Page 42 of Protector of Talon Mountain

Instead, he just moves closer.

The morning rush starts slow. A few locals filter in early for coffee and breakfast, and I keep busy with their orders. Zeke stays close, moving in and out of the kitchen, helping without being asked. Watching. Always watching.

By mid-morning, the café hums with voices, clinking dishes, the hiss of the espresso machine. Jenny makes some joke about me finally dressing like I have someone to impress, and I laugh it off. But Zeke hears it. I know he does. He doesn’t comment—but his gaze lingers longer after that.

We’re in the kitchen, just the two of us, when it happens. I step back from the prep table, arms full of clean trays, and don’t realize he’s behind me until my back presses into his chest. I freeze. Not because I’m afraid—never that. But because the sensation is immediate. Intense.

He doesn’t move. Neither do I. I can feel the length of his cock begin to harden and press against his fly.

The trays in my arms go still. My heartbeat roars in my ears. His hands hover, just shy of touching my waist, like he’s waiting to see what I’ll do. His breath fans across the back of my neck, and I swear the air between us thickens.

I could step away. I don’t.

Instead, I set the trays down slowly, carefully, without breaking contact. My back still pressed to his chest, I tilt my head just slightly—enough to catch his gaze out of the corner of my eye.

“Zeke…” My voice is softer than I mean for it to be.

He leans forward just enough that his lips hover near my ear. “I’m trying really hard not to push you,” he says, voice low and tight. “But you keep backing into me like you want me to forget why I shouldn’t.”

I swallow. “Maybe I do.”

He exhales hard, like I just knocked the air out of him. “You sure about that?”

“I didn’t think I’d ever feel like this again,” I admit, my voice barely above a whisper. “But I do. With you.”

Zeke’s jaw flexes, his control razor-thin. “Say the word, Sadie. And I’ll give you everything.”

My pulse skitters. I want to say yes. I want to turn around and pull him into me until nothing else exists. But just as I open my mouth, the bell over the café door rings—sharp and sudden. A reminder.

He steps back. Barely. Just enough. “Later,” he says.

It’s not a question. It’s a fact. And I believe him.

Zeke spends the rest of his day performing his official duties while finding time to check in on me. Oh, he talks to the other locals—he seems to have a real knack for fitting in when he wants to. Finally, that evening I get the last of my customers out and manage to turn off the lights and lock the front door.

I’m in the back—in the kitchen—when I hear the door unlock. He walks in and locks the door behind him before closing the distance between us. His body is behind me, heat pouring off him like a furnace I’ve wandered too close to without thinking. My back is up against his chest, breath tight in my throat, and his hands reach down to grasp my hips and pull me into the cradle of his pelvis, his hard cock nestled against my ass.

It's a good thing the café is closed, because I doubt any clattering of mugs or murmuring from customers would get through the sensual buzz that’s coursing through my body. There’s only my pulse, thunder-loud, and Zeke’s voice echoing in my mind.

‘Say the word, Sadie. And I’ll give you everything.’

I turn slowly in his hold, hands flat against his chest now. I have to tilt my chin to meet his eyes. He’s already watching me—like he never looked away.

“I don’t want space anymore,” I say, steady and clear.

His jaw ticks once, hard. His fingers tighten just slightly on my waist. His nostrils flare as he exhales through his nose, slow and controlled, like he’s trying to keep himself from detonating on the spot.

“You’re sure?” he growls, his voice deeper than I’ve ever heard it.

I nod. “I’ve never been more sure.”

He doesn’t speak again. He just moves.

One second I’m standing in the kitchen with flour on my hands and tension in my lungs, and the next he’s dragging me up the back stairwell—broad hands locked around my wrist, mouth set in a tight, unreadable line. We don’t talk as we climb. We don’t need to.

His door slams behind us, barely shut before he’s on me. His mouth finds mine in a crushing kiss that steals every coherent thought from my head. I gasp, and he takes that too—tongue sliding past my lips, one hand tangling in my hair while the other grabs my hip and pulls me flush against him. There’s nothing hesitant. Nothing unsure. Just pure, caged control finally let loose.

I don’t recognize the sound I make when he lifts me. One arm around my thighs, the other cradling the back of my neck as he carries me across the room. I cling to him, fingers digging into the back of his shirt, heart hammering against my ribs. He lays me down on his bed like he’s done it a hundred times in his head, like this was always inevitable.

---