Page 16 of Guardian of Talon Mountain

The words leave my mouth rougher than I intended, darker than I expected. And the second they do, something in my chest twists—sharp, electric, dangerous. It should’ve stopped me. Instead, it fuels the possessive edge clawing its way to the surface.

I take hold of her waist, easing her down and back until she’s braced against the headboard, her gaze meeting mine with fire and need. Her breath catches when her back touches the cold iron—sharp enough to steal her breath for a beat. But the way her body arches into mine says it’s not the cold she feels now—it’s the heat radiating off me, pouring into her with every inch of contact.

My mouth crashes into hers—hard, claiming, desperate. No prelude. No mercy. Just the raw, ruthless hunger that’s been caged from the moment I saw her. I’m not usually thrown off by women—years of discipline see to that. But Bryn? She’s different. There’s something in the way she moves, all determination and quiet fire, that grabs hold of me and doesn’t let go. She doesn’t flinch, doesn’t back down, and somehow thatcalm defiance has broken through the control I usually keep sealed tight.

Our teeth clash, breaths tangling, mouths open in a storm of heat and need. I devour her like a man stranded in a snowstorm who’s just found fire. Her fingers twist in my hair, nails dragging fire across my scalp, pulling me deeper, closer, until it feels like she’s trying to merge our bodies into one. Her kiss isn’t sweet—it’s savage. And I match it with everything I’ve got.

I let her climb into me with every touch, every gasp, like she belongs there. Her heartbeat presses against mine, wild and unrelenting.

I grip her thighs and spread them wider, my palms dragging slowly up the soft flesh as I press her back. Her breath hitches as I strip off my clothes and cover her body with mine. Her hips shift beneath my grip, locking me in place. I grind into her—hard, slow, deliberate—feeling her heat soak through the thin cotton of the thermal she’s still wearing. Then I reach down, yank her panties off, and push into her in one deep, claiming thrust. Her body welcomes me, hot and slick and impossibly tight, and a growl tears from my throat as I bury myself to the hilt.

The shirt clings to her flushed skin, stretched and damp, revealing every curve. The friction sends a pulse of heat straight through both of us, and I can feel the way her body answers—urgent, slick, already begging for more. She gasps my name, low and broken. I want her to feel every inch of what she's done to me.

She moans—low, sharp, and guttural—and the sound slams through my chest like a shockwave. Her body arches into mine, thighs trembling as she clamps around me with fierce, almost frantic urgency. She’s not playing now. She’s wild—untamed heat and writhing need, sweat-slicked skin and parted lips, hips rocking to drag me deeper. Her nails rake down my spine and Ibite back a curse, everything inside me coiling tighter. She’s lost to it—and I’m done pretending I don’t want to lose myself with her. Every inch. Every gasp. Every fucking part of her.

I wrench my mouth from hers long enough to grab the hem of the shirt and peel it up, baring inch after inch of her flushed skin. She raises her arms, breath catching as I pull it over her head and toss it aside. The firelight flickers across her bare body—breasts heaving, nipples pebbling in the cool air, lips kiss-bruised and parted in anticipation. Her eyes lock on mine, pupils blown wide, daring me to take all of her. The sight doesn’t just knock me out of the moment—it detonates something primal. I’m past the point of restraint. All I want is to claim, consume, own.

I bury my face in the curve of her neck, nipping, nuzzling and sucking. My hands slide over her ribs, her hips, everywhere I’ve been denying myself from the moment we met. For a split second, something pulls taut inside me—a flicker of hesitation, not from doubt, but from the weight of how much I want her. Her body, yes, but also her mind, her will, her soul. The craving digs in deeper than I meant to let it. She bucks against me, trying to force more friction, more anything, and I give it to her—thrusting my hips forward until she cries out and digs her nails into my back.

“You think you’re in control?” I growl against her ear, voice low and rough. “You’re not.”

Her breath hitches, and for a split second, her pupils flare with something raw—surprise, arousal, submission. Then her mouth curves, slow and wicked. “Prove it.”

She doesn’t have to say it twice. I grip her hips and slam forward, claiming her in another brutal thrust that knocks the breath from both of us. Her back bows, a ragged cry tearing from her throat as I fill her completely—again, and again—driving into her like she’s the only thing anchoring me to this world.I don’t hold back. I can’t. She begged for it—and I’m giving her exactly what she asked for with everything I have. I don’t hesitate. I don’t ease up. I answer her dare the only way I know how—with force, fire, and the kind of hunger that leaves no room for regret.

My grip tightens, my body slams forward, and I bury myself in her again—deeper, harder, until she cries out and arches into me like she’s trying to burrow beneath my skin. What began as want has sharpened into need. And I give it to her like it’s the last thing I’ll ever do.

She meets every brutal thrust with a fierce roll of her hips, grinding up into me like she wants to brand herself onto my bones. Her heels press into the backs of my thighs, locking me in place, while her nails rake savage trails down my spine—claiming, daring, demanding more. She doesn’t break. Doesn’t falter. Like a force of nature, she rides the onslaught, wild, wet, and utterly unashamed, taking everything I give her as if she were made for it. For me. For this.

The room fades. The storm outside, the weight of everything I’ve been burying—all of it disappears into the way she moans my name like it’s the only word she knows.

The sharp, rhythmic slap of flesh on flesh echoes off the log walls, primal and relentless, until her body bows beneath me. She shudders, back arching as her climax overtakes her—loud, raw,consuming. Her cry tears free from her throat, unguarded and wild, and I feel it in every muscle, every breath. Her inner walls flutter and clench around me, pulling me deeper, milking every inch. She trembles in my arms, taut with energy, lips parted in a soundless gasp, nails digging into my shoulders. But I’m not done. Not even close. Her body’s still trembling, still open and wanting, and I’m going to give her more—until she can’t remember her name, until the only thing she knows isme.

Every time I drive into her, she gasps—sharp and shivering—as if my touch is fire licking through her veins. Her nails clutch at my back, thighs trembling, breath catching in broken moans that curl hot against my ear. Ifeelher coming apart under me—tightening, pulsing, clenching with every stroke until her body spirals out of control. Her eyes lose focus, her lips part in a soundless cry, and I know she’s unraveling—pulse for pulse, breath for breath, until she’s nothing but sensation and need, and I’m the only thing anchoring her to the world.

When I finally come, it’s a brutal, blinding rush that detonates low and deep, tearing a growl from my throat as her name rips off my lips like a prayer and a curse in one. Her nails dig into my back, anchoring me as I shudder through the release—hot, thick, overwhelming. I spill into her with a force that feels like surrender, like something breaking loose from the inside out. This isn’t a climax—it’s a claiming. Violent. Raw. Final.

We collapse in a tangled heap, gasping, slick with sweat, skin still humming from the aftermath. For a long moment, I can’t move—can’t think. The world’s narrowed to heat and heartbeat, to the ragged edge of something I wasn’t ready for. My body says I’ve conquered. My mind knows I’ve surrendered.

And that’s when it hits me... this wasn’t just sex. This wasn’t just getting her out of my system. It was more, so much more.

She lies sprawled across my bed, limbs draped across the rumpled bedding, breath still ragged, her skin flushed and glowing in the firelight. The curve of her spine, the soft rise and fall of her chest—it hits me like a landslide, sudden and unstoppable. Something in my chest shifts—tight and sudden, like a snare pulled taut. Not panic exactly. Not dread. But a warning. A flare of knowing that what just happened isn’t casual. It’s not disposable. It’s the kind of shift that reconfigures fault lines—dangerous, permanent, and already too deep to undo. Tightens. A bond forming, whether or not I want it.

I brush a strand of hair from her cheek, fingers lingering on her flushed skin, still damp from the heat we shared. Her lashes flutter like wind-tossed snow, soft and unsure, and her lips part with the remnants of a sigh. Then her hand finds my chest—slow, deliberate—spreading over my heart with a weight that feels like possession. Her palm is warm, her touch unshakable, as if she’s imprinting herself on me, branding her presence into my skin. It’s not gentle—it’s declaration. And I feel every beat of my pulse thrum up into her hand like a vow I didn’t mean to make.

And god help me, part of me aches to give in—to let her past the last locked door inside me. But I know what that would mean. What it would cost. I’ve seen how love becomes a liability. How soft turns to shattered when the wrong person breaches your defenses. And I built those walls for a reason—to survive what I couldn’t protect before. Letting her in now... it feels like handing her the match and daring her to burn it all down.

She lingers in my bones, woven through the quiet spaces I can’t reach. She’s already past the point of no return—and my chest tightens with the realization. It’s not a gentle shift. It’s a hard punch of clarity, like breathing in cold air too fast or hearing a shot in the dark. Final. Irrevocable. And I can’t tell if the taste in my mouth is awe, or something closer to fear.

I don’t know if I can survive what comes next.

"I probably should have said this before," she whispers, "I'm on birth control. The last time I had a checkup was right before I came up to Alaska, and I'm clean."

I kiss the top of her head. "You're right; we should have talked but I'm clean as well and if there was a chance of you getting pregnant, it wouldn’t be the worst thing that could happen."

She sits up and looks down at me. "I'm not ready to have kids..."

"Take it easy, Doc. We're on the same page, but sometimes fate steps in and throws precaution and preparation to the wind. I just want you to know, you wouldn't be facing anything alone."

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