Page 12 of Enticed by the Mountain Man
This kiss is different. I walk her back into the room and press her to the wall by the bed. The flannel skims my wrists. I don’t move it. She exhales hard and holds on.
“I want you,” she says.
I groan into her mouth. My hand cups her jaw and keeps her there. I kiss her until my lungs burn and then kiss her again so I don’t have to speak. She arches against me like she wants all my weight. I give it to her, then pull back because I don’t want to hurt her.
Her hands slide under my shirt again. Skin to skin. My body jerks. Her fingers skim low and then hold. I catch her wrist and press it to my chest.
“Careful,” I say. The word comes out tight.
She searches my face. The room is dim. Her eyes are dark and steady. We breathe together until the pulse at my neck stops trying to jump through my skin.
“I want you,” she says again.
“Not tonight,” I say softly. “We’ve both been drinking, and we both need a clear head when we cross this line.”
She closes her eyes and exhales. When she opens them again, there’s no hurt, only warmth.
She nods. “Okay.”
I brush my mouth over hers once more. Slow. Careful. “Bed.”
She climbs under the covers and waits. I take two steps back and stop. She lifts the blanket without speaking. The invitationis simple. She scoots to the far side. I shut the door, kill the light, and move in. We lie on our sides, facing each other in the dark, breathing slowly while my body argues with my brain.
Her hand slides across the sheet. It rests over my heart. The touch is light.
We don’t sleep for a while. We talk in short, whispered words that don’t carry past the bed. She tells me her favorite street in Pine Hollow. I tell her the best place to watch the first snow settle. She asks what I wanted to be when I was a kid.
When I hear her breathing deepen, I let my eyes close. She’s tucked against me now, one knee hooked over my thigh, her fingers curled in my shirt. My arm is around her waist, and I'm holding her tight.
I don’t sleep much. I don’t want to. I want to memorize every second of her near me. I want to keep the feel of her steady, warm, and trusting. Morning will come fast. Rules will be easier to follow with coffee in our veins and distance on our side.
For now, it’s just us in a quiet room with the door closed, pretending we can keep this from blowing up our lives.
I kiss her hair once, quick and soft, and stare at the ceiling until the dark starts to turn to light.
Chapter five
Maeve
I spend the morning trying to act normal.
It doesn’t work.
Every time I pass the closed door to his room, my pulse picks up. Every time I catch sight of his truck through the window, I think about last night, the way his hands felt on my hips, the way his voice broke when he told me not to push. The problem is, I want to push. I’ve never wanted anything more.
By the time I hear him moving around in the workshop, I’ve already made up my mind.
I tie my hair back, pull on jeans, and walk across the yard. The morning air is cold enough to bite through Graham’s flannel I’m still wearing, but my skin’s too warm to care. The shop door is open, and he’s bent over a long plank of oak, running sandpaper along the edge. His arms flex, the motion steady, controlled. He doesn’t look up.
“Graham,” I say.
He grunts in acknowledgment. Keeps working.
I step closer. “We can’t pretend last night didn’t happen.”
That makes him stop. He sets the wood down and finally meets my eyes. “You’re right, we can’t, but we’re not going to repeat it, either.”
My chest tightens. “Why?”
