Chapter 16
Wyatt
Everything was gray and mundane when it wasn’t the thing you’d rather be doing, like kissing the beautiful woman you shared a cabin with. But our movie night was so perfectly perfect, I didn’t want to ruin things by coming at her too strong.
So, instead, I made us breakfast, and didn’t once mention how I already missed the feel of her lips on mine. I also successfully talked myself out of joining her in the shower, and then, like some kind of superwoman with no primal needs, suggested we spend the morning finishing my bookshelf.
The storm was going through its final bursts outside, but in the cabin it was nothing but cozy and warm. Especially after the electrifying kiss we’d shared.
“I never thought I’d see the day.” Taylor lifted her end of the shelf we were attaching. “But I think I’m actually enjoying this.”
I chuckled softly. “See? Getting dirty can be fun.”
“Mhmm, getting dirty… That’s exactly what I was thinking.” Taylor winked at me.
I got so flustered that the shelf slipped from my grip and I windmilled my arms wildly to stop it from taking out my toes. Taylor laughed, a mischievous sounding snigger that clearly communicated what she wasn’t saying out loud.
“Sorry, are you okay on your end?” I righted the shelf, a little out of breath. My cheeks were burning, but I didn’t care. She already knew the effect she had on me.
“All good on this end, boss.” Taylor let go with one hand so she could salute me.
She was so damn adorable. I could hardly contain myself.
“And just so you know, that’s not what I meant,” I added, continuing to measure out the attachment points. “I was talking about-”
“DIY, yes, I know.” Taylor finished my sentence. “But that’s not what I meant either. I was talking about spending quality time with a gorgeous mountain woman in the middle of nowhere. Seriously, how could that ever be a bad idea?”
“Mountain woman?” I laughed, shaking my head. “You make me sound like some mythical creature.”
Taylor raised a cheeky brow at me. “You obviously haven’t seen the way you look when you’re wielding a power drill. It’s the most enchanting thing I’ve seen.”
She said it right as I scooped up my drill from the floor, to make the timing of it almost comical. I bit back another laugh and turned my attention to securing the screws on the shelf.
“Oh… yeah, baby… you know how I like it.”
“Stop!” I paused what I was doing to shoot a glare at Taylor, who was absolutely beside herself with laughter.
And she didn’t stop, not even a little. Her flirty banter and the laughter it caused mingled with the soft whir of the drill. At our feet, and between our legs, and pretty much everywhere else, Michael Keaton bounded around, feeling the captivity a little more than us.
“Do you think we’d be able to get him outside soon?” Taylor asked. She was on her knees, attending the umpteenth ceremonial Good Boy Belly Rub of the morning.
I glanced through the kitchen windows to check on the state of things. “It’s burning out, basically only the fumes of the storm left now. But it all depends on how soon we can dig our way through the ice wall at the front door.”
Taylor’s eyes widened as she remembered that minor detail, and she dramatically collapsed on top of Michael Keaton.
“Oh, no, Mr. Michael Keaton,” she groaned. “More hard labor coming our way.”
She thought it was because of her physical comedy, but I was mostly ecstatic to see the progress in her mobility. Taylor was moving around with very little pain and was on her way to a full recovery.
“Why don’t you two take a break, and I’ll finish up this shelf before lunch?”
For a constant companion, Michael Keaton didn’t have any qualms abandoning his post as my right-hand man. All it took was for him to spot Taylor picking up his favorite ball, and he was gone.
I swapped the drill for my hammer, knocking in supportive nails along the newest shelf. We were close to finishing the whole thing and I was already thinking about the project that would follow this one. I wanted it to be something fun, but also totally different, so that Taylor didn’t get bored.
I flinched, sucking my breath between my teeth as the hammer came down on my thumb instead of the nail.
“Shit,” I muttered, inspecting the point of impact.
Taylor immediately stopped the game of fetch and rushed over to me. “Are you okay? Let me see.”
“I’m fine, it was just a-”
But she already had my throbbing thumb in her hands, turning it this way and that. As someone with a background in trauma treatment, her examination was more than a little amusing. It was sweet, though. And endearing.
“Told you… It’s a little hit. Nothing serious.”
Taylor, her gaze locked onto mine, brought my thumb to her lips. My heart quickened as I watched her mouth wrap around it, her tongue lightly caressing the small injury. It felt like an electric jolt surged through me, from my finger all the way to settle between my legs.
I hadn’t started a fire that morning, but it got really hot in the cabin, really fast.
The desire simmering in the depths of Taylor’s eyes made my heart skip a beat. Then she started an intoxicating sucking action that stole my breath clean away. I tried to mask the shiver it sent through me, but was so far gone I really didn’t care about whether I was any good at it or not.
Taylor’s mouth was warm and sensuous on my thumb and I was drawn into the passionate tension that started to swirl between us. The fire in her eyes ignited the same deep burn in my core, making it more and more difficult to resist the magnetic pull.
And why, exactly, was I resisting it so hard, anyway?
With my thumb in her mouth, I couldn’t come up with a valid excuse.
Not when my whole body was screaming to have that mouth all over me.
More… that was all I could think. I wanted more of Taylor having more of me.
It had been so long since I’d felt this way about anyone, since I’d wanted to give myself over to someone, that my entire being trembled with it.
“You’re shaking. Are you okay?” My thumb was on her lips when she said it, and her voice reverberated through me in a flurry of white hot sparks.
My head bobbed up and down, but also side to side, in a kind of non-committal yes and no movement. Because I was both okay and not okay. But only in the best way possible.
“I just want you,” I breathed, and closed the gap between our faces.
With my hand behind her head to keep her latched in place, I slowly guided her toward the couch, our bodies moving as a unit. One heavy breathing, urgently groping, passionately kissing unit.
Taylor delved into me with languid strokes of her tongue, her hot breath making my mouth tingle deliciously. When she was on top of me like that it felt safe, like some place I could stay forever. A place with her thigh wreaking all kinds of havoc as it pressed against the growing ache in my core.
That part was as terrifying as it was exhilarating—how easily my body surrendered to her every move.
An expectant throb started building, and my hands snaked their way into her hair. Whispers of cool silk against my burning flesh. I clenched my fists and pulled her in to deepen the kiss, but Taylor held back, keeping things excruciatingly slow.
In the back of my mind, I wondered whether she knew what it was doing to me. This not rushing. This holding back. She bucked her hips just once, and the ache I was dealing with became a heavy pulsing that tightened around my clit at the same time that her teeth clamped down on my bottom lip.
The moan that shuddered out of me was all choked up and louder than I intended it to be. Like my body was screaming for help because it couldn’t breathe, but simultaneously saying ‘oh, God, don’t stop’.
My gaze locked on hers, blue eyes shot nearly black in the soft mid-morning light, and even though I was having trouble seeing straight, there was no mistaking the glint of naughtiness in them.
Who was I kidding? Of course she knew what she was doing to me.
My hands slipped under the waistband of her pants of their own accord. They wanted the same thing I did, to get rid of the barriers of fabric between this maddening heat. But just as the idea formed in my head, a piercing ring cut through the tension.
No more kissing, and no more Taylor on top of me. I pressed a cushion over my face and groaned loudly into it.
“Sorry, it’s my brother,” she said, a little out of breath.