Page 38 of Suddenly Tempted
“I’m far too much of a gentleman for that,” she said, and he laughed. “Unlike you.”
“Well, don’t believe everything you read.” He pulled his sore arm into the sleeve and then wrapped himself up until he was decent.
“I just wanted to say the heat is working — it’s like an oven back here. It’s not quite the Maldives, but it’s a heck of a lot better than it was. I might even need to take off my jumper. I feel a million times better already.”
“Me too,” he said, dragging oxygen into his lungs at the idea that Darcy was stripping just outside the door. “I won’t be long, then it’s all yours.”
He was going to need to wait until the feeling had passed by as his dressing gown wouldn’t be the best disguise. Picking up his boxers, he knew they’d be no help, soaking wet from the snow.
“Take all the time you need,” Darcy replied. “I’m going to fire up the kettle. You might not believe it, but they’ve got four different types of hot chocolate.”
Devlin smiled at Darcy’s apparent excitement at the idea of hot chocolate when really they should be replenishing lost fluids and salts with body temperature water mixed with high energy powders. But he kept his mouth shut and let Darcy revel in her excitement.
“Do you have a favourite flavour?” she asked.
“Surprise me,” he said.
He heard her laughing as she walked away and felt his chest expand at the sound.
Chapter 20
DEVLIN
Resting on a small sofa at the far end of the living quarters, Devlin took a sip of hot chocolate and felt it melt in his mouth. He may very well know that it wasn’t the most conventional way to recuperate, but the sweetness of the drink made that thought fly right on out into the mountains. He’d strapped his arm up in a sling he’d found in the medical box and taken some more pain killers to dull the ache. He’d also finished his share of a meal of rehydrated noodles and was starting to feel more human.
Sweet things aside, he was infinitely grateful to be here. He couldn’t stop thinking about how close he’d come to falling into the crevasse, and the spectre of death still haunted him. Of course, he was no stranger to extreme sports, and there had been countless occasions he’d had to sign an indemnity waiver just in case something terrible happened to him on the ocean or the slopes or in the sky. But in those situations he’d been surrounded by friends, professionals who knew what they were doing and equipment to keep him safe, so he’d never really felt like he was in danger. He’d always been in control of his own life, and his own fate.
Today had been very different. He hadn’t been in control of anything. If Darcy hadn’t been there, if she hadn’t had the idea of using her jacket to pull him up, then there would be no more Devlin Storm.
No more Devlin Storm. The idea wasn’t as awful as he’d thought it might be. Not the idea of dying, of course, but the idea that the man the world knew as Devlin Storm wasn’t around anymore. That man didn’t care about anyone but himself, and he wasn’t afraid of people knowing it. Sure, people wanted to be with him, but only because he was famous, and handsome. But take away the money and the looks, and nobody would want anything to do with him.
He thought back to when he’d been a kid. His dad had been all the things that Devlin was now, but Devlin hadn’t wanted to be like him. He’d always wanted to be like his mum, who would have given the shirt from her back if somebody asked her to. He couldn’t think of a single time she’d done anything purely for herself, or anything out of greed. She had been the most selfless person he’d ever known. She’d hated the way the world saw her only son, and had hated the way that Devlin had behaved.
But maybe there is no changing now, he thought.This is me. This is who I am.
Groaning, he leaned back into the sofa and closed his eyes. He’d never been in this much pain before. The agony wasn’t just in his arm, but in every single cell inside his body. He knew it would be worse in the morning, too, when his battered muscles woke up.
But he was alive. He was still here.
“Penny for your thoughts,” said Darcy as she walked out of the bunkroom. She was wearing a bath robe, too, a towel wrapped around her hair.
“Oh, you’re going to need a lot more than that,” he said, patting the space beside him on the sofa even though it made his eyes water with the pain. “How was your bath?”
“Divine,” she said, sitting down. Her cheeks were rosy, her skin glowing as if she’d spent the weekend at a spa. Her huge eyes regarded him with such intensity that he had to turn away. The heat in the building had kicked in, but he wasn’t sure if that was the reason he felt roasting hot, even in just a bath robe.
But he didn’t move. He wasn’t sure if he could. He was so exhausted and there was a magnetism with Darcy that he had no strength to pull away from. Not that he wanted to. She smiled at him, a smile that melted his heart and lit a furnace a little further south.
“This is nice,” he said, trying to think of something to say to take his mind off the way his lungs didn’t seem to be working properly. He shifted on the sofa, adjusting his position. Darcy didn’t need to be scared away by his uncontrollable urges.
“Really?” she said with a laugh. “Crashing a helicopter, spending the night in the ruin of a cabin, falling into a ravine, almost dying in not one but two storms. But you might have stopped hating me somewhere along the way, whichisnice, I guess.”
“That’s not really what I meant,” he said, trying not to stare at her lips, wondering if they would taste like the hot chocolate she was drinking or something even sweeter. “And I never hated you.”
“Really?” she raised a brow at him. “Well, I certainly got the feeling you hated me at least a little to start with.”
“That’s unfair,” he said, though she had a point. He hadn’t hated her. He’d hated the situation he’d found himself in. And when he was annoyed, he made sure everyone knew about it.
Darcy sipped her drink and peered at him over the top of her mug.
