he was Thomas, he instantly released her—just enough so that he could look searchingly into her eyes. He was breathing hard—she was, too—and the expression on his face was one she’d remember to her dying day. Because he wasn’t hiding anything. Everything he was feeling was all right there—his fear for her, and more—laid bare for her to see.
Tasha kissed him again—she couldn’t resist—and whispered, “I thought I’d lost you, too. I saw the rifle and I thought... I thought the worst.”
He rested his forehead against hers, his hands now in her hair. “You forgot that I’m ridiculously hard to kill.”
She laughed, just a little. “I’m so sorry,” she said. “I know going outside was a mistake, but I wanted to help you, not...” Make it worse. And she had to ask. “Did you kill them?” He shook his head, so she clarified, to make sure they were talking about the same thing. “The two men who shot at me?”
“No, they were gone when I got here,” Thomas told her. “But there was blood on the trail. I think you hit one of them.”
What?
“Oh my God,” she said, aghast. “I didn’t mean to. I didn’t even aim.” She tried to remember that moment, as she was manhandling the rifle up and into place. “Oh my God,” she said again. “Did I...?” Kill one of them? She couldn’t form the words. And suddenly she needed space, so she reached up to hold onto her jacket as she pushed herself off of Thomas’s lap.
“I don’t know,” he admitted. “But... There were only two?”
Only...? “Yeah,” she said, “that I know of.”
“Then I’m pretty sure whoever you shot was only injured,” he told her. “His teammate helped him back to camp. If he’d already been dead, the other guy would’ve left the body, gone back to get help. There was no body, so...”
That was good.
Wasn’t it?
Or was it? Maybe she shouldn’t be feeling this much relief over the fact that she hadn’t killed one of the men who were trying to kill her and Thomas. As she drew in a shaky breath, she said, “But they’ll be back. They know where we are now.”
Thomas nodded, his face somber. “They do.”
“Should we leave, right now?” she asked. “Before they return?”
“No, we’re safer in here,” he said. “It’s too cold out there, and it’s getting colder.”
“But we’ll be trapped in here.”
She hadn’t even enunciated the P of trapped before the lock to the hatch started beeping.
Someone outside was inputting a code.
She scrambled to her feet, still clutching her jacket as Thomas grabbed for the rifle.
But the system made a noise she’d never heard before—the code was an incorrect guess and it had been rejected.
That was good.
But someone—most likely a lot of someones were outside. They’d found the keypad and were trying to get in.
That was definitely bad.
“Can you walk?” Thomas asked her.
“I can,” Tash said, grabbing her bloodstained shirt and heading for the stairs.
Thomas was right behind her, carrying the rifle as he followed her down and through the fortified door. He closed and locked it behind him with a very final-sounding thunk.
And there they were. Locked into the relative safety of the former bomb shelter, Thomas staring at Tasha as Tasha stared back.
The worst had happened. Not only were they in siege mode, but he’d just kissed her.
She was standing there, still holding her bloodied winter jacket up against her bare breasts. Her jeans were torn at the knees, and her injured arm was in need of some serious cleaning. Her hair was tangled around her face. Her eyes were wide and her mouth...
Thomas realized he was standing there, staring at that mouth that he’d just thoroughly kissed, and yeah, he was equally thoroughly screwed, because he wanted to kiss her again.
And no, he corrected himself, the worst hadn’t happened. He was alive and Tasha was, too. And even though their location had been discovered by the men who were hunting them, that still wasn’t even close to the worst that he would’ve been experiencing if he’d found Tasha dead or dying. It would be good to remember that.
As far as kissing her...? It had been awful. And wonderful. And terrifying. He felt, in its aftermath, as if he were wearing his entire cardiovascular system outside of his skin—totally raw and exposed.
And desperate for more. He wanted to just hit pause on the danger they were in, just set down the rifle, and...
“What do we do now?” she broke the silence to ask. “I mean,