Page 71 of Hunting for her Heart
Her body moves a little in front of me, making my cockstart to harden when her ass pushes back against it. I try to stifle my groan, knowing that she's still asleep and doesn’t know what she’s doing, but then she does it again, pressing back a little harder this time.
“Willow,” I growl against her neck in warning.
She turns toward me and opens her eyes, a smile filling her face as she finally seems to fully wake up.
“Is it morning already?” she asks around a yawn.
Amusement at her adorableness has me smiling back at her. “It is, little mate, but you can go back to sleep.” My smile fades a little as I add, “You were up late.”
I regret my words when her eyes darken. She takes a second to look around the cave, then she turns her entire body toward me, her hands pressing against my chest between us. I let my hand settle on her back as I wait for her to speak.
“You were all up much later than me. You carried me all the way back here.”
“We’re used to walking through the forest for hours. You aren’t.”
She surprises me by letting one of her hands slide up my neck to push through my beard, settling her palm along my jaw. “You didn’t get injured?” she asks, her eyes bouncing between mine. “Last night, when you fought them.”
“No.” I give her a reassuring smile as I pull her even tighter to me. “Everyone is unharmed.”
“Thanks to you,” Ronan says from where he’s still sitting at the fire nearby.
Her gaze moves to him, and I help her sit up. Hawk sits up behind her and stretches as Ronan continues speaking. “We couldn’t have gotten out of there without you, Willow. You know that, right?”
“But I didn’t do anything,” she says with a frown.
I pull her into a side hug as I huff out a laugh. “Are you kidding? If you hadn’t given Ronan that knife, we would still be there now.”
“But you’re the ones who fought them off,” she argues.
“Which we couldn’t have done if we were still tied up,” Ronan says with an appreciative smile aimed at her. “I’m really proud of you. The way you figured out how to get it to me without them knowing.”
“And that was really smart, giving it to Ronan instead of freeing yourself first,” Hawk tells her.
She shrugs, looking down at her hands as she mumbles, “I knew I wouldn’t be able to cut through the ropes very fast, and I couldn’t fight them off if they saw me first.”
“Our mate is brilliant,” Hawk says as he sits up and wraps an arm around her shoulder, kissing the top of her head from behind.
She bites her lip and her cheeks turn red. Deciding to lighten things up a little, I stand and help lift her to her feet. “I think it’s time for breakfast!”
“There’s a lot of cooked meat here,” Ronan says. She starts to move toward him, but her head tilts, as if listening to something, then she turns her gaze to where the water is raining in from above. Because we didn’t build the fire directly below it, the rain is hitting the grass-covered floor a few feet away.
“I need to… You know…” she trails off as she points to the cave entrance.
“We really need a place in here to do that,” I mumble as I grab her hand and lead her to the entrance.
“We don’t want it to smell,” Ronan says as he and Hawk join us.
Stopping right before our early alert system, I look down at her dress. “You should probably change into your leaf coverings so this doesn’t get wet.” She starts shaking her head before I’ve even finished.
“I don’t want to risk being out there dressed like that where others might see me.”
The thought of anyone but us seeing her like that has my hand tightening in hers. “Right. Good point.”
We all go out together, taking turns to relieve ourselves and not letting Willow out of our sight for a second, before we find our way back to the cave.
Willow’s dress is drenched, and she’s shivering before we’ve even finished setting up the traps.
“We need to warm her up,” I tell them as Ronan and Hawk finish the trap.
