Chapter Two
The second strike took the switchback. I heard it before I saw it—a sharp crack, then the long, wet roar of timber falling across the hairpin.
The cabin lights flickered and steadied.
I raised the binoculars to the ridge and saw the road blocked.
Two pines were down, roots up, no room left for a truck.
I picked up the handset.
“Lookout Seven to base. Visual on timber across the switchback. Road is closed.”
Miller came back fast. “Copy, Seven. We just lost a spotter on the lower camera. Nobody’s coming up tonight. You sit until morning. You copy that, Hale?”
“Copy. Hale and Quinn staying put.”
“Keep the radio on. And keep her off the stairs.”
I hung up.
Tessa had not moved from the table. My flannel still swallowed her. She looked at the black windows, then at me.
“How long?”
“Morning. If they can cut. Later if they can’t.”
She nodded once, as if that could make the cot in the corner less of a problem. It was a single bunk, bolted to the wall, meant for one ranger who didn’t mind sleeping in his boots. She glanced at the grate.
“I can take the floor.”
“No.”
“I’ve slept worse.”
“Not in my tower. The grate’s metal and the temperature’s dropping. You take the cot. I’ll take watch.”
“That’s—”
“Not a discussion.”
She sat on the edge of the bunk because there was nowhere else to go. The mattress dipped under her, as if it expected someone heavier. She tucked her feet up, then down, and glanced at the space beside her but didn’t say anything.
Lightning hit close enough to bleach the cabin. She came off the bunk as if the floor had shoved her. I caught her before she could decide whether she was allowed to reach for me.
“I’ve got you.”
Her hands fisted in my shirt. The next roll of thunder went through the tower like a truck. She made a sound against my chest that she tried to turn into a laugh and failed.
“Sit.”
I sat first. The bunk creaked. I pulled her down onto my lap, not wanting her to stand by the window while the storm raged. She was all knees, flannel, and cold skin. My thigh ended up between hers before either of us realized.
“Grant—”
“Stay.”
She stayed. Every strike pulled her tighter against me. I put one hand at her nape, under the cap she had forgotten to take off, and the other at her hip to keep her from sliding. The flannel had ridden up. My palm found bare skin at her waist and stayed there.
She breathed out a curse I had not heard from her yet.
“Look at me.”
She did. Close. Her mouth was still red from our kiss at the table. I let her feel that for a moment, my hand at her neck, my thigh still between hers, until the next flash of lightning lit her face and she couldn’t hide.
I put my mouth on her throat.
Not gentle. Not testing. I found the spot under her jaw where her pulse beat hard and used my teeth. She jerked, then relaxed, letting more of her weight rest on my thigh. I didn’t help her. I let her feel the seam of her pants, the muscle beneath, and that she had chosen this.
I dragged the flannel off one shoulder and kissed the newly bare skin like I had a right to it. She made a sound when I did it, low and startled, and her fingers tightened in my shirt instead of pushing away.
I shifted her slowly until the seam of her pants was right where I wanted it. I didn’t move her against me. I just held her there and let her feel what she had already started.
“Oh.”
“There.”
The next lightning strike shook the tower. She moved with it. Her hips rolled once, searching, and when she found the right angle, she did it again, smaller, as if she could keep it to herself. She couldn’t. I felt all of it.
“Grant.”
She kept going, careful at first, then less so, the flannel slipping off one shoulder as she moved.
I kissed the corner of her mouth, and she turned into it, hungry, missing my lips and finding my jaw.
My hand moved from her hip to her lower back, under the flannel, palm on bare skin. She arched into my touch.
“That’s it. Again.”
She did it again, better this time. Her breath caught against my throat. The third time, there was no technique, just need, and the bunk creaked under us. She grabbed my shirt with both hands and hid her face in my collar, not to stop, but to muffle her sounds.
I tipped her chin up.
“Don’t hide it.”
“If I look at you, I won’t last.”
“Good.”
She looked at me anyway, eyes dark, mouth open, and rolled down onto my thigh like she had decided.
I met her halfway. Not enough to take it from her.
Enough that she had something to move against. She learned fast when she wanted the lesson.
The next roll was surer. The one after that made her gasp into my mouth, and I finally gave her the kiss she had been chasing, deep and unhurried, while my hand at her back kept her where the heat was.
“Like that,” I said against her lips. “Don’t stop.”
I dragged the flannel lower and put my mouth on the top of her breast through the thin shirt underneath.
She arched so hard the bunk complained. Her fingers were in my hair now, not my shirt, holding me there, and when I used my teeth she swore again, sweeter this time, and ground down like she had found the point of the whole night.
“Grant—God—”
“I know. Take it.”
She tried to make it last. I felt it—the way she slowed down, shook her head, then came back because stopping was harder.
I kissed her throat and let her use my thigh.
I didn’t rush her. I didn’t need to. She was already moving faster on her own, small desperate movements that had nothing to do with skill and everything to do with being twenty-one, untouched, and finally crossing a line she’d tried to avoid.
“I’m— I think I’m—”
“Look at me.”
She did. Wrecked and willing and right there.
“Now.”
She came with her eyes on mine, then broke, face in my collar, a sound she could not swallow.
I held her through it, thigh hard between hers, and stayed with her while she shook, while she kept moving because she could not help it, while the peak ran out and left her trembling in my lap worse than the rain ever had.
She hid against my shirt, breathing like she had run the stairs twice. My hand slid from the small of her back around to her stomach, under the flannel, and found the waistband of her pants. I hooked two fingers in it and did not go further. Just that. A question against her skin.
She went still.
“Grant.”
“Easy. I’m not taking them off.” I traced the inside of the band, slowly, and felt her stomach jump. “Not yet.”
“Wait.”
I stopped. I did not take my hand away.
She swallowed. “I haven’t— I mean. What just happened? I haven’t done that with anyone.”
I waited. My thumb traced the cotton, slow, because I thought I understood. Her first orgasm with a man there. That was fine. I could handle it.
“I haven’t done any of it.” The words came out small and fast, as if speed would make them less true. “None of it.”
I went still for real then.
I leaned back enough to see her face. Her mouth was red from kissing, her eyes dark. My flannel hung off one shoulder. She was beautiful, sitting in my lap, telling me no one had ever touched her.
“You’re serious.”
She nodded.
“How is that possible?” My voice was rougher than I meant. I looked at her—really looked—the wet hair, the mouth I’d kissed, the way she had come apart on my thigh like her body understood even if she didn’t. “A gorgeous thing like you. Untouched.”
Color climbed her throat. She did not look away. “I didn’t say I wasn’t interested. I said I hadn’t.”
That hit me in a way I wasn’t ready to think about, not up here.
I tipped her chin up. My fingers were still hooked in her waistband. I left them there.
“You want this.”
“Yes.”
“Say it so I can hear you.”
“I want this.” Her breath hitched. “I want you. I just don’t know what I’m doing.”
“You don’t have to know.” I brushed my thumb over the corner of her mouth, then over the skin just inside her waistband, a promise I wasn’t going to keep yet. “Tell me if it hurts. Do what I say. That’s all you need.”
Thunder rolled again, farther now, as if the cell had taken what it wanted from the ridge and moved on. She was still in my lap. My hand was still at her waist, teasing the line I had not crossed, and she was looking at my mouth like she wanted me to cross it anyway.