"Want a hot dog?"
"What happened to everyone for themselves?"
A smart man would stick to that, wouldn't he? "I don't mind sharing."
"You should. I saw what you have in your cooler. You're going to need to conserve your resources."
He drew in a breath through his nose and let it back out. So much for trying to be nice. "Fine. Make your own dinner."
His hot dog was almost done when she sat down on a log by the fire with a deli sandwich and a beer from her cooler. His mouth watered as he eyed the dark bottle with beads of condensation rolling down the side. Why the hell hadn't he thought to bring beer?
Halfway through their silent dinner, he said, "We should've called Nash's bluff. We still could, if we both quit and go home together."
She looked up from her food with a frown. "You're just trying to get me to agree so you win the bet."
"No, I'm not." He wouldn't mind her agreeing so he could get away from the damn bugs.
"Well, it doesn't matter anyway. I don't quit."
Oh, he was well versed with that trait of hers. Always commendable-unless it inconvenienced him. "Come on. You don't honestly think he'd fire either of us, do you?"
"I'm not willing to chance it after all the work I've put in to get to where I'm at. Unlike my mother, I've never been fired in my life."
Interest sparked at the completely unexpected peek into her personal life. By the tightening of her jaw, she hadn't meant to reveal even that little glimpse.
"Your mother go through a lot of jobs, did she?"
"It doesn't matter." She stood abruptly and turned for her tent. "I'm going to sleep."
Wow. She'd clammed up so fast, if the tent flap were a door, he didn't doubt she would've slammed it behind her. Her forgotten bottle beckoned from the ground next to the log she'd been sitting on, and he checked to find it still half-full.
He stared at the fire and took measured pulls off the beer as he mulled over her response. The resentment in her voice, along with her use of mother, not mom, indicated they did not get along. He'd never wondered about her family life before, but the thought she may not have a happy one made him want to make her happy.
Whoa. Hold up there.
His fingers tightened on the bottle, and he raised it to his lips to drain the rest of the beer. He was more like his dad than he'd thought. At least he could recognize the flaw, though. Before he became a doormat for a woman who was never satisfied no matter what his father did. His mother had raised him to stand up for himself, while his father had kowtowed to every frivolous whim his step-mother demanded.
Shanna was a poster child for expecting things to be done her way. He'd rather die alone than set himself up for that hell.
The fire burned down to bright, glowing coals, and the bugs finally drove him inside his damp sleeping bag. Thanks to the itchy mosquito bites, persistent thoughts of Shanna, and a damned owl hooting it up in the tree above his head, it was a while before he managed to fall asleep.
He woke to another dousing of water-only this time from the sky.
Chapter 6
Shanna grinned as Kevin's colorful cursing sounded over the rain drumming on the tent, until a loud rumble of thunder drowned out his pissed-off voice. When a hair-raising crackle of lightning lit up all around her tent, she held her breath and waited for him to rip up the zipper and dash inside. His large presence shrunk any space he occupied, so her roomy space would turn into a tiny closet.
Seconds turned into minutes.
Hmm. He was more determined with this wager than she'd expected.
Her phone read one-thirteen a.m., but she hadn't had cell service since halfway across the second lake, so there was no way to check the radar to see how long the downpour might last. Much as she wished to leave him out there in the storm their first night, she wasn't that desperate to win their bet. Considering his obvious lack of wilderness experience and pitiful preparedness, she didn't need to be.
Flipping the switch on her lantern, she crawled over to unzip the tent to holler out to him. Expecting to see him huddled under his sleeping bag for cover, she was surprised when another flash of lightning revealed an empty campsite.
"Kevin?"
A split second of alarm spiked her pulse, until it dawned on her he'd taken shelter in the outhouse. She sat back, nose wrinkled at the idea. Should she be relieved or offended that he chose that location over her tent? Then she laughed at the absurdity of it all-and felt bad. He might be dry in there, but she wasn't heartless enough to make him endure that awful stench all night.
She shrugged into her thin rain jacket and held the lantern under one side while hurrying to the outhouse. When she pushed open the door, Kevin jerked his head up in surprise.
Seeing her, he made a disgruntled noise. "I just stopped dripping. I'm not stepping back out in that."
Shanna paused as much for his do-not-mess-with-me-tone as his words. He thought she'd come to use the outhouse. "You'd really expect me to go while you're in here?"
"I'll turn around."
"Um, I don't think so." She second-guessed her decision to be nice even as a rumble of thunder shook the thumbnail-sized house.
"I'm done getting wet today." Temper roughened his voice. "I am not leaving."
"Fine. Then I won't offer for you to stay in my tent. Sweet dreams."
She let the door slam shut and stomped away, head bent against the drops pelting at her hood. A second bang of the door made her grit her teeth, and a moment later, he caught up with her. In the rain he'd refused to go back out in.
"You didn't have to use the outhouse, did you?"
"Nope."
"You could've just said so."
"You didn't give me a chance."
"No, you acted like you needed to."
"Because you jumped down my throat the second I opened the door."
"I wasn't expecting you to come out and actually be nice to me."
As she frowned, cold water dripped from her hood, to her face, and down her neck until her sleep camisole stopped the trickle. Realizing they were arguing in the rain like idiots, she bent under the tent awning with a growl of annoyance, swept aside the zipper flap, and ducked inside with her lantern.
Kevin followed right behind her, but she jabbed a finger in his direction when she saw the dripping sleeping bag in his clenched fist. "Get that out of here."
"What?"
"You know you aren't going to use it tonight, and it'll have to dry out tomorrow anyway, so leave it outside."
He disappeared for a few moments, then returned as she dried off her face and legs with a beach towel. When he came back in, he was stripped down to his boxers again. Her hungry gaze tracked rivulets of water down his chest to the first indent of his defined abs.
God help me.
She tossed the towel at him to avoid letting her gaze dip lower than his stomach.
"Thanks."
"Stay on your side and leave me alone," she snipped while sliding inside her sleeping bag and turning her back to him.
He gave a soft snort. "Gladly."
She shut off the lantern, then frowned in the dark, hating that she sounded like a shrew. But the alternative was to push him down on her bed and lick every last drop of rain off his magnificent body. Her nipples tightened at the thought. She bit the corner of her lip to hold back a moan as the memory of him inside her, filling her like no one else ever had, made her core clench with hot, needy longing.
Earlier he'd said great sex wasn't worth the hell of the past month. She whole-heartedly agreed-about the sex part, anyway.
Well, about the hell part, too … didn't she?
Hmm. Interesting question.
If she could go back and change that night, would she?
No. I'd rather do it again. And again. And-
Well, damn.
Shanna snuggled closer to the warmth at her back and hugged the arm slung over her waist. A soft, deep inhale filled her senses with Kevin's musky male scent as the stubble on his chin scraped against her bare shoulder. Through the sleeping bag, his erection pressed against her backside, bringing a smile of delicious anticipation to her lips.
She threaded her fingers with his and slid his palm up to her-
No-wait-what the hell!
Her body stiffened as her eyes popped open to the morning light illuminating the tent. His arm tightened, until the sharp jab of her elbow into his ribs elicited a pained grunt and a muttered curse.
"Damn it, woman." He pushed up to sit as he rubbed his side. "It was a nice dream until you assaulted me."
She shimmied away and sat up in her sleeping bag to face him. "I told you to stay on your own side."
"I had nothing to lay on." He ran his hands through shaggy hair gone wild from having dried while he slept. "The ground is hard as a damn rock without my sleeping bag." He lowered his arms and patted his hands on the floor of the tent. "I think there might even be rocks underneath here. You should've checked before setting this thing up."
She bristled at the criticism so soon after her delusional morning fantasy. "I did, jackass. You're like that princess with the pea in her bed-only it's not even your bed. So stop your bitching and go away."
It took everything she had to keep her gaze focused up, on his stubble covered jaw-and even then, it wasn't fair she still wanted to climb all over him.