Polar Bared Read Online Free PDF

mean I’m not dead yet?”
    “Emphasis on the yet,” he grumbled.
    “Oh. I guess I’m close then. That would explain why I’m hallucinating a giant naked man is talking to me.”
    She thought him a hallucination? That might actually work in his favor.
    “This is all a dream.”
    A sigh escaped her. “Figures. I never have good ones. Why can’t I have one where I’m on a warm beach? With you naked still of course.” She smiled and giggled.
    Gene frowned. Someone was feeling the effects of being out in the cold for too long. It happened. Something about the air, and other mumbo jumbo shit he didn’t pay much attention to. As a shifter he didn’t suffer from normal human frailties.
    But she apparently did.
    “Do you have a name?” he asked as he bent down to pick her up.
    “Victoria, but people usually call me Vicky. Or Trippy. I’m a little clumsy,” she said in an almost whisper, as if confiding in him.
    Clumsy was understating it from what he’d seen so far. With her in his arms, he faced the dilemma of how to climb the hill. He solved it the same way he had in the desert with one of his fallen mates. “I’m going to put you on my back. I need you to hold tight around my neck and wrap your legs around my waist.”
    “You want me to piggyback you?”
    “Yes,” he said, shifting her around his torso.
    She clung to him, her chin resting on his shoulder, her limbs snug around him. It warmed him more than it should have.
    “Don’t let go,’ he warned as he began to climb.
    “I won’t. I can do anything in a dream,” she announced. “I can pretend I’m skinny and beautiful. I can meet strange naked men. I can even kiss them.”
    And she did. She planted a sloppy smooch on his neck, and he almost lost his footing.
    “What the hell was that for?” he barked.
    “A thank you?” she said in a meek voice.
    “You don’t need to thank me. This is a dream, remember?” He practically growled the words at her but couldn’t erase the sizzling heat of her embrace. When was the last time a woman kissed him without him getting her drunk first?
    Then again, given Vicky’s loopy state, she wasn’t far off. Someone carried around some good shit in her canteen. Which makes her an even bigger idiot than I thought.
    She sighed, her breath a warm flutter on the skin of his neck. “I know it’s a dream. As if a handsome guy would actually come to my rescue. Things like that don’t happen to me.”
    Such defeatist words. For some reason he didn’t care for them. “Then they’re idiots.”
    “I wish. But I can’t blame them. I’m not exactly the type to inspire grand gestures. Short, chubby geeks with glasses don’t inspire passion.”
    He begged to differ. Cold outside or not, she had the most stimulating effect on a certain body part. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I think you’re fine the way you are.”
    She snorted. “God, if only you were real instead of a figment of my imagination.”
    They reached the top of the slope with the soles of his feet burning from the cold, his fingers bruised and torn from the icy climb, but at least he’d gotten her out of danger. Or had he?
    Her teeth had stopped chattering, and her next words emerged slurred, and sleepy. “Thanks, handsome naked guy, for saving me, but now if you don’t mind, I think I’ll have a nap.” The grip around his neck slackened, as did the legs around his waist, and she began to slide off his body.
    “Don’t you dare,” he growled. “I did not just carry you up that fucking hill so you could pass out from the cold now. Get on your feet, woman!”
    He might have said it in his most commanding tone, but Vicky proved too groggy to listen. Unnaturally so. But Gene didn’t have time to ponder it. He needed to get her somewhere safe. Twilight approached quickly, along with colder temperatures.
    He had no idea where her camp was. Not a clue if anyone was seeking her out. And for some reason, he was plagued with an