Renegade Runner Nicole Conway (christmas read aloud txt) 📖

hard and squinted, eyeing me with confusion for a moment. Both his pupils were back to the same normal, albeit weirdly small size, and the dark bruising around one of his eyes was gone. “Brinna.” He spoke my name in a faint, hoarse voice as clarity dawned over his face.

I made a gasping, choking sound and nodded shakily. “Y-Yeah. Sorry. You tried to die on me there for a minute, but I just can’t allow that kind of behavior. There are no quitters on this team.”

One corner of his mouth tugged into a half-smirk as he pushed himself up onto his elbows and stared around the nearly dark cabin. “How long was I out?”

My mouth scrunched. “I don’t know. Hours probably. Felt like forever,” I murmured as I sank back, my shoulders and head dropping with a mixture of relief and exhaustion.

When I looked up to meet his gaze again, I found Phox studying me, his expression crinkled and uncertain. His brows knitted, drawn up as he chewed at his bottom lip. “I … uh, I … ” He stammered, like he couldn’t find the words.

He didn’t need to. I could see it written all over his face.

“Yeah,” I told him. “I’m okay.”

Only I wasn’t. Not even close. I’d almost watched him die right in front of me and then sat for a freaking eternity waiting to see if I’d done the right things to save his dumb butt.

I guessed he could tell because one of his heavy hands fell onto my shoulder, right at the base of my neck. “You did good, you know.”

I forced a twitchy, unsteady smile. “Guess you owe me one now, right?”

He snorted and shook his head. “Um, no, absolutely not. How many times have I saved your ass so far? You still owe me like three, probably.”

“Three?”

“Yep. At least.” Phox grunted as he stood and began trundling around the small cabin, pulling open panels and taking out supplies like he hadn’t just had a brush with death.

The little holographic medical advisor had warned against letting him move around too much right after he woke up, but I wasn’t about to fight him on it. Too tired for that crap.

“Fine. Whatever.” I groaned as I dragged myself off the floor and plopped down onto the seat along the far wall. Leaning forward, I rested my elbows on my knees and drank in the cold air. For whatever reason, it felt like I could finally breathe freely now. Everything seemed clearer—including the pain from the wound on my leg, which was now back in full force. What I would’ve given for a bath. Or a cold shower. Or basically anything liquid I could submerge myself in long enough to get the sweat and filth off my skin and soothe the pain.

“You hungry?” Phox called from across the cabin.

I started to look up. “Yeah, actually. I—” I choked. My whole body flushed and my eyes went wide as I gaped at him.

Phox had unzipped the front of his suit down to the waist and was deeply engrossed in pulling it the rest of the way down. The suit slid off his hips and down his calves before he tossed it aside with a contented sigh of relief.

Holy mother of god.

Naked! Why the hell was he naked?!

I don’t know what I’d expected him to look like. But it certainly wasn’t this. He had more of those dark, blurry, leopard-like markings mottling his grayish skin along his sculpted back, collar bone, and corded arms—even along his hips down to his thick thighs. Standing with his back turned gave me a full view of, well, a lot. The muscles of his back rippled and flexed as he moved, kindling primal fires in the pit of my stomach that I couldn’t douse no matter how I tried.

I couldn’t look away. The sight of his bare, immaculately shaped ass made every neuron in my brain fire at once. Not one of my finer moments, but I’m only human after all.

“I’m gonna have to figure out a way to run full diagnostics. That last lightning strike was too close for comfort. Hopefully, it didn’t fry anything important,” he went on, turning to face me as he held up his blood-and-sweat-soaked suit to inspect it.

Okay, now even my ears were burning. His brawny pectorals were, um, nipple-less. God, why did I have to notice that? Why did I have to look at all? I mean, I’d noticed other things, too. A proportionally large, dangling thing. But I tried my damndest not to focus on that.

Tried … and failed.

“What’s wrong with you?” Apparently he’d noticed me gawking at him like a complete idiot.

I snapped my mouth shut. “Nothing!”

“Your face is red.”

“Well, you’re the one walking around naked.” I folded my arms and looked up, away, anywhere except at his fully-exposed genitals.

Phox glanced down at himself, namely the dangling region, not seeming to get why that was weird, uncomfortable, and downright distracting about it. “So? In case you hadn’t noticed, it’s been freakin’ hot out there and the inside of my suit is basically a swamp right now.”

I pressed my lips together and fought the urge to look back at him again. “F-Fine.” Okay, fair enough. I’d done the same thing while he’d been unconscious, so I couldn’t exactly point fingers. Still, it took every ounce of my mental self-control not to stare at or even think about, er, well … him.

I mean, how could I not stare?

“How’s the leg?” He changed the subject as he wandered over to rummage around in our supply stash for more of the packaged meal rations.

I had to force myself to look at his face and not, you know, the rest of him as I took it. Eye contact, Brinna. Don’t be a creep. Eyes in the safe zone. Act like an adult. This was fine. Totally fine.

So not fine.

Well, er, except for his butt. That part was pretty damn fine. Uggggh. Someone just kill me already.

“Hurts,” I finally admitted