and lucky blue jeans. Both had holes in them, but she always had good things happen to her when she wore them. And after last night, she figured it wouldn’t hurt to add to her luck because who knew, perhaps Colt would return?
Her belly fluttered at the thought of the previous night’s excesses.
She had her red backpack strapped on, chock full of essential items she might need, including water, one of her last remaining protein bars, the air horn, a small first aid kit, an electronic compass, and a backup traditional compass in case she lost or broke the electronic one, a digital camera, her satellite phone, and her cell phone even though the cell received poor reception out here.
Today, she figured on stretching her legs, and getting a bit more of the lay of the land. Avery enjoyed being outdoors, and since nature had forced her inside for the better part of the last twenty-four hours, the fresh air would do her body good, along with the exercise.
Not that she hadn’t gotten any exercise in the last twenty-four hours, because she had—in spades.
Who knew that cowboys had that kind of stamina? Or perhaps it was because he worked outside, and the physical labor demanded of his body had given him mastery over his form that he converted into sexual endurance. If she had time, when she returned to the cabin, she was going to have to research more of what it meant, him being a Dominant. All she did know was that there were muscles in her body she hadn’t even realized she had that were sore, and she felt magnificent. The hike would stretch out all the kinks. Although she doubted it would do anything about the chafing between her thighs.
That wasn’t to say on her adventures around the globe Avery hadn’t taken lovers and enjoyed them fully, because she had, plenty of times. In her philosophy, life was meant to be lived with passion and verve. And it was the chances one didn’t take that ended up as regrets later on.
But in all her wanderings, there had never been a man quite like her cowboy, Colt. Darkly sensual, deliciously domineering, all wrapped up in a manly package that simply oozed alpha. And with a body that seemed to have been hewn from the nearby mountains. She had explored every inch of that man last night like he was a science mystery that needed deciphering. And boy did the man have a lot of inches.
He had screwed her brainless, multiple times, until her bones had simply melted and her body stopped functioning. It had been the most scorching, erotic night of her life. He’d even woken her up this morning before he left—the light outside had been that gray in between night and day light—so they could have a quickie before he left the cabin. She’d climaxed before she was fully awake. The man was sin personified, and seemed to have an inherent carnal knowledge with the ability to make her purr in delight. She pressed a hand to her belly. She wanted more time with the sexy cowboy, more than a single night.
Before he’d left the cabin, she had invited him to come view the stars with her tonight. And in his gruff, sexy baritone, he had replied with perhaps. It was a very noncommittal answer on his part. She worried that she was reading too much into the situation. They’d had a stellar, exotic, sex filled night together. One she didn’t regret at all. And she refused to allow herself to mope, wondering whether it would end up being a one night kind of deal.
But she figured he would return. If not tonight, another night that she was here. They were drawn to each other in an almost magnetic fashion. It was something she wished she could analyze under a microscope, or divine the reasons behind their attraction with some new mathematical equation.
Because for Avery, the potency of their attraction—and the sex, good god, the sex—was on the level.
It should terrify her, the stark depth of her attraction, the way she craved more of his lovemaking after only one night. But after a lifetime of loneliness, a part of her wondered if she had finally found her penguin. They were one of her favorite animals. She had spent months down in Antarctica, studying them, because they fascinated her with the journeys they took each year to mate. And how, once they found their mate, they tended