Page 110 of Follow My Heart

When I pulled away, my chest was heaving. “I can’t believe you came, that you talked to the reporter.”

“I wanted to show you that I was serious about our future. I was too scared before to say what I wanted, but I’m not anymore. I want to be with you. I want to create a family with you.”

He lifted me so that my legs wrapped around his waist. “I want everything with you.”

I thought I was too impulsive, too quick to love, but it turns out I just had to follow my heart. It would lead me right where I was supposed to be. It knew what that was in second grade, and it was right now.

CHAPTER 24

AXEL

Isat drinking on my back porch, enjoying the quiet with the occasional rustle of an animal in the woods. I was finally home, retired from the military earlier than I had told my family. I needed time to decompress.

I wasn’t sure who I was without the title of soldier. I had done what I was told. I hadn’t had to make any choices other than where to take my leave, sometimes with my family and other times by myself.

When I had enough saved, I bought this cabin, renting it out for extra income when I was deployed.

The only mar on my view was another cabin, but I’d never seen anyone living in it. I could sit on the rocker on the back porch, sipping my beer and enjoying the sounds of the night.

Afterward, I’d go inside and try to sleep. I spent a lot of time on the back porch. Sleep was difficult.

I didn’t want to go into town and risk running into my family.

They’d have questions like why I’d come home early and kept it from everyone. How was I really doing? What were my plans? And the one that kept me up at night— Who was I now that I wasn’t enlisted? I wasn’t ready to answer any of those questions, and until I was, I’d hide out.

The back light to the neighboring cabin’s porch came on.

I tensed, going on high alert. Years of training kicking in. Was it a motion-sensor light? Had an animal set it off? Was someone looking to break in because they never saw anyone at that cabin?

Then the slider opened, and a small figure stepped out. I squinted to get a better look but was careful not to move.

It was a woman with a towel wrapped around her body, hair thrown up in a careless bun on top of her head, tendrils escaping around her forehead.

The woman moved next to the hot tub.

I wondered if her exposed skin was filled with goosebumps from the chilly air.

Then she dropped her towel. My gaze was fixated on her breasts, her nipples hard points as she dipped one toe testing the temperature. She stepped into the steam, lowering all of that creamy skin into the water. Her breasts disappeared below the surface. She dipped her head back and closed her eyes.

My dick was hard as a rock under the zipper of my jeans. But I didn’t dare move. I didn’t want to alert her to my presence. At best, I’d look like a peeping Tom.

I should have gone inside as soon as the light turned on. Or at the very least, when the woman came outside wearing nothing but a towel.

Instead, I was mesmerized. She ran a hand over the surface of the water.

It had been too long since I’d gotten close to a woman for more than a one-night stand wherever I was stationed. I avoided the entanglement of relationships because my life wasn’t my own.

I wondered if she was renting the place for the weekend. A lot of the cabins in this area were vacation rentals. Almost no one lived here full-time, so it was the perfect place for me to escape from everything for a while.

This woman was interrupting my well-earned solitude. Irritation burned in my gut. I should go over there and ask her what she was doing and how long she was staying. My overactive watchdog brain was torn between demanding answers and reminding myself I wasn’t in the military anymore. I didn’t have a right to question her.

But my fingers itched to do just that. I wanted to cross the distance between us and get a better look at her. Was she my age or younger? Was she hiding out here too?

What was she doing naked in a hot tub when there was another cabin within viewing distance? Didn’t she have any sense of safety?

Maybe her realtor had told her no one was renting my cabin anymore, and the owner was deployed. I hadn’t told anyone I was coming home. No one would have known I was staying here.

My family was eagerly awaiting my return, but I wasn’t ready to deal with people yet. And it looked like I was going to have a neighbor for the foreseeable future. A naked one.

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