Chapter 6

Six

C onfounding woman. "What will it take to get through to you?" He pulled back and scrubbed a hand over his face. Why did he care after all these damn years, anyway? Didn't he get the message by now?

"You're making me crazy with your fucking scent, the way your cheeks flush and your eyes light up every time I stand close. I can't think straight." Wearing patience ate at his resolve and he tore a hand through his hair. She didn't want him. More so, she didn't want any part of his family all because of her damn father's poison.

A muscle ticked in his jaw and he turned away so she couldn't see the war she created inside him.

"Is that a bad thing?"

The possessive need to show her what she still meant to him climbed out of the tightly locked box he'd sealed it away in five years ago.

"Depends," he husked. By the way her eyebrow twitched, he could tell she expected more of an answer. When he didn't give it, she produced a skinny flashlight and turned on her heel.

A growl of annoyance slipped before he could catch himself.

"We both know why we can't happen." White light filled the four-foot circumference of the small entryway. All stone on one side with a wall of ice and snow on the other. The similarities to their current situation didn't slip by him.

"Besides the stated obvious? I think you find being with a Savage—rugged mountain men with calloused hands and pilot license—isn't good enough for the posh and refined Morgan bloodline." He caught a flash of regret but pushed on anyway. "Wouldn't want to sully the royal family and all."

True Esmeralda style, her cheeks filled with a bright red blush and her lower lip tucked sideways when she got angry. He missed that little detail.

Drake cocked a brow and crossed his arms over the expanse of his chest.

His little snow bunny looked lovely all ticked off. Good. Maybe that would cut through her denial. Bare-ass naked wasn't how he pictured having this discussion, but he could see a few benefits of lowering her defenses. And riling her up. Feeling warmer and a little stifled anyway he toed off his boots and stripped out of his bulky outer winter wear.

"What the heck are you doing?"

"What does it look like?"

"Like you're a fucking lunatic."

Yeah, but her eyes never left his body and that pretty, warm blush on her cheeks made the nip in the air worth it.

"Look at you all flustered. Like what you see, sweetheart?" he teased just to get her going.

"Sweet Jesus, you're fucking gorgeous," she said before clamping her hand over her mouth. "Damn it, Drake. You're a damn…"

He cocked a grin.

She stopped midsentence, but that smile of hers did all the talking for her, despite trying to hide it from him.

He dragged off his undershirt and opened his pants to reveal just how much she affected him. "Drake?" She simply stated with a question in her tone. But there was an underlying air of curiosity that had him groaning.

His cock was heavy and thick between his legs and he stroked the length through the barrier of his pants as she worked her throat with what looked like a very dry swallow.

He grinned. "I'm a what, Esme? It seems the only way to get you to stop and see is to give you something to look at. So, here I am."

She raised angry eyes on him but he didn't believe it for a second. Not with how she licked her lips.

Drake prowled closer and her light followed his movements, falling lower each step he took.

The low lighting didn't bother him, but he knew she struggled to see. Or she really was trying hard not to look down the length of his body despite her raking the light over him from head to toe more than once.

Both options would explain the deep creases of concentration between her eyes and the immense waves of anxiety rolling off her with enough power to choke him.

"We don't have time for that," she tried but failed when he cupped her face.

"Really? It looks like time is all we have."

She leaned into his arms and rested her cheek on his chest.

"Can't you… you know?" She made a gesture with her hand to signal toward the wall of snow blocking the only exit. As tempting as it was to leave her floundering for words, he stepped in.

"Go all He-Man and punch through the snow?"

"There's gotta be a way out of here, Drake?"

Her hands came to rest on his hips and he growled low and it took him a minute to take his eyes off her lips long enough to answer her.

"Not that easy. Hell, I really wish it were."

"Why not? You break through, we can get outta here and go on our merry way."

"The last thing I want to do is hold you here, sweetheart. God forbid, right? But who knows how thick this is? There could be more people below. If I cause a bigger avalanche, it could bury them alive. We're safe here. You're safe. I promise that with my life. And it's getting warmer in here by the minute."

He settled his hands on either side of her face.

"I know this mountain better than anyone. After the storm passes, my brother will come for us. Probably no later than sunrise. And with him, he'll raise an army if need be to get us out."

She brought her hands to rest on his. "Are you sure? How does he even know where we are?"

Drake tipped her chin up just to see her emerald eyes on him. "Trust me. He's good at his job. I lost the two-way, but he knows where I was headed and our gear is equipped with trackers for this very reason. He'll be here as soon as he can."

"For our sakes, I hope."

"What has you so worried?"

"The fact that we have no water. No food and no source of heat are kinda worrisome, wouldn't you say."

"I had food in my pack. And we are our heat source." He turned from the blocked entrance and looked back at her with a teasing grin. Anything to lure a smile from her and take away the worry lines between those beautiful eyes.

That's when a dark blob caught his eye off to the side. Oh, thank God.

His pack rested in a heap against the back wall. "Look. This should hold us off. How about yours?"

"Just some power bars and juice, but good luck finding it." She roved over the entire den with her light and then paused on his face. "Oh no!"

"What?" He turned a three-sixty, expecting to see some grizzly or something in there with them from the way fear flashed in her eyes.

"My father." Esmeralda froze in place, her eyes wide, the look so raw that for a split second he could see the true Esmeralda. The one that hurt and needed someone to lean on. He wanted to be that someone so damn bad it made his chest ache.

Drake blinked, shaking his head. Did he hear her right? "Excuse me?"

"His urn, it was in my bag."

Oh. "Where did you leave?—"

"Wait, do you see that?"

How could he—she blinded him with her flashlight. "There. In the corner." Esmeralda pushed past him and fell to her knees by the ice wall.

He moved her to the side, ignoring her protest. "Let me help." Gently, he eased her hands away from the ice and with a couple of tugs, he risked the vulnerability of the ice foundation to free her climbing pack. "Damn good eye. Even I missed that."

A warm hand on his shoulder paused his choppy movements. Esmeralda traced along the lines of his tattoo. An impulsive decision after a tequila bender with his brothers.

Slowly she outlined the thick lines of the design that fed into the skull that denoted how he felt without her in his life—dead. In the wake of her caress, it was like shots of lightning shooting straight to his cock.

One more tug and her bag slipped free. Blood pounded against his temples and under her delicate touch, his cock grew thicker.

Esmeralda reached around him and whispered, "Thank you."

"You're welcome." He pushed up and lumbered over to the entrance that led deeper into the den. No use in hiding what his body wanted. Leaning against the wall, he rested his forehead on his arm and inhaled once. Then again.

"I'm sorry, Drake."

He craned his neck around.

"For everything." Esmeralda stood and wobbled slightly. He reached out a hand, but she held hers up. "I could have come back as soon as I realized my father had no intentions of returning to Savage Ridge, but by then, I don't know." Tears filled her eyes and she clutched her bag as if it were her lifeline. It took all he had not to reach out and pull her to him. To tell her he didn't need an explanation. That having her here now was all that mattered.

Why the fuck he wasn't ripping her clothes off and pinning her to the nearest wall and making her scream his name he didn't know. It was his intention five minutes ago but he wasn't a bastard. Not entirely, anyway.

"When that grizzly killed mom, my father sold off all the local assets. Our land, the home I was raised in. The mine. He had several other diamond mines so, I believed him. He had that much rage in him." She gave a defeated shrug. "I was as na?ve as any girl that age. The man didn't make his empire appeasing teenage daughters or by selling off an asset that made him his fortune. By the time I realized that, I thought it too late. How could I ever show my face here again?" Esmeralda shivered slightly but he didn't interrupt her. Not yet.

"For years I believed we had no ties here, and I let myself believe you would want nothing to do with me even if I did return. Not after what my father did to you and your family. I was embarrassed."

He'd damn near ruined them. Using the power of his wealth, the patron of the Morgan family buried their family business without a second thought. It took years to rebuild and all because he thought his family responsible for his wife's death. He saw the Savage bloodline as having bad blood. It went without saying having one hook up with his daughter was a hard no in the old man's book.

"You tore my heart out when you left, Esme. There's no coming back from something like that." He lied and it tasted like sand in his mouth because if asked, there wasn't a thing in this world he wouldn't do for her. "You don't belong in my gritty world. Princesses belong in castles. Not here, especially with a Savage." He rubbed a hand over the back of his neck and chuckled.

He couldn't believe the words coming out of his mouth.

He couldn't trap her here. She belonged in the lap of luxury. Not stuck in some small ass mountain-side town.

"Drake Tyler Savage."

That brought him up short. In his experience, nothing good ever came from a woman using all three names to get his attention.

"Feeling sorry for yourself? That's not like you."

"What do you want from me, Esmeralda? I think I've made it abundantly clear how much I want you, but you're determined to not see it." The gnawing hunger in him grew. If she touched him right now there would be no stopping him until he was between his legs.

Her small, delicate hand rested on his upper arm. Every muscle from his toes to his neck flexed. What the hell was she doing?

"Give me something more, something to let me know you forgive me."

His brows pinched. "Like you said, you had no choice."

"What if I did? What if I chose to leave?"

"Then you were a fool for coming back because this time you might not get away." He broke away.

She let out a grunt of frustration. "I see you're still as stubborn. You think I don't see? I see alright. And you know what I see? I see you're scared behind all those grunts and growls. You have three seconds to tell me what you're afraid of." That brought him around and she stepped back. She raised her hand between them as if she wanted to hold him back from getting any closer, yet she was the one closing the distance by getting up in his face.

"You're a fiery mess of contradictions, woman." The way she whipped his name across the short distance separating them made his cock pulse. "Three seconds, huh? Or what? You'll chase me off my mountain? The way I see it, I could have three hours, three days or three weeks. This avalanche could be a foot thick or twenty and whatever you have in that bag won't sustain us beyond a few hours. At best."

On the off chance he added, "Unless you have a few Houdini tricks tucked into that suit of yours, we'll be here for a while." Before backing away, he drank in his feel of her irresistible scent. Tingles pricked his skin, burned the length of his back and tightened an iron fist around his balls.

The indifference she held onto like a shield fell, and he caught a glimpse of fear in her eyes.

Damn.

Her vulnerable stance and soft green eyes brought around a ferocious need to protect his woman. "Look, Esmeralda. I'm a bastard of a man. All I can think about is getting you fucking naked and coming so deep inside you that before we leave this mountain you have my baby in your womb and no way of ever leaving me again."

Even he was disgusted at his thoughts, but her expression softened. Like what he has to say was the best damn thing she'd heard in her entire life.

He gathered her hands and continued in a lower voice. "I'm sorry," he drew out, loving the smallest of contacts. "It's better you stay as far away from me as possible."

"Kinda hard, where you're trapped by an avalanche and feeling a little cold."

The way she angled her lips up to his told a whole other story. Despite what she would like him to believe, he heard the note of hope hidden in her tone. "You must be cold and if you freeze to death, I am NOT lugging your dead ass down this mountain."

There his spunky girl was. He cocked a grin. "We both know you'd leave me up here to learn my lesson."

When she smiled like that, everything seemed to fall into place and honestly, that scared him a bit. Hope was never something he wanted to play with.

"And you'll have fully earned it for trying to argue with me practically wearing nothing but your birthday suit."

Flustered looked good on her. All red, horny and so confused from the rush of old feelings. She didn't have to verbalize everything he clearly read in her expression and the way she worked his body over with that heated look of hers.

Thankful for the change in conversation, he pulled her hand into his and lead them further away from the ice wall. The cold didn't bother him, but he could tell she was having a tougher time with it.

"I'm the one who came up here to save someone and here I'm going to be the one saved," he teased, clenching his fists at his sides to keep from reaching out for her and hauling her into his embrace.

"Drake, this is not the place to get naked and funky."

"Really? You have other ideas of how to keep warm?"

Heat crawled up his neck as his balls grew heavy.

Mine .