Free White Heat by Jill Shalvis Page A

the kissing she’d experienced in her life, she’d have to say, she’d started most of it.
    She hadn’t started this.
    Or had she? She’d have liked to hit rewind and relive it.
    A few times.
    Griffin took in the flaming vegetation so close, and shook his head in surprise. “It does feel good to be alive. I’d forgotten how good.”
    She felt herself leaning toward him, drawn by an energy she couldn’t seem to resist.
    “It’s okay,” he whispered, misunderstanding her reason for wanting to be close. “We’re both really okay.” He stood, and pulled her up as well. Both of his hands came up to once again cradle her face, his big, warm hands amazingly gentle.
    “Yeah.” But still she leaned in, craving the next kiss as she craved…air. This time he didn’t disappoint, his mouth covered hers, deepening the connection, using his entire body, his tongue, and this time it wasn’t a kiss driven by fear and desperation, but one of warmth and affection. And then, need. Hunger.
    When it was over, she slowly pulled back. Licked her lips to enjoy every last taste. Then turned toward the fire.
    Griffin shook his head as if to clear it, drew in a ragged breath, and also eyed the burning bush only a few feet away. “I’d have done anything to keep you from having to fall like that—”
    “I’m fine.” Even if her breathing hadn’t slowed or eased, and the problem wasn’t so much a sexual reaction to a delicious kiss, but asthma-related.
    “What you are,” he said, “is tough as hell. And for what it’s worth, it’s pretty damn inspiring.” He touched her again, just a brief stroke of his finger over her jaw. “At a time when I needed inspiring. I owe you for that.”
    “What you owe me is to get control of this fire.” Never comfortable with compliments, she tried to turn away, but he stopped her.
    Purposely she looked down at his hands on her, then up into his face, giving him a look that had singed the hair off plenty of men.
    And yet he didn’t scare off. “I know,” he said. “You want to get on with it, but Lyndie, you are amazing. You’re amazing to me.”
    “Look, I don’t know what to do with words like that, okay? Or the way I liked your kiss but don’t want to like you.”
    He let out a sound that might have been a laugh. “Make that two of us.” Once again he turned to the flames licking at the brush lining the river. Most had burned black by now, but there was still plenty left for the fire to eat up. “Let’s go upriver, I still need to see above the fire, see how far west it goes. Then back to the men and set a plan in motion.”
    “Right.” She took as deep a breath as she could—which wasn’t much—fortifying herself for another trek. “Up the river.”
    She started trudging through the water, but Griffin stopped her with a hand to her elbow.
    Slowly she looked up at him.
    “Thanks for not letting me quit,” he said quietly, shocked by how much it meant.
    She tried to shrug him off. “I didn’t do much. You just have a misguided sense of heroism.”
    He blinked. “What?”
    “You have a ‘save the world’ complex, Ace.” She patted his arm. “It’s actually quite annoying.”
    He narrowed his eyes. “Is it, now?”
    “Yeah.” Looking quite smug for someone with dirt on her nose and a ripped blouse, she splashed her way down the river, breathing heavily, clearly assuming he’d follow. When he didn’t, she turned and cocked a brow at him.
    He cocked a brow right back. “Would it be showing my…misguided sense of heroism, if I pointed out that you’re going the wrong way? I want to go up -stream.”
    She stopped and looked around, at the fire, the cliff, then both up and down the river before rolling her eyes at herself. Muttering beneath her breath, she whirled and splashed her way back to him, passing him, ignoring his soft laugh.
    Then, oddly enough, she slowed down and let him pass her. But because this wasn’t a woman to give up the lead, he paused.