Page 18 of Saved By the Mountain Man

My body ached, wanting, yearning. My hands moved to his pants, and I started undoing his belt.

I wanted to taste him. I wanted him inside me.

A bird cawed, breaking the spell.

We froze, reality imposing, pushing in when it wasn’t welcome.

We weren’t together.

We couldn’t do this.

He’d left years ago, and I was running. I needed to keep my wits about me, not get lost in the past, in a man who would just break my heart all over again.

Tanner released me and stumbled backward. He looked for his shirt and pulled it on. His long hair was a mess. My heart thundered in my chest, and I could still taste him on my lips.

It was too much. He was too much.

I couldn’t breathe.

“Rae,” he said, but I couldn’t hear it.

If he told me it was a mistake, it would hurt like a bitch. If he told me he wanted more, it would break me.

“Don’t, Tanner,” I breathed.

And then I ran.

6

TANNER

The forest was quiet, the kind of stillness that lets you hear your own thoughts loud and clear. I was supposed to be chopping wood, but instead, I found myself leaning against the rough bark of a pine tree, staring off into the distance.

The axe stood against the tree, my fingers tracing the wooden edge.

My mind kept drifting back to Rae and the sexual tension. What had happened between us had nearly been enough to tear me apart.

If I let her in again, it was going to be hell.

I would have to leave her again and I didn’t think my heart could handle it twice in a row.

Fuck, I’d thought I’d left all of that behind. I’d come here because Silver Ridge was nothing. It was the kind of place with the kind of people you could forget.

Not that that was true.

I’d grown fond of these people, too.

But safe houses, as we called all the towns, rather than the actual houses, weren’t supposed to be used for as many years as I was using this one.

It was always meant to be short-term only before we moved on.

Turned out I didn’t want to move on. A man got so fucking tired of running.

Rae had wanted to fight me yesterday, and I let her. It was supposed to be just a way to blow off steam, to work through the tension. I knew what she was like—too many pent-up emotions and she exploded.

We used to spar all the time, getting rid of it.

But her anger had never been aimed at me.

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