Jump Zone: Cleo Falls Read Free Page A

her arms from under the covering.
    “It was dark. Real dark,” he said without looking at her. “You needed to get warm.”
    Cleo looked him up and down while he worked the knot. How should she play this when he, clearly, had the advantage? Instead of cooperating, the only thing her reanimated brain could focus on was him . This outsider. His broad shoulders and flat abdomen, the way the muscles down his arms flexed as he deftly worked the thick clump of polycord. The faint pulse throbbing on the side of his neck.
    Clearly, she still suffered from some kind of hypothermic delusions. He was an outsider, not to be admired, not to be trusted. He was big, with ripped muscles, and she was completely and helplessly alone, naked, and, for the moment anyway, completely at his mercy.
    Cleo prided herself on her ability to keep a cool, logical head in challenging conditions, but her current situation had her thoughts as scattered as autumn leaves. Maybe he didn’t intend to hurt her. Maybe he was just being kind. But what was he doing in the Taiga? Recruiters wouldn’t dare venture this far north, and sightseers tended to stay close to the Trading Post for safety.
    Though he travelled alone, he definitely wasn’t a Banger, that much was obvious—those poor wretched creatures were more beast then man—and Drifters usually travelled in packs and hung around the walled towns in Lower Amerada, living off the scraps of civilization. Her self-proclaimed knight was too well fed and well behaved to fit in either category.
    “I didn’t mean for them to be so tight,” he said, his gaze flicking to hers for a split second before the black polycord fell from her wrists.
    Cleo’s fingers tingled as the blood rushed through. He took her hands and rubbed the circulation back into them. Her instinct was to pull away from him or deck him, but…it felt nice.
    He could be a soldier with a build like that, but the Lower Ameradan Army knew better than to cross the Cut into the protected lands. She could count on one hand the times they’d tried to do that in her lifetime, and it never ended well.
    Where the devil had he come from? She could ask him outright but sometimes, pretending to be a stupid female was the best defense.
    “You were thrashing around in the night,” he said, interrupting her thoughts. “I didn’t want you to hurt yourself.” He tried to smile but only one side of his mouth went up, and damn it if it didn’t give him a charming appeal. “Or me.”
    The skin on his hands was soft, almost slippery, as if the top layer had been sanded smooth, or worn completely off, but his grip was strong, his touch warm.
    She made a decision. He wanted to be a knight, so she’d act the naïve, vulnerable female-in-dire-straights. He would underestimate her and she’d find a way out of her current predicament and get on with her mission.
    “I’m sorry I caused you so much trouble,” she said, adding a good dose of humble. It helped that her voice was scratchy. Made her sound pitiable.
    “That you did, darlin’.”  He let go of her hands and pushed her clothes toward her. “Do you need some help getting into these?”
    “No. Thank you.”
    Crouched on his haunches, his hands casually resting on his knees, he studied her with a look of bemusement. His eyebrows knit together over an intent gaze, like he was trying to solve a mental math problem. An angular jaw lay under a day or two of stubble, his lips pressed into a thin line. “You got quite a bruise on your cheek,” he said matter-of-factly. “Right above that birthmark—”
    “Scar,” she blurted. “It’s a scar.”
    He canted his head, staring openly at the garish slash mark. Most people had the courtesy not to gawk. “Some animal claw at you?”
    She flashed him a look that instantly killed his curiosity.
    He rose abruptly and walked away. “Go ahead, get dressed. I won’t look.”
    A little late for that.
    As soon as he started rummaging through his backpack,