Page 15 of Pucked Mountain Man
“Bossy?” I ask.
“Gentle,” he says, and something inside me blooms.
“Only for patients who follow instructions,” I say, and he laughs, the low rumble of it sinking straight into my bones.
The stretch becomes a touch becomes something that hums under my skin. He turns his face toward mine. I don’t know who moves first—maybe both of us—but the kiss is there before I think about it, and then it’s all I can think about.
This one isn’t tentative. He’s hungry and careful at once, like I’m breakable and he already cares that I don’t break. I open for him. He makes a sound I want to learn by heart. When he tries to coax me back into the sofa cushions, to cover me like he’s done that a thousand times, his knee seizes and he sucks in a breath, sharp.
I catch his cheeks in my hands, hold him there. “Hey. Look at me.”
He does. The frustration in his eyes is a storm front. “I’m fine?—”
“You don’t have to prove anything,” I say, firm, tender. “Not my brother’s way. Not your team’s way. Not the old way.” I slide my thumb across his lower lip, a promise. “Let me take care of you.”
His jaw works. I see the fight and the want. He nods once.
I guide him back against the corner of the couch, where the arm meets the cushions. “Good,” I whisper. “Now sit.”
He obeys, breath hitching. I climb into his lap, straddling his thighs, careful with his leg position, immediately, instinctivelyfinding the angle that won’t make him pay for this later. His hands hover at my hips like he doesn’t trust himself with gravity.
“Stevie,” he says, awed and rough. “You’ll ruin me, Rockstar.”
“Maybe I’ll fix you instead,” I murmur, and feel the tremor that goes through him like a yes.
I kiss him again. It’s slower now, deeper. His hands settle—finally—spanning my waist. He lets me set the rhythm and the pace; he lets me lead. When I rock forward, testing the give of the couch and the line of his body, he exhales like prayer. I feel, more than hear, the moment he lets go of the need to be the one holding the house up. He lets me.
“You already have,” he says into my mouth, voice low, reverent. “More than you’ll ever know.”
Heat pools low and bright. I take his wrists and lay his palms flat against my ribcage under my shirt. His fingers are warm and callused and reverent in a way that makes my throat tight.
He goes very still. “Stevie.”
“It’s okay,” I whisper, and peel my shirt over my head, the fire gilding everything in copper. The storm mutters at the windows and I forget there’s a world beyond them.
His gaze drops. He sees it—the teeny, tiny notes, black ink tucked just under my left ribs, right where the breath is shallow when I’m nervous. The opening of “Landslide.” The first song I ever learned all the way through. The first song Mom taught me to sing like a lullaby and a dare.
He touches the ink with his thumb, careful, tracing the curve of the notes like they’re a coastline. Something like wonder crosses his face. “Rockstar,” he says softly. “It suits you.”
“My brother doesn’t know where it is,” I confess, a small smile tugging. “He’d combust.”
Grady huffs, eyes never leaving the tattoo. “I’m very glad I know.” He bends, kisses the ink like a promise, and I shiver so hard I feel it in my knees.
“It’s ‘Landslide,’” I tell him, voice unsteady. “The start. So I don’t forget to begin.”
He looks up, and I’m not ready for what’s in his eyes: pride, yes, and heat, yes—but something steadier too. “You don’t need a reminder,” he says. “You were born in the middle of it.”
I laugh for one bright second and then forget how because his mouth is on my skin again, and his hands are learning me, and the fire is a drum in my ears.
I find the hem of his hoodie, tug. He lets me pull it off, breathless, tattoos catching light—the cross near his heart, the script he pretends he doesn’t regret, the spread of wings across his back I want to trace like a prayer. I do: I lay my palms on his shoulders and slide them down, slow, feeling the strength there and the surrender.
He shivers, surprised, when I kiss along the edge of the cross, and it undoes me, how tender he is when no one’s looking.
The couch creaks when I move. His leg twinges once and I shift, immediately, instinctively, guiding his thigh where it needs to be, bracing with my calves. He groans—this time it’s not pain—and my name is a grit-edged vow.
“I’ve got you,” I whisper. “I’ve got you.”
“Yeah,” he says, and it’s a sound I want to keep.
