Landon was always going to call to me.

His gaze dropped to my lips. “Tell me no,” he said.

“Landon,” I said softly, my hands coming between us to push against his chest.

“Tell. Me. No.”

My mouth opened, but nothing came out, and even though I’d commanded my hands to push him away, they were gently stroking the lines of his chest.

“Rachel,” he begged, but I wouldn’t answer him because I couldn’t.

His thumbs stroked my cheeks, and I saw the moment his eyes changed from conflicted to determined.

His mouth found mine, and I was home.

His kiss was soft, and he groaned as he shifted, sinking his hands into my hair as his lips caressed mine. Slow, sipping kisses assaulted my senses, made me forget where we were…or what year it was.

His tongue flirted with the lower line of my mouth, and I opened for him. He slipped inside like he’d never left, his taste and touch overwhelming as he filled the cracks in my soul he’d put there in the first place. He made me feel whole for the first time in more than two years.

“Rachel.” He sighed, saying my name again before tilting my head so I could take him deeper. Our tongues slid and rubbed, and everything that had been forgotten came back with startling clarity.

This…there were no words for what he did to me, the way every nerve ending sparked to life as our bodies came into contact in the compact space. As my hands slid over his chest to grasp the back of his neck, one of his skimmed my spine until he cupped my hip.

God, this was what I’d missed. The few guys I’d let kiss me had been good, but they’d never had this effect on me, never turned me molten with a single kiss, never blocked out the world around us with the simple glide of his tongue.

Only Landon.

Heat flushed my skin, raced through my veins, waking up even the most dormant parts of me—those that screamed for him, begged for me to loop my leg over his hips—the parts I’d tried my best to kill off.

He was an amazing kisser.

Because he’s had a hell of a lot of practice.

Because he’d left.

Because I wasn’t enough for him.

His name was Nova now, due to the revolving door that had become his bed. His mouth. His hands were practiced at giving pleasure, and his heart had already schooled me in the art of heartbreak.

I ripped my mouth from his. “No.”

“Rach?” he asked, immediately pulling back.

“We can’t. I can’t. I…” I looked up into those hazel eyes, already greenish with want, and I did the one thing I swore I never would and let fear rule me. “I won’t.”

He flinched, and a spike of anger flashed over the need that had control of my body. Who the hell was he to look hurt?

“Okay,” he said softly with a tiny nod. “Do you want me to go?”

Did I? I didn’t have the immature need to stomp away, to run like the child I had been when he’d walked out, but I wasn’t capable of more. “No,” I answered. “I just…I can’t.”

“I understand.”

“Do you?” My hands withdrew, but with the confines of the bag, they only made it to rest between us.

“I don’t want to. I want to kiss you until you forget what I did and what I’ve done since then, but I gave up that right a long time ago. So if this is where I have to start with you, I’ll take it. It’s a hell of a lot better than I ever thought I’d get.”

I cracked a huge yawn, exhaustion reminding me that it was still an issue. Warmth finally infused every part of me after hours of bone-chilling cold, and my body was ready to shut down.

“Get some sleep. I promise I’ll be a perfect gentleman.”

I snorted.

“I mean it. Just sleep and let me hold you.”

My choices were to shiver myself to sleep or choose the nuclear reactor that had climbed into bed with me. “Okay. But just tonight.”

“Just tonight,” he agreed, but I swore I heard him mutter, “for now.” Then he sucked in a breath as I tried to get comfortable. “Don’t wiggle, okay? Things are hard enough as it is.”

My eyes popped open as I realized he was rock hard against me. “I’m sorry,” I mumbled as I executed the most awkward roll in history in the tight space to give him my back.

“Not helping,” he groaned as my ass pressed against him.

“Want me to move?” I offered, knowing there had to be an extra bag somewhere.

“No, I want you to stop moving.”

A small smile spread across my face. At least I still had the power to move him. Then again, probably half the girls on the ship had moved him. “Okay,” I said through another yawn, sleep reaching for me.

“Get some sleep,” he ordered again.

My eyelids agreed. “It didn’t mean anything,” I said, my words heavy and slow as my breathing evened out. “The kiss,” I added, in case he didn’t understand what I was saying.

“Maybe to you,” he said quietly, pressing a kiss into my hair as his arm wrapped around my waist.

“To you?” I asked as the world darkened and I slipped into sleep.

“Everything,” he said in my dreams.

Chapter Fifteen

Landon

Himalayas

“You’re a lucky SOB,” Pax said as he eyeballed the ridgeline. We stood side by side in full gear, my snowboard strapped to my back. But I had crampons for ice climbing clipped on my boots, and Pax definitely did not.