2. Kane
two
Kane
The moment my lips touch hers, I'm lost. Sophie tastes like coffee and something sweet, and when she makes a small sound of pleasure against my mouth, every rational thought disappears.
This is insane. She's here to destroy everything I care about, and I'm kissing her like she's the answer to every prayer I've never made. But God help me, I can't stop.
Her hands fist in my flannel shirt, pulling me closer, and I back her against the warm stone wall of the evaporator. She's soft and pliant in my arms, all the sharp corporate edges melted away.
"This is crazy," I breathe against her lips, my hands tangling in her dark hair.
"I don't care," she gasps, her fingers working at my shirt buttons. "I don't want to think anymore. I just want to feel."
I capture her mouth again, deeper this time, tasting her thoroughly while my hands roam over the soft flannel covering her curves. She arches against me, and I can feel her nipples hardening through the thin fabric.
"No bra," I observe, the words almost catching in my throat.
She flushes. "It got wet. I took it off with the suit."
The thought of her naked under my shirt nearly undoes me. But even as my body screams to take this further, some rational part of my brain applies the brakes.
"Sophie, wait." I pull back, breathing hard. "We need to slow down."
Her eyes are dark with desire, lips swollen from my kisses. "Why?"
"Because you're here on business. Because this complicates everything. Because..." I struggle to find words that don't sound like excuses. "Because you deserve better than being pushed against a wall in a sugar shack by some mountain man you barely know."
She reaches up, her fingers tracing the line of my jaw. "What if that mountain man is exactly what I want?"
"Sophie..."
"I know this is complicated. I know we're supposed to be on opposite sides. But I've never felt anything like this before." Her honesty is like a sucker punch. "Have you?"
"No," I admit, because lying to her seems impossible. "Never."
"Then maybe we don't have to figure it all out tonight. Maybe we can just... see what happens."
She's right, but it doesn't make this any less terrifying.
I've built my life around certainty, around protecting what matters.
Sophie represents chaos, change, everything I've been fighting against. She's also the most beautiful thing I've ever seen, standing in my clothes with firelight dancing across her face.
"Just... slow down," I say finally. "I don't want to rush this and ruin something that might be important."
Her smile is radiant. "Slow works for me."
But when she rises on her toes to kiss me again, soft and sweet and full of promise, I realize that slow might be the hardest thing I've ever attempted.
We spend the evening talking by the fire in the sugar shack, sharing stories carefully edited to avoid the landmine of why she's really here.
I learn that she grew up in Toronto, that she's never lived anywhere with more trees than buildings, that she makes terrible coffee but somehow always ends up being the one to make it in her office.
She learns that I've never lived anywhere else, that I can identify tree species by their bark, that I once spent three days straight in this sugar shack during a blizzard when I was twelve because my dad wanted to teach me that maple syrup waits for no one.
"Three days?" she asks, curled up on the old couch I dragged in here years ago. "How did you not go stir-crazy?"
"I had books. Comics. And Dad told stories about every piece of equipment in here, every improvement he and his father made over the years." I stoke the fire, watching sparks dance up the chimney. "This place has more history in it than most museums."
"Tell me about your favorite story."
I settle beside her, close enough to catch that floral scent that's been driving me crazy.
"When I was eight, there was a late spring storm that knocked out power for a week.
Dad fired up the old wood-burning evaporator—the one before the gas model—and we made syrup the way his grandfather did.
Just him and me and the fire and forty gallons of sap that needed to become syrup before it spoiled. "
"Did you make it?"
"Barely. We took turns sleeping, checking the fire every hour. When we finally finished that batch, Dad said it was the best syrup he'd ever tasted. Not because of the sugar content or the color grade, but because we'd made it together the old way."
Sophie is quiet for a long moment. "That's beautiful."
"What?"
"Having something like that. A connection to your family, to the past. Something bigger than just yourself."
There's something wistful in her voice that makes me study her face. "You don't have that?"
"My parents divorced when I was ten. Dad moved to Vancouver, started a new family. Mom worked two jobs to keep us afloat." She shrugs, but I can see the old hurt in her eyes. "No family traditions. No stories passed down through generations. Just survival."
"Is that why you're so driven? The corner office, the promotion?"
She tenses slightly. "Partly. Financial security feels different when you've grown up without it."
I want to ask more, to understand what drives her relentless pursuit of success, but I can see her shutting down. Instead, I reach for her hand.
"For what it's worth, I think you're pretty remarkable. Building a career, taking care of your mother—that takes strength."
She looks down at our joined hands, her fingers small and soft against my calloused palm. "Some days I feel like I'm drowning in other people's expectations. Including my own."
"What would you do if those expectations disappeared?"
"I honestly don't know. I've been focused on climbing the ladder for so long, I'm not sure I remember what I actually enjoy anymore."
The admission hangs between us, vulnerable and honest. I squeeze her hand gently.
"Maybe being snowed in for a few days will give you time to figure it out."
She looks up at me, something shifting in her expression. "Maybe it will."
The moment stretches between us, full of possibility and the growing awareness that we're walking toward something that could change everything.
"Kane," she says softly. "Earlier, when you said slow..."
"Yeah?"
"How slow are we talking?"
I see the desire flickering in her dark eyes, feel the way her fingers tighten around mine. Every instinct screams at me to close the distance between us, to give in to the attraction that's been building all evening.
Instead, I lean over and press a soft kiss to her forehead.
"Slow enough to be sure," I tell her. "Slow enough that when this storm ends, we don't regret anything."
She nods, but I can see disappointment flicker across her face. "And if I don't want to wait until the storm ends?"
"Then you'll have to convince me that this isn't just proximity and adrenaline talking."
"Challenge accepted," she says, and there's something in her smile that tells me I'm in serious trouble.
As if reading my thoughts, she shifts closer on the couch, close enough that her thigh presses against mine, close enough that I can see the flecks of gold in her brown eyes.
"So," she says, her voice taking on a teasing tone. "Tell me more about maple syrup production. I find myself suddenly very interested in... the process."
I know exactly what she's doing, and God help me, it's working.