“Why don’t we get into bed?” O’Malley guided her back into the tent and helped her take off her jacket.
The glowing embers were all that was left of the fire. O’Malley grabbed the lantern from his pack and lit it as she fumbled in the near-dark. The welcome light made it easier for her to slip into her sweatpants and then climb into her sleeping bag.
While she undressed, he turned around and kicked off his boots, then dragged his warm coat off his shoulders before placing them neatly inside the tent. He paused, looking down at the sleeping bags. “I can zip them together if you want.”
“I’d like that.” She shuffled to the side of the sleeping bag while he unzipped both of them and then zipped them together to make one large sleeping bag. O’Malley slipped off his combat pants before he pulled off his sweater and then got inside the sleeping bag. When he switched off the lantern, they were cast in darkness, but his breathing reassured her. He was there and he would never leave her.
He lay still for a long moment before he inched closer to her, as if checking if it was okay to invade her space. He’d held her before but being in the sleeping bags was more intimate.
Hannah shuffled toward him, her elbow snagging on a hard lump of rock as she moved.
“Hold me.” She slid her arms around his neck and nestled against him. For a moment, O’Malley froze and then he finally relaxed, and the warmth of his body seeped through her clothes and warmed her.
“Better?” he asked.
“Much.” As she lay in his arms with a full belly of food, her strength returned. She was able to put things into perspective and brush off her overwrought emotions. “Can we look at the stars?”
“Sure.” He unzipped the door section of the tent. The air outside was surprisingly cooler and she pressed closer to O’Malley. The stars in the sky were brilliant. So bright it was as if she could reach up and touch them.
“I wonder if Karl can see the same stars.”
O’Malley didn’t answer. What could he say? He had no more knowledge of whether her brother was alive or dead than she had.
Then he spoke. “When we were stationed abroad, we would often look up at the night sky as a way of feeling closer to our loved ones.”
“But if Karl is looking up at those same stars, why hasn’t he contacted us for weeks?” she asked, a question O’Malley had no answer to.
“I don’t know.” He closed his arms tighter around her.
“My only explanation is that he hit his head and has amnesia.” She tilted her head farther back. “Or that he broke his leg and can’t walk and the people who have saved him don’t have access to a phone.”
“There are many possible explanations,” O’Malley said but he was only trying to placate her.
“But no good explanations.” She turned and looked at him. As her eyes got used to the dark, she could see his profile, his nose, and his full kissable lips.
“No good explanations.” He sighed. “But I believe in hope. I believe in hanging on to hope until the absolute last moment.”
“And how does that work out for you?” She drew her hand out from under the sleeping bag and traced her finger across his cheek.
O’Malley turned his head to look at her. “You are here, aren’t you?”
“Good answer.” She shifted her weight and leaned on her elbow as she kissed his lips.
O’Malley cupped her cheek in his large, warm hand and kissed her right back. He hardened, pressing against her thigh and leaving her in no doubt of his arousal. If she pushed this further, he would make love to her right here, right now, under the stars.
Was that what she wanted? She didn’t want to make love to him just to fill the hole in her heart. This couldn’t be about smothering her fears for Karl by taking advantage of O’Malley.
Although, she doubted he would see it as being taken advantage of at all.
It was just a kiss. She was overthinking it as usual.
Yet as their kiss deepened, tendrils of desire unfurled in her belly and spread out to every part of her body. She was fooling herself if she thought this was just a kiss. This was so much more. This was two people finding each other and perhaps finding their true selves under the stars on a lonely mountain.
This was Hannah’s first real step toward committing herself to O’Malley and that word mate. As his tongue entwined with hers, she got a brief glimpse of what that truly meant. They belonged together.
She’d had plenty of relationships in the past. Some more serious than others. None that she believed would ever end in marriage and children. But she already knew that if he asked her to marry him now, she would say yes.
Hannah pulled back, scared of that kind of commitment.
Yet when she looked down at his face, she knew this was not something she could outrun. It was not something she could bury deep inside of her.
Some things were too strong for that and her relationship with O’Malley was one of those things.
“We can just lie here and look at the stars.” His voice, soft and gentle in the dark, soothed her and she relaxed, giving herself to the moment. Giving herself to him.
Hannah slid her hand down his chest, feeling the contours of his body through the thin fabric of his T-shirt. This was the next step. If she took it, she wouldn’t allow herself to chicken out and say no. It wouldn’t be fair, although she knew that the moment she said stop, the moment she had doubts, O’Malley would honor her wishes.
He could never hurt her. She believed him. It wasn’t just words, it was there in each look, each touch, each moment of concern she witnessed in his expression.
“We could just
