Page 9 of The Haunting of the Mountain

“It will make me feel a little safer,” she says.

That voice. That damn voice is my weakness. It’s so sweet and sexy and paired with her gorgeous face and—I swallow. I shouldn’t be thinking about her like this. We just met. She still hasn’t told me why she’s here. And she’s way too young. Not to mention, she’s not sticking around.

I take the doll as I stand. Our bodies brush and I breathe in her scent fully as she lets out a soft gasp. My mind damn near blanks. I’ve barely touched her and my body is firing on all cylinders. I’ve never felt so alive. Not even a night sleeping under the stars makes me feel like this. Nothing…

But then I remember the doll in my hand and I move past my girl. My girl. I’m already trying to claim her. I’m done for.

My fingers wrap around the handle on the wood stove. It whines as I turn it, wrenching it open. I toss in the doll, close the door, and then glance over my shoulder. “The curse has been lifted.”

I turn back around, watching the doll begin to smolder, feeding the dying embers as she chuckles softly behind me. When I turn, I see a smile. The first smile on her face. It makesher more heartrendingly beautiful. A surge of protectiveness fills my chest. I need to get her out of those clothes. Need her warm and dry. Need her… I need to calm down.

“Thanks,” she says softly before shivering.

Another jolt. Another wave. “Get out of those clothes.” It comes out before I have the chance to even think. Shit. I growled that too.

She knits her eyebrows together as the rest of her face scrunches.

Yeah, I’m an idiot, but I dare any man not to be in the presence of this girl. I can barely think let alone speak as I stare at the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen.

Her expression transforms into a playful one, and I can breathe again. “That’s a little forward,” she says.

I clear my throat. “I meant you should get out of those wet clothes. You’re shivering.” I nod to my bedroom. “Shower’s over there. I’ll get you something to eat while you warm up.”

“I ate earlier.”

“How about some dessert?”

My voice is low and rough. I’m fighting to keep my eyes from following the curve of her slender neck, down her chest, rising and falling, and across the rest of her body and signaling the kind of dessert I’m thinking of right now.

But I can’t help myself. I allow myself a glance and it sends an electric charge through me, sizzling and burning and settling high in my stomach.

“Dessert sounds great.” She bites her lip, and for a brief moment, I think she’s the one sizing me up.

Take a look, sweetheart. Take whatever you want because it’s yours.

I don’t know if it’s the lack of sleep, the long trek through the mountain in the storm, or finding my cabin inhabited by astranger that’s making me feel so crazy. I don’t even know her name.

I grunt in response because I don’t trust myself to speak anymore. She moves past me and I breathe in her heavenly scent, leaving me all wobbly. Another breath like that and I’ll be on my knees.

“I’m Kyla, by the way,” she says, pausing in the doorway.

“Stone,” I grit out.

She stares at me. “Stone?”

I nod. “Have a brother named Flint. Another named Bull. Short for Boulder, of course.”

“Of course,” Kyla says, shaking her head, smiling. “Naturally,” she mutters to herself before turning around. She glances back at me once before disappearing behind the bedroom door.

I blink and I can see her silhouette in my mind. As I hear her wet clothes hit the floor with a thump and the soft pad of her feet against the floor, my mind runs wild.

Her curves, every irresistible inch, taunt me like a mirage. There’s nothing here, and I’m a fool to think otherwise.

I should take her back to town tomorrow. Reclaim my cabin. But the truth of it is that I don’t want her to leave. And the only thing I want to claim is her.

Chapter 3

Kyla

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