Page 46 of Billionaire Lumberjack's Bride

Lyla shakes her head slightly, like she doesn’t know the answer, but she may not have even registered the question. She presses more firmly to me, her grip around my neck almost frantic, like she can’t get close enough, and she releases a little sigh of contentment usually reserved for that moment right before you drift off.

“Don’t fall asleep.” I pull my head back slightly and tilt her chin up so I can see her face. The color has started returning to her cheeks and lips, which I hope means she’s out of the woods, but I’m no fucking doctor. “Lyla, open your eyes.”

Despite the fact that she’s finally warming up, falling asleep right now would be a bad idea—I might not know anything about how to interact with another human being, especially a woman like Lyla, but I knowthatmuch.

Her eyes flutter open.

This time, they’re a little more focused.

She’s a little morethere.

This close, the little flecks of gold sprinkled through the evergreen seem to shine, and I can’t tear my eyes from hers, lost in the subtle beauty I would never allow myself to recognize before.

“Stay awake, okay?”

She nods and buries her face back against me, seemingly unbothered by the fact that she’s nearly naked on top of me and my harsh beard is rubbing against her.

But I’mfarfrom unbothered.

My entire body vibrates with barely restrained frustration.

With her…

With the situation…

Mostly with myself…

It never should have happened—none of it. And even though she’s safe in my arms at the moment, hundreds of horrific things that could have hurt her out there haunt the parts of my mind usually reserved for other horrors.

A bear.

A coyote.

Hell, a fucking wolf could have been brought in by Billy’s scent and killed her instead.

I shudder at the thought, and she shifts against me, her ass grinding my crotch in a way that makes me immediately freeze again.

Millions of men would clamber over each other to have an almost-nude Lyla in their arms, moving against them like this, but I’m not most men. I’d give anything to go back to that day she sat in the kitchen and signed that contract and do it differently, warn her how fucked up I am and how twisted this entire situation would become.

Do anything to stopthisfrom ever happening in the first place. To save her from this pain and what is coming once we have to face what waits back in the city.

“I-I-I g-g-got lost.” Her words are so soft I can barely hear them over the sound of my own psyche crying out at me that I’m fucking everything up. “I-I—”

“Shhh, I know.”

Lyla shouldn’t be wasting her energy trying to explain herself to me.

“Billy g-g-got out when I went in to f-f-feed them.” She fights back a sob, her body shaking again. “I th-th-thought I could c-c-catch him inside the woods before he got too f-f-far away.”

I squeeze her tighter, rubbing my palm along her spine. “I know.”

“It g-g-got so dark.” She shivers and clings to me more frantically. “I c-c-couldn’t see the cabin or even the lights from it.”

The panic building in her voice at reliving the night makes my chest tighten, and I bury my face in the top of her head, the light citrus scent of her shampoo and the rain and crisp night air filling my lungs.

I let my eyes drift closed.

This shouldn’t be comfortable, curled up in my jeans and boots in this old metal trough tub with this woman I barely know in my arms. A woman who unnerves me every time her eyes cut my way. But somehow, it is. And that’s more terrifying than the thought of anything that could have happened to her out in those woods.

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