Chapter 10: Getting Proactive

Sunday, September 8th, unknown time

It had been cold throughout the night, and as I panted, I could see faint wisps of my breath roll into the faintly lit morning air.

As far as I could tell, that was the only indication that it was cold. Everything else was hot. Chloe’s breath washed across my face as she panted in my ear. Her warm, naked body was pressed against mine as she moved on top of me, riding with practiced rhythm. Her strong arms wrapped around my neck, pillowing my head, while my hands roamed the smooth planes of her back. My fingertips traced her rippling muscles, working in tandem with every motion of her hips.

Chloe was a woman of few words, and that extended into the bedroom. Her cool demeanor often gave the impression she was distant, maybe even uncaring, but I’d learned this morning that she could shed that facade just as the clothes she’d abandoned.

Last night had been amazing—hot, passionate, wild, all-consuming monkey sex. This morning was something else.

I’d woken to the feeling of Chloe’s hand wrapped around my cock, slowly stroking, making sure I was more than ready for her. Then she climbed on top of me, slid my hardness into her warm, buttery softness, and began to make love. That’s what it was. Not just sex—something deeper ... richer. I could feel her need and hunger radiating through every square inch of her body as she moved against me, like she wanted to become part of me. In another setting, it could have been called romantic. And I was eating it up.

Chloe’s lips brushed my ear, and she took my earlobe between her teeth, gently chewing before releasing a soft, breathy moan. Her arms tightened around my neck—not uncomfortably. I turned into her neck, burying my face there and inhaling deeply as I rolled my hips to match her pace.

Her scent hit me hard.

We’d been running around the woods for most of the day—building shelter, tending wounds, getting drenched, and screwing each other’s brains out. Unsurprisingly, we weren’t exactly Alpine fresh. Her musk was heady, and her morning breath could’ve rivaled her fists in pure brutality. Honestly? I didn’t mind.

I’d lusted after Chloe for weeks, and it took a helicopter crash to finally have her in my arms, her body wrapped around me on a freezing Norwegian night. I’d take her any way I could get her.

Somehow, this sort of setting suited us for our first time. Chloe was never a high-maintenance woman. I’d only seen her in more than minimal makeup once—during our trip to Vegas. She took care of herself, sure, but there was something raw and earthy about her compared to the other women in my life, who wouldn’t leave the house without perfectly applied makeup. Her unshaven mound, the smudge of dirt across the bridge of her freckled nose, and the scent of sex and sweat after camping ... it all felt weirdly right.

“Ungh,” Chloe whispered in my ear, nuzzling it with her nose. “I’m getting close.”

It was the first thing she’d said since we woke up.

I slid my hands down and gripped her toned ass, pulling her tighter against me. Each thrust made our bodies grind together with more friction, more urgency.

“Almost,” I whispered.

“Gah...” she gasped, pressing her face into the side of mine. “Thank you. It’s been too long.”

I let one hand leave her ass and slipped my fingers into her hair, gently coaxing her face away from my neck. Her arms loosened from my neck as she pulled back just enough for our eyes to meet. Her parted lips hovered above mine, and our breath mingled in the cold air as we stared at each other, still moving, still locked together. Her brows were drawn up in the middle, a look I’d come to recognize—raw need, the kind that only showed up in the seconds before release.

“I should be thanking you,” I said softly, letting my fingers slip from her hair. I slid my palm down her cheek, cupping it gently. “I’ve wanted this for a long time.”

Chloe gave me a small, crooked smile—barely there, but for someone like her, it might as well have been a full-on grin. It was perfect.

She was perfect.

Chloe turned her face to press her lips into my palm as she let out a small mewling sound, shoving her hips down onto mine and keeping my length buried in her as she came. Her fluids washed over my cock, and I could literally feel them leak around my groin. The amount of lubricant this woman produced made it very evident when she came, and the feeling of my cock getting showered by her pussy pushed me over the edge.

I shoved my face into the side of her neck and groaned as I felt my balls contract, signaling the impending release of my fluids to mingle with hers. My fingertips buried themselves into her ass so hard that I had a passing concern that I might leave her with bruises on her ass, but I found it hard to care all that much. I simply couldn’t get enough of this powerful woman in my arms. I wanted to hang onto that moment just as firmly as I clung to her.

“Auuuggghhh!”

“Stop!” I shouted. “Stop! This isn’t working!”

The sudden death of Astrid’s screams was indication enough to let me know that Chloe had stopped whatever she was doing to try to release the Norwegian woman from the wreckage of the helicopter. Or perhaps not. There was every chance that Astrid had simply passed out from the pain; her eyes had rolled into the back of her head, and she’d gone limp in my arms. Fresh tears stained her pale, porcelain cheeks, and despite being unconscious, lines of stress were still present at the corners of her eyes. Her mouth remained tight, almost as if she were having some kind of nightmare while in a deep sleep.

She was already fair, so it was startling to see the little color she had drained from her. Astrid looked so frail, and it awoke some deep, primitive desire inside me to protect her. I had to actively remind myself that she wasn’t as fragile as she appeared ... that underneath that gentle exterior beat the heart of an incredibly tough and cruel woman—at least, according to the marks on Bobbi’s body.

Chloe rounded the wreckage and stopped next to me, wiping the moisture from her forehead. It was no longer drizzling, but the humidity was so high that it might as well have been. A light fog was rolling softly through the forest, making it impossible to see further than twenty-five feet in any direction, which made both of us uneasy.

My bodyguard leaned against the remains, watched the surrounding forest with her intense brown eyes, and then huffed. “We’re not going to be able to move her.”

I felt my heart drop in my chest. Although Astrid and I had our differences, she was still an ally, and something told me she might still be useful when dealing with Tanaka.

“Is it because she might bleed out?”

Chloe shook her head. “Her leg has a piece of metal wrapped around it. Pretty sure it’s crushing part of the bone.”

“Fuck,” I muttered.

“I’m surprised her foot’s still getting blood. Her bleeding’s stopped, so as long as the status quo doesn’t change, she’s not in any immediate danger. We should be more worried about the gash on her head. I’m not sure if she just got her cage rattled or has a serious concussion. Keeping her still is better than moving her around, so...” She hiked a thumb over her shoulder at Astrid, and I got the gist. We didn’t have a choice—Astrid couldn’t be moved, and even if she could, keeping her still was probably best.

“What about infection?” I asked.

Chloe shoved off the wreckage and strode toward our shelter. I gently laid Astrid’s head back on the seat where it had been resting and withdrew from the opening of the helicopter to follow her.

“There’s antibiotics among the equipment we found in the parachutes. That’ll help,” Chloe said as she approached our shelter. She pushed the flap aside and dropped to her knees as she moved inside, with me following. She rummaged through the small collection of supplies we had stacked on one side. “But even if we stretch it out, we don’t have enough to last more than a few days.” She picked up a power bar, waved it in the air, tossed it back on top of the heap, and added, “Just like everything else.”

“Exactly how many days can we last on everything?”

She looked over her shoulder at me; her compressed lips were enough to tip me off that she was concerned.

“Four days.”

Relief flooded me. I thought she was about to give me a much smaller number.

“Four days? That should be fine, right? They should find us by then.”

Chloe inhaled deeply before letting it out as a sigh. She spun around and dropped from her crouch into a sitting position, resting her arms on her knees as she gazed up at me.

“This is a big forest. We don’t have phones, and the helicopter’s transponder is shot. If there was some other way to track it or detect some kind of malfunction, I’m positive someone would have been out here by now.”

“Like I said yesterday,” she continued, “there’s the tracker I put in you, but Psalter’s the only one with access to it besides me, and I’m concerned Erin will call Hannon before him. None of them might even think to call Henry.”