Chapter 12
AMY
We’re both folded back into the warmth of the fire, and Evan takes off his scarf, coat, and hat in jerky movements, hanging them in their spots on the wall, kicking off his boots and setting them neatly on the rubber mat.
“I’ll have to get some of those trail cameras,” he mutters, sparing a glance at me and looking away quickly. “If there’s some asshole up here, cutting down my trees, I need to see who it is.”
“That’s a good idea,” I say, my throat dry at the idea of someone lurking around near us, watching.
I’m not usually a fan of conspiracy theories, but I can’t deny the clean cut of the tree. The way it looked like someone had cut it down. Why would a tree like that—thick and healthy—fall down on its own?
“Is that your professional advice?” Evan asks, doing the thing where he raises one of his dark eyebrows at me.
It makes my stomach flip, that intense look in his eyes.
I cross my arms, feeling strangely vulnerable without my coat. I’ve been wearing Evan’s clothes for two days now, and I’m starting to get very used to the scent of him, the smell of this place.
All this should be weirder than it is. But something about being here just clicks for me.
“I am technically a lawyer,” I say, “so, yes, that is legal advice. If you have a video of whatever happened to that tree, it would be helpful.”
“Whatever happened,” he repeats dryly, shaking his head and taking a step back from me. “I thought you believed me.”
“I do.” I swallow, forcing myself to look at him, to hold that gaze, those blue eyes.
Like the color the sky was when we stepped out tonight.
When I take a step forward, then another, he doesn’t back up, so we’re nearly chest to chest. “I believe you, and I’m going to do everything I can to make sure you keep this place. ”
Something like disbelief—surprise—flickers over his face, and his eyes dart quickly between mine. Left-right, left-right.
Then, so quickly I could almost miss it, they dip down to my lips, then return to my eyes, holding my gaze, causing goose bumps to spread out over my back and down my spine.
An internal fire licks the entire length of me, starting at my throat and pooling in my core. I can practically feel my pupils dilating.
Instantly, the warm embrace of the fire on the other side of the living room turns hot. Bright. Searing.
And I can’t stand it for a moment longer.
Stepping forward, I tip my head up to Evan, heart thundering in my chest. I’m tall, but he’s tall enough that if he doesn’t lean down right now, a kiss isn’t happening.
But then, he does.
When his lips brush mine, tentative at first, it’s like time slows, stretching out, my head panicking to try and catalog every second of the touch.
I feel the rough scrape of his beard against my chin, one of his hands sliding around to the small of my back, expanding, his fingers stretching like he’s trying to claim more of my skin.
And then, just before we make full, real contact, Evan pulls back.
For a moment, I panic. Did I read everything wrong? Embarrassment flushes through me, making me feel even more hot and flustered than I was before.
“Oh, God, sorry,” I mutter, stepping back, shaking my head and bringing my hand to cover my mouth. “I—”
“Amy.”
I stop, blinking, staring at the floor. My eyes are hot; my entire body is hot. I barely know this man. Why would I think he’d want me to come on to him?
The first thing he did was close the door in my face. What part of that am I not getting?
“Why are you…” Evan starts, his voice trailing off, thick and gravelly, choking out. Like a pen running out of ink mid-sentence.
“Oh.” I clear my throat, shaking my head, feeling completely unmoored.
What was I thinking? Of course it would be wrong to step into him like that.
To try and kiss him. When he’s been kind enough to offer me somewhere to stay, and I’ve done nothing but disrupt his schedule and, frankly, ruin his day. “I don’t know. I’m sorry—”
I’m part of the problem. Working for the company that’s been trying to take his land—land that has belonged to his family for generations—from him.
But when I look at him, he doesn’t look like a man who didn’t want to be kissed just now. Actually, he looks like a man who very much wants to kiss me, his lips slightly parted, his eyes dark and trained on me, his fingers curled into loose fists at his sides.
“Amy,” he says, stepping forward and taking my chin in his hand, tipping my head up so I’m looking at him. If someone had asked me if I’d like something like this, I’d tell them no—that a dominant move like that wouldn’t do it for me.
And I would have been wrong. Because I melt at the direct gesture, the way his eyes hold mine.
Evan goes on, “I’m asking you why you’re doing this, because I don’t want you to feel pressured. Or like you have to do anything.”
I blink, not quite following, and he works his jaw for a second, then goes on, “I want you. But I need to know that this isn’t about me offering you a place to stay, or any guilt about…
” He glances to the right, toward the side of the cabin and, somewhere beyond it, the spot where the tree was in the road.
“It’s not about that,” I rasp, a shiver running down my spine again when he shifts his hand, sliding it into my hair, his thumb swiping a lazy path just in front of my ear. “It’s—it’s—”
I cast about in my head, trying to figure out how to tell him that it’s not about the way he pulled me out from under the tree. How he brought me in and fed me, gave me dry clothes despite the fact that he didn’t have any reason to.
How to tell him that it’s about catching the fish. Cooking dinner together. The strange, consuming sense of calm that I’ve achieved next to him that I’ve never felt before in my life.
But apparently that’s enough for him, because he saves me from trying to articulate all that by stepping toward me and pressing his body into mine. He makes a sound low enough that it could be a growl, using his hand to tip my head up to his, taking my lips with his own.
His other hand is on the small of my back again, holding me firmly against him as he kisses me. He kisses me like he’s trying to drink me in, his tongue persistent and thorough, each little jut of his chin like a wave crashing over me.
My breath comes fast, and thoughts fly out the window.
Back in the city, I have some time for the occasional hookup.
But those are usually short-lived, unsatisfying, and more work than they’re worth.
Before having someone over, I’d shower, shave, exfoliate, scrub, and douse myself in perfume.
Not tromp around in the snow for an hour, sweating inside a coat that’s far too big for me and does nothing for my figure.
But Evan doesn’t seem to have qualms about any of that. His large hands are insistent, thorough. He tugs at the hem of my shirt and slides it over my head. I return the favor, and when I pull back to get a good look at him, the way the light from the fire plays over his chest is practically erotic.
He’s a hairy man, and up until this moment, I would have claimed that as a turnoff. But I am not turned off by the hair over his chest, and down the expanse of his stomach. When I run my fingers over it, a shiver dances down my spine, and I open my mouth in a gasp that he swallows.
We’re so caught up in each other that when we hit the couch, and he lowers me back onto it, it feels like an automatic movement. Like something we’ve done again and again, the two of us memorized in this dance, in our steps.
“Fuck,” Evan says, his voice impossibly low, deep, and rumbling through me, almost more vibration than sound. “You’re gorgeous.”
The pleasure is quick and immediate, lighting through me, and I see him notice my reaction, see him make a note and continue whispering his praises and compliments to me as he works off my shorts—his shorts—and trails his hot mouth down between my breasts and over my stomach.
“Where did you even come from?” he murmurs, before sucking one of my nipples into his mouth, his beard brushing against the soft, sensitive skin of my breast. I arch up off the couch, wrapping my legs around him, moaning softly, trying to stay quiet.
“Let it out,” he says, smiling up at me, his blue eyes lighter now, his pupils flickering in the light from the fire. “You don’t have to be quiet, Amy.”
This is wildly out of character for me. I’m aware of that as I work my fingers into the waistband of his pants, tugging them off, gasping when his cock springs free, pressing against the inside of my thigh.
I’m aware of how this choice lies outside my normal judgment when he growls and buries his head in the crook of my neck.
“Here.” I gasp, reaching down and behind the couch, searching for the bag I first brought inside. When my fingers find the little foil package, I produce it for him, and his lips quirk up into a smile.
“Prepared,” he says, and it has two effects—making me blush from the compliment and making my skin hot from the insinuation.
“It’s not like I’m—” I swallow, words hard to summon as I watch him open the package and roll on the condom, his hands moving deftly, confident. “It’s just for emergencies.”
“Would you call this an emergency?” he asks, lowering himself down so his cock notches in my entrance. I gasp at the sensation, the whisper of a touch, the offering of some pressure, but not nearly enough.
“Yes,” I hiss out, shifting my hips, trying to get more of him, but he moves away, a playful look cutting through the lust on his face. “It is.”
He lets out a low hum and dips down again, angling my chin back so he can kiss my neck, biting along my jaw, making me gasp.
He spreads one hand out over my stomach, my hip, his fingers splaying possessively in a way that makes me tighten, my core already hot with a molten kind of wanting I’ve never experienced before.
Everything is happening, and yet it feels like I’m getting nothing I want.
Raising my hips up to his, I close my eyes and whine out, “Evan, please.”
The sound that comes out of him is somewhere between a chuckle and a moan, and when I reach down, wrapping my hand around him, the sound cuts off halfway through the middle, turning into a choke.
I can’t help it when I gasp at the size of him. I pump my hand once along his length, loving the way his body reacts on top of me, how he closes his eyes, his breath coming shallow, that chocolate-brown hair hanging down over his forehead, more loose and boyish than how he styles it.
It’s like I’m unlocking a different side of him.
“All right,” he breathes, leaning back, taking his cock and lining it up with my entrance. With his other hand, he presses his thumb to my clit, which scrambles my thoughts so deliciously that his first thrust inside me is what I imagine people feel when they try heroin for the first time.
A rush, endorphins and chemicals straight into my bloodstream. And when he’s fully seated inside me, his hands shaking like it’s difficult for him to restrain himself, our eyes meet.
Evan lets out a sound that’s almost a, huh, like he’s pleasantly surprised.
And then, he moves, thrusting deliciously slowly, careful and practiced, always leaving me right on the edge of wanting more. Our mouths come together, hot and ready, and I can’t remember the last time my brain turned off like this with a man.
When I get to the edge and fall right over it, tightening around him, he lets out one final shuddering breath, thrusts once more, and collapses, turning us to the side so he doesn’t crush me.
“Fuck,” he whispers into my neck. “Amy…”
But nothing follows. We lie like that, breathing hard, and Evan rises to clean up, coming back with a warm cloth for me. I start to come back to myself, the reality of what I’ve done settling in.
Evan climbs back onto the couch with me, wordlessly maneuvering me so I’m resting my head on his chest, impossibly comfortable. His hand runs up and down the length of my bare spine, making me shiver.
Just before I drift off, he presses an errant kiss to my forehead, and the flutter in my chest turns into a warning shot.
I can’t stay for another perfect day with this man, or I’m going to fall in love with him.