Page 91 of The Unlikely Pair
My skin tingles where he kissed me.
I swallow hard. “We better get moving.”
Harry sends an apprehensive look at the sky. “I’m not so worried about the sun coming out tomorrow. I’m more hoping it’ll come out today.”
It’s a gray, raw day, and the temperature has definitely plummeted in the last few hours. The sky is starting to look ominous.
I seize on the change in topic. “Do you think it’s going to snow?”
“Perhaps,” he says.
The thought sends shivers down my spine. We haven’t coped with snow yet. Snow has the potential to turn everything catastrophic.
“Are you going to tell me if you’re thinking about whether we should take shelter, or are you hoping I’ll develop psychic powers?” I ask.
“Well, I’m always supportive of you developing your skill range,” Harry says with a small smirk.
I quirk an eyebrow. “You seemed fairly happy with my range of skills this morning.”
A hint of a blush treks up his cheeks.
This is good. This is back in my comfort zone.
I love how unsettled I can make Harry with just a reference to our sex life, how a few innuendos can sometimes have him turning pink like a flamingo with a bad case of stage fright.
It’s something I allow myself to indulge in often.
“I’m just wondering whether it’s best to keep plowing on or if we should stop to take shelter. Because if we get really wet and it’s too damp to make a fire, we’ll have no way to dry our clothes,” Harry says.
My stomach churns at the thought.
Harry nods at a rocky outcrop on a ridge on the skyline. “If we aim for that, those rocks might provide better protection than we can find in the open forest. What do you think?”
This has been a development over the past few days: Harry asking my opinion rather than expecting me to follow along.
“Good idea,” I reply. “We can do some skin-to-skin warming up when we get to the rocks if you like.”
Harry flushes, and I give another triumphant smile.
My happiness fades quickly as we start walking again because the wind kicks up another notch.
Fuck. It really looks like the weather is about to turn feral.
We’re only halfway to the rocks when the first spots of rain splatter my face. The wind whips around me, driving the icy droplets into my skin like tiny daggers. I squint against the onslaught, my vision blurring as the rain intensifies.
Our survival blankets are more waterproof than our coats, so we get them out and wrap them around ourselves. They’re not designed for easy motion, though, and trudging up a hill with a survival blanket wrapped around me is definitely not an experience I’ll cherish.
The rain changes into something more like sleet and fear ripples through me.
Can we survive a proper snowstorm?
We’ve been catching fish nearly every day, so we’ve still got a supply of energy bars. We can huddle under a rocky outcrop with our survival blankets, maybe make a small fire to keep us warm. But do we have time to gather wood before the snow sets in?
Harry glances back at me, squinting through the rain. He must see the fear on my face.
“Don’t worry, it’ll be all right once we get to the shelter.”
The hill turns steep, and I have to use my hands to climb, which means exposing them to the elements.
