“I’m fine.”

“Yeah, and on that, I’m completely one hundred percent in agreement, but you have a little…” Looking into her eyes, smiling, he pulled something off her cheek. A leaf, probably stuck there with dirt as well.

She swiped at her face, groaning when his smile widened. “I just smeared dirt around, right?”

“If it helps, you look extremely cute with it on your face.”

Extremely cute? She didn’t know quite how to take that. Hell, she didn’t know how to take him. Half the time he made her want to smile, the other half of the time he made her yearn and burn for some nameless thing…Ack, the man made her crazy. Unable to come up with any kind of reasonable response, Lily turned and began walking again.

“Are you okay?” he asked, keeping pace with her.

“Why?”

He was quiet a moment. “Your limp, it’s more pronounced.”

“I’m good.” And to prove it, she sped up. At the top of the hill, she ordered Rose and Jared to change while she made camp and got everyone settled. This involved getting a fire going so she could get a now-chilled Rose warm again. As always now with a fire, she stared into the flames and felt a creepy, unwanted flashback to another fire, one that had almost cost her everything, but she beat that back. This wasn’t a campfire made by some reckless idiot. She knew what she was doing, and there would be no falling asleep until it was as out as it could be.

No flare ups.

“What about bears?” Michelle asked nervously, her teeth chattering along with Rose’s. “Th-think bears’ll find us?”

Jared pulled something out of his pocket. That PDA again. With a couple of taps of his thumb, he looked up. “No bears in the vicinity,” he promised, and showed them the screen. It was a global positioning satellite, complete with a heat-seeking system. “It’d tell us if something alive was around here breathing.”

Nothing was lit up in their vicinity but the six of them.

“Wow,” Michelle said. “I want one of those.”

Jared shook his head. “Prototype.” He glanced at Lily, who was feeling torn between extreme irritation at his toys, and the fact that it had actually seemed to ease Michelle’s mind.

With the fire crackling, and Rose hunched in front of the flames, Lily put Rock on Rose’s tent detail, which thrilled him.

Too bad he had no idea what he was doing, and she had to help him. And then Michelle and Jack as well.

After that, she turned to help Jared, assuming that he, like the others, would have no idea how to erect his tent despite the fact that they’d been given their equipment days ago with directions to practice and become proficient.

Only, once again, he managed to surprise her. His tent was already erected, and as she watched, he came out of it, walking directly behind her to set something on her shoulders.

A large towel.

“What’s this?” she asked.

He tugged playfully on her hair and slid an arm around her, sharing his body heat. “You made sure everyone else changed and got warm, but you never did. You’re still wet.” His hands slid down her shoulders along her arms, big and warm as he gently squeezed, sharing that warmth with her.

“I’m fine,” she said.

“We’ve already agreed that you are as fine as they come.”

His voice tended to do something funny to her belly, and it tightened. Was she…no. She was absolutely not lusting.

Oh, God, but she was.

He ran his hands back up her arms, and she actually shivered again.

Definitely lusting. Big-time.

“See,” he murmured in her ear, his jaw brushing hers, making her eyes want to flutter closed in order to savor the sensation. “You were cold.”

“No,” she said. A lie, of course. Just try me, she’d said to Keith, and now she wanted to say that very thing to Jared.

Just try me…

When he flashed a quick grin that she could feel against her skin, she could have kicked herself.

Because she’d just admitted it wasn’t a chill making her shiver, but him.

Oh, boy. She’d wanted to claim her life again, and she was. Only she was beginning to discover she was getting much more than she’d bargained for.

She clamped her mouth shut tight so she couldn’t inadvertently give anything else away. But it was too late, and he laughed softly. “So if you’re not cold…” His voice was lower now, husky…pleased. “Then it’s me making you shiver.”

Nope.

Not saying a word here, not a single one, not when her brain had so clearly disconnected from her mouth.

His lips skimmed over her skin, in that delicate, oh-so-sensitive spot just beneath her lobe, and damn it, she shivered again.

“I’m tired, that’s all,” she said quickly to negate it. “And sore from the dive and swim.”

“Need me to kiss you all better?” he whispered in a voice hot enough to set the surrounding trees on fire. “Because it worked last time…”

7

JARED WAITED, his mouth a mere breath from Lily’s soft, silky skin. God, she was something, standing there so tough, so fiercely independent, so utterly arousing.

And unexpectedly sweet.

He knew her now, or was beginning to, and he wanted her more than ever.

“Do I need you to kiss me all better? No.” Tilting her head, she met his gaze straight on, no wavering, no hiding, not for this woman. “Do I want you to? Yes. Because want is entirely different from need.”

Turning her to fully face him, he smiled. “I’ll take the want for now.” He would earn the need, for later.

Never before had he made time to be in the middle of nowhere, doing nothing but walking and enjoying the sights for four days. And he sure as hell hadn’t made time to have a wet, sexy-eyed woman stare up at him, flirt with him.

Him.

The sheer pleasure of that had a grin splitting his face. Before he’d gotten sick, he’d thought his life complete. He’d have sworn to it. But now that he was no longer consumed by either work or pain, he knew how wrong he’d been.

“It’s not going to happen,” she warned. “Not here. Not now.” Having said so, she backed up a step, and came directly up against a tree.

Ah, wasn’t that perfect. Shamelessly using the situation to his advantage, he shifted forward, gently pressing her to the trunk. Knowing he was now blocking her from the others, he set his hands on either side of her head and leaned in.

She slapped a hand to his chest. “Did you miss the not-here, not-now part?” she asked, cool as rain.

No, he hadn’t missed a thing when it came to her, but fact was, her eyes had softened, gone all sleepy-lidded and dreamy, and her mouth-God, her mouth had opened slightly, her tongue touching one corner as she stared at his lips. Body language was definitely conflicting with her words, and he figured body language stood for more.

Or so he hoped.

He shifted forward another inch, and then it was that heart-stopping beat right before the kiss, the beat where they both knew it was going to happen…His eyes wanted to drift shut so that he could sink into the feel of her, the scent of her, but she kept hers open, even as he closed the distance and touched his lips to hers. He’d never kissed with his eyes open before, and it was oddly, shockingly intimate.

Then, still watching him from those whiskey eyes, she slowly sank her teeth into his bottom lip, and held on. Not deep enough to really hurt, but not exactly gentle either.

And he went instantly hard. “Uh-”

Her teeth tightened, and when he winced, her tongue darted out and stroked his lip before she pulled back and looked at him with a cocked brow.

“Okay, so you meant it,” he said on a laugh. He’d never wanted to laugh while so aroused before. “Not here, not now.”

She smiled. “I just love teaching new things.” With that, she tightened the towel-his towel-around her shoulders and brushed past him to check on the others.

Standing still, he watched her go, watched as she jumped right back into being in charge as if she hadn’t just thoroughly rocked his world, so much so that he was going to have to stand here for a few moments before anyone got a good look at him.

One thing about no longer being consumed by work, he had the time to absorb things. Rock was showing Rose how to raise the screen on her tent’s window, which faced…surprise surprise…Rock’s tent.

Michelle had pulled something out of her backpack, and from here it looked like a large chocolate bar. Jack shook his head, but when Michelle broke off a piece and handed it to him, he looked at her, smiled. She smiled back as he popped it into his mouth and held out his hand for another.

Lily hunkered in front of the fire, poking at it with a stick. In less than ten seconds she had that fire leaping back to life.

And watching all this, it occurred to Jared-as he stood there waiting for the blood to circulate back into vital areas of his body, say his brain-that everyone here was consumed by something. Work, food, love…

Not him. Nope, for the first time in his life, he was no longer consumed by anything, and it felt odd. Like the-loss-of a-limb odd. He needed something new to get excited about, something other than work or family, something that was healthy, and soul-rewarding.

Lily rose and bent over the backpacks, pulling out supplies and food for dinner. Her still-wet cargo shorts clung to her features, her best feature right in bull’s-eye view as she rifled through the packs.

And he knew. He’d found his something new-he’d found her: his enigmatic, fearless, gorgeous, sexy guide. Yeah, that so worked for him.

He only hoped it worked for her.

LILY SERVED trout over linguini for dinner, and considered the night a success when she had everyone around the campfire singing silly songs, toasting marshmallows and laughing.

Well, almost everybody. Michelle wasn’t singing, she was sitting in that bright yellow rainjacket, barefoot, staring morosely at her feet. As Lily watched, Jack came close with a fistful of Band-Aids, and kneeled at her side.