CHAPTER FOUR
Maddie
Being a mountain wife was a lot more boring than the movies had led me to believe. There were no musical montages of me picking berries in a sun hat, mostly because Thorne had warned me that the berries currently in season would probably kill me within the hour.
It had been two days since the wedding, and the isolation was starting to itch, even though I said this was exactly what I wanted. Peace. And quiet. I had gotten the quiet, but not the peace.
How could I be peaceful when my body was feeling all sorts of questionable things when my husband-in-name-only kept walking around looking like a lollipop I wanted to lick.
And he was avoiding me. Obviously so. He spent his mornings disappearing into the woods or working in the large shed behind the cabin, emerging only for meals where he’d grunt a few responses to my chatter before retreating back into his broody shell. Or going to bed before the sun set.
I knew the man got up at the butt crack of dawn, but really?
I should have felt guilty for forcing him to adjust to my being there, but all I felt was frustration.
And attraction.
So much freaking attraction.
Well, I was done being a hermit-in-training. I needed entertainment, and since the wi-fi was spotty at best, Thorne Underwood was officially the only show in town.
I found him behind the cabin, standing near a massive pile of logs. And of course he was shirtless. The mountain air was crisp, but apparently, the labor of being a rugged cliché was enough to keep him warm. I stopped at the edge of the porch, leaning against the railing just to take him in.
God, he was a perfect specimen of manhood.
His back was a map of hard-won muscle, shifting and rippling with every swing of the axe.
There was a thin sheen of sweat on his skin that made him glow in the dappled sunlight.
He raised the axe over his head—the movement stretching the skin over his ribs—and brought it down with a guttural crack that echoed through the trees. The log split perfectly in two.
“You know,” I called out, pushing off the porch and walking toward him. “They sell firewood at the store. It comes in neat little plastic bundles. Or those nice little starter logs. Very civilized.”
I wanted to poke the bear. I knew he couldn’t possibly rely on storebought wood to fuel the fireplace and keep the cabin warm when it was cold.
Neither my presence nor my color commentary made him stop and pay attention to me. He set up another log. “Store-bought wood is for tourists. It burns too fast.”
“And hand-chopped wood burns better because of the... what? The masculine resentment you’ve infused into it?”
He swung again. Another crack. Oh, how I wanted his grumpy, don’t-bother-me facade to crack just as easily.
He finally paused, leaning the axe against his thigh and wiping his forehead with the back of his hand.
He turned to look at me, his eyes dark and narrowed against the sun. “What are you doing out here, Maddie?”
“I’m following you,” I said plainly, stopping a few feet away. I crossed my arms, which had the added benefit of pushing my chest up. If he was going to be shirtless, I was going to try my best to be a distraction. “I’m bored.”
“Bored? I thought you wanted bored.”
“I did. I do, but.” I sighed. How could I confess that what I really wanted was him.
My freaking lips still tingled from our wedding kiss, and every night, hearing him just behind the thin wall of my bedroom…
I had no trouble occupying myself then. “I’ve read all the magazines I brought, and I can’t download any books thanks to your less than spectacular internet connection.
Which, I might add, no one warned me about. ”
“Go back inside. I’m working.”
“No. I’m your shadow today.” I followed him as he moved to stack the split wood. “What’s next on the agenda? Felling another tree? Glare at the clouds until they part?”
He let out a dry, huffing sound that was almost a laugh. “I’m fixing the porch steps. They’re rotted. If you stay out here, you’re going to get in the way.”
“I promise to be a very helpful, very quiet spectator. Or your unpaid helper. Isn’t that what mountain wives are supposed to do for their mountain man husbands.”
He froze for a moment as if he remembered that we were actually husband and wife and that did something to him.
I hope the thought was doing the same thing to him as it was doing for me.
Making him horny.
“You don’t have a quiet bone in your body,” he muttered, but he didn’t head back to the shed to hide. Instead, he grabbed a toolbox and headed for the front of the house.
I followed him. I followed him like a persistent, curvy ghost. Every time he knelt down to pry up a board, I was right there, leaning against the house or sitting on the top step, watching the play of muscles in his arms. The visuals were, quite frankly, devastating.
He had these thick, powerful forearms covered in dark hair, and the way he handled his tools—with precision and a quiet, intense focus—made me wonder just how good he was at other things
Naughty. Sexy. Bedroom things.
“You’re staring,” he said without looking up. He was crouching in front of the steps, hammering a fresh plank into place.
“You’re providing a distraction.”
He looked up, jaw tight. “I’m working.”
“And I’m watching you work. These are both valid activities.” I settled more comfortably against the house. “It’s hard not to. You’re very... aesthetic, Thorne. It’s like watching a National Geographic special on the North American Grump.”
He looked up then, his jaw tight. “Is this how it’s going to be? You hovering over me while I work?”
“I’m providing moral support since you won’t let me venture out of the yard without you.
” I stepped down to the grass, closer to where he was working.
He smelled like sawdust, sweat, and that soap he used in the shower.
The one I’d used this morning so I would smell like him.
It was an intoxicating, earthy scent that made me want to lean in and press my nose against his chest.
“You don’t know the terrain. You could fall, get lost, or encounter a bear.”
“I’m not a bear snack, Thorne. I’m your wife. Sort of.” I tilted my head back, meeting his brooding gaze with my best sassy smirk. “And if you’re so worried about my safety, then you’d better start entertaining me. I need a tour. I need to know where the danger zones are.”
Although I was pretty sure where the danger zones were as far as getting completely in over my head with him.
“The whole mountain is a danger zone for someone wearing those,” he snapped, gesturing to my stylish but definitely-not-hiking-grade footwear.
They were sneakers, plain and simple, while he wore what looked like steel-toe enforced hiking boots.
He should be thankful I wasn’t wearing the pair of flip-flops I’d packed.
“Then teach me. Show me around. Unless you’re afraid of being alone with me in the woods?”
His eyes flashed—a sudden, hot spark of something that wasn’t just annoyance.
He took a step closer, invading my personal space until I had to crane my neck.
I refused to take a step back, which I was pretty sure what he wanted.
Just like facing a bear, show no fear. Or was that a wolf? With a bear was I supposed to run?
Heaven help me, what do you do with a mountain grump?
“I’m not afraid of the woods, Maddie.”
“Then what is it? Because every time I get within five feet of you, you look like you’re trying to calculate the fastest exit route.”
“I’m trying to be a gentleman,” he rasped, his voice dropping into that low, vibrating register that made my toes curl. “I’m trying to remember that this is an arrangement. But you make it very difficult when you follow me around looking like... that.”
“Like what?” I challenged, my heart hammering against my ribs. I had dressed in jeans—and one of his flannel shirts he’d left hanging in the bathroom. I thought of it as an invitation to help myself.
“Like you’re waiting for me to break.”
Break? I wanted him to snap if I were honest. I did not marry this man for sex. I married him for mutual benefits. But…
Sex with him would be a very, very nice benefit of our arrangement. I just didn’t know how to convince him. I was a woman of very limited experience in that area. Very limited.
In fact, zero.
“If you want a tour, fine. But we stay on the marked trail. And you stop talking for five minutes.” He picked up his tools and set them on the porch, out of the way.
“I can do two minutes,” I negotiated, following him as he stomped toward the trailhead. “Maybe three if the view is anything worth looking at.” And I didn’t mean the mountains. I meant of him, walking ahead of me.
The trail he started down was more of a suggestion than a path.
It was steep, narrow, and littered with loose stones and pine needles.
I was doing fine until we reached a particularly sharp incline near the creek.
I was so busy watching the way Thorne’s glutes flexed under his jeans—sue me, the view was incredible—that I didn’t see the root sticking out of the ground.
My toe caught. “Whoa—”
The world tilted. My arms flailed for purchase, but there was nothing but air. I closed my eyes, bracing for the impact of the hard, cold ground.
It never came.
Two massive, iron-strong arms wrapped around my waist, yanking me back up with enough force that I was slammed chest-to-wall of solid muscle. My eyes snapped open.
Thorne had me. His legs spread wide for stability, holding me flush against his shirtless body. The contact was electric—a physical shock that traveled from my breasts, which were crushed against him, all the way down to my thighs.
Between my thighs. Holy smokes.
His skin was hot. Boiling. And damp with the sweat of his previous labor. I could feel the thud of his heart—heavy and fast—against my own.
“I got you,” he breathed.
He didn’t let go. His fingers splayed across my lower back, his fingers digging into the soft flesh of my hips. My breath hitched, a small, needy sound escaping me. Up close, his eyes were a storm of green and gold, swirling with a hunger that he wasn’t even trying to hide.
The awkwardness of the fall evaporated, replaced by a thick, suffocating heat. My hands had instinctively landed on his shoulders, my fingers curling into his skin. He felt like he was made of steel and fire.
“You’re... you’re really strong,” I whispered, my voice trembling.
“And you’re really clumsy,” he growled, but there was no bite in it.
His gaze dropped to my lips, and for a second, I thought he was going to finish what he’d started at the courthouse.
I wanted him to. I wanted him to shove me against that tree and show me exactly how territorial a mountain man could be.
His grip tightened for a heartbeat—a possessive, bruising squeeze—and then he set me upright and stepped back.
I swayed on my feet, my body humming with the kind of sensation that left a permanent mark. Not to mention what had happened to my panties.
“See?” he said, his voice rough and uneven. He wouldn’t look at me now. “Danger zones.”
“I think the danger zone just moved,” I muttered, trying to catch my breath.
“We’re going back,” he announced, turning his back on me and heading for the cabin at a pace that was practically a sprint.
I stood there for a moment, goosebumps on my skin that had nothing to do with the spring chill in the air. My heart was a frantic mess in my chest. He was broody, he was grumpy, and he was currently running away.
But I’d felt that heart rate. I’d seen that look in his eyes. And oh, boy, had I felt the way his body had reacted to having me in his arms. He’d been hard. Big and hard.
“Nice try, Underwood,” I whispered, a slow, triumphant smile spreading across my face as I started the walk back. “But you can’t run from your wife in name only, forever.”