Chapter 5
Chapter Five
Anniston
I don't know when I finally drifted off.
Somewhere between replaying the taste of his mouth and listening to the rhythm of his breathing across the room, exhaustion won. My body gave in even though my mind refused to let go.
But I wasn't asleep for long.
The thunder sounded like something had detonated. It was so close and so violent that the cabin walls shook. The windows rattled in their frames.
I sat up, gasping. Heart slamming against my ribs.
For a disoriented second, I didn't know where I was. There was only darkness and noise and the feeling of being small inside something enormous and uncontrollable.
Then I remembered.
The cabin. The storm. Knox.
Lightning split the sky outside the window, flooding the room in white light. In the flash, I saw him.
He was already on his feet. Not toward the door or the window—toward me.
The same instinct that had made him wrap my ankle with careful hands.
Protect first. Everything else second.
"You okay?" His voice cut through the dark. Low and steady.
"Yeah." My heart was still racing. Not just from the thunder. "That was?—"
Another crack. This one was closer.
I flinched.
He was beside the bed now. Close enough that I could feel the heat of him through the dark.
"It's just the storm," he said. "We're safe."
Safe. The word settled over me like a blanket.
I looked up at him, barely able to make out his features in the dim glow of the dying fire. But I could feel him. The solidity of him. The way the air between us hummed with everything we'd left unfinished.
"Knox."
"Yes."
"I don't want to be alone right now."
"Anniston—"
"I'm not asking for anything." My voice was steadier than I felt. "Just... stay. Please."
He sat on the edge of the bed.
Rain hammered the roof and wind screamed through the trees. The storm had become something alive. Raw and furious and relentless.
But inside, there was stillness.
Just the two of us in the dark.
"I can't stop thinking about it," I said quietly.
He didn't ask what. We both knew.
"You said it would mean something."
"It will."
"I know that too." I reached through the dark for his hand. His fingers were warm and rough. They closed around mine without hesitation. "I don't care."
"You should."
"Why? Because I'm leaving in the morning?" I shifted closer. "Or because you think you're not worth it?"
His hand tightened around mine.
"I've spent my whole life making choices that made sense," I said.
"Safe choices. Smart choices. And none of them made me happy.
" I brought his hand to my chest and pressed his palm flat against my sternum so he could feel my heartbeat.
"This doesn't make sense. But it's the most real thing I've felt in years. "
He was quiet for so long I thought he'd pull away again. Retreat behind the wall he'd built between us.
Then his hand moved, sliding from my chest to the side of my neck. His thumb traced the line of my jaw.
"I'm not good at this," he said roughly. "At letting someone in."
"Neither am I."
"If we do this?—"
"Then we do it." I leaned into his touch. "And we deal with whatever comes after."
Lightning flashed. I saw his face clearly for one brief second. His jaw was tense and there was heat in his eyes. I saw the war between what he wanted and what he thought he deserved.
Then the dark returned.
And he kissed me.
Not like before. This kiss was a decision. A surrender.
His mouth found mine with certainty. Warm and firm and tasting like coffee and resolve. His hand cradled the back of my neck, tilting my head exactly where he wanted it.
I melted into him.
My hands found his chest. Slid up to his shoulders. He was so warm. Even through his thermal shirt, I could feel the heat radiating off his skin like he carried the fire inside him.
He pulled back just enough to breathe. Pressed his forehead against mine.
"Last chance," he murmured against my lips.
"Stop giving me chances to change my mind." I fisted my hands in his shirt. "I'm not going to."
Something shifted in him then. I felt it—a tension releasing, a door opening.
He kissed me again. Deeper this time. His tongue sliding against mine in a way that made my entire body go liquid. I made a sound I didn't recognize—something between a sigh and a plea—and he swallowed it.
His hands moved to the hem of my shirt. His shirt. The one I'd been wearing all night.
"Can I?" he asked against my mouth.
"Yes."
He pulled it over my head slowly. Like he was unwrapping something precious.
Cold air hit my bare skin. Then his hands were there, replacing the chill with warmth. Rough palms sliding over my waist. My ribs. Mapping me with a focus that made my breath catch.
"You're beautiful." The words came out rough. Almost pained.
I started to deflect—old habit—but his mouth found my collarbone and the words died in my throat.
He kissed a path from my shoulder to the hollow of my neck. Slow. Deliberate. Tasting every inch of skin he uncovered. His stubble scraped against my throat, and the contrast—rough against soft—sent a shiver down my spine that had nothing to do with the cold.
I pulled at his shirt. He leaned back long enough to strip it off, and then he was pressed against me.
Bare chest to bare chest. The contact was electric.
His skin was hot. Smooth in places, ridged with scars in others.
I traced the one on his ribs—the one that had started all of this—and felt him shudder.
"Anniston." My name came out like a prayer and a warning wrapped together.
"I'm here," I whispered. "I'm right here."
He lowered me back against the pillows and settled his weight over me.
The storm raged outside. Thunder shook the walls. But here, in this narrow bed, in this tiny cabin, there was only him.
His mouth found mine again while his hands explored slowly. Like we had all the time in the world.
He found the curve of my waist and lingered there before traced the dip of my hip. His thumb drew circles against my skin that made me arch toward him.
"Knox..." His name left me as a gasp when his mouth moved lower. Down my neck and across my chest. Each kiss felt deliberate. Like he was memorizing me.
My fingers raked through his hair. Dark and thick and still slightly damp from the earlier rain. I held on as his mouth traveled lower. As his hands slid the sweatpants over my hips and down my legs, taking the last of my borrowed armor with them.
Then his hands were on my thighs. Rough palms against soft skin. And his mouth was on my stomach, kissing a slow line below my navel that made my muscles clench.
"You don't have to—" I started, but his hands tightened on my hips.
"I want to." He looked up at me through the dark. "Let me."
I stopped breathing.
And then his mouth was on me.
I arched off the bed, one hand fisted in the sheets, the other in his hair. The sound that left my throat was raw and unfiltered. Nothing like the composed woman who'd knocked on his door hours ago.
He was patient and thorough. Reading every response, adjusting to every sound I made. When I gasped, he lingered. When I moaned, he pressed deeper. He wasn't rushing. He was present in a way that made my chest ache as much as my body.
Like this mattered. Like I mattered.
The tension built slowly. Layer upon layer. His hands held my hips steady. His mouth was relentless but unhurried. The rough scrape of his jaw against the inside of my thigh.
"Knox—I can't?—"
"Yeah, you can." His voice vibrated against me and I shattered.
The release tore through me like the lightning outside. White-hot and blinding. I cried out, and he stayed with me through every wave, gentling but not stopping until I was trembling and breathless beneath him.
When he finally lifted his head, I was boneless. Wrecked in the best possible way.
He kissed his way back up my body. My stomach. My ribs. The space between my breasts. My collarbone. My throat. Each kiss was soft now. Reverent.
When he reached my mouth, he kissed me slowly.
"Hi," he murmured against my mouth.
I laughed. Breathless and surprised. "Hi."
He smiled. I felt it more than saw it. The curve of his lips against mine.
It was the first time he'd smiled all night.
I reached between us. Found the button of his jeans. He caught my hand.
"You don't have to?—"
"I want to." I echoed his words back to him. "Let me."
His grip loosened. I opened his jeans. He kicked them off while I ran my hands over him. Across his chest, down the hard plane of his stomach and over the V of muscle at his hips.
He was built the way I'd imagined. Hard and lean and scarred. A body shaped by years of discipline and damage.
Beautiful.
Broken.
Mine. At least for tonight.
I wrapped my hand around him and he sucked in a harsh breath. His forehead dropped to my shoulder. His whole body went taut.
"Anniston—" My name came out strangled.
I stroked him slowly. Feeling the weight of him. The heat. The way he pulsed against my palm. He groaned into my neck—a sound I wanted to hear again and again—and his hips moved involuntarily against my hand.
I could've stayed there. Taken him apart the way he'd taken me apart.
But I didn't want just that.
I wanted all of him.
"Do you have—" I started.
"Yeah." He pulled away reluctantly. Reached for the small bag near the bed. A moment later, he was back. Rolling on the condom with hands that I noticed weren't entirely steady.
The realization that I'd shaken his control—this man who seemed unshakable—did something to me I couldn't explain.
He settled between my thighs. Braced himself above me on his forearms. The position brought us face to face. Close enough that I could see the faint outline of his features in the firelight.
"You sure?" he asked.
I cupped his face in both hands. Drew him down to me.
"I'm sure."
He pushed inside me slowly. Inch by inch. Giving me time to adjust to the size of him. The stretch. The overwhelming fullness.
My breath left me in a rush. My nails dug into his shoulders.
He stopped. "Too much?"
"No." I wrapped my legs around him. Pulled him deeper. "Don't stop."
He groaned, the sound low and rough and right against my ear. Then he started to move.
Slow at first. Rolling his hips with the same deliberate control he brought to everything. Each stroke was deep and measured. His arms bracketed my head, forearms against the pillow, fingers tangled in my hair.
I moved with him. Finding his rhythm and matching it. The friction built between us—hot and slick and devastating.
"God, Anniston—" His voice was ragged now. Stripped of the flat control he usually wore. "You feel?—"
"I know." I did. I felt it too. The way our bodies fit together like they'd been designed for this. The way every nerve ending I had was alive and focused on the places where we connected.
He kissed me. Messy and desperate and nothing like the careful man who'd wrapped my ankle hours ago. This was the man underneath. Raw. Real. Unguarded.
I arched into him. Changed the angle. He hit something deep inside me that made white spots bloom behind my eyes.
"There," I gasped. "Right there."
He didn't hesitate. My mountain man found that spot again and again with a precision that made me incoherent.
The tension kept building, tighter and tighter. His pace quickened—still controlled but barely. I could feel the restraint fraying. He was holding back, making sure I got there first.
"Let go," I whispered against his mouth. "Knox. Let go."
His control snapped.
He drove into me harder and faster. One hand gripping my hip, the other braced against the headboard. The bed creaked beneath us. The storm still howled outside and we lost all control.
I came first. The orgasm crashed through me like a wave—deeper than the first. Full-body. Devastating. I clung to him, his name breaking apart on my lips.
He followed seconds later. His whole body went rigid. A groan tore from his throat—low and guttural and the most honest sound I'd ever heard—and then he collapsed against me, face buried in my neck, breathing hard.
We stayed like that, angled together, breathing together until our heartbeats gradually slowed against each other's chests.
His weight pressed me into the mattress. It felt heavy but not uncomfortable. Grounding. Like he was keeping me tethered to this moment.
After a while, he shifted. Started to pull away.
I tightened my arms around him. "Not yet."
He stilled. Then settled back against me. His lips pressed against my temple. Soft.
"Anniston."
"Hmm?"
"Just... Anniston." Like he just wanted to say my name. Like that was enough.
I smiled against his shoulder.
Outside, the storm was beginning to ease. The thunder was more distant now. The rain fell softer against the roof.
Inside, the fire had burned to embers. The cabin was warm and dark and quiet.
His hand found mine. Laced our fingers together against the pillow.
I should've been thinking about the morning. About what came next.
But I wasn't.
I was exactly where I wanted to be at this moment.