Page 201 of Modern Romance Collection March 2025 (1-4)

Eventually they were going to have to make a choice. She was going to have to decide if she wanted to try and hike out of here, or if they should wait where there were supplies. She might die.

It was a very real risk.

And suddenly, who she was seemed so distant. It felt much more real to be this woman. One who didn’t have all these people depending on her. One who was held, warm and secure in a man’s arms.

This was like a dream she had never had before.

One she had never allowed herself. She had let herself believe that her life had to be stark. Spartan.

But it was all a girl like her could have. All she could aspire to. Because she had to work, and work was the most important thing. Because… Because.

And yet right now, she felt alive with possibility. And it almost felt like… She was being given a chance to live. Out here under the clear sky. Out here, where her life might just end.

“I don’t understand what’s happening,” she said.

“The same thing that’s been happening since the moment I set eyes on you,” he said.

“And that is?”

“When two reactionary elements meet. Chemistry.”

“But that doesn’t happen to me,” she said.

“Why not, Stevie?”

“Because I am a cargo pilot. With six sisters and a sick father. Because I am not special. And I never have been.”

“I cannot believe that. That you, standing here, brilliantly alive in the face of all of this, could ever believe that you weren’t special. You are. You are extraordinary. I have said it, and therefore it is true.”

“You’re very arrogant,” she said.

“Yes. A well-documented part of my charm.”

They were odd words. She frowned. “Documented by who?”

“One never really knows.” He brushed past that, and then, brushed her cheek with the back of his knuckles, and that made her forget the words even better than his quick redirect. His hands were warm somehow, in spite of everything. “You don’t have time for liaisons?”

She shook her head. “No.”

“Out here we have nothing but time.”

She had never been saving herself for somebody special. But it was pretty miraculous to think she might’ve been saving herself for somebody this hacking gorgeous. Because he was. And yes, he was injured. Yes, they were out in the wilderness. But he was right. If this was it, what was the point? What was the point of restraint?

What had it ever gotten her, in fact?

She was an adventurous spirit. It was why she was a pilot. Well, that and it was an inherited legacy. But she loved it because she liked to take that leap. She liked that moment when she was suspended in the air, and climbing.

That was this. Suspended. In awe of the moment. Of the beauty. That was everything.

He hadn’t even done anything overly intimate, and yet she felt on fire.

She had never been this close to a man.

She didn’t really want to tell him that. She didn’t want to do anything to impact the power of the moment.

He wasn’t taking advantage of her. She was the one taking advantage of this. This moment out of time. This moment where she got to be whoever and whatever she wanted.

This moment where she got to…be free.

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