Chapter 3
Chapter Three
Tessa
The cabin is cozy, but bigger than it looked from the outside.
The main room has a vaulted ceiling, making the space look bigger than it really is. The focal point is the massive stone fireplace along the back wall with a couch positioned in front of it.
The kitchen’s off to one side, with what looks to be a large, handcrafted pine table. I don’t know much about furniture, but I can tell it’s high quality.
In fact, all the furniture in the cabin looks high-quality and handcrafted. And not at all like the bachelor, middle-of-nowhere furnishings I would have expected way up on the mountain.
My body is still buzzing after the treacherous drive up the mountain, or maybe it was the way Holt held me in his arms and carried me effortlessly from the truck that has my skin on fire?
At five-seven, I’m not a small woman. My curves are plentiful, and while I wouldn’t consider myself big, I am definitely not petite like many of my friends back at school. And I’ve most definitely never been carried by a man as if it were no big deal.
Then again, I shouldn’t expect anything less of Holt. After all, he’d been the standard I’d measured every man against since I was old enough to start caring about boys. In a weird way, it’s fitting that he’s my savior now.
I push the thought out of my head, because it’s nothing more than a child’s fantasy—right?—and quickly riffle through my duffle bag.
Holt insisted I take his bedroom for the night and deposited my things in there before I could argue.
His bedroom is clean and simple. The faint scent of him lingers in the air. A combination of wood, soap, and something uniquely Holt.
Man.
It feels personal to be in his space, but I can’t let my mind go there. Not yet.
I move into the attached bathroom, quickly wash my face, and pull my hair back from my face into a long ponytail.
Just like the rest of the cabin, his bedroom is also bigger than I’d expect for a small cabin in the woods. But it has to be to accommodate the giant bed that’s the focal point of the room.
It feels bigger than a king-size and, like every other piece I’ve seen in the cabin, is handcrafted from a light wood, with darker pieces inlaid to look like mountains on the headboard.
It’s a piece of art.
I change quickly, pulling on some warmer clothes, and when I come back out, he’s got a fire going. The flames crackle softly, throwing heat and warm light across the room.
I stand in the doorway and watch him moving through the space with quiet efficiency.
“Hey,” he says when he sees me. “You find everything okay?”
“I did. Thank you.” I cross the space toward him, but he moves quickly toward the kitchen, dodging my approach.
“You don’t have to give up your room,” I say. “I know you probably weren’t—”
“It’s fine.” He gestures with his head toward a small hall at the back of the cabin. “I have a guest room. I’ll stay back there.”
“Oh.” I spin on my heel. “If you have a guest room, I’ll just stay—”
“No.” His voice booms with authority, and I freeze in place. “No,” he says, softer this time. “I mean, it’s not really set up as a guest room. I use it more for storage than anything else. It’s not suitable for…well, it’s…you’ll stay in my room.”
There doesn’t seem to be any room for argument, so I let it go with a slight nod of acknowledgment and move toward the dining table instead, where he’s set out bowls and cups.
Dinner is easy. Soup heated on the stove with thick slices of bread. Nothing fancy, but better than the takeout I’ve been eating for the last few days.
We sit across from each other, the large table between us feeling far too big. The silence stretches until finally I ask, “You get a lot of company?”
“No.” He almost chokes on his soup. “Why would you think that?”
I shrug. “You have a big table. It looks like it seats a lot of people, is all.”
He seems to think about it for a moment before shaking his head and digging into his meal again. “I made it,” he says after a moment.
“You made it?” I put my spoon down and run my hand over the smooth wood. Like the bed, the table also has an inlay of darker woods along the top that looks to represent a forest. “It’s beautiful,” I say honestly.
He grunts in response and goes back to eating; the silence builds between us again.
Once more, I break it. “Do you see my dad much?”
“No.” The answer is immediate.
“But doesn’t he live just up the—”
“He does,” Holt cuts me off. “And Sawyer’s place is just past his. Beck and Cal’s is a little further around.”
The names all sound familiar, like Dad had mentioned them when I was young. But it was only Holt who’d ever visited when I was a kid, and my parents were still together.
“Are they…”
“My brothers.”
He uses the same term my dad used to describe the men he’d served with when he was young.
Dad never spoke much about that time. I knew it had been rough for him. But when he did talk about it, it was only to mention his brothers and how he’d die for them. And them for him.
“Didn’t realize they all lived here on the mountain.”
“Mostly. Beck isn’t here much. But the rest of us…” he nods, almost imperceptibly. “We bought the land when we were young and full of…well, when things were different.”
“Different how?”
“You ask a lot of questions.” He pushes his chair back with a loud scrape on the wood floor and takes his dishes to the sink. “It’s getting late. You’re probably tired.”
“I’m not actually. I—”
“I am,” he growls. “Help yourself to anything you need.”
And just like that, he’s gone, down the back hallway to the guest room that’s not really a guest room, and I’m left wondering what I’ve gotten myself into.
Holt
Fuck.
I never should have brought her here. She’s too bright. Too inquisitive. Too damn sexy in that wide-eyed, innocent way that means nothing but trouble.
Never mind all the questions she asks.
Why so many goddamn questions?
I close the door to the guest room behind me, putting a barrier between us. It’s not much, but it’s better than nothing.
The guest room—I’ve never once called it that before tonight—is full of boxes, half-finished projects, and random shit.
This is the storage room.
I wasn’t lying when I said I never had guests. She’s the first.
Ever.
I unfold the cot with a soft grunt, the metal frame protesting the disruption. It’s been a long time since it was used. Decades, probably.
Grabbing a blanket, I sit down, elbows braced on my knees, staring at nothing in particular.
I can hear her moving around in the living room. The sound of dishes in the sink as she tidies up.
I’m such an ass.
As much as I don’t want a guest—especially a way-too-tempting, way-too-young daughter of my best friend—Tessa is a guest. And I just left her out there alone to clean up after me.
I drop my head in my hands and blow out a low breath. I could blame the fact that I’m out of practice when it comes to any kind of socialization or basic human interaction. But that would be a lie.
The best thing to do is just go to sleep, wake up in the morning with a clear head and a plan to get her to Luke’s house and the fuck away from me before I do something I’ll regret.
Which, at this point, is just about anything when it comes to Tessa.
I lie back on the cot and try to block out the noises from the living room until finally everything is quiet. Which means she’s in my room.
In my bed.
Fuck.
There is no way I should be thinking about my best friend’s daughter in any way besides in a caretaker role. He asked me to look after her. Not lust after her.
I shift on the cot, restless and aware of my own body in a way I haven’t been in a long time. A familiar tension settles low in my gut, sharp and insistent. I close my eyes, but it doesn’t help. If anything, it makes it worse.
The way she looked at me across the table, questions in her eyes.
The way my name sounds on her lips.
Her long, bare legs.
The warmth of her body in my arms.
Fuck.
My cock is rock hard, and there’s no way I’m going to be able to sleep until I take care of it.
I let my hand slide down, palming the thick ridge through my boxer briefs. A rough squeeze sends a jolt straight up my spine, balls drawing tight.
There’s no time for finesse—fuck that.
I shove my hand into my underwear and fist my cock. It’s already throbbing, hot and hard, the head flushed dark and slicked with precum that I smear down the shaft with a brutal twist.
Christ. It’s been too long.
Way too long since I’ve given in to this simple pleasure.
I start stroking with hard pulls, fast and relentless.
My mind floods with her. I can’t fight it. And I don’t want to.
Images of her small hands wrapped around my cock consume me. Her innocent fingers barely circling my girth as she tests and squeezes gently. But I don’t do gentle.
I’d flip her over onto my bed, so she was splayed out for me to feast my eyes on.
Those long legs spread open while she begs for it.
Begs for me. The little whimpers she’d make when I fill her up with my huge dick.
The way she’d gasp for breath while taking every inch of me into her slick heat without mercy.
My free hand claws at the thin blanket, my hips bucking violently into my fist while the cot creaks and groans under the force.
Sweat slicks my chest, my breath coming in harsh pants, and every muscle in my body coils tight as the pressure builds, chasing that filthy release because I’m right fucking there—
A sharp crack outside is followed by a crash as a branch hits the metal roof. The sound rips through the night.
Then her cry, small and scared, from the next room.
I freeze, my pulsing, unsatisfied cock heavy in my hand.
But when I hear a soft noise from the hallway—footsteps, followed by the faint creak of the floorboards—every sense sharpens, and I push myself upright.
My hard-on is going to have to wait.
Especially when I hear her voice, muffled but unmistakable. “Holt?”
I’m on my feet before I can think about it. I grab a pair of sweats from the pile on the floor and tug them up and over my still achingly hard cock.
I’m pulling the door open just as she appears at the end of the short hall. She’s barefoot, wrapped in the quilt I keep on the foot of my bed. Her blonde hair is loose around her shoulders.
She looks impossibly innocent and at the same time, sexy as hell. It’s a dichotomy that is fucking with me in more ways than one.
I push my dirty thoughts about her out of my mind and focus on the situation at hand. “Tessa? Are you—”
“There was a noise,” she says. “It sounded like maybe…I don’t know…”
“It was probably a branch,” I tell her. “This storm’s pretty wild. It’s not unusual to have some branches down after a big wind, and some of those hit the roof.”
Her eyes grow wide. “The roof?”
“Don’t worry.” I take a step toward her, reaching for her shoulder. “We’re safe. This cabin is solid. I promise.”
I feel the tension in her shoulders relax a little as I turn her toward the living room.
The fire has burned low in the hearth, but it is still glowing a deep orange.
I start to turn Tessa back toward my room, but she spins suddenly in my arms so we’re only inches apart. “Will you sit up with me for a bit?” she asks. “I don’t think I can sleep right now. It’s been…” She blows out a little breath. “A long day.”
There’s no way I can say no.
“Of course,” I say. “I’ll put another log on the fire.”
I take a few minutes longer than necessary to get the fire stoked up again, and when I turn, she’s sitting cross-legged on the couch, wrapped in the blanket.
There’s nowhere else to sit, not without making it even more awkward, so I slip my bulk into the space next to her, very aware of how small my couch actually is.
“Aren’t you cold?”
It’s only then that I realize that in my haste to make sure she’s okay, I didn’t put a shirt on. She’s staring at my naked chest as if she might share the blanket with me, and there is no way I’m going to let that happen. Not when I still have a semi aching for release between my legs.
“I run hot.” It’s not a lie.
She tucks her feet up beneath her, curling slightly toward me, and the space between us almost completely disappears. Her arm presses against mine. Her thigh brushes against mine.
“I shouldn’t be so scared,” she says. “I know it’s stupid.”
“It’s not stupid at all,” I say. “Everything is a bit…well, a bit more out here. Especially if you’re not used to it.”
“I’m not.” She stares straight ahead into the fire. “This is my first time in Iron Peak.”
I was pretty sure she’d never been out to visit Luke before, but the confession still surprises me. “You never wanted to come before?”
She shakes her head a little. “He never asked.”
I don’t know what to say to that. Luke might be my best friend, but there were some things we didn’t talk about much. His kid had always been one of those things.
I know it’s not my place to push, and I’m not one to usually give a damn about details. Especially when it comes to personal shit that’s not my business, but something makes me ask, “So, why now?”
Her voice is sleepy when she answers. “It felt like time.”
A moment later, her head tips against my shoulder, resting on me like it’s the most natural thing in the world. I stiffen momentarily before relaxing into it. I feel the exact moment she gives in to sleep, her weight settling into me, warm and trusting.
I don’t move right away, giving her a chance to fall deeper into her slumber. Her breathing evens out, slow and steady, and I just sit, watching the fire, listening to her soft sounds of sleep, trying not to feel like if I move, I’ll be crossing some sort of invisible line.
Eventually, I shift to the side and scoop her up.
She moans a little with the movement and murmurs something unintelligible.
This is the second time I’ve held her in my arms in less than twenty-four hours. If I’m not careful, I could get way too used to it.
I carry her through the cabin to my room and lay her gently on my bed, pulling the covers over her.
She immediately turns and snuggles into the pillows with a soft groan.
She looks good in my bed.
Too good.
Like she’s at home there.
I step back before I do something stupid, like sliding in next to her. My jaw tightens as I turn and shut the door with a soft click behind me.
This was supposed to be simple.
I’m supposed to be keeping her safe.
But nothing about having Tessa in my bed feels safe.