Her husky tones and heavy breaths filled his mind. "Josh? Where are you? Come on back to me...."
"Josh?" Alicia nudged her sleeping husband's bare shoulder. Gently. Definitely gently. She knew enough about combat nightmares to be wary of startling somebody in the grips of one. His mumbled radio calls and flight lingo left her in no doubt. He was deep in battle mode. "Where are you? Come on back to me.
We're here. In Alaska. Safe."
For now.
She stroked over his shoulder, down his arm to either ease him awake or soothe him into more peaceful dreams. How long had they been asleep? Was it Christmas Eve yet? No light filtered through the lone window. Low embers glowed from the fire, the murky dark shrouding the metal hut with intimacy.
Alicia continued to caress his shoulder and mutter shushing noises. Muscles bulged under her touch, launching a tingling shower through her while she was still too sleep-woozy to resist. Oh, boy.
She'd really expected them to have sex after his sensual hair wash. She'd actually hoped he would wash away the memories with his body against hers. His arousal had been more than obvious. She'd been more than a little turned on herself, and yet he'd shut her down. Fast. So what if he was being practical?
She didn't want him to feel practical around her.
Alicia jabbed his ankle with her toe. Josh bolted upright. She jerked back, flinched. His eyes snapped open. Blinking, his chest heaving, he scrubbed his hands over his face.
Guilt tweaked her. She was being selfish. He was right to keep his distance if just talking to her brought nightmares.
Sheesh. Like they needed any more complications in their relationship.
She forked her fingers through her dried-crazy hair and decided it probably didn't look any wilder than when she tousled it with gel. And why was she worrying about her appearance, anyway?
Duh.
Because of Josh, whose close-cropped black hair looked just fine. Great, for that matter—right over a brow still furrowed. "Are you okay?"
"Yeah, I just hate the way dreams are so damned illogical." He scratched his chest absently. Did he have to keep drawing attention to those hunky pecs if he didn't intend to let her touch them? "It's like the cosmos is playing a big trick on me when I don't have my brain engaged to override it. Which is a lame thing to think since it's my brain doing the dreaming. I just need to clear my head."
He flipped back the sleeping bag and stood, leaving a cold draft beside her. Inside her as well. She watched while he stoked the fire to life, adding more wood from the two large stacks beside the cast-iron stove. Flames flickered higher, bronzing his already tanned skin in an amber glow.
Heat blossomed from the grate over her.
She needed to know how he felt about what she'd told him, even if it hurt. "Is what I said earlier freaking you out?"
He jerked to face her. "No. Absolutely not. Well, not the way you're implying, anyway." "In what way, then?"
She could all but see the wheels turning in his head as he struggled for words to corral thoughts bigger than simple language allowed. "And could you please, please come back into the sleeping bag before you freeze your cute butt off."
Shadows flicked over the smile playing at his mouth. "There you go, surprising me again."
But he didn't argue, instead slipping those long, corded legs into the cottony warmth beside her. Gulp.
"Uh, Josh? In what way have I freaked you out?"
"I've always trusted that you could hold your own in the air, but this isn't about flying. And before you go getting your back up, I really mean that. I'm okay with your fighting in combat. That's work, and you're trained."
"Then what do you mean?"
"This other thing going on...it's not about work." He stared into the open grate, flames licking higher, sparking from the logs. "I'm a man, damn it. Your husband. Call it Cro-Magnon, but it's tough for me to accept there's no way I can right this wrong done to you. Hell, give me somebody to punch or a target to take out. I'm having trouble not being able to fight back. That's why I joined the Air Force after the crap that happened in college. I needed to defend." He shook his head. "I know, I know. It doesn't make any sense. This should be about you, anyhow, not about me."
She admired the way he'd found to make something positive out of something so awful. If only she could have managed the same.
"What you're saying makes total sense. And I've pulled you into this, so it's definitely about you, too." She hugged her knees to her chest, resting her chin on them. "It was strange afterward. I wanted him to come back to life so I could file charges with the police. I wanted to take that bastard to court and make him pay, have a role in putting him away so he never hurt anyone again. By protecting others from him, it would somehow make up for not being able to protect myself. So yeah, I understand."
She'd just never expected him to understand, not her invincible husband. Something warm unfurled inside her, relaxed and spread as he became a bit more human in her eyes.
Very human. And hunky. With the sleeping bag pooled around his waist, there was still plenty of na*ed Josh left for her eyes to feast on faster than a holiday dinner.