Chapter 10 Thorne #2
“You make me want to annihilate anyone who looks at you wrong,” I confess, and the words sound like a threat and a vow.
She breathes out a laugh that sounds like surrender. “That’s poetic in a problematic way.”
I bend my head, my mouth almost to her ear. I whisper something filthy and private—something that makes her shiver and laugh and suck in a breath that promises a war. “You’re mine, Aspen,” I say, low and unrepentant. “All of you. Don’t make me prove it.”
She closes her eyes like she’s tasting it, like it’s the sweetest poison. For a stolen second, everything is slow and hot and we are the only two people who exist in this room of music and fog and false courage.
Then a clumsy hand slaps a shoulder near us—Perry, blissfully oblivious—and everyone’s attention flickers. The world tilts back. Social obligation tugs at the corners of the moment and something in me snaps like a twig underfoot.
I pull back, fingers trailing down her thigh in a final, possessive stroke. My eyes pin her with something fierce.
“Come with me,” I say, but I don’t mean to the corner behind the bar or the back alley. I mean home.
She searches my face like she’s trying to read the truth from the map of it. “What if I tell you I like it here?” she asks, half-mocking, half-pleading.
I smirk, but it’s all teeth, no softness. “Don’t tempt me, witch.”
Before she can answer, I turn and push through the crowd, the warm press of bodies and music swallowing me. I can feel her eyes on my back. I can feel the electricity in the air like a live wire. I step into the cool night and the wind slaps the skin on my neck raw.
I don’t look back until I reach my truck. When I do, she’s at the door with Winter and Zane, hair messy, a laugh breaking the dark like a little bell.
I pull my beanie down, climb in, and start the engine. Watching men smile at my girl would be murder and I’m not in the habit of becoming a killer for the best reasons and the worst.
I wipe my fingers on my jeans, smirk stuck to my face like a bruise, and think, not for the first time, of how many men would need to be taught a lesson before she could live in peace.
If that’s what it takes, then consider the town warned.
But I don’t want war. Not really. I want her.
And I’ll make sure every man in Devil’s Peak knows exactly what he’s up against.
A moment later she’s climbing into the cab of my truck.
The ride back to my place is silent, heat pulsing in the air as we travel the few miles home.
I pull into the circle driveway and park, moving around the front of the truck to open her door.
I help her down without words, my hand resting at her back as we climb the steps of the lodge.
Once we enter, I kick off my boots and turn to take her in.
Aspen stands there watching me, breathing hard.
Not scared but soft. Open. Flushed.
That look again.
The one she shouldn’t have given me.
The room goes quiet. Heavy.
She breaks it with a whisper. “I can’t believe how utterly unbearable you are some days.”
My throat goes tight. Shit.
Her eyes hold mine. Raw. Too close.
I say nothing.
She steps closer until she’s in front of me. Close enough to breathe me in. Close enough to ruin every wall I’ve built since the day my sister died and I walked away from a world I didn’t want to belong to anymore.
“Say something,” she whispers.
“No.”
Her brows knit. “Why not?”
“Because if I do, I’ll touch you.”
Her breath stops.
Her cheeks flush.
And she whispers—God help me—“So do it.”
Fuck.
My control shreds like old rope.
I reach for her, hauling her close by the waist—but I stop with her body flush to mine, barely holding myself back from pinning her to the nearest surface.
“No,” I rasp. “Not yet.”
She blinks. “What?”
“Not like this.”
She frowns. “I don’t underst—”
“I’m not taking your mouth because fear spiked your pulse,” I growl. “I’ll take it when you beg me for it. When you’re shaking because you need me. When you look at me like I’m not a mistake you’re about to regret.”
Her lips part.
Her eyes heat.
Her voice trembles. “And what if I already do?”
She doesn’t know what she’s doing to me. She can’t.
But her hands slide up my chest anyway—slow, cautious, teasing the line between safe and fucked—and my self-control goes razor thin.
I stare down at her mouth, fighting the urge to bite. Claim. Mark.
“You really want this war, Aspen?”
She rises on her toes, lips a breath from mine. “I’m not scared of war.”
My chest rumbles. “Then get ready to lose.”
Her smile is pure sin. “Ladies first.”
Jesus Christ.
I need to get space. Now. Before I do something I can’t take back.
I step away—rough, fast. Like pulling teeth out of my own ribs.
She stares, confused. “You’re walking away?”
I don’t turn. “Before I throw you over that table and make decisions for both of us.”
Silence.
Then—voice low, threaded with pure trouble—“Who says I don’t want you to?”
I stop walking.
Every muscle locks.
I look back.
Her head is tilted. Hands behind her back. Lip caught between teeth. Watching me like a dare.
I stalk toward her again—slow. Heavy. Predatory. She doesn’t run.
“You keep pushing,” I warn.
“Maybe you like it,” she whispers.
I crowd her against the table—no space, no escape—and murmur against her ear: “You think I need excuses to want you?”
She trembles. “No.”
“Good.” My voice drops lethal. “Then stop giving me reasons to hold back.”
Her breath shudders.
I step back again. Just enough to clear my head.
Her eyes narrow. “You’re infuriating.”
“You’re reckless.”
“You’re control-obsessed!”
“You’re climbing me like a tree every time trouble hits!”
She throws up her hands. “Maybe you’re just available real estate!”
Oh, that does it.
I stalk her again, voice a snarl. “Say that again.”
She pokes my chest. “You. Are. A. Mountain. Men climb mountains.”
I catch her wrist—fast. She gasps. “Men fall off cliffs too.”
Her pulse slams under my fingers.
She stares up at me. “I don’t fall easy.”
“Good,” I growl. “I don’t catch easy.”
Her pulse kicks harder.
We're both lying.
She doesn’t move when I step toward her. Maybe she thinks I’m bluffing. Maybe she doesn’t understand that whatever thin thread of control I had is gone. Maybe she does understand—and wants this as bad as I do.
Either way, I’m done pretending.
I reach her. She lifts her chin like she always does when she’s about to smart off.
My hand is on her before she can speak—fingers wrapping around the back of her neck, thumb sliding against her pulse.
Christ. She’s warm. Too warm. I’ve been cold for five straight years and she walks in here and sets me on fire like it’s easy.
Her lips part. I feel her breath. Vanilla. Sugar. Temptation.
“You don’t know what you’re doing,” I rasp.
“Pretty sure I do,” she whispers back.
“No,” I growl. “You’re poking something with teeth.”
Her fingers curl into my shirt. “Bite, then.”
Fuck.
She has no idea what she just asked for.
“You really want to keep playing with me?” I ask, my voice low, dangerous. “Because I won’t stop this time. You start something tonight—you better be damn sure you want to finish it.”
Her eyes flick over my face, searching. Testing. Then she nods—slow. Deliberate. Brave.
And that’s it.
I snap.
I crush my mouth to hers.
Not gentle. Not sweet. Not polite.
A collision.
Her gasp opens her up to me and my tongue slides against hers—hungry, claiming. She tastes like candy and chaos and the first real thing I’ve felt in years. She moans into my mouth, and I swear I feel it in my bones.
My hand fists in her hair, tilting her head back so I can go deeper. She moves with me—wild, greedy, kissing me back like she’s been starving too. Her nails rake down my chest through my shirt and I growl into her mouth, pushing her back until her spine hits the log wall.
“Thorne—” she breathes.
I’m already there, pinning her with my body, rocking her hips against mine just enough to feel the sweet little sound she makes when she realizes exactly how wrecked I am over her.
“Feel that?” I grind harder. “That’s what you did.”
Her lips are swollen, breath uneven. “Good.”
My forehead drops to hers. “You drive me insane.”
“Get in line.”
I laugh—dark, breathless. I haven’t laughed during a kiss in a long time, maybe ever. She ruins me and I don’t care.
“You sure you want this?” I ask, forcing myself to pause, needing—needing—to give her a way out before there’s no going back.
She grabs my jaw. “Do I look unsure?”
Then she bites my bottom lip. Hard.
Jesus.
I slam my hand against the wall beside her head and kiss her again, deeper, filthier, my tongue coaxing hers into another hungry tangle. She rolls her body against mine, soft curves rubbing against my hard edges. I’m breathing like I just hauled a deer up a mountain.
I drag my mouth along her neck, stubble rasping over her skin as she shivers.
“Tell me to stop,” I grit against her pulse.
“Stop,” she whispers—
My body freezes.
She smirks. “See? I don’t always get what I want.”
I grab her hips and haul her up against me. “You think this is a game?”
“With you?” she breathes. “Everything is a game.”
My lips brush hers again. “Not this.”
Her eyes go soft. The exact second she lets me see it—her guard slipping, her walls cracking—I lose whatever patience I had left. I kiss her again and again, rough and adoring and starved.
Her hands slip under my shirt and when her palms drag over my skin, I break.
She owns me. Completely.
I grind against her heat through layers of clothing and she whimpers—a soft, sweet sound that punches straight through my ribs. My cock is heavy and throbbing, painfully ready, and every instinct I have wants to shove the skirt of her dress over her hips and bury myself in her until morning.
But not like this. Not rushed. Not sloppy. Not when this woman turned my entire world upside down and made me want again—want more.
I tear my mouth from hers and force my breathing under control because fuck—this is too close to losing it.
Her pupils are blown wide. Lips wet. Breasts rising and falling above the leather corset fast. She looks kissed stupid and I’ve never seen anything more beautiful.
“We stop now,” I manage, voice wrecked.
She blinks. “What?”
“We stop here. This doesn’t happen halfway. When I finally get inside you, there won’t be a goddamn doubt in your mind what it means.”
She swallows. “And what does it mean?”
I hold her jaw, thumb brushing her red-stained mouth.
“It means you’re mine.”
Her breath shivers out—and she nods once.
Then again.
Fierce. Certain.
I kiss her one last time, slow and deep, before I set her back on her feet.
“Go to bed,” I tell her.
Her glare is lethal. “I hate you.”
“You don’t,” I murmur.
She turns away, breathless. “I do.”
I steal one more glance before the lantern light takes her up to the loft like a dream.
Every nerve in my body screams at me to follow her.
But I don’t. For now.