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)
He stares. “No, the imaginary kind.”
“Touché.” I take a seat across from him while he ladles it into two bowls. “So you hunt.”
He grunts. “I live.”
“And cook.”
He slides a bowl toward me. “I survive.”
I take a spoonful. Pause. Then moan.
His hand flexes around his own spoon.
“Okay,” I breathe. “That’s illegal. What did you put in this?”
“Food.”
“Lies. That is sex in a bowl.”
His mouth twitches. “Eat quietly.”
“You cook quietly.”
We eat in relative silence—meaning I make appreciative noises while he watches me with a look that should be outlawed. Something keeps twisting in my gut, something more than attraction.
When the bowls are empty, he rises to clean up. I watch the muscles ripple across his back and try not to embarrass myself with thirsty sounds.
“So why do this?” I ask suddenly. “Run a romantic mountain getaway?”
“It pays.”
“And?”
He pauses at the sink. Shrugs. “I take care of the lodge, guests take care of themselves. I don’t cater.”
“Ah. You’re one of those.”
“Those?”
“Men who think isolation is a personality trait.”
Instead of snapping back, he just watches me. A long, unreadable stare. “You don’t like quiet?”
“Quiet’s fine,” I say. “Lonely isn’t.”
He dries his hands. “Some of us do better alone.”
“And some of us say that because we’re scared,” I shoot back before I can stop myself.
His jaw tightens. “You don’t know shit about me.”
“Then tell me I’m wrong.”
He steps forward—and I brace, expecting explosion.
But he doesn’t yell.
He doesn’t flinch.
He leans in.
“That rule you made,” he says, voice low. “No touching?”
My heart stutters. “Yeah?”
He cups my jaw.
And just like that—breaks it.
His hand is rough, warm, certain—a brand against my skin. My breath stutters, chest tightening as his thumb drags across my jaw in a slow, claiming stroke I feel everywhere.
“You—” I start, but nothing coherent forms. I hate that he does this to me—rewires me with a single touch. Pulls me apart without force. Makes me want.
“Rule broken,” he says, voice molten and unapologetic.
My pulse pounds against his palm. “That was your rule.”
“It was yours.” His eyes are molten green fire in the flickering light. “You made it. I’m breaking it.”
“You don’t get to do that.”
“I already did.”
I step back but he follows, crowding me until my spine meets the wall. “You don’t get to just—”
He cages me with his arms, palms pressing to the wall on either side of my head. “To what? Touch you?” His gaze drops to my mouth. “You want me to stop?”
No. Yes. Maybe. Shit.
“We had a deal,” I manage, but my voice wavers, soft and breathless. Dangerous.
He leans closer, lips a breath from mine, his hold on control razor-thin. “We had rules,” he says. “Rules have consequences.”
Before I can ask what kind, before I can breathe, he drags his mouth along the curve of my jaw, slow and hot and devastating. Not a kiss. Not yet. But a promise.
I freeze. Melt. Ignite.
“Thorne…” It comes out like a plea.
He inhales against my skin like I’m something he’s been starving for. “You wanted distance,” he rasps. “But you don’t fucking want distance from me.”
Liar, liar, lace on fire.
His mouth finds the corner of mine, brushing once—soft, testing—before pulling back just enough to force me to chase him.
I don’t.
But I want to. God, do I want to.
“You don’t get to do this,” I whisper.
“What am I doing?” His breath skims my lips.
“You’re trying to win.”
He laughs low. Dark. “No, witch. Winning implies there was a contest. I’m just taking what’s already mine.”
Heat slams low and wicked between my thighs. I hate him. I want him. I hate that I want him.
“You think I’m yours?” I whisper.
He tilts my chin with two fingers, forcing me to look at him—every primal inch of him. “Not yet.”
My stomach flips.
Then flips again when he steps back, leaving me pressed against the wall, intoxicated and furious and achingly, painfully wanting.
“That’s enough for tonight,” he says, voice suddenly gruff again. Controlled. “You’re tired. You’re worked up. You make bad decisions when you’re both.”
“Excuse me?” I push off the wall, stalking toward him. “I make great decisions.”
He lifts a brow. “Prove it. Go to bed. Alone.”
My mouth opens. Closes. Rage flares. Flames of humiliation lick up my spine.
He walks to the stairs like he didn’t just carve me open with restraint. “Lock up. No more candy theft. No climbing shit. Goodnight.”
“Thorne,” I snap.
He pauses at the base of the stairs, looks back.
“That little move?” I gesture wildly between us. “That was weak.”
He smiles then. Slow and lethal.
He stalks back down two steps with deliberate slowness. “Weak?”
“Pathetic power play.”
He stops in front of me again, so close I feel his heat. His hand comes up, slow and deliberate, and he brushes the pad of his thumb over my lower lip—smearing it, marking me. “Weak is letting you think you’re in control.”
Oh. Oh, hell.
He steps back once more, eyes glittering. “Don’t wipe it off,” he says, voice like a promise and a threat rolled into one. “I want to see it at breakfast.”