Total pages in book: 25
Estimated words: 29800 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 149(@200wpm)___ 119(@250wpm)___ 99(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 29800 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 149(@200wpm)___ 119(@250wpm)___ 99(@300wpm)
Her nod is the only permission I need. I trail my lips down her neck, admiring the way her skin shivers. Then I close my hand around my cock, slick with anticipation, and press the head against her wetness. “I’m clean,” I promise, voice low. “I’ve never been with anyone else.”
Her gasp is a gift. She lifts herself slightly, catching my neck in slender hands, and she kisses me back with desperate sweetness. “I’m a virgin,” she whispers against my lips. “ I’ve never been with anyone else either. No one ever makes me feel like you do. I want you, all of you.”
My heart pounds. I slide into her mouth, slipping past her lips, tasting her desire. She sighs around me, and I savor the moment before pulling away to line myself at her entrance. With one slow, steady push, we’re joined—skin to skin, hearts beating together.
She’s so tight and warm around me. “Oh my God, Rhett,” she moans, and every word sends a spark through me.
I rock my hips gently, savoring the friction. One hand cradles the nape of her neck as I kiss her again; the other fingers weave into her hair. When she wraps her arms around me, pulling me in deeper, I know I’ve come home.
“Jesus, I’m so glad I found you,” I murmur into her ear as she rides me, our bodies slick with heat. “I was terrified you’d left, that someone else had you. I prayed I could get to you in time.”
Her movements quicken, matching the rhythm in my chest. “I’m so glad you found me,” she breathes.
I grin, pressing my lips to her collarbone. My other hand slips down to her clit, rubbing in firm circles. She shudders, her breath scattering. “Come on me,” I raspy-whisper. “Give me another sexy moan.”
Her voice breaks free—a cascading wave of tears and pleasure. I spasm inside her, vision swimming as my cum fills her, knotting me to her forever. I collapse beside her, tucking her under my arm, drawing her close.
We lie there in the afterglow, her fingers tracing lazy patterns across my chest hair. I nuzzle into her hair, still buzzing.
“I feel like I’m in another atmosphere. I’ve never felt this way, so consumed and cared for and loved.”
“You and me both,” I breathe against her lips.
I smile, heart full, and feel sleep tug at my eyelids. Beside me, Nora drifts off, and I imagine our future: dark-haired toddlers running around this mountain, teaching them how to fish and hunt, her at my side always. I stroke her hair, savoring the soft rise and fall of her breath.
For the first time in years, I can’t wait for tomorrow.
Epilogue
Nora
three weeks later
The mountain looks different after a storm.
Softer somehow.
Less dangerous.
Which is ridiculous considering Devil’s Peak has almost killed me multiple times in the last three weeks.
But this morning the snow sparkles beneath the sunlight instead of threatening to bury the world alive, and smoke curls lazily from cabin chimneys while town trucks crawl slowly down Main Street pushing slush aside. The air smells like pine and woodsmoke and melting ice, and for the first time since I got here, I’m not waiting for something terrible to happen.
Mostly because the terrible thing already did.
And Rhett ended it.
I tighten my fingers around the coffee cup in my hands and stare out the kitchen window toward the tree line behind his cabin. Everything out there looks calm now. Quiet. Harmless.
It isn’t.
I know that better than anyone.
Archer texted this morning that Deputy Foster survived surgery and was already in police custody for corruption and stalking charges. Apparently the FBI wants him too because his crimes crossed state lines. Rhett barely reacted when he read the message last night. Just tossed the phone onto the counter and pulled me into his lap like he needed the physical confirmation that I was still here.
Honestly?
I needed it too.
Footsteps sound behind me.
My body reacts before my brain does, heat curling low in my stomach the second Rhett steps into the kitchen wearing worn jeans and a gray thermal stretched across his chest.
His knuckles are still bruised.
Part of me still can’t stop thinking about the way he looked in the snow with blood on his hands and murder in his eyes because someone hurt me.
That should probably concern me more than it does.
“You’re staring,” he says.
I take a sip of coffee slowly. “You almost killed a man for me. I’m processing.”
His gaze drags over me where I’m standing in one of his flannels and nothing else underneath.
“You’re wearing my shirt.”
“That’s your takeaway?”
“It’s my favorite part.”
Heat climbs into my face instantly.
Annoying.
Rhett notices immediately. The man notices everything.
He crosses the kitchen slowly, one hand settling at my waist the second he reaches me, and just like that my pulse steadies completely.
It’s terrifying how quickly that’s become normal.