Total pages in book: 32
Estimated words: 33333 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 167(@200wpm)___ 133(@250wpm)___ 111(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 33333 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 167(@200wpm)___ 133(@250wpm)___ 111(@300wpm)
“It’s not quiet,” I say, leaning in just enough to send a hot wave down her spine, “because you won’t shut the hell up.”
She presses her lips together—and I feel it—the moment she bites down on the urge to laugh.
“You’re—”
“Don’t say it,” I warn.
“—the worst.”
I drag the quilt higher over her shoulder. “Sleep.”
“Bossy.”
“Correct.”
“You don’t get to boss me around.”
I slide closer. So close my breath brushes her throat.
“Then move,” I say.
Silence.
She doesn’t move.
Not an inch.
I knew she wouldn’t.
My voice drops dark. “Yeah. That’s what I thought.”
Thunder cracks so loud the windowpanes tremble. Aspen flinches.
Without thinking, I curl a hand around her hip.
She freezes.
Then melts. Just a little.
Her ass fits against me too perfectly. Dangerous.
“Careful,” I murmur at her ear. “Won’t take much for me to forget those rules of yours.”
“We—we didn’t break—”
“You’re in my bed,” I remind her. “Holding my hand. Pressed against my cock. You sure you want to finish that sentence?”
She swallows. Hard.
“You’re—” she tries again, but she can’t get it out.
“Say it,” I order, not loosening my grip on her.
“You’re hard,” she finally whispers.
My smile is slow. Brutal. “Sweetheart, that’s not hard.”
I grind against her once—slow—just enough for her to feel everything she shouldn’t.
“This is hard.”
She makes a sound that’s nearly sinful.
“Thorne…” she warns.
“Yeah?”
“We—this—this is—”
“Unavoidable.”
Her breath catches again. She twists to look back at me, and her lips end up a whisper from mine. Her eyes are wild. Her cheeks flushed. Her breathing wrecked.
“You want a fight,” I murmur. “But you don’t. You want to be wanted. And I do. I want every wild inch of you.”
“We can’t—”
“We can,” I counter. “We’re just not.”
Her brows pull together. “What?”
Her confusion is cute. Dangerous. Mine for the taking.
I pin her to the mattress with my body—carefully—keeping my weight balanced above her. My hand slides to her jaw, thumb dragging over her lower lip, slow.
She trembles.
“This is your warning,” I tell her. “I touch you again—I won’t fucking stop. You get that?”
Her eyes flare. She licks her lip. “You already touched me.”
My pulse kicks.
Yeah.
And I’ll do it again.
This woman is going to wreck me.
“I did,” I say. “And I’ll do it again tomorrow. And the day after.” I drag my mouth along hers—barely touching. Teasing. Owning. “Because I can.”
She stares at me. Fire. Fury. Hunger.
“And when you break again,” I whisper, “I’ll be right here to catch you.”
She doesn’t kiss me.
I don’t kiss her.
But we stay like that—pressed together in heat and agony—breathing each other in until the storm outside dies.
And another storm inside us begins.
We don’t sleep.
We don’t stop.
And now—
There’s no going back.
Chapter 5
Aspen
Ididn’t sleep a wink last night. Not really. I pace the lodge until the fire burns low and the shadows creep like they’ve been waiting for me to slow down. Every time I close my eyes, I swear I still feel his hand on my waist—rough, warm, proprietary. Like he was claiming a piece of me he has no right to.
Which is why I do the only thing that makes sense.
I grab the bat lights.
If the mountain man wants war over décor, war he shall receive.
I sling the second strand of lights over my shoulder and head toward the loft railing. The lodge is quiet in the pre-dawn hours. Almost peaceful. The kind of quiet people write poetry about. Or murder ballads. Hard to tell which. Outside, snow falls slow and thick, swallowing the trees.
With a bite of my lip, I lean over the loft and hang the glowing bat strand across the edge. Then another above the windows. Then another from the chandelier. By the time I’m finished, the living room looks like a gothic ballroom hosted by chaos gremlins.
I survey my work.
Perfect.
The generator hums to life outside, rattling faintly. Then the back door slams. Heavy boots stomp across the floor.
Showtime.
Thorne rounds the corner, covered in a fine mist of snow, shirt stretched over his shoulders now, jaw tight. His eyes hit the bats immediately.
He stops walking.
Then he looks up.
Slowly.
At me.
And he doesn’t smile.
He doesn’t even blink.
“You,” he says.
“Me,” I confirm sweetly.
“What,” he asks, gesturing at the ceiling, “is that?”
“Atmosphere.”
“What kind of atmosphere needs seven bat strands?”
“A sexy one.”
His jaw tics. “You call this sexy?”
“I call this victory.”
He stalks toward the breaker panel.
“No!” I launch myself down the stairs to block him. “Uh-uh. No way. You don’t get to kill the mood twice in twenty-four hours.”
“Mood?” He gestures toward the massacre of plastic bats. “You mean the electrical hazard?”
“They’re UL certified.”
“I don’t know what that means.”
“It means safe for indoor chaos.”
We stare each other down. Heat crackles. I lift my chin, feeling that reckless dare roll off me again.
“Say it,” he growls.
“Say what?”
“That you’re doing this to get a rise out of me.”
“I would never,” I gasp dramatically. “I respect you and your control issues.”
He closes the distance between us, crowding me back against the wall by the panel. “Control issues?” he asks softly.