Chapter 7 Aspen
Aspen
Live.
We’re live.
The red dot on my phone screen pulses like a threat as comments flood the bottom of the livestream.
@hauntqueen87: OMG ARE THEY TOGETHER??
@lumberjacked69: that dude is gonna eat her alive
@marrymeaspen: say the word and I’ll bury his body
I should be used to chaos—hell, I invite it—but something about this disaster is hitting different tonight.
Maybe it’s the fact that Thorne Maddox is standing beside me, all hard muscle and lethal boredom, glaring into the camera like it murdered his family.
Maybe it’s the fact that I showed up in black lace and thigh-high boots.
Or maybe it’s what he wrote across his bare chest in thick black marker:
EMOTIONALLY UNAVAILABLE.
He did it just to piss me off. And it worked spectacularly.
“I still can’t believe you refused to dress up,” I say sweetly to the four hundred people currently watching us argue from inside Devil’s Peak Lodge. “This is a costume contest, Thorne. The ‘contest’ part implies effort.”
He folds his tattooed arms across his chest—over those hateful words. “I’m here, aren’t I?”
“For the first time since indoor plumbing was invented,” I announce cheerfully, waving my arm with fake excitement. “Thorne Maddox has entered society!”
He doesn’t smile. Doesn’t even blink. Just mutters, “Regretting it already.”
The comments go insane.
@spookyhoexoxo: SIR WHAT IS YOUR PROBLEM
@aspensisfire: KILL HIM WITH EYELINER
@glitterdemon: why is this so hot wtf
I bite back a grin. “Okay, folks! Welcome to the Devil’s Peak Virtual Costume Contest! Since our roads are closed from the storm and our generator hates us, your favorite emotionally constipated lumberjack has reluctantly agreed to judge costumes alongside me.”
“I never agreed to that,” Thorne says.
“Oh? Sorry.” I fake sympathy. “He’ll be assisting me today as my co-host.”
He steps in close. Too close. The kind of close that makes my pulse misbehave.
“Say that again,” he murmurs, low enough only I can hear.
Danger flickers through me. “My co—”
He leans down, mouth near my ear, voice a dark scrape. “Finish that sentence and I’ll remind you what happened last time you got brave with me.”
Oh. Oh no. He did not just go there.
Heat slams through me like a match striking gasoline. I keep smiling at the camera. “—coerced volunteer,” I finish sweetly. “Blink twice if you’re being held hostage.”
He stares at me like he’s undressing me with hate. Or hunger. With Thorne it’s hard to tell the difference.
“Alright! First contestant!” I clap and step slightly away from him, because I swear if I don’t put space between us I will crawl up his body in front of the entire internet like a feral cat.
We swipe to the first entry photo—a couple dressed as Frankenstein and Bride of Frankenstein.
“Aww!” I beam. “See? They understood the assignment. Effort. Creativity. Romance—”
“Minus points for matching costumes,” Thorne grunts. “Codependency.”
I whip toward him. “It’s literally ‘couples contest.’ That’s the point.”
He shrugs. “Still codependent.”
“Do you even believe in romance?”
He turns his head slowly and meets my eyes with quiet brutality. “No.”
Jesus.
For a split second, something raw moves inside me. Not pity. Not fear. Something fiercer. Something that wants to argue that out of him with my mouth.
Focus, Aspen. Do not climb him. He is not a tree.
Yet.
“Moving on!” I swipe. A pair dressed as pirate and siren pop up. Very sexy. Lots of abs.
Thorne makes a sound of disgust. “Basic.”
I narrow my eyes. “You don’t like sexy costumes?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“Then what do you like?”
His gaze drops to my thighs. Slow. Deliberate. Possessive.
I feel it. Everywhere.
“Effort,” he rasps.
Oh, we’re not talking about costumes anymore. Not even a little.
I clear my throat, trying not to combust. We keep going. Contestants flash by. Banter flies like knives. And the longer we do this, the thicker the tension gets.
By entry fifteen, the livestream comments have shifted from amused to fully unhinged.
@feralforflannel: just kiss already
@witchywoman: HE WANTS TO brEAK HER SPINE (romantically)
@dyinginsatin: swallow him whole queen
I try to keep it light. I try to stay professional. But then he leans back against the wall with that bored, dangerous posture, arms over his chest, muscles flexed—and I lose the thread of what I was even saying.
“I’m sorry,” I blurt, gesturing weakly at his marker-covered torso. “I just can’t believe you are seriously shirtless again.”
He doesn’t even look at me. “Overheating.”
My jaw drops. “It’s forty-two degrees inside this lodge!”
He finally turns his head toward me.
“Maybe you should stop staring,” he says.
Oh, that’s it.
You want to start a war? I’ll show you war.
I step closer. Just enough to become a problem. “You know what your costume is missing?”
“A sense of shame?” he deadpans.
“A matching leash.”
His nostrils flare. “You think you could handle me on a leash?”
I smile sweetly. “Who said you’d be wearing it?”
A muscle jumps in his jaw.
And then—he does something that should be illegal. Something that steals the bones from my legs.
He smiles.
A slow, dark, wicked thing. A threat disguised as amusement.
Oh no. Oh no, I liked that way too much.
I scramble. “Okay, folks! Time to vote on finalists!” I laugh too loudly. “Isn’t this fun?”
Thorne doesn’t look away from me.
Not once.
The screen floods with hearts and skull emojis. Comments fly like bats in a cave.
@mountainMILF: this tension is ILLEGAL
@aspenfordestruction: I will sell my soul to see them hate-kiss
@unsafewithwolves: Thorne blink twice if ur into choking
I step away from him again, breathe in, smile at the camera. “While the votes come in, let’s take a quick break! Don’t go anywhere—we’ll be right back.”
I hit END LIVE before anything else explodes.
The silence that follows should feel like relief.
It doesn’t.
It feels dangerous.
My pulse hammers, loud enough I’m pretty sure he hears it. I can feel him behind me before I turn. Heavy stare. Heavy heat. Heavy man.
I brace myself and face him.
He isn’t smiling anymore.
“You done?” he asks quietly.
“That depends,” I counter. “You planning to admit you had fun?”
“No.”
“Liar.”
“Careful.”
“Of what?” I lift my chin. “You?”
His eyes narrow. “You really think I’m the dangerous one here?”
“I know you are.”
“And yet,” he steps closer, “you keep pushing.”
“Only because you keep pushing back.”
His mouth curves—not a smile, something darker. “You like it.”
My skin prickles. “No.”
“You like when I chase you.”
“I like when you lose.”
“Never going to happen.”
“Already did.” I gesture toward where his shirt lies abandoned over a chair. “You showed up half-naked on a livestream. You lost before we started.”
He stalks even closer, invading my space like it’s his right. “Is that how you see it?”
“That’s how it is.”
“You think taking my shirt off was surrender?”
“Looked like a cry for help.”
He laughs once—deep, heated, sinful. “No, witch. That was strategy.”
I swallow. “Strategy?”
“Now everyone saw what you already know.” His voice drops to wreckage. “I don’t scare easy.”
My breath catches. “I never said you scare me.”
“You don’t have to.”
“I’m not afraid of you.”
“No,” he says, stepping so close his scent slides inside my lungs. “You’re afraid of how much you want me.”
For a beat, for a moment, for a dangerous heartbeat—I don’t move.
I should snap back. I should torch him with something razor-sharp, something reckless and defiant.
But I can’t form a single word.
Because he’s not wrong.
He sees it.
He smells it.
And I hate that it thrills him.
“You’re so sure of yourself,” I manage. “Must be exhausting.”
“Not as exhausting as pretending.” His voice is low now, threaded with something rough.
“You want honesty? You want raw?” His jaw clenches.
“Fine. Yes, I want you on your knees. Yes, I think about your mouth when you talk back to me. Yes, I want to push you against every flat surface in this lodge until you forget how to breathe—”
My knees go liquid.
“—but I’m not going to touch you,” he finishes.
That snaps me out of it.
“What?” My voice scrapes. “Why the hell not?”
“Because you don’t know what you’re asking for.” Heat coils off him like wildfire. “And you’re not ready.”
That does it.
I laugh—sharp, lethal. “Oh, you arrogant son of a—”
He grabs my chin—firm, not gentle—forcing me to look up. “Do not test me with your mouth unless you’re ready to use it.”
Oh. My. God.
The room spins. My pulse is too loud. My jaw clenches beneath his hand, but I don’t pull away.
I can’t.
“Let go of me,” I whisper.
He does. Immediately. Respectfully. Almost infuriatingly.
He takes a step back—but not far. Never far. “You should walk away, Aspen.”
“I won’t.”
“I know.”
“And that doesn’t scare you?”
His gaze burns. “Nothing scares me the way you do.”
The words steal my breath.
I open my mouth to say—what, I don’t know—but a crash from the front door cuts between us like a shotgun blast.
We both turn.
Boots thud. Cold wind screams in.
And then a voice calls out, “Yo Maddox! You alive or chained in the basement or—holy shit.”
Thorne grunts. “Aspen, meet Zane Warner—Devil’s Peak local, best friend to disaster, notorious shit-stirrer.”
My eyes dart between the two men, packed with muscle, mischief sparkling in their eyes. “Perfect.”
Zane takes in the room: tinsel, fog machine, a dozen fallen glitter bats—and Thorne standing shirtless with EMOTIONALLY UNAVAILABLE written across his chest while I stand in ripped fishnets and smeared lipstick.
He grins like Christmas came early. “Well damn,” he whistles. “Looks like I walked in on foreplay.”
Thorne growls. Like actually growls.
I smile brightly. “We’re filming a contest!”
Zane tips his chin at Thorne. “Is that what we’re calling stroking your rage-boner on camera now?”
“Leave,” Thorne orders.
“Nope,” Zane says cheerfully. “Brought your supplies. Winter said you needed—” he squints “—holy shit, are those bats on your ceiling?”
“Don’t ask,” Thorne grinds out.
Zane tosses him a canvas bag. “Supplies. And before you thank me—don't. You owe me beer. Or a kidney. Depends how tonight goes.”
He heads for the kitchen like he owns the place.
The interruption breaks the spell—and I hate it. Hate that I feel his absence like cold against skin. Hate how much I already want the tension back.
But Thorne just scrubs a hand over his jaw and mutters something like a curse under his breath.
When he looks at me again, there’s steel back in his eyes.
“We’re done here for tonight.”
“No we’re not,” I say.
“Yes. We are.”
“Then warn me next time before you come at me like—like that.”
He steps closer again. “You wanted war.”
“I didn’t ask for psychological torture.”
“You asked for honest.”
“I asked for real, not reckless.”
He looks down at me long and hard. “Same thing with you.”
Before I can argue, he stalks off into the kitchen after Zane—leaving me standing there with my heart in my throat and my sanity held together by one fraying thread.
I lean back against the wall, drag in breath after breath.
I should be furious. I should be done with him. I should reapply my lipstick and armor up again and turn this whole contest into a middle finger.
But all I can think is—he didn’t deny any of it.
He wants me.
He just won’t let himself have me.
Yet.
The problem is, I’m not sure which one of us I should be more afraid of when that changes.