Their lips finally parted with a soft, shuddering breath.
Neither of them pulled away. Forehead pressed against forehead, their ragged, uneven breaths mingled into pale plumes of white mist against the freezing mountain air.
Victoria's fingers remained tangled in the dark hair at the nape of his neck, her chest rising and falling in sync with his, her body humming with a searing warmth that completely defied the howling summit wind.
Slowly, as the dizzying rush of the kiss began to steady, Victoria opened her eyes.
In the dim amber glow sweeping up from the stone pavilions below, Alex's face was inches from hers.
Her hands slipped from his hair, her fingertips rising to gently cup the sides of his face, unhurried and reverent. Her thumbs traced the firm line of his jaw, smoothed across the sharp arch of his brow, and lightly brushed the warm contour of his cheek, committing every single plane of his features to memory.
