Total pages in book: 57
Estimated words: 56624 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 283(@200wpm)___ 226(@250wpm)___ 189(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 56624 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 283(@200wpm)___ 226(@250wpm)___ 189(@300wpm)
“How long?” she asks.
“Two weeks. Maybe three.”
“And then what?”
“I come back, eventually.”
She lifts her gaze to mine. “Will you really come back? Or are you just saying that because you don’t want to watch me fall apart?”
I can’t answer, not right away. Because the truth is, I don’t know.
Every part of me wants to stay in this cabin. Until now, there was no reason to stay.
A part of me wants to watch her wake up in my bed every morning, wants to build a life that begins with waking to the sound of her breathing beside me.
But that’s not real. Not sustainable. I can’t keep ignoring who I am outside these walls. And once she knows… neither will she.
“I don’t want to leave you,” I say.
She gives me a smile that doesn’t reach her eyes. “But you will.”
I exhale.
“Hungry?”
I want to ask if she’s leaving. Instead, I ask if she’s hungry.
Coward.
She nods. “Mmm.”
“Sit. Maybe play with your words a bit, and I’ll make lunch, aye?”
“Thank you,” she says, but her smile is sad.
Why does it feel as if something’s unraveling?
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Emma
I sit there alone, watching the fire burn down. The snow keeps falling.
The thaw starts slow—fat droplets sliding off the eaves. The crunch of melting snow pulling away from the roof. Daylight cutting through the fog of the storm.
I sit by the fire, knees hugged to my chest, pretending not to watch him. He’s at the table, hunched over his phone again. Same messages. Same silence.
He hasn’t told me what kind of job could pull him across an ocean in the middle of winter. In the middle of this.
I sip lukewarm tea and ask before I can talk myself out of it.
“What kind of jobs do you take, Owen?”
His thumbs stop moving, but his eyes don’t lift.
“Depends.”
“On what?”
He finally looks at me. The room feels smaller when he does. More dangerous.
“Who’s asking?”
My pulse skips. I make a show of shrugging. “The girl you’re fucking.” I try to play it off as teasing, flirting even, but the words hang between us, raw and biting and a little desperate.
His jaw tightens. “That’s not what this is.”
“No?” I ask, my voice too light. “Because it feels like that sometimes.”
He stands and walks over slow, kneeling in front of me, hands on either side of the chair. I can smell cedar and smoke and something darker underneath.
“You want answers?”
I nod, my heart hammering.
“I do work that pays well and keeps people safe. I take contracts. I disappear when I’m told. I show up when it matters. That’s all you need to know.”
So… illegal shit.
It’s not enough. What is he hiding from me?
But it’s the only version he’s willing to give me.
The silence stretches. Water drips from the gutter outside. Somewhere, snow sloughs off the roof with a heavy thud.
I don’t press again, but the weight of it lingers between us.
He starts to move away. I stop him with a toe hooked behind his knee. He looks back with a warning in his stare.
I tilt my head and smile like it doesn’t feel as if I’m flailing and trying to hold onto what I want so desperately.
“You always this dramatic when someone asks what you do for a living?”
He huffs once. Not a laugh, but close.
I stretch and yawn… long, lazy, teasing.
“Well,” I say, dragging the word out, “I guess I don’t care what you do as long as you come back in one piece. And don’t get blood on the sheets.”
His gaze sharpens.
“You think this is a feckin’ joke?”
“Little bit. You always took everything so damn seriously.” I shrug, knowing I’m pushing every one of his damn buttons. “Maybe lighten up a feckin’ bit, eh?”
His huge, rough, sexy-as-sin hands anchor on his hips. “You think you’re cute?”
“Sometimes.”
“You think mouthing off is gonna feckin’ save you?”
He grabs my ankle and yanks me down in one swift pull.
I gasp as my back hits the rug, legs tangled in the blanket, arms flailing. “Hey!”
He’s on top of me before I can move, pinning me down like he did in the snow. I bite back a squeal and a giggle because I have him exactly where I want him, and something tells me he’s not bothered by that.
“You want to play, little Emma?” he growls.
My pulse spikes. My thighs clench.
I grin. “Depends. What’s the punishment?”
He flips me fast, and my cheek presses to the rug. His knee parts my thighs. His hand lands hard across my ass.
A sharp slap. Then another. Heat blooms under my skin.
Oh fuck yes.
I moan.
“Count,” he says, his voice low.
Eeek. Count?
“One,” I say with a choked breath.
His palm cracks again.
“Two…”
“Louder.”
“Three.” I gasp, squirming.
He bends close, his breath scalding my ear.
“You throw snowballs, you mouth off, and now you tease me about blood and sheets?”
Another hard spank that makes my clit throb.
“You think you can get away with that?”