Page 34 of Fire and Ice Cruise

“What do you really want?” I ask quietly.

He’s quiet for a long moment, his thumbs tracing circles on my hips through my jacket. “Honestly? I don’t know. I’ve been in security my entire adult life—first the FBI, then the ship. I don’t know who I am without a badge and a mandate to protect people.”

“You’re still you. Badge or no badge.”

“Am I?”

“Yes. You’re the man who makes me feel safe without trying. Who notices when I’m stressed before I even realize it. Who puts up with Bess and Nettie’s chaos and actually enjoys it. Who loves me even when I’m tripping over dead bodies and talking to ghosts.” I reach up and cup his face. “The badge didn’t make you those things. You are those things.”

His eyes soften, and he leans down until our foreheads touch. “How did I get so lucky?”

“I ask myself the same thing. Especially since you’re currently unemployed and smell like rotten eggs.”

He laughs. He pulls back and takes in my face with those cobalt eyes before his lips find mine, softly at first, then with determination. Ransom kisses me—deep and thorough and completely inappropriate for a public volcanic field in Iceland.

His hands slide up my back, pulling me flush against him, and I forget about the sulfur smell and the tourists and the fact that we’re standing on a wooden boardwalk over boiling geothermal activity. All I can focus on is him—his warmth, his taste, the way he kisses me as if I’m the only good thing in his universe.

A steam vent directly beside us chooses that exact moment to erupt with a dramatic hiss, surrounding us in a cloud of white vapor. It’s as if the earth itself is providing mood lighting—or trying to boil us alive. It’s really hard to say.

A wolf whistle cuts through the steam, and I pull back to see Nettie standing about twenty feet away with both thumbs up.

“Get it, girl!” she shouts.

Bess yanks her away. “Would you leave them alone!”

“I’m just being supportive!”

“You’re being a menace!”

Ransom tips his head. “We have an audience.”

“We always have an audience. It’s the curse of living on a cruise ship with two octogenarians who have no boundaries.”

“Should we stop?”

“Absolutely not.”

I pull him back down for another kiss, and this time I don’t care who’s watching.

By the time we finally separate and make our way back toward the main viewing area, my lips are swollen and my face is flushed—and it has nothing to do with the geothermal activity.

Elodie intercepts us near the largest steam vent, looking thoroughly disgruntled.

“This landscape needs a shirtless Viking to make sense.”

“Did you try the gift shop?” I ask.

“I tried the actual Vikings. There was a very handsome Icelandic tour guide over there.” She gestures vaguely toward a cluster of tourists. “Tall, blonde, looked like he could bench press a glacier.”

“And?”

“And he’s married. With three children. Who apparently love hiking and geothermal fields and making me feel like a failure at flirting.”

“You’re not a failure. You’re just selective.”

“I’m desperate, Trixie. There’s a difference.”

Ransom clears his throat. “I’m going to give Quinn a quick call and see how the case is going.”