Chapter 5
CHAPTER FIVE
PIPER
Three days since he kissed me. Three days of absolutely nothing.
No knock at my door. No figure on horseback along the fence line. No mysterious repairs appearing overnight. The cattle come through for their creek access morning and evening, and I watch them from my kitchen window, but the man who negotiated their passage has vanished.
The temperature dropped last night. Hard. The kind of cold that makes the cabin groan at the joints, and I woke up at two a.m. with my breath visible in the bedroom. The furnace works, barely, but it's fighting a losing war against single-pane windows and thirty-year-old insulation.
By the time I drag myself out of bed at seven, there's firewood stacked on my porch. Two neat rows against the railing. Fresh-split, still smelling like sap.
Of course.
He won't talk to me. Won't look at me. Won't come within fifty feet of my property in daylight. But he'll haul wood across the fence line before dawn because the temperature dropped and he knew my cabin would be cold.
I carry an armload inside, stack the fireplace, and get a fire going with matches I bought at Hilda's. The wood catches fast, clean. Seasoned properly. Because Tate Rawlins doesn't do anything halfway, including avoidance.
My phone lights up on the counter.
Mom:
It's cold up there isn't it. I checked the weather. 28 degrees!! Are you warm enough?
Me:
Got firewood. Got fire. I'm fine.
Mom:
From the grumpy cowboy?
I don't answer that one.
Work carries me until late afternoon. The brewery logos are done, submitted, approved with minor revisions that take an hour.
My inbox has two new inquiries from referrals.
The business is growing. Something I built, something that's mine, and every invoice paid is another month of proof that leaving Denver was the right call.
By five o'clock, the fire has burned down to embers.
The cabin is warm, but the light is fading and the walls are closing in again.
I've been inside for ten hours. My body is restless, buzzing with energy that has nothing to do with caffeine and everything to do with the memory of calloused fingers on the back of my neck.
I pull on my jacket, grab the bottle of wine from the fridge, and walk outside.
The stars are coming out. September in Montana means the sky goes from blue to black in twenty minutes, and the stars don't trickle in.
They arrive. All at once, thick and bright, more than I've ever seen in my life.
I sit on the porch step, the new one, wrap my jacket around my knees, and pour wine into the mug I brought because I don't own outdoor glasses.
His porch light is on. Faint, yellow, a hundred yards east.
I sip my wine. Look at the stars. Don't look at his porch.
Look at his porch.
He's there. Sitting in the dark, just past the reach of the light. I can see the outline of his shoulders in the rocker. The shape of his hat. He's watching me. Has been, probably, since I walked outside.
Something bold and reckless moves through me. I raise my mug toward his porch. A toast. A dare.
Silence. Then his porch light goes off.
My stomach drops.
Thirty seconds later, I hear boots on gravel. Coming from the east. Coming from his side of the fence.
He appears at the edge of my yard. No horse this time. Just a man walking across the dark grass with his hands in his jacket pockets and his jaw set in that way that means he's been arguing with himself the whole way here.
He stops at the bottom of my porch steps. Looks up at me sitting there with my wine and my racing pulse.
"Saw your light."
"Saw yours."
He takes off his hat. Runs his hand through his hair. Puts the hat back on. It's the most uncertain I've ever seen him.
"Been thinking," he says.
"Dangerous."
"About the other morning."
"Even more dangerous."
His jaw works. "Shouldn't have kissed you."
The words land clean. I take a slow sip of wine, buying time, steadying the ache that just bloomed behind my ribs. "Okay."
"Shouldn't have. Because once wasn't enough.
" His voice drops to gravel. "Because I've been thinking about it for three days.
Because I can't look at that kitchen counter without seeing you pressed against it.
And I came over here to say I'm sorry, that it won't happen again, that we should keep this professional. "
"But?"
"But you're sitting on the step I built you, drinking wine out of a coffee mug, looking at the stars. And I can't make my mouth say any of those things."
My heart is in my throat. Hammering so hard he can probably hear it.
"Then don't say them."
He climbs the steps. Two at a time. I stand, and the mug of wine gets set on the porch rail, and then his hands are on my face. Both hands. Rough, warm, cupping my jaw. Tilting my chin up. Those hazel eyes burning gold in the dark.
"Piper." My name. Rough. Wrecked. "If I come inside, I'm not leaving."
"Good."
"I mean it. I don't do casual. I don't do one night."
"Neither do I."
"If I touch you, you're mine. I don't share. I don't play games."
"I'm not playing."
His mouth crashes into mine.
This isn't the kitchen kiss. This is three days of silence and restraint and firewood left in the dark.
His tongue sweeps against mine and I grab fistfuls of his jacket, pulling him closer until there's nothing between us but fabric.
His hands slide from my face to my waist, gripping, fingers digging in. My back hits the cabin door.
I reach behind me, turn the knob, and we stumble inside.
The fire's down to embers, casting the room in orange light. He kicks the door shut without breaking the kiss. His hat comes off, tossed somewhere. My jacket slides down my arms and lands on the floor. His follows.
"Bedroom," I manage against his mouth.
"Where?"
"Down the hall. Left."
He picks me up. Just lifts me, one arm under my thighs, the other across my back. My legs wrap around his waist. His mouth moves to my neck, teeth scraping my pulse point, and I gasp as he carries me down the narrow hallway like I weigh nothing.
The bedroom is dark. Cold. The bed is unmade from this morning, sheets twisted. He sets me down on the edge and stands between my legs, looking down at me with an expression that makes my whole body clench.
"Take off your shirt."
Not a question. I pull the flannel over my head, then the tank top underneath. No bra. His eyes drop to my breasts. His throat works on a swallow.
"Jesus, Piper."
His hands find my ribs first. Rough thumbs sliding up until they graze the underside of my breasts, so slow I arch into his touch. He cups them both, full, heavy in his palms. His thumbs brush across my nipples, back and forth, and the sound I make is embarrassing. Needy. Loud in the quiet room.
He bends, takes one nipple into his mouth, and sucks.
My fingers grip his hair. His tongue circles, flicks, teases until I'm squirming against the edge of the mattress. He switches to the other breast, giving it the same slow, thorough attention while his hands work my leggings down over my hips.
Cool air hits my bare legs. He kneels. Kneels on my bedroom floor and pulls my leggings and underwear off together, tossing them behind him. His hands grip my thighs, spreading them, and he looks at me. Takes his time looking.
"You're so fucking beautiful."
Then his mouth is on me.
His tongue drags flat against my pussy, one long stroke from entrance to clit, and my hips buck off the mattress.
His arm locks across my stomach, pinning me down.
The other hand grips my thigh, holding me open.
He licks me with a patience that borders on cruelty.
Slow, deliberate circles on my clit. Dipping lower to push his tongue inside me, then dragging back up.
Building me in layers until my thighs are shaking against his ears.
"Tate." My voice doesn't sound like mine. "Please."
He groans against me. The vibration shoots through my core. Two fingers slide inside, curling forward, finding the spot that makes the room go white at the edges. His mouth seals over my clit, sucking in rhythm with his fingers.
The orgasm tears through me. Sudden, devastating, my whole body locking tight. I cry out, hand fisting the sheets, back arching off the bed. He works me through it, slowing his tongue but not stopping, not pulling away until the last wave rolls through.
I'm still trembling when he stands. Pulls his shirt over his head. His chest is broad, muscled from twelve years of ranch work. A faint scar runs along his ribs. He unbuckles his belt, and the sound of the leather sliding through denim loops makes me clench.
His jeans come off. Boxers. He rolls a condom on from his wallet with steady hands. Then he's over me, forearms braced on either side of my head. His cock presses against my entrance. Hot. Thick. My legs wrap around his hips.
"Look at me," he says.
My eyes open. His face is inches from mine. Those gold-green eyes, open, raw, stripped of every wall he's ever built.
He pushes inside me in one slow stroke.
Full. So full I gasp. He groans against my neck, low, guttural, his forehead dropping to mine. Holds still for a moment, buried deep, his breath ragged.
"You feel incredible." The words come out broken against my mouth. "Fucking perfect."
He moves. Pulls back slow, pushes in deep. Sets a rhythm that rocks the headboard against the wall. My nails drag down his back. His hips snap harder. Deeper. Every thrust hits exactly where I need it, and I can feel the second orgasm building already, a tightness coiling low in my belly.
"You're mine." His voice is wrecked. Possessive. Raw. "Say it."
"Yours."
"Again."
"I'm yours, Tate."
He drives into me harder. My legs tighten around him. His hand slides between us, thumb finding my clit, circling in time with his thrusts. The dual sensation pushes me to the edge and holds me there.
"Come for me, Piper. Right now. On my cock."
I shatter. The orgasm rips through me so hard my vision goes dark. I clench around him, pulling him deeper, and he follows with a groan that shakes his whole body. His hips stutter. His arms tremble. He spills inside me with my name on his mouth, raw, reverent, repeated.
We collapse.
His weight settles over me. Heavy. Warm. Real. His face is buried in my neck, his breathing rough against my skin. My fingers trace lazy patterns between his shoulder blades. The room is quiet except for the sound of us catching our breath.
After a long moment, he shifts. Pulls out gently, deals with the condom, comes back. Lies on his side, pulling me against his chest. His arm wraps around my waist, possessive even now. His lips press against the back of my neck.
"Stay," I whisper.
"Already told you." His arm tightens. "I'm not leaving."
Outside, the stars burn above the mountains. The fire in the living room has gone to ash. The wine is still on the porch rail. And the man who wouldn't shake my hand two weeks ago is wrapped around me in the dark, his heartbeat steady against my spine.
I close my eyes.
For the first time since I got here, the quiet doesn't sound like alone.
It sounds like the beginning of something I never planned for.