Page 193 of Modern Romance Collection March 2025 (1-4)

“Come here,” he said.

She looked at him from her position across the cargo space. She said nothing.

And he felt…a burst of heat and recklessness, an odd feeling of gratitude he’d never experienced before. Perhaps that was survivor’s giddy joy racing through his veins. Or maybe it was just her.

“There’s good body warmth between us,” he said. “Why not use it?”

“Oh,” she responded. “No good reason, I guess.”

He wished that he could maneuver enough to get a blanket underneath him, but he was feeling weak. Not a word he would have ever used to describe himself in the past. He didn’t like it. He would take any added warmth he could.

She looked very hesitant as she got down beside him.

“Don’t look at me like that,” he said. “I’m hardly going to ravish you in my present state.”

She blinked. “And if you were in a different state?”

“Well, Stevie, if the two of us are going to die, then it would be a terrible shame to practice chastity in the face of our inevitable demise.”

“Oh,” she said, her voice strangled.

“You are twenty-five,” he said.

“Is that why you asked how old I was?”

“It was a passing thought.”

“I don’t know that I want to sleep next to you now.”

“Don’t worry. My leg is far too maimed.”

She moved slightly closer to him, and even with her keeping a bit of space between them, there was warmth.

So perhaps, he thought, as he began to drift off to sleep, they wouldn’t die after all.

He supposed he would find out in the morning.

Or not. If they didn’t wake up.

CHAPTER FOUR

Steviefeltcocoonedin warmth. She was so comfortable. The pillow beneath her cheek was firm, but she didn’t mind it. She shifted, and she felt someone’s arms tighten around her.

She froze. That was a completely unfamiliar feeling.

And suddenly, she remembered everything.

And realized just then that she was not resting her head on a pillow, but her mysterious stranger’s chest. Her hand was also on his chest, his beating heart right beneath her palm.

She was torn between being mortified that she had ended up like this in her sleep, and being grateful that he was still alive.

She sat up, and looked around the plane. Her heart was pounding double time.

She had never slept with a man in her life. Not that this was sleeping with him, sleeping with him. But she had never done that either. She had never done either thing, thanks.

She was quite typically pure as the driven snow.

Well. Right now the snow wasn’t so much pure as punishing.

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