Alpine Embrace

Chapter 2

Consciousness didn't return all at once. It trickled in, like a leaking faucet in a quiet room.

First came the sound. A low, rhythmic thud-crunch, thud-crunch. It was the sound of heavy boots breaking through crusted snow.

Then came the feeling. I wasn't walking. I was floating. But floating implied a lightness, a sense of anti-gravity. I didn't feel light. I felt heavy, like my bones had been replaced with lead pipes. And yet, the ground was moving beneath me.

I was being carried.

My cheek was pressed against something slick and cold, nylon. Beneath the nylon, there was something hard. A shoulder? A chest?

I tried to open my eyes, but my eyelashes felt glued together with ice. Panic, sluggish and distant, began to stir in my chest.

Where am I?

The last thing I remembered was the whiteout. The snow blinding me. The cold biting through my jeans. And then... the shadow. The Titan.

I forced my eyes open, just a slit.

The world was a blur of gray and white violence. The wind was still screaming, a high-pitched keen that sounded like a banshee mourning the dead. But I wasn't feeling the brunt of it anymore.

I was shielded. A massive arm was wrapped around my legs, another around my back, holding me high against a chest that felt as wide as a doorframe. The figure moving through the storm was taking the hits for me, dipping his head against the gale, his body acting as a human windbreak.

"Put... me... down..." I croaked.

My voice was a whisper, lost instantly in the roar of the storm.

The figure didn't stop. If anything, his grip tightened, his fingers digging into the thick material of my coat. I could feel the tension in his body, the way his muscles bunched and released with every step. He was fighting the mountain, and from the way he was breathing, harsh, controlled bursts of air, the mountain was putting up a hell of a fight.

I tried to squirm, the "stranger danger" alarm finally piercing through the hypothermia haze.

"Hey," I managed, louder this time.

"Stop moving," a voice growled.

It wasn't a request. It was a command, deep and vibrating through his chest directly into my ear. The voice was rough, like gravel tumbling in a dryer, and it held no kindness. Only irritation.

"You're... kidnapping me," I slurred, my brain firing on cylinders that hadn't quite warmed up yet.

"I'm saving your life, you i***t," he snapped back, not breaking his stride. "Now stay still or I’ll drop you in a drift and let you freeze."

He wouldn't. I knew, instinctively, that he wouldn't. You don't carry a stranger through a Category 5 blizzard just to dump them. But the threat was enough to shut me up.

I let my head fall back against his shoulder. The exhaustion was a heavy blanket. It would be so easy to just close my eyes again...

Don't sleep, the survival instinct whispered. If you sleep, you don't wake up.

I focused on the details. The smell of him. Even through the cold, he smelled distinct. Not like the wet wool smell of my rental cabin. He smelled like pine sap and woodsmoke, with a sharp, metallic undertone. It was a masculine scent, aggressive and expensive.

We turned a corner, or maybe we just walked into a different wall of wind, and suddenly, the lighting changed. The gray gloom was pierced by a warm, amber glow.

Lights. Outdoor floodlights, fighting to cut through the snow.

We were at a house. Not my house. My cabin was a shack. This... this was a fortress.

Through my squinting eyes, I saw massive timber beams, dark stone, and glass that looked thick enough to stop a bullet. It was a chalet, the kind you saw on the cover of Architectural Digest: Billionaire Edition.

He took the stairs two at a time, his boots clanging on the wood. He shifted my weight, freeing one hand to punch a code into a keypad.

Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep.

The lock disengaged with a heavy mechanical clunk.

He kicked the door open.

The transition was instant and jarring. One second, I was in a wind tunnel; the next, the silence crashed down on me. The door slammed shut behind us, sealing out the scream of the storm, leaving only the sound of his heavy, labored breathing and the dripping of melting snow.

He didn't put me down immediately. He stood there in the entryway, or "foyer" as people with this much money probably called it, adjusting his grip.

"Jesus," he muttered, his voice echoing off the high ceilings. "You're lucky I have ears like a hawk."

He walked a few more steps and finally lowered me.

My feet touched the slate floor.

"Ow!" I gasped as my knees buckled instantly. My legs were jelly. Numb, frozen jelly.

He caught me before I hit the ground, his hand clamping onto my upper arm to keep me upright. His grip was strong, bordering on painful, but it was the only thing keeping me vertical.

"Can you stand?" he demanded.

I looked up. Or I tried to. My vision was still swimming. "I think... my legs are on strike."

He let out a huff of annoyance. "Sit. Bench."

He steered me, read: dragged me, three feet to the right, depositing me onto a wooden bench built into the wall of the mudroom. I slumped against the wall, my head spinning.

Now that we were out of the storm, the adrenaline was fading, replaced by the painful process of thawing out. My fingers and toes started to throb, a prickly, burning sensation that made me want to scream.

"My hands," I whimpered, looking down at my gloves. They were caked in ice.

The man was suddenly in front of me, dropping to one knee. He wasn't looming anymore; he was at eye level.

He began to strip my gear off with efficient, impersonal speed. He wasn't being gentle, but he wasn't rough either. He was clinical. Like a mechanic stripping an engine.

He yanked my left glove off. Then the right. He took my hands in his.

His hands were massive. They engulfed mine completely. And they were hot. The heat transfer was intense, shocking my frozen skin. He rubbed them briskly, the friction creating a burn that made me hiss.

"Feel that?" he asked.

"Yes," I gritted out. "It hurts."

"Good. Pain means nerves are working. Numb is bad. Pain is good."

He dropped my hands and went for my boots. He unlaced them with lightning speed, jerking them off my feet and tossing them into the corner where they landed with a wet thwack.

"Coat," he ordered.

I fumbled with the zipper. My fingers were useless sausages. I couldn't get the purchase on the metal tab.

He batted my hands away. "Stop. You're too slow."

He reached up, grabbed the zipper, and yanked it down. He peeled the wet wool off my shoulders, wrestling my arms out of the sleeves.

"Do you always undress women this fast?" I mumbled, the snark slipping out before I could stop it. It was a defense mechanism. When in doubt, be sarcastic.

He paused.

For the first time since he’d picked me up in the snowbank, he actually looked at me. Really looked at me.

He was still wearing his parka, though he’d pushed the hood back. He reached up and pulled off his beanie and goggles, tossing them onto the bench beside me.

I forgot how to breathe.

If I had sketched him in my notebook, I would have used sharp, aggressive lines. He wasn't "handsome" in the way Brad was handsome. Brad was polished, soft edges and expensive moisturizer.

This man was a jagged rock face.

He had dark hair, messy from the hat, that fell over a forehead etched with a permanent scowl. His eyes were the color of slate, gray, cold, and assessing. A scar cut through his left eyebrow, giving him a dangerous, slightly unhinged look. And his jaw... his jaw was covered in a thick shadow of stubble that did nothing to hide the hard, clenched line of his muscle.

He was terrifying. And he was, objectively, the most striking man I had ever seen.

He stared at me, his eyes narrowing. "You have a concussion?"

"No," I said, trying to sit up straighter and failing. "Just... cold."

"You're not funny," he said flatly. "You were almost a popsicle. Another ten minutes out there and I'd be calling the coroner, not thawing you out."

He stood up, towering over me again. He unzipped his own parka, shrugging it off to reveal a tight, black thermal shirt that clung to a chest that looked like it was carved out of granite. Even through the fabric, I could see the definition. The man was built like a tank.

"Who are you?" I asked, watching him hang his coat on a hook.

"The guy who owns the property you were trespassing on," he said, turning back to me.

"I wasn't trespassing," I argued, though my teeth had started to chatter. "I was... looking for the shed. Firewood."

He crossed his arms over his chest. Biceps bulged. It was distracting. "The shed is fifty yards east. You were walking west. Toward the ravine."

My stomach dropped. " Ravine?"

"Fifty-foot drop," he said casually, as if discussing the weather. "You would have gone over the edge before you even saw it."

A shiver raked through me, and this time it wasn't from the cold. I had been walking off a cliff. Literally.

"Oh," I whispered.

"Yeah. 'Oh.'" He shook his head, running a hand through his hair. He looked exhausted, and annoyed. "What were you doing out there? The storm warning has been on every channel for six hours."

"I... I didn't check the TV," I defended weakly. "I just got here. The rental didn't have wood. I was cold."

"So you went out in a whiteout? Smart."

"I didn't know it was a whiteout until I was in it!" I snapped, a spark of anger cutting through the numbness. "And who puts a wood shed fifty yards away from the house? That's just poor urban planning."

He stared at me for a beat, his expression unreadable. Then, he let out a short, dry sound. It might have been a laugh, or a cough of disbelief.

"Urban planning," he repeated. "Right. Because we're in the suburbs."

He stepped closer, invading my personal space again. The heat radiating off him was intoxicating.

"Can you walk?" he asked.

"I think so."

"We need to get you by the fire. And you need dry clothes. You're shaking."

I looked down. He was right. My hands were trembling violently in my lap. My wet jeans were clinging to my legs like icy skin.

"I don't have dry clothes," I said. "My bag is... back there."

He sighed. A deep, long-suffering sigh that suggested I was the single greatest inconvenience of his life.

"Fine. You can borrow something. Come on."

He reached out a hand.

I hesitated. I looked at his large, calloused palm. I looked at the scowl on his face. I looked at the scar on his brow.

I didn't know this man. I was trapped in his house, miles from civilization, in a storm that was burying the world. He was huge, angry, and clearly stronger than me by a factor of ten.

But the cold was still gnawing at my bones.

I reached out and took his hand.

He pulled me up. This time, my legs held, mostly because he didn't let go. He kept one hand on my elbow, guiding me out of the mudroom and into the main living area.

If the outside was a fortress, the inside was a sanctuary.

We stepped into a massive open-plan room dominated by a fireplace that was big enough to roast a whole pig. The fire was already roaring, flames licking at massive logs, casting a golden light over leather furniture, thick fur rugs, and floor-to-ceiling bookshelves.

It was warm. Wonderfully, beautifully warm.

"Sit," he pointed to a sprawling leather sofa near the fire.

I sat. I sank into the leather, closing my eyes for a second as the heat from the fire washed over me.

"Stay," he commanded. "I'll get clothes."

He walked away, disappearing down a hallway.

I took a breath, the air smelling of cedar and him. I looked around the room, my artist's eye cataloging the details.

It was a masculine space. Minimalist but expensive. No clutter. No personal photos on the mantle. Just art, abstract, moody pieces, and heavy furniture.

On the coffee table in front of me, there was a stack of papers. Architectural blueprints? No. I leaned forward, squinting.

They were plays. Hockey plays. Diagrams of ice rinks with arrows and X's and O's scrawled in angry red marker.

I frowned. Who is this guy?

I heard footsteps returning. Heavy. Purposeful.

He walked back into the room holding a gray hoodie and a pair of sweatpants. He tossed them at me. They landed in my lap.

"Bathroom is down the hall, second door on the left," he said. "Change. Bring the wet stuff out here."

"Thank you," I said, clutching the dry fabric like it was gold.

He didn't say 'you're welcome.' He just walked over to the fireplace, grabbed a metal poker, and stabbed at the logs, sending a shower of sparks up the chimney. His back was to me, the muscles shifting under his shirt.

I stood up, my legs wobbling only slightly. I made it to the hallway.

"Hey," he called out, stopping me before I reached the bathroom.

I turned around.

He was looking at me over his shoulder. The firelight caught the sharp angle of his cheekbone, casting half his face in shadow. He looked dangerous. Predatory.

"Don't get comfortable," he said, his voice low. "As soon as the roads are clear, you're gone."

I swallowed hard. "Understood."

"Good." He turned back to the fire. "And don't touch anything."

I walked into the bathroom and locked the door behind me. My hands were shaking so hard I could barely slide the bolt.

I leaned against the door, exhaling a breath I felt like I'd been holding for an hour.

I was alive. I was warm.

But as I looked at myself in the mirror, pale, hair matted with melting snow, eyes wide with shock, I had a sinking feeling.

I had survived the whiteout. But I had a feeling that surviving the man in the living room was going to be infinitely harder.