Chapter Six #3
To cover her giggle, she popped a few berries into her mouth. He ate his gruel. And above them, the sky came alive in a burst of color. The whole mountain range slowly caught fire with gold bleeding into orange, and the peaks lit like spotlights on a painting that she’d never be able to describe.
She pulled her knees up, watching the display, and for a moment forgot about her father’s passing and his last wishes that landed her here. She forgot about buried secrets and the tightness that had had been living in her chest since her father’s funeral.
“Tell me about the Von Trapp moment,” Hawk said, not looking away from the sunrise either.
She issued a surprised laugh, her mind already unlocking the memory. The edges of it were still sharp even after all these years.
“I was at boarding school in Switzerland. Easter holiday came around, and everyone else went home to their families. I didn’t—my father was in the middle of some acquisition and my mother was visiting her sister, who was sick.
I was stuck at school with a skeleton staff and too many empty hallways. ”
She picked up another berry. “So I decided to make my own adventure. I figured if the mountains were good enough for the Von Trapps, they were good enough for me.”
He looked up. “The mountains. You mean the Alps?”
“Yeah. Those mountains.”
He lowered his pouch, the stroganoff forgotten as he focused solely on her in a way that made her feel more seen than a thousand sunrises.
“Go on.”
“I hiked from the school grounds with basically nothing—no plan, no map, just this inner knowing that I could figure it out. I didn’t get very far up the mountain, but by the time anyone noticed I was gone, I’d been out there for hours.
” She smiled at the memory. “When the search party found me, I was singing. Twirling, actually. Arms out, the whole thing. I sang the song so many times that I was getting hoarse.”
“And your father?”
“I thought he’d hit the roof. Genuinely thought I was about to get the lecture of my life.” She shook her head. “When I got to the base of the mountain, he just…told me we were going home.”
Hawk’s expression softened more.
“He didn’t say a word about it.”
“Home as in back to the boarding school?”
“No.” She gazed at the mountains instead of him. “To our house in Boston. I didn’t have to go back to the boarding school again.”
“So you got what you wanted in the end.”
Her lips curved up in a gentle smile. “I suppose I did.” She let that sit for a moment.
When she finally looked at Hawk—really looked—she noticed things she’d been carefully trying not to notice.
The way the beard he hadn’t had time to shave in two days made his jaw look even more sharp, more dangerous. How the rays of the sun turned his eyes to green fire.
Suddenly, she wanted, with a force that shook her, to touch him.
She gripped the pouch of berries tighter to remain in control, but the eleven-year-old girl who’d walked out of a boarding school with nothing but confidence and conviction hadn’t stopped to weigh consequences.
That girl had taken a risk.
That girl had gotten exactly what she wanted.
I don’t know what’s stopping you.
Her heart missed a beat.
Sinead reached out and touched his jaw, dragging her fingers softly over the rasp of his beard.
He stilled under her hand.
She watched his lips, waiting for some snarky remark that would put distance between them.
He leaned in first. Just enough.
And she closed the rest of the distance and pressed her lips against his.
His lips were much softer than she expected for a man built entirely out of hard lines and controlled violence, and the contrast alone was enough to make her breath catch.
He didn’t move at first, like he was giving her the choice to pull back, to laugh it off, to blame it on the sunrise and the berries and pretend this was nothing.
She didn’t pull back.
His hand came up slowly, cradling the side of her jaw as if she might startle and bolt if he moved too fast, thumb tracing the curve of her cheekbone, and the restraint in that touch undid her more than urgency would have.
Then he angled his head, deepened the caress, and the softness gave way to something hungrier underneath—like he’d just run out of reasons to bother holding himself in check.
She felt the low sound he made against her mouth more than she heard it, felt it travel straight through her chest and settle low in her stomach.
His beard rasped against her skin, rough where his lips were soft, and the combination of the two sent a shiver down her spine that had nothing to do with the brisk mountain air.
She curled her fingers into the collar of his jacket, pulling him closer, and he came without hesitation, sliding one hand to the small of her back like he’d been waiting for an excuse to put it there.
The fire crackled beside them, forgotten. The sunrise kept burning gold over the ridgeline, also forgotten.
When he finally broke away, just far enough to breathe, his forehead rested against hers, and for a second neither of them said anything at all.
“I must taste like berries,” she said after a heartbeat.
“I must taste like stroganoff.” His eyes narrowed with an edge of playfulness. “You sure you can handle that, Miss Vegetarian?”
Her lips curved. “Let me try again and see.”