Page 5 of Falling for the Lumberjack

His hand wrapped around my wrist—warm, calloused, huge. His fingers easily encircled the delicate bones, a gentle restraint that nonetheless sent fire racing through my veins.

And every single nerve in my body fired. Every sense heightened to painful clarity. I was acutely aware of everything—the approaching storm, the fallen tree, the warmth of his touch, the rapid flutter of my pulse beneath his fingers.

“We need to get inside.” He spoke low and firm, just as he always did. But something was different. Something had shifted between us. He knew it. I knew it. The air between us crackled with unspoken tension, with possibilities neither of us had dared acknowledge before.

And for the first time in my life, I didn’t argue.

Because I knew—

I had just become Landry McAllister’s problem for the night.

And judging by the way his grip had tightened around me before he let me go... by the darkness in his eyes and the tension in his powerful frame... I had just become his temptation, too.

CHAPTER TWO

Landry

Trouble had a name, and it was Sally Carter.

I’d realized it the first time I saw her, standing behind the counter at the hardware store, snapping at some poor bastard who didn’t know a wrench from a ratchet. The fire in her eyes, the confidence in her stance—it hit me like a physical blow. She wasn’t delicate. Wasn’t polite. She had a mouth on her, sharp enough to cut, and curves that could bring a man to his knees. Her hands moved with purpose, calloused and capable, not soft and uncertain like so many women who came through these mountains.

And I wanted her.

Bad.

The kind of want that settles deep in your bones. The kind that keeps you up at night, staring at the ceiling, wondering what she tastes like. The kind that makes your body ache with need when you catch her scent on the wind.

Which was exactly why I had kept my distance.

Men like me didn’t get to have women like her. I knew my place in this world—out here in the woods, hands forever stained with dirt and sap, heart locked away where it couldn’t cause trouble. I knew what happened when I let myself want things. When I let myself reach for them.

But today the universe had other plans. Laughed at me. Taunted me with what I couldn’t have.

Now she was stomping through my cabin, shaking rain drops from her hair, her temper flaring. Which only made it worse. I loved her temper. Her no-nonsense attitude. The sightof her moving through my space, touching my things, breathing my air—it was doing something to me. Something dangerous.

Making me thing she belonged here.

With me.

Hell, to me.

I should’ve known the universe would throw her straight into my path during a damn storm. The rain had started the moment the tree crashed down, as if the sky itself had conspired to trap us together. By the time we’d made it to the cabin, the cold mountain rain had seeped into our clothes and straight under our skin.

She stood in the middle of my cabin, arms crossed over her chest like she was daring me to say something about what had happened. Like I was going to outright blame her. The storm howled outside, wind rattling the walls. But the real problem wasn’t outside.

It was inside.

Her.

Soaking wet. Flushed from the cold. That damn hardware store polo clinging to her curves, the white fabric gone nearly transparent where it stuck to her skin. Wet denim hugging hips that tested every shred of my self-control. Water droplets clung to her eyelashes, her lips, trailing down her throat to disappear beneath her collar.

Curves like that were meant to be held. Meant to be tasted. Meant to be worshipped with hands and mouth and body until she was trembling and breathless.

Not that I had any right thinking about her that way. Sally Carter wasn’t meant for men like me. Ones with a past full of callused hands, a present filled with hard work and a future that was too damn dependent on the whims of nature. Women like her deserved men who could offer them more than a rough cabin in the woods.

The place wasn’t much—just a single open space with a bed in the corner, a small kitchen lining the back wall, and a wood stove that did its best to fight off the Lone Mountain cold. It wasn’t built for comfort. It wasn’t meant to impress. It was built to last.

Like me.

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