East of Redemption (Love on the Edge #2) (15 page)

Sweat popped from my brow, and my hand cramped so much it seared. The second I decided to give up I saw smoke. I gently blew on the tinder bundle with whisperlike breaths until a flame caught.

“Yes!” I squealed so loud it echoed among the mountains, and Easton jerked awake at the same time. His movement relieved me so much I nearly dropped my precious, burning bundle, but I managed to compose myself long enough to set the flame to the dry sticks I’d gathered in a pile beside me. Once the fire was safely climbing, I scrambled to his side, scooping up the water I’d retrieved from the stream and setting it to his lips.

“Don’t gulp this,” I ordered.

He slowly sipped the cool water, his eyes closing after a few swallows. I hefted him upright and held out the bottle when he was finally in a position to grip it.

He continued sipping, and breathing, and that was enough for me. My heart soared with the sight of him awake and able and very much alive. Once I realized he had a good hold on the bottle and he wasn’t going to inhale the contents, I left him to tend to the fire and his dinner.

I made quick work of ripping the gorgeous feathers off the bird, hurrying through the movements in order to avoid realizing what I was doing. After a good rinse in the stream, and the removal of its head, I positioned the bird on a stick and set it over the fire.

“You know how to cook?” Easton’s voice was hoarse, but his smirk was totally his.

“Oh yeah. Trained in Paris. This is the test that decided if I graduated or not.”

He laughed, and the sound filled my lungs with air I hadn’t realized I’d been missing. He glanced up toward the quickly darkening sky. “I was out for quite some time.”

“Yes.”

He scrunched his forehead, his eyes scanning the nearness of the stream. “You . . . pulled me here?”

“Yes.”

“And killed a bird.”

“Yes.”

“All for the sake of my show?”

I cut my eyes to him. “Not for your show. For
you
.”

“You could’ve made me eat one of your meals, and drink your water.”

“Like you would’ve agreed.” I spun the stick, rotating the bird to even the cooking.

“You’re . . .”

“Stubborn?” I filled the word in for him after he had hesitated.

“Incredible.” He shifted onto his knees and crouch-walked over to sit next to me, threading his fingers through my hair. “Rain, you are one hell of a woman.”

I sucked in a breath, happy to see the clearness in his eyes. I licked my lips, his touch doing horribly delicious things to my body.

Not the time.

“You need to eat.” I took the stick out of the fire and handed him the end I held. “This should do.”

He took it. “Great source of protein. How’d you manage to sneak up on it?”

I shrugged. “You’re not the only one with skills.”

“Clearly.” He waited a few moments before sinking his teeth into the bird, jerking slightly from the heat but licking his lips and moaning.

Warmth pooled in my core, and I mentally told myself to snap out of it. It was difficult, though, to
not
be turned on by the revival of this incredibly sexy man who tore into the meal like a starved Viking after a battle. The sensation was near primal with how much pride I took in the fact that I had been the one to bring him back and fend for him, as opposed to the other way around.

I sat silently as I watched him lick the bones clean, and while I still felt guilty over killing the innocent and beautiful creature, I couldn’t say the sacrifice wasn’t worth it. Darkness fully took the mountain, and we were left with the glow from the silver moon above and the orange fire beside us.

“Sorry I didn’t get a chance to build you a shelter,” I said after he’d wiped his face off with his hands and finished the bottle of water.

“Are you kidding?” He shook his head. “You did amazing. Honestly, I don’t even think my crew would’ve held their ground like you did and stuck to the survival scenario. They would’ve aborted the efforts and used their own supplies.”

“Well, I know you better than they do.”

His eyes shot to the ground. “You always have had the ability to see right through me.”

“Not always,” I said and shifted away from him, guarding myself from the onslaught of pain that occurred every time I remembered how he’d left me. “You want me to gather something for you to put a shelter together? It’s getting late and you need more rest.”

“No.” He glanced around. “I can scrounge something up. You’ve done enough, thank you.”

I grabbed the empty bottle in his hand. “I’ll refill this while you work.”

His fingers lingered on mine before he let go, the touch sending sparks along every inch of my skin, reaffirming the realization I’d had earlier about the love I still had for him.

Easton

RAIN MOVED TOWARD
the stream with a graceful strength that reminded me of the lioness she’d tried to capture on film when I’d found her in South Africa. I’d always known she was strong, but each moment with her showed me the woman she’d become in my absence was more than I could’ve ever imagined.

I bet you’re so proud.

The thought toward Harrison came easily, but still was just as painful as the damn acid that coursed through my veins from denying myself water as long as I did. It was a stupid move, but I’d overestimated my memory, and had been very wrong about how close that stream had been to our last camp.

Harrison was never far from my thoughts, though not always in the form of the nightmare that had haunted me for years. Often I spoke to him in hopes he heard me, in moments of need on a dig site, or when I made a find I knew he would’ve loved to see. There were times I hated the idea of him getting to watch and yet not take part in our lives, and then there were times I was glad I still had someone to talk to.

Rain returned with a full bottle, and I instantly took another quick sip. The cold liquid revitalized every ache in my muscles, every pulse behind my eyes, like the sweetest medicine on the planet. The bird had helped, not to mention it was beyond hot as hell that Rain had the gall to hunt an animal for me. I couldn’t explain it, but the idea turned me the fuck on, which was exactly what I
didn’t
need at the moment.

My body couldn’t handle or sustain what I wanted to do to Rain, and I knew for sure if she rejected me, I wasn’t strong enough to withstand the blow. I couldn’t just throw myself at her as we had in the heat of passion the night before, or right after her fall. I had to earn my way back into her heart, and rightly so. She was here, though, and she’d stuck to my survival rules when caring for me, when it would’ve been much easier to break them and tend to me immediately. I hated that I passed out, but that was part of the limits I tested my body with.

“Where do you think your crazy ex has made it to?” Rain asked, drawing my attention to her as she sat down next to me with her father’s journal in her hand.

“I’m hoping they turned back.” That climb across the narrow ledge wasn’t the easiest even to someone as familiar with climbing as me.

“In reality?”

“I doubt they did. She probably made it across and they set up camp close after because of the light.”

“Damn.”

I flinched. We wouldn’t even be on this path if Corrine hadn’t pushed us here. In retrospect—after both of our close calls—it would’ve been easier to confront Corrine head on and abandon the expedition until I knew she was on another continent. I didn’t have the luxury of time, though, not if I wanted my show back.

“We’re close now. Tomorrow we’ll enter the cave that will trip them up.”

“Not you, though?”

“Nope. I’ve been there before. Took me seven hours, but I discovered the quickest paths in and out.”

Her hair hung loose around her shoulders, a kink in it from the tight ponytail she’d donned all day. “And in the time it takes them to find their way out . . .”

“We’ll be halfway to Harrison’s cave,” I finished for her.

She hugged the journal to her chest before holding it out to me.

“I can’t.”

She shoved it into my hand and took hers back. “Read it. He would’ve wanted you to. Besides, I have it memorized. There is a good chunk of his theories on where King Solomon’s treasure is. You’d be able to make more sense of it than me, and I know you already suspect it’s in his cave, so it may not be of any use to you—”

“It is,” I cut her off. “It means everything to me. You mean . . .”
Say the words. Say them.

“What?”

“Everything to me.”

She sighed. “Do you really believe that?”

Well, she hadn’t shut me down, so that was something. “More than I’ve ever believed anything in my life, Raindrop.”

She clenched her eyes shut. “Why’d you leave?”

And there it was. The reason I should’ve kept my mouth shut. The truth I never wanted her to know. The wall I never wanted her to climb.

“Were you scared? Of us?”

The words lodged themselves in my throat, and I cleared it. “Never.”

I thought about the ring that lay with Harrison’s body, still somewhere at the bottom of that cave, in the pack he’d taken from me. Rain had been my greatest aspiration in life—marrying her, making babies, and loving her every day for the rest of our lives. I’d even picked out a home base in Oregon, one with the perfect little room facing the forest for a nursery.

“Then what?” She scooted closer, her hand clutching the back of my neck. Her eyes were fierce and somewhat desperate. “Did you stop—?”

I set the journal down beside me and covered her lips with my free hand. “Don’t. I never stopped loving you. Not for a second. Not then. Not now. Not ever.”

“Then why—?”

I stopped her questions with my lips, not because I didn’t want to hear them but because I couldn’t bring myself to answer. I’d lose her again if I did, and now that I had her this close, I didn’t ever want to let her go.

She opened up for me, allowing my tongue to graze the edges of her teeth as she sighed between my lips. I gripped her hips and pulled her into my lap, positioning a leg on either side of me. She wrapped her arms around my neck and pressed her breasts against my chest, deepening our kiss. The feel of her body on top of mine made me hard in seconds flat, and I completely forgot about how exhausted I’d been seconds before. She consumed me—thoughts, body, and soul—and I wanted nothing more than to do the same to her.

I tugged on the strands of her hair, arching her head so I could kiss down her neck as I massaged one of her breasts. Perfect, just as they’d been before. Every inch of her was made for me, and I remembered exactly how much pressure to pinch her nipple through the fabric of her shirt to get her to gasp and buck against me.

The motion had me arching into her, aching to get inside her.

I grabbed a handful of her beautiful ass and made her do it again, hissing as her warm center hit me. Fuck, I wanted to strip her bare and run my tongue along her sweet spot, the one I knew would make her scream my name.

I slipped my hands beneath the fabric of her shirt, reveling at the feel of her soft skin against my callused hands. She bit the bottom of my lip, and I groaned.

“Easton,” she moaned against my lips before breaking our kiss. She held a fistful of my hair, forcing me to look her in the eye. “I want you.”

Those three little words made a John William’s victory score blare in my head.

“But . . .”

And that word quickly shot down my hope.

“We’re filthy,” she said.

“Oh, you have no idea.”

“I’m serious.” She kissed me again. “I want you. All of you. But does this look like the best place to do it?”

“Any place is the best place. You know we can make anything work. Remember that time in the Arizona canyon?”

Her eyes darkened in the glow of the fire, and she rocked against me. “Yes.”

I growled at her tease and calculated how quickly I could get her clothes off and solve our dilemma at the same time. I glanced to the right as she sucked on my bottom lip. I held her to me and stood up. She set her feet on the ground before I could fully lift her.

“We should stop,” she said, taking a step back. “You haven’t fully recuperated.”