“I accept this with pride and honor and thanks.” She entwined her fingers and drank in this sense of calmness and power again, not ever wanting to lose that. “I’m anxious to get going on this. Will we be able to leave tomorrow?”
He barked a laugh. “If we’re lucky.”
She sobered. “Are you kidding?”
“It could take days to clear the destruction left by the avalanche.”
She nodded, exuberance slouching a bit. “You’re sure?”
“Yes. It has happened before.” He crossed to her and clasped her shoulders, his blue eyes turning seductively smoky. “For now, we wait for word when the road is cleared.”
“And do what?” she asked.
His wolfish smile was answer enough.
* * *
Caprice opened her eyes slowly, every muscle in her body deliciously relaxed. It was too dark to guess the time, but at some point he’d taken her to bed. And they’d never left it.
She smiled and stretched, feeling a bit wicked being naked beneath the silk sheet with his scent on her, around her, the heat of him so near she remained comfortably warm. “Are you asleep?”
“No,” he said gruffly in a sleep-roughened voice. “I’m too hungry. Are you?”
Her stomach answered in a low rumble and they both laughed. “Definitely. And this time for something besides sex.”
“Can you cook?”
“Sure. I help out in my kitchen at the lodge all the time,” she said, a bit confused. “Why do you ask?”
“While we were sleeping, I received a text from my housekeeper. She tried to bring the monthly supplies to the rifugio, and discovered the trail blocked, so they went back to la Duchi Royal.”
“So someone knows we’re up here?”
“That was never an issue. Anyway, they are safe in the village and wanted to make sure we’d escaped the avalanche.” He pulled her from the bed and draped his shirt around her shoulders, his own long, lean body beautifully naked and aroused in the arrows of moonlight that targeted him. “Come on. Let’s raid the kitchen.”
She shrugged her arms into his shirt and rolled the sleeves up to her wrists, enjoying the glimpse of him thrusting long, strong legs into jeans that rode decadently low on his hips. “The ATV is low on petrol and my housekeeper assured me there was none to be found here, so seeking a route higher up is out of the question.”
“We can’t get down the mountain and nobody can get up it. And supplies here are obviously limited,” she said, the isolation of being here with him finally sinking in. “How long will it take before the trail is cleared?”
“Typically the crews have the route reopened in less than a week,” he said, his frown saying otherwise. “But this was an exceptionally wicked avalanche. It could take longer.”
“I suppose attempting to descend the mountain on skis is out of the question?”
“That would be too dangerous to attempt.”
Was she really hearing this from the man who thrived to test the limits on the slopes? “But—”