Chapter 4
Thorne
The storm hits like the mountain decided to swallow the world. No warning. No build-up. Just rage—wind screaming through the pines, snow slamming sideways, air turning violent. I’ve seen war zones quieter.
Being trapped doesn’t bother me. Being trapped with her does.
Aspen Taylor is a problem dressed in lipstick. Chaos in combat boots. A goddamn fever I can’t sweat out. She flung herself into my lodge just a day ago and she hasn’t stopped talking—or pushing—or getting under my skin—since.
She shouldn’t be here.
I shouldn’t want her here.
Neither of those facts change a damn thing.
“Generator’s dead,” I tell her, slamming the shed door closed behind me. “Power’s out until I can thaw the line.”
She’s standing in the living room wrapped in sweaters and defiance, arms stacked with pillar candles she found in storage somewhere, hair tied in a messy knot. Her nose is pink from the cold. Her eyes flash.
“Are you sure you didn’t kill it on purpose? Makes it easier for you to brood without overhead lighting.”
I stalk past her and throw another log into the fireplace. “If I killed it, you’d know. You’d be crying.”
“I don’t cry.”
“Then you’d be screaming.”
“That sounds like a threat.”
My teeth flash. “Promise.”
She mutters a sound that’s halfway between a scoff and a moan. “You’re unbearable.”
“You’re still here.”
“Unfortunately.”
“Then pack your shit, princess.”
She tilts her chin. “Never.”
She’s infuriating. Wild. Lawless.
And she has no idea what she does to me.
By sundown, the temperature drops fast. The heat is gone. The mountain bites hard and sharp.
She tries to make a bed on the floor like an idiot.
“You’re not sleeping down here,” I tell her.
She spreads a blanket and lies on it dramatically. “I won’t be bullied by flannel and biceps. Anyway, that guest room you gave me is freezing.”
I haul her up and march her toward the stairs. “You’ll freeze down here.”
“By the fire?”
“Won’t hold all night.”
“I’m fine.”
“You’re—” I stop walking and spin her to face me. “You’re shaking.”
“I vibrate at a high emotional frequency.”
“Jesus Christ,” I mutter. Then I lift her off her feet and throw her over my shoulder.
She kicks. “Put me down!”
“No.”
“I’ll bite you.”
“Try.”
Her fist smacks my back. “You can’t manhandle me into obedience.”
I slap her ass. “Already did.”
She gasps. Freezes. And yeah—I feel the way her breath stops. I feel the way her body reacts to mine.
So I keep walking.
She stops shouting when we reach my room. Probably because she notices the fireplace—the only other source of heat in this place. The stacks of quilts. The size of my bed.
She stiffens. “No.”
“Yes.”
“I’m not sharing a bed with you.”
“You don’t have a choice.”
“I always have a choice.”
“Not when that choice is hypothermia.”
She crosses her arms. “I’ll sleep in the bathtub.”
“Frozen pipes.”
“The kitchen.”
“Colder than outside right now, temperatures dipped below freezing last night and the wind coming off the peak keeps knocking out the pilot light–the old boiler can’t keep up.”
She throws her hands up. “The floor near the fire then.”
“You’re fucking high,” I say. “Get in the bed.”
“No.”
She tries to stomp past me. I catch her wrist. She jerks, but I don’t let go. My grip is firm, not cruel. Her breathing changes instantly. Mine does too.
Slowly, deliberately, I step closer. “Do you think I’m the kind of man who asks the same thing twice?”
Her pulse flutters. She hates that it does. Hates that she likes this.
She tilts her head, eyes gleaming. “Do you think I’m the kind of woman who follows orders?”
“Yes,” I say. “Mine.”
She sucks in a breath.
For a second—one long beat—we don’t move.
Then she yanks her hand back and glares. “You’re insane.”
“Maybe,” I say. “Get in the bed anyway.”
She barricades herself under two quilts and faces away from me, like that’ll save her. Good luck with that.
I throw another log on the fire, strip off my shirt, and lay down. The mattress dips under my weight. She goes rigid like I’m a hungry bear and she’s covered herself in honey.
“You’re—why are you—no,” she sputters.
“What?”
“You can’t be shirtless.”
“Why?”
“Because.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“You’re doing it on purpose.”
“Existing? Breathing? Sleeping? You tell me, witch. Which is the problem?”
Her voice goes tight. “All three.”
We lie in silence for a few minutes. The storm claws at the windows. She shivers.
I ignore it.
She shivers again.
I swear, she’ll drive me to violence.
I drag the quilt back an inch. “Come here.”
“No.”
“It’s colder on your side.”
“I’m fine.”
I reach back without looking and find her arm. Goosebumps cover her skin. She jerks back.
“I said I’m fine.”
I move closer until my back warms hers. I feel every point of tension inside her snap like brittle twigs.
“That better?” I ask.
“No,” she lies.
I shift anyway. Closer. Enough body heat to thaw her bones.
Minutes pass. Our breathing syncs. I feel her shoulder blades brush my chest with each inhale. Feel her thighs tremble under the quilts.
She thinks I’m falling asleep. I don’t sleep easy. She’ll learn that eventually.
She shifts once. Then again. Then, so quietly I almost miss it—
“Do you always radiate this much anger when you have a woman in your bed? Or is it just me?”
I stare at the flames in the fireplace. “You’re not anger.”
Silence. Then her voice, smaller now. Curious. “Then what am I?”
I roll onto my back, drag a forearm over my eyes, and breathe. If I say the wrong thing, she’ll run harder. If I say the right thing, she might burn me down.
“Noise,” I say finally. “Bright. Unignorable.”
She makes a soft sound.
It isn’t a laugh. It isn’t a sigh.
It’s interest.
And interest is dangerous.
I turn my head to her. That messy hair spills over the pillow. Her mouth is stained in red again—smudged now. Ruinable.
She licks her lower lip and says, quiet but deadly, “I thought you hated noise.”
“I do,” I say. “I just hate the wrong kind.”
Her breathing falters.
“What kind am I?”
Mine, I almost say.
Instead: “The kind you can’t get rid of.”
Her gaze widens. Something hot and electric passes between us. She doesn’t look away. Neither do I.
She whispers, “And what if noise stays?”
I lean in an inch. Maybe two. Close enough to see the flecks of gold in her eyes.
“Then I’ll handle it,” I promise.
“How?”
“Any way I fucking want.”
She swallows. Her hand brushes mine under the covers by accident. I catch it.
She gasps—just a little.
I lace our fingers together.
She lets me.
Minutes pass. Then hours. We stay like that. Neither of us sleeps. Neither of us speaks.
She feels too good next to me. Too right. Like I’ve been walking with a bullet in my lung for years and now—suddenly—I can breathe. And that terrifies me more than a thousand miles of combat.
I don’t do comfort. I don’t do vulnerability. I don’t do this.
I grip her hand tighter.
She squeezes back.
A silent fucking war.
We’re doomed.
Wind howls.
Logs crackle.
Her breathing starts to slow. Finally.
“You awake?” she asks.
“No,” I growl.
She laughs softly. “I can feel you looking at me.”
“Go to sleep, Aspen.”
“Can’t.”
“Why.”
“Too quiet.”
“It’s not quiet.”
She exhales. “…Because I’m here?”
My lips twitch. There she goes again—thinking she’s the chaos in the room. She has no idea she walked straight into a storm already burning.
“It’s not quiet,” I say, leaning in just enough to send a hot wave down her spine, “because you won’t shut the hell up.”
She presses her lips together—and I feel it—the moment she bites down on the urge to laugh.
“You’re—”
“Don’t say it,” I warn.
“—the worst.”
I drag the quilt higher over her shoulder. “Sleep.”
“Bossy.”
“Correct.”
“You don’t get to boss me around.”
I slide closer. So close my breath brushes her throat.
“Then move,” I say.
Silence.
She doesn’t move.
Not an inch.
I knew she wouldn’t.
My voice drops dark. “Yeah. That’s what I thought.”
Thunder cracks so loud the windowpanes tremble. Aspen flinches.
Without thinking, I curl a hand around her hip.
She freezes.
Then melts. Just a little.
Her ass fits against me too perfectly. Dangerous.
“Careful,” I murmur at her ear. “Won’t take much for me to forget those rules of yours.”
“We—we didn’t break—”
“You’re in my bed,” I remind her. “Holding my hand. Pressed against my cock. You sure you want to finish that sentence?”
She swallows. Hard.
“You’re—” she tries again, but she can’t get it out.
“Say it,” I order, not loosening my grip on her.
“You’re hard,” she finally whispers.
My smile is slow. Brutal. “Sweetheart, that’s not hard.”
I grind against her once—slow—just enough for her to feel everything she shouldn’t.
“This is hard.”
She makes a sound that’s nearly sinful.
“Thorne…” she warns.
“Yeah?”
“We—this—this is—”
“Unavoidable.”
Her breath catches again. She twists to look back at me, and her lips end up a whisper from mine. Her eyes are wild. Her cheeks flushed. Her breathing wrecked.
“You want a fight,” I murmur. “But you don’t. You want to be wanted. And I do. I want every wild inch of you.”
“We can’t—”
“We can,” I counter. “We’re just not.”
Her brows pull together. “What?”
Her confusion is cute. Dangerous. Mine for the taking.
I pin her to the mattress with my body—carefully—keeping my weight balanced above her. My hand slides to her jaw, thumb dragging over her lower lip, slow.
She trembles.
“This is your warning,” I tell her. “I touch you again—I won’t fucking stop. You get that?”
Her eyes flare. She licks her lip. “You already touched me.”
My pulse kicks.
Yeah.
And I’ll do it again.
This woman is going to wreck me.
“I did,” I say. “And I’ll do it again tomorrow. And the day after.” I drag my mouth along hers—barely touching. Teasing. Owning. “Because I can.”
She stares at me. Fire. Fury. Hunger.
“And when you break again,” I whisper, “I’ll be right here to catch you.”
She doesn’t kiss me.
I don’t kiss her.
But we stay like that—pressed together in heat and agony—breathing each other in until the storm outside dies.
And another storm inside us begins.
We don’t sleep.
We don’t stop.
And now—
There’s no going back.