Chapter Twenty-One
Sienna
I already had a headache when I reached the lodge. It was forming behind my right eye and was the kind that felt like a tiny woodsman inside my skull was chopping firewood with poor aim.
Tomorrow was the big day.
The first guided retreat of the season.
Our first joint group trip.
Our first real test of how well we mixed professionalism with… whatever the hell the past week had been.
I dropped my binder of guest notes onto the desk and rubbed my eyes. The Butterfields — our honeymoon couple — were lovely on paper. Newly married. Nature lovers. Low-maintenance. Up for adventure.
Perfect clients.
The opposite of the tornado of emotions inside my chest.
The past few days had been a mess in slow motion. Carson had been quiet. He wasn’t unfriendly, not cold, just… stiller than usual.
He didn’t linger or ask questions. He didn’t sit beside me at lunch anymore. He showed up for the dry-run hikes and the gear shed reorganizing sessions like a consummate professional, which should have calmed me down.
It didn’t.
Because I could feel him watching me sometimes, from the corner of his eye, like he was trying to figure out how much space he needed to keep between us to avoid recreating the Hungry Buck Situation.
And I could feel myself trying to fill that space with jokes and sarcasm and whatever emotional dodgeball move I’d perfected over the years.
But none of that solved the biggest problem.
I wanted him, and he was pulling back.
Not to mention that I had no idea what to do with that combination except panic and reorganize the gear shed another sixty-two times.
I pushed the binder aside and groaned into my hands.
“Get it together, Harper. They’re paying for a wilderness vacation, not a front-row seat to your feelings.”
A knock sounded at the open door, and my heart jumped.
Carson leaned against the frame, one hand braced above him, a silhouette backlit by the fading evening light streaming from the hallway window.
Oh, no.
He looked unfairly incredible for a man who’d spent all day hauling gear and checking pack weights. Clean shirt. Damp hair. Tired but steady eyes. Calm expression that did absolutely nothing to soothe the chaos inside me.
“Hey,” he said.
So casual.
So mild.
So dangerously capable of unraveling my sanity with one syllable.
I cleared my throat. “Hey. Did you need something?”
He lifted the corner of his mouth. “I could ask you the same.”
“I’m working,” I said quickly. “Like an adult. Not panicking in any way.”
His eyebrow rose. Damn him.
I folded my arms tightly. “Okay, maybe panicking slightly. But only in responsible, grown-up bursts.”
He stepped into the office and closed the door halfway, just enough to soften the hall noise and send my heart into a whirlwind.
His voice lowered. “You’re worried about tomorrow.”
“No,” I lied. Then amended, “Yes. Maybe. Shut up.”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You’re thinking something,” I accused.
He let out an amused exhale and came closer. “About the trip. Are you nervous?”
“Nervous? Me? Absolutely not.” I inhaled too sharply. “I mean, why would I be? Honeymooners. Easy. Chill. The only rule is don’t mention raisins or dry humping. That’s it. Totally manageable.”
Carson stilled for a second, and then a slow, deep laugh rolled out of him.
Hot damn.
I felt that laugh in places without names.
He scrubbed a hand over his jaw. “I can’t believe you said that in public.”
“I would like not to talk about it ever again.” I smiled.
“Dry humping or raisins?”
His smile only grew.
“Carson,” I warned.
He chuckled again, but quieter this time, and warmer, and every one of my defenses shuddered.
I busied myself stacking notepads. “Look, it doesn’t matter. What matters is that we’re good. Professional. Unmessy. I promise not to smack you with a kiss, if that’s why you’ve been avoiding me.”
His gaze tracked me, lingering in a way that made the room feel smaller.
“I haven’t been avoiding you.”
My brows lifted. “If you say so.”
“Okay,” he said finally. “Then let’s talk ground rules.”
Ground rules.
Right. This was good. Responsible. Normal people did this.
“Fine,” I said, pulling a pen from the drawer. “Rule number one: no confusing the guests.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning no weird tension. No staring. No…”
I waved vaguely around my head. “Whatever the thing is you do.”
“What thing?”
“You know the thing.”
His mouth tugged in that infuriating semi-smile. “You’ll have to be more specific.”
“Ugh.” I paced behind the desk. “Rule two: no… physical distractions.”
His brows lifted. “Physical… distractions.”
“You know what I mean.”
“I really don’t.”
Heat crawled up my neck. “No pulling your shirt off outside of your tent.”
He laughed and shook his head. “In this weather?”
I smiled and nodded.
“Then I have one for you.”
“Okay.”
“No kissing!”
I opened my mouth and shut it since I was the one who initiated the kiss. “That’s fair. And rule three…” I paused, tapping the pen against my notebook. “No being weird.”
“Weird,” he repeated.
“Yes.”
“Define weird.”
“Anything that makes me forget how words work.”
A dangerous glint flickered in his eyes. “You think I make you forget words?”
“Sometimes,” I admitted before my brain could stop my mouth.
He inhaled quietly, and something changed in the air between us that felt like a thin, electric thread stretching tight.
“Okay,” he said. “My turn.”
I braced myself. “Fine. Go ahead.”
“Rule one,” he said, stepping closer. “You don’t spiral about something until you talk to me first.”
My pulse jumped. “I don’t spiral.”
“You do. And it’s okay.”
I glared. “Rude.”
“Rule two,” he added, ignoring that. “You tell me if something scares you on the trail.”
My throat tightened. “Carson…”
“And rule three,” he said softly, voice lowering into something warm and molten. “If we’re going to behave, you can’t look at me the way you did last night.”
“I didn’t—”
“You did.”
His nearness swallowed the room, and I backed up one step.
He followed, and my spine bumped gently against the old wooden filing cabinet.
I swallowed hard. “We’re supposed to be working.”
“We are.”
“This isn’t working.”
“It feels like it is.”
Oh God.
My heartbeat galloped like our zebra running wild from the pen.
“This is a terrible idea,” I whispered.
“Probably.”
“So we shouldn’t.”
“No,” he agreed, voice a low hum. “We shouldn’t.”
His hand rose slowly, slowly enough that I could have stopped him and brushed a strand of hair behind my ear, but I didn’t.
I exhaled shakily and realized every rule we made probably just went out the window.
“But,” he added, “you keep looking at me like you want me to do something about it.”
Shock and fire tore through me all at once.
“I…I do not—"
“You do.”
My breath caught, the room tilted, and he pulled me in.
Not roughly.
Not hesitantly.
Purposefully.
His hand slid around my waist, and his other cupped my jaw as my body hit his in a rush of heat and electricity that stole my breath.
His lips swept over mine softly at first, testing, and I let out a little breath.
Carson’s eyes steadied on mine right before he kissed me.
It wasn’t like last time.
There was no hesitation or town cheering through the windows.
This kiss was deeper, hotter, and far too devastating.
His lips claimed mine with slow, deliberate hunger. It felt like the kind that said he’d been thinking about this for eons.
Maybe that was why he’d been avoiding me.
His thumb swept along my jawline, and my knees nearly buckled.
I curled my fingers into his shirt, pulling him closer, giving in to the want inside of me. He groaned softly against my mouth, and the sound went straight through me.
Everything else fell away. The lodge, the office, tomorrow morning’s guests, the rules we’d written just to shatter all fell away.
There was only Carson.
His breath, his hand, and his mouth with mine, like he already knew exactly how to unravel me.
Carson deepened the kiss, tilting my chin up, pressing me gently into the cabinet, and I gasped softly against his lips.
He swallowed the sound as heat pooled low in my stomach. My heart pounded so hard I felt it in my fingertips.
He kissed me like he meant it, like he wanted it…like he’d been restraining himself for far too long and the thought nearly did me in.
When he finally pulled back, barely, just enough to breathe, his gaze stayed on mine.
We were both breathing hard, and I didn’t move.
Neither did he.
His voice was rough when he spoke. “We’re terrible at rules.”
I laughed breathlessly. “We didn’t even make it five minutes.”
“Probably a record for us,” he murmured.
I swallowed, dizzy, overwhelmed, wanting more than I should let myself want.
“We really shouldn’t do that again,” I whispered.
“We shouldn’t,” he agreed.
His thumb stroked once along my cheekbone.
My breath hitched.
He leaned in again, softer this time, lips brushing mine in a slow, intoxicating tease, and pulled back before I could chase it.
“Carson,” I whispered, unsteadily. “Mortimer was much easier to handle.”
He smiled and stepped back only enough to give me space, not enough to break whatever had sparked between us.
Tomorrow’s trip suddenly felt ten times more complicated.
And ten times more impossible to resist.
Carson took another slow step back, giving me just enough room to breathe again. I gripped the edge of the desk behind me, willing my pulse to behave. It did not.
He ran a hand through his hair, exhaling in a low, controlled breath that absolutely did not help.
“Tomorrow,” he said, still catching his breath a little, “we need to be focused.”
“Right,” I managed. “Focused. Totally. I can focus.”
I absolutely could not.
His mouth curved into a knowing smile. “You sure?”
“No,” I said honestly.
That earned a soft laugh, and I pushed a stack of maps aside like they personally offended me. “We just have to get through the next few days without doing… that.”
“That,” he repeated, amused. “We’re not very good at avoiding that.”
“You started it.”
“No,” he said, taking a step back toward me, eyes flicking to my lips, “you started it.”
Heat rushed through me. “Excuse me?”
“You kissed me first at the supper club,” he said quietly.
“That was an accident.”
He arched a brow. “Was it? The old I slipped on an ice patch routine, and oops, my lips landed on the new guide.”
“Yes,” I said, even though we both knew it was only half the truth. “Mostly. A little bit. Fine, maybe not entirely.”
“So not an accident,” he murmured, closing the distance again.
Oh no.
Oh yes.
My heartbeat stuttered.
He lifted his hand again, brushing his fingers lightly down my arm. “You keep saying we shouldn’t.”
“And we shouldn’t,” I whispered.
“But you keep looking at me,” he said, voice low and warm, “like you want me to ignore that.”
My pulse rose with each passing second.
I hated how right he was.
I hated how my body answered before my brain could catch up.
I hated, absolutely hated, how good he smelled this close.
I swallowed. “Tomorrow we have clients.”
He nodded slowly. “Tomorrow we behave.”
“Tonight we practice behaving,” I added quickly.
“Do we?” he asked.
“Yes,” I said, though my voice was hanging by the thinnest thread of conviction left in my body.
He leaned one hand on the filing cabinet beside my hip, bracing himself just inches from me. “I’m not touching you.”
“So far,” I said, breathless.
He didn’t smile, but something in his eyes heated. “You’re the one leaning in this time.”
“I am not—”
Except I was.
Just a fraction… enough for him to notice and enough to destroy every lie I told myself about control.
“Sienna,” he murmured, and the sound of my name in that voice made my knees wobble.
He wasn’t asking permission.
He wasn’t assuming.
He was warning me, maybe even warning himself.
I whispered back, “We’re really bad at rules.”
His breath brushed my cheek, and his lips found mine again, slower this time, deeper, deliberate. The kind of kiss that didn’t rush or burn wild but slid through me like warm honey. His lips were smooth, certain, and devastating.
My hand slipped up his chest to grasp the collar of his shirt, pulling him closer. He groaned softly against my mouth, with a low, hungry sound that erased the last inch of space between us.
Everything heated inside and whispered more.
When he finally broke the kiss, his eyes steadied on mine.
“Tomorrow,” he breathed. “We behave.”
I nodded, still dizzy. “Tomorrow.”
But tonight?
Tonight I already knew…
We were going to be very, very bad at staying away from each other.