The gesture made her inhale sharply. "He'll start calling around to see what's happened to me. Eventually they'll find out that our plane never arrived at the airport.
As long as the water holds out, we can stay safely here for days."
Her stomach tightened at the prospect of being trapped here for days on end. But it was so much better than the alternative. "What if no one ever finds us?"
"They will. You have to believe that." Now his thumb roamed to her mouth and stroked her lower lip. "We both have a lot of things left to accomplish. You designing my palace, for example."
"And your town. Honestly that's more compelling to me." Why not be truthful?
It wasn't likely to happen anyway.
"Why stop at a town? I think it should be a city." He leaned in close enough for her to smell the scent of his skin, masculine and reassuring.
"A whole city? That will take a long time."
"It could be a lifetime's work. You don't think that Baron Haussmann redesigned Paris overnight, do you?"
"I suspect he had a lot of assistants." A smile crept across her mouth in spite of her misgivings. He was far too close to her again, and the way he kept touching her was doing something to her brain. Or to her body. Or both. "I do love the idea of designing a city. One that perfectly fits its environment and makes the most of its natural resources." She was trying to distract herself from looking at his mouth by thinking about design. Solar panels to take advantage of the sun, subterranean aqueducts to irrigate the desert, masonry walls to regulate heat…. It wasn't working.
His mouth moved closer to hers, and she felt frozen in place.
Except that she was melting. His lips lowered over hers very slowly, so she could have moved away or stopped him with a hand on his chest or a turn of her head. But she didn't. Their mouths met and her eyes closed as a gust of sensation shook her.
His hand settled on her hip, steadying her, and her fingers rose to touch the bare skin of his back. Warm and supple, his thick muscle soothed and stirred her. He felt so strong and capable, able to land a plane in the wilderness and bring sabotaged equipment back to life. He'd get them out of here, she was sure of it.
His arms closed tighter around her back, pulling her against his hard chest. She kissed him with conviction, wanting to lose herself in this moment of madness and forget where they were and why.