her mouth. How glorious she was. How miraculous. She began to whimper, and he felt her body begin to ripple with pleasure. Felt as she grew closer and closer to another release.
And when she did, when she drew her head back and called out his name, he let go. Her name on his lips. And he did know her.
And she knew him in the only way that mattered.
This was real.
He couldn’t explain it.
It was primal. Two people who had survived something that should’ve taken them. And yet they lived.
The evidence of it was in every cry, every sigh, every torrential wave of pleasure.
And when it subsided, she curled up against his chest, and went to sleep. But he didn’t sleep for a very long time.
* * *
When she woke the next morning, flashbacks of the night before held her immobilized. Just as he held her firmly. It wasn’t like waking up that first morning with him. Where she had been confused as to how they held each other so closely. She knew how now.
She had given herself to him. Completely. Every part.
She hadn’t known… She hadn’t known that existed inside of her. It was…stunning. Wondrous in a way.
A brilliant discovery, really.
She was passionate. She had taken something she never had before, and it had been… It had been glorious.
She blinked back tears. If they did get out of this, their worlds would never mesh. He had promised her an award for this, and now it felt… Wrong almost to take it.
She would have to, though. Because she would have to go back to her life.
Or they would never make it out.
There were only two options. Right now, both of them made her feel sad.
She moved away from him, and began to dress.
She looked down at him, and felt her whole body catch fire.
She could never regret that. It had been wonderful. He had shown her pleasure. He had shown her sensations her body was capable of that she hadn’t even known. Now she was going to have to make some more time for that kind of thing. Because now she knew.
Even as she thought it, she knew she was lying to herself. Even as she thought it, she knew she was being…foolish. Because of course there would never be anybody else. Of course. Of course it would be him, always. Who was first and best.
Well, that was just sad. She wasn’t going to let herself think that. She wasn’t going to let herself think that anything was going to end here. Not their lives, and not her sexuality.
She steeled herself, and put on her layers. Then she went outside to get the fire going.
Her legs were still shaking. From all his kisses. From everything she’d discovered with him.
She’d had no idea.
It was like he’d wrenched open a portal inside of herself that had previously been firmly shut. She’d never had time to think about things like this. She’d never had time to wonder what sex would really be like, or what she would be like with a lover or…any of that.
He’d taken her to a class all about herself. He’d shown her new things, new feelings.
When she’d set out on this flight she’d had no idea they would crash. No idea she would get lost. No idea…what she would find.
It felt dramatic, really. But her experience with him had been…altering. In a way that nothing else ever had been. Ever could be.
And she wanted to keep it for herself. Part of her wanted to keep this for herself. Even though it was foolish. The man needed a hospital. She needed to get back to her life.
But this had been…well, nicer than a plane crash had any right to be.
She moved about their campsite, reinvigorating the fire and getting some snow back on to melt.
Then she heard a sound. Like helicopter rotors in the distance.
“Oh, please be what I think you are.”
The helicopter sound came closer. And closer.
She knew a moment of fear, then one of regret. And then…then she sprang into action.
She ran back into the plane. “Clem. I think they’re coming. I think it’s search and rescue.”
“Perhaps,” he said, his expression stoic.
She chose not to look at him too closely.
She ran back outside, and started waving her hands at the clear sky. There was nothing there yet. But they were coming.
Then she saw one black helicopter. Followed by another. And another.
It was a fleet of helicopters, not military, but shiny and expensive looking.
As one began to descend, she moved, hugging the side of the plane wreckage to stay clear.
The fleet began to lower itself down into the snow.
Her heart was pounding, the relief that was rioting through her so intense she could scarcely stand it.
A man got out of one of the helicopters, wearing a stark, black suit. He had an earpiece in his ear, and something on his lapel. He looked like…Secret Service.
“You there,” he said. “The Prince. Where is he?”
“The… The Prince?”
“Yes. The Prince. Prince Adonis Andreadis. We tracked him to this location. Is he alive?”
Her heart was thundering hard, and she was dizzy. “Yes he’s… Well, he’s inside the plane.”
Stevie Parker had crashed her plane with a prince on board.
Stevie Parker had lost her virginity, grandly, to a prince .
And that was when it hit her.
Prince Adonis.
Of course.
He was… He was famous. A legendary playboy prince. How had she not recognized him? Of course, she didn’t pour over magazines with his pictures in them, but of course she had seen his face before. It was just that she would’ve never thought…
She had been carrying cargo for a royal wedding.
Adonis hadn’t just been trying to get to a wedding, he had been trying to get to his wedding.
The realization made Stevie wish they’d just leave her to die in the snow.