Chapter 14
FOUR DAYS LATER
RAVEN
I step out from the trail that leads down to the river where Connor has the bathtub set up, and the heat of the sun’s rays hitting me again makes me release a satisfied groan.
It hangs high in the cloudless sky over the mountain today, one of those stunningly perfect late summer afternoons that reminds me why living on McBride Mountain is such a tremendous gift.
Staying cooped up in the cabin writing when the weather is this nice, day after day, is nearly impossible. Fall will hit us before too long, and we’ll lose our ability to be out here like this, regardless of where we are on the mountain.
When I was working at my table in the back corner of the bakery, I never felt this pull to step outside, to walk around and enjoy the fresh air and beauty gifted to us here, but a lot has changed since being dragged up the mountain.
Now, it almost calls to me the same way the man who brought me here does. Plus, I needed a break.
Sitting on that rickety old chair at that tiny table, typing away over the last several days, has wrecked my shoulders and lower back. Ergonomically correct, it is not…
I rub absently at that twinge near my lower spine as I wander over to the tub and find that, just like most days, Connor has already filled it for me and started a fire beneath it to keep it heated for whenever I decided to come down.
He must have been here fairly recently to check on it, too, because the flames are still going strong, fresh logs only just beginning to burn.
The fact that I know he has to keep coming back to check the fire and add more logs to it, probably to top off the water as it evaporates too, without knowing when I might utilize it causes that stupid twinge in my chest again.
That one I’ve been getting far too often since he brought me up here.
Slipping into the hot water, day after day, helps release a bit of the tension from my body, but now that I really think about it, maybe the back pain has more to do with the way Connor has had me twisted into a thousand different positions over the last several days.
My body heats at the memory, my pussy clenching and that dull throb returning, every part of me very vividly remembering each moment we’ve spent together since the night of the storm.
By day, he continues to work on his cabin, leaving me to concentrate on the story as much as I can, but we both know the time has come when I need him.
I need his memories.
I need his experiences.
I need his trauma.
I need him to truly open up to me in a way he hasn’t yet.
I need him to come clean.
And I’m going to have to force it with him tonight, which will undoubtedly lead to an argument. The kind we always had prior to coming up here. The kind that always made us believe we were enemies when I’m not sure what we are anymore.
Enemies forced together, working out years of frustration and tension?
Old friends reconnecting physically to handle the very real fear we both hold over what the future might bring?
Or something even more complicated…
All I know is I don’t want to think about that now. Not if I want to relax. Because those thoughts, those questions, are anything but relaxing.
I strip off my t-shirt and jeans and hang them from a nearby tree, setting my clean clothes on top of the overturned bucket Connor always leaves, then walk naked across the grass to climb into the steaming tub.
The moment I sink down into it, the hot water hits my skin and starts to seep into my muscles, and the soreness eases away after only a few glorious seconds.
A satisfied groan slips from my lips before I close my eyes, hold my breath, and dunk my head under, letting the warmth cocoon me the same way Connor has the last few nights when we’ve slept together on that small bed intended for only one.
Me draped across his body.
Him tucked around me, clutching me close.
His massive frame collapsed halfway on top of me after giving me another incredible orgasm that has me wondering what the fuck I’ve been doing the last fifteen years if this is what sex is supposed to be like…
When I come back up, gasping for air, I jerk away from the shadow falling over me, blinking at the water still in my eyes until I can see what is causing it.
Connor grins at me.
God…
When he does that, it completely changes the man. It softens all those hard lines that have become everything I saw about him for the last decade and a half. They were the physical manifestation of all the pent-up anger and turmoil inside him. But now they’re gone, at least in this moment.
“I was just about to come in after you to make sure you weren’t drowning.”
I wipe the last of the water from my face and rest my head back against the edge of the tub Connor told me was already up here when he first came to the cabin. So thanks go to Killian’s father for this little luxury that must have been a bitch to get up the mountain.
“Not drowning”—I waggle my eyebrows suggestively—“but you can still join me if you want.”
He raises a dark brow and glances down at me in the water, his eyes heating as they roam over my body, and his tongue darts out across his lips. “I’m pretty filthy right now. I don’t think you want me in that water with you.”
I chuckle, well aware that he’s been bathing at the end of every day before he comes into the cabin to save me from having to experience how dirty and sweaty he really becomes from working all day.
Though, I’m not sure I would mind it all that much, given how sexy it is to watch him do that work that gets him that way.
I bite my bottom lip, picturing how goddamn good he looks naked, then I glance over at the river. “So, wash off in there first, then get in here.”
He considers my proposition for a second, maybe two, before he starts stripping off his clothes, letting them haphazardly fall to the ground.
Strong, sure steps bring him to the edge of the river, and he dives in where it’s the deepest, disappearing for a few seconds beneath the rippling surface. He bursts out from under the ice-cold water and shivers as he quickly rubs himself down with his hand.
Watching him touch himself, even so casually, when it isn’t meant even remotely as a sexual movement still requires me to press my thighs together against the throb between them.
There is just something about Connor, about how unabashedly confident he is in his physical shape yet can be so vulnerable about everything else that makes him fascinating and irresistible.
Connor dips his head under again, comes back up, heads onto the riverbank, and stalks across the few steps from the water to the tub. Rivulets of crystal-clear water trail down his muscular frame, making me suddenly parched. “Scooch forward.”
I move as far forward as I can, and he climbs in and sinks down behind me, his massive body displacing so much water that it sloshes over the sides and sizzles on the fire beneath us.
He barks out a laugh. “Shit. I may have just put out the fire.”
I glance over the side. “No, we’re good.”
My laughter mixes with his, and for some reason, the sound of it echoing out over the mountain and floating across the water lifts my heart to a place I haven’t felt it in a very long time.
Maybe ever.
Since everything went down with Willow and Killian, it has felt like there has been this gaping hole in my life, and when she came back, I thought that had been fixed. But now, I’m not so sure it was all about her or her absence from my life.
This time up on the mountain has made me question a lot of things I thought I understood.
Far too many.
I settle back against Connor, and he wraps his arm around me, tugging me tightly to him, his mouth trailing along my neck. His cock instantly hardens against my ass. I grind against it, but he uses his other hand on my hip to still me.
“No. Not right now. Because you have more work to do this afternoon.”
He nips at my skin playfully, and I laugh for a second but suddenly tense, remembering what work needs to come.
The thing we’ve both been dreading.
Connor seems to sense the shift in mood instantly and lifts his head from my shoulder, tilting my chin back until I look at him. His brows draw low over concerned eyes. “What’s wrong?”
“I…we can’t put it off any longer, Connor.
” I see in his gaze that he knows exactly what I mean.
“We have to talk about that night. We have to talk about everything that came after it. It’s the last part of the puzzle, the last piece that I have to put into the story.
I’ve worked in every other allegation, every fact, all the things I found out from all my sources; all that’s left is the attack on the homestead.
I know you don’t want to talk about it, I know how painful it is for you, but… ”
I trail off because I don’t know what justifies me pushing. I thought I did before we came up here. I thought I had plenty of good reasons to poke and prod and try to force his demons to the surface.
The fact that I’m trying to protect all of us? The fact that I’m trying to save all of us, including him, from having to live like this?
His gaze softens. “It’s all right. We both knew it was coming, right?”
I chew on my bottom lip and nod, and he releases a heavy sigh, pressing his forehead to my temple.
There’s something so intimate about this moment. Far more than any time he’s literally been inside of me. Words don’t even need to be spoken for us both to feel it.
We don’t move for a few minutes, embracing the silence and listening to the sounds of the mountain. I’m too afraid to, and he’s too shaken by what I’m asking. It makes me regret even bringing it up, ruining this moment when it could have waited for tonight.
He shudders suddenly, drawing in a long, deep breath, as if he’s gathering courage to do something he doesn’t want to. “Then let’s do it now.”
CONNOR
Raven tenses in my arms.
It only makes the acid in my stomach churn more, that anxiety I’ve managed to keep at bay the past few days by letting myself get lost in this woman instead resurfacing.