Free Immortally Embraced by angie fox

night.”
    We had to get out of here. I could feel him behind me. I could probably touch him if I wanted to.
    “Both sides have patrols and skirmishers,” he said. “I don’t know how far out. They’ve also set up charges at the edges of their lines. If we don’t get arrested, we’ll be incinerated. The safest way is to go straight through the old army lines.”
    My heart thudded against my chest. “Naturally.” That was about as suicidal as coming here with him in the first place.
    “We’re meeting my contact here.”
    I swallowed. Was he as turned on as I was?
    He touched my shoulder, and awareness rocketed through me. “Petra, are you all right?”
    I faced him. If I’d thought he looked good from a distance, it was nothing like up close. He was leaner than I’d remembered. Harder. I took in the sculpted planes of his chest, the pure natural strength of him as his muscles tapered down to … sweet heaven.
    My face flamed. He was hard.
    And he was beautiful.
    His gaze traveled down to where I was staring and he cleared his throat. “Do you have my clothes?”
    My entire body flushed with embarrassment, but I couldn’t stop looking. Not for a million dollars. “I dropped them,” I said, giving myself a mental shake, “except for this.” I handed him the boot.
    The skin at his forehead crinkled. “Well, I suppose this is better than nothing.”
    I didn’t see how.
    “Step back,” he said, moving me aside as lava pooled near one of my feet.
    “Holy—” I leapt straight at him, colliding with warm skin and muscle.
    “This way.” His eyes glittered as we both took several steps back. “We don’t want you to get incinerated because you couldn’t stop staring at my cock.”
    I flushed straight down to my toes. “It’s this place.”
    “Yes,” he said, stark hunger radiating from him. “It magnifies whatever you’re feeling. With the armies, it’s usually battle rage. With us, it seems to be…”
    Lust. He didn’t have to say it. We both knew.
    I struggled to untangle myself from him. “We can’t,” I said quickly, before I said something else.
    “I know,” he rushed, his voice raw. Suddenly impatient, he brushed past me, focusing on the lava finger. “Hell, why do you think I stayed away from you before?”
    I’d assumed it was because he didn’t want me. Now?
    I was almost glad for small, homicidal lava creatures.
    The line of magma seeped from the underside of the rock, straight for me. My duffel sat a few feet away, near the edge, untouched. Most of the rock was clear, in fact. “What is it doing? Following me?”
    “In a manner of speaking.” He slipped a hand inside his boot and pounded the hard sole onto the ground. The lava shrank back like a frightened animal. “These are treated,” he said, matter-of-fact, showing me the red underside of the boot.
    “How does it not freak you out?” It’s not like the lava was fast, but it would have been on me before I realized it. And then what? How do you shake off molten rock?
    “You don’t get lava fingers in your camp?” he asked, somewhat surprised. “We must be closer to the front.”
    Another reason to avoid MASH-19X.
    My eyes darted over his body again. I couldn’t help it. He was sleek, gorgeous.
    It was too much. Being here. With him. I felt like we were on some demented outdoor camping trip, only we were on a life-and-death mission and we certainly were not together.
    “Tell me again why I agreed to do this,” I said, watching him flip the lava finger off the rock like a hairy spider.
    “Because you always do the right thing.” He dropped the boot and closed the distance between us. The corner of his mouth tipped up as he drew me into his arms, “even if it annoys the hell out of you.”
    It was so achingly familiar, like coming home. I wanted to sink into him and stay there.
    I ran my hands along his shoulders, up his neck. I’d forgotten what it was like to have him close. “So this,” I said, to be