Chapter 17 Line Crossed
Chapter seventeen
Line Crossed
Snow White found that she liked honest toil and hard work.
She enjoyed her time with Grimm at the river washing clothes.
She liked cooking, experimenting with new herbs and spices.
But she especially liked sweeping. It was strange, maybe, to prefer such a simple task after having grown up among marble floors and servants who materialized at the first speck of dust. But here, in the miners’ cottage, sweeping meant she could see her work.
She could watch the day’s grit and crumbs and stray bits of coal gather into piles she could banish out the door.
It was satisfying, this small control over chaos.
The men were at the mine. The cottage was quiet in a way it never was when they were home.
The beds lay unmade, the sheets twisted from the tangle of bodies that had slept the night before.
The fire was down to embers, giving off a gentle warmth instead of a crackling roar.
Sunlight pushed through the small windows in soft bands, carrying dust motes that danced lazily in the air.
Snow White hummed under her breath as she worked. Her hair, grown past her shoulders now, tickled the corners of her jaw when she bent. She’d tied it back with a strip of cloth, but strands still escaped to fall into her eyes. She’d long since given up on keeping it neat.
Her mind drifted as the broom whispered against the floorboards.
This was her life now: wood smoke and bread dough under her nails, men’s laughter at the table, the creak of the beds at night.
The idea of balls and banners and jeweled hairpins seemed like something from a book she might have read once and then forgotten.
She wasn’t unhappy. She wasn’t in love, but she wasn’t hurt either.
Here, her body was part of the bargain, yes—but each day she felt less and less like a toy and more and more like a partner.
She reached the table and bent to sweep the last few crumbs from beneath it.
The door opened. She startled, straightening so quickly her back gave a little twinge.
The men weren’t due back for hours. For one jolting second, her mind supplied the image of Hunter in the doorway, knife in hand. It wasn’t Hunter.
Gage filled the frame, broad shoulders blocking out the light from outside.
His beard was dusted with coal, his hair damp with sweat where it curled at his neck.
He’d shed his outer layer on the hook by the door; his shirt clung to him, outlining thick arms and a torso built from years of hard work.
“Gage,” she said, more breathless than the sight should have warranted. “You’re back early.”
He shut the door behind him with a heavy thud.
The sound seemed to cut the cottage off from the rest of the world.
“Dax cleared some of us out,” he said shortly.
“New tunnel needed shoring; they didn’t want too many bodies under it until it’s braced.
” He shrugged, a crack of tension easing, then fixed his gaze on her.
There was a gleam in his eyes she wasn’t used to seeing there.
He always looked intense—scowling, frowning, glaring—but this was different.
Bright, almost… excited. A half-smile tugged at one corner of his mouth, not soft, but sharp. Snow White’s pulse skipped.
He let his gaze trail slowly down her body, taking in the simple dress hitched up a little at her calves, the bare arms dusted with flour from the bread she’d kneaded earlier, the flush on her cheeks from her work. “I’m going to have you now.” No preamble. No question.
Heat shot through her, confusing and immediate.
Gage had always gotten under her skin more than the others.
His roughness, his bluntness, the way he refused to pretend he didn’t want what he wanted—it all irritated and thrilled her in equal measure.
Her heart beat faster. She swallowed. “Here?” she asked. “Now?”
He stepped forward, the distance between them shrinking. “You have someplace to be?” he asked. “Something more important than doing what you bargained for?”
The words should have stung. Instead, they sent a low thrum through her belly. Still, she hesitated. “The others—”
“Are down in the dark,” he said. “They won’t be back for hours.” He stopped a pace away, close enough that she had to tilt her head back to hold his gaze.
“I couldn’t work,” he said simply. “Couldn’t get your scent out of my head. Had to leave before I took my temper out on some poor sod’s skull.” His eyes flicked to her mouth, lingering. “Figured I’d take it out on you instead.”
She froze.
He stepped closer again, and she found herself backing up until her hips bumped the table.
His hand came up, fingers wrapping around her wrist. His hand was enormous. Calloused, rough, but warm. The heat of his touch seared through her skin. Her heart skipped from fast to racing.
She tugged once, out of instinct more than intent to escape. He held on easily. “Gage,” she said.
“I want you,” he said bluntly. “All to myself. No Harry making jokes, no Bennett sighing like a ballad, no Silas snoring before I’m done.
Just you and me. My cock and all of your holes to bury it in.
” He glanced down and noticed the strip of rope coiled beside the bed—it was always there, used to secure gear when storms rattled the roof.
Her pulse jumped as she followed his gaze. “How rough?”
“Tie you up. Take what I want. Make you beg.” His eyes searched hers. “But you need to say yes. Really yes. Not 'I'm afraid to say no' yes.”
She swallowed. “And if I say no?”
“Then I go chop wood until I'm too tired to think about it.” He stepped closer. “We don’t tell any of them about this. Ever. Understand?”
Something in his intensity called to something in her. “What do you want to do?”
Ignoring her question he added, “We need a safe word,” glancing at her neck, “Falcon. If you say falcon, I’ll stop immediately, no questions asked.”
Snow White thought for a moment. “Okay, I understand. What are you going to do to me?”
“I want you,” he said, as if that explained everything. His mouth curved further. “Come on,” he said. “Drop that broom.”
She did as she was told. He tugged her toward the bed, the rope already in his other hand, rough fibers catching on his calluses.
She should have said no. She knew that, somewhere under the rush in her veins.
But the lump of curiosity in her chest was almost as tight as the knot he was about to tie.
“You’re not scared?” he asked suddenly, eyes flicking to her face.
She swallowed. “A little.”
He snorted. “You should be,” he said. “I’m in a mood.” He sat her down on the edge of the bed, then turned and dragged the chair closer, the legs scraping on the floor. He pushed her back into it with firm hands.
Her breath came faster. He lifted her wrists one by one and wrapped the rope around them, binding them to the arms of the chair. The fibers dug into her skin. “That’s tight,” she said, fingers flexing.
“Good,” he replied. “I don’t want you running when it gets good.
” He crouched to tie her ankles to the chair legs as well, his head level with her knees.
Her skirt slid up with the movement, baring her calves, then her thighs.
The air was cool against the dampness she hadn’t realized had already gathered between her legs.
When he stood, she was open. Trapped. Heart thudding, limbs pulled just far enough apart that she couldn’t close them. A small, involuntary shiver ran through her.
“Cold?” he asked, though the glint in his eye said he knew it wasn’t just that.
“I’m okay,” she whispered.
He stepped between her spread knees and cupped the back of her neck, thumb stroking just under her ear. “You have no idea,” he mumbled, “what you do to me.” Then he let go, undid his belt, and pushed his trousers down.
She couldn’t look away. She’d seen him before, of course—a dozen times, more.
But somehow this felt different. There was something about being the only one in the room, about his body focused solely on her, that made the sight hit harder.
He stood there a second, letting her see the extent of his want.
The thick shaft standing out from his body, the flushed head, the heavy weight of him. Her mouth went dry.
His gaze dropped to her lips, then back up again. “Open,” he said. Her pulse hammered. She parted her lips.
“That’s my pretty girl,” he grunted. He stepped closer until he was close enough that she could smell him: sweat and iron and something darker, uniquely his. He braced one hand on the back of the chair, the other threading into her hair. Gently, almost unexpectedly so, he guided her mouth to him.
The first brush of him against her lips pulled a small, involuntary sound from her. Her tongue darted out to taste, to ease the path, and he made a low noise that sounded disturbingly like a groan. “That’s it,” he said. “Just like that.” The praise, crude as it was, warmed her chest.
Then he pushed deeper. Her jaw stretched around him.
She managed to relax, remembering what had worked before, breathing through her nose, letting her throat open.
But Gage wasn’t Harry, with his teasing patience, or Bennett, with his careful gentleness.
He was Gage: muscular, driven, a man who lived his life at the sharp end of things.
He set a rhythm she barely had time to adjust to, hips rolling forward, withdrawing, then pressing deeper.
The back of the chair dug into her spine; the rope scraped her wrists when she instinctively tried to lift her hands and couldn’t.
She gagged once when he hit too deep. He slowed and pulled back. “Do you want to say falcon?” he asked, loosening his grip.
“No,” she replied, opening her mouth again.