Chapter Four
Walker
For as many seasons as I’ve worked these mountains, I’ve never had reason to share the cabin with anyone before. I’ve never wanted the company. The silence is part of why I keep taking contracts like this year after year.
This morning’s silence feels different though. Tense. Heavy with emotions I can’t quite sort through.
Yesterday, I crossed lines I shouldn’t have. Hell, too many of them.
I touched a woman I barely knew. Brought her to my bed afterward because there was no way in hell I was leaving her alone with an injured ankle while the storm raged outside. Then I spent half the damn night awake beside her, painfully aware of every soft breath she took beneath my blankets.
Eventually, the ache became unbearable. I ended up jerking off alone in the bathroom like some fucking teenager just to get a few hours of sleep.
Didn’t help much.
One memory of her wrapped around me in the shower was enough to have me coming embarrassingly fast. Christ.
And now she sits across from me at the tiny kitchen table, watching my every move like she can’t decide whether I rescued her or kidnapped her.
I still don’t know what to make of her story either.
I went back to the wolf den last night, but I found no traps. No sign of the men she claimed were chasing her. No tracks except hers. But no one fakes fear like that.
The panic in her eyes yesterday felt real. Too real.
With a quiet sigh, I finally look up and meet her gaze directly.
Everything about her looks soft in the oversized, long-sleeve T-shirt I lent her. The cabin is warm enough from the fire, but she still keeps curling her fingers into the sleeves like she’s trying to disappear inside them.
“Did you sleep okay?”
Her cheeks flush slightly. “Yeah. You?”
Not even remotely.
“Fine,” I lie, cracking two eggs into a bowl.
Silence stretches between us while I cook. I can feel her eyes following me around the small kitchen, suspicious and curious all at once.
“Is this your home?” she finally asks.
“Sometimes.”
“What does that mean?”
My brows arch at her questions as I butter the toast. “It means I stay here while I’m working a contracts for the park.”
“So you don’t actually work for the park?”
I glance at her over my shoulder. “Not exactly.”
Her brows pull together slightly like she’s filing the information away.
Another long beat of silence follows, broken only by the sizzling eggs frying in the pan. “So where do you live when you’re not here?”
“Wherever my work takes me.”
“Do you have family around here?” she asks.
“No.”
“Friends?”
“A few.”
She narrows her eyes at me. “You answer questions like you’re being interrogated.”
“Maybe because it feels like I am.”
To my surprise, she laughs softly at that.
“I’m trying to figure out if I should trust you.”
The honesty catches me off guard. I set the spatula down before turning fully toward her, folding my arms across my chest. “And? What’s your verdict?”
Her grip tightens slightly on the walking stick I made for her from a broken broom handle. “I haven’t decided yet.”
Something sharp and amused twists inside my chest. I move toward her slowly, watching her eyes widen as I crowd into her space until her back brushes the wall.
“Funny,” I murmur. “Because I’m still trying to figure out why you were wandering around so close to my cabin in the first place.”
“I already told you—”
“Miles off the marked trail,” I cut in quietly. “Minutes before a snow a storm.”
Her pulse jumps visibly in her throat when my gaze drops to it.
“You can understand why that seems suspicious too, right?”
She swallows, and I catch fear in her eyes. But underneath that is something else. Desire. Resentment of that desire. Interesting.
Because I’m trapped in the same damn position.
I don’t like how badly I want her. Don’t like the way my eyes drop to her mouth the second she wets her lips.
My mind flashes back to the shower instantly.
The softness of her mouth beneath mine. The hesitant innocence that slowly melted into desperate little sounds every time I touched her.
Christ.
It took every ounce of restraint I had not to completely lose control in that shower. She tempts me in ways I don’t fully understand.
“Why did you lie about being a park ranger?”
Her voice drags me back to the present. “I didn’t,” I point out calmly. “You saw the park ID and assumed.”
Her brows pull together. “Then what exactly do you do?”
“Forestry work mostly. The park contracts me a few times a year to thin overcrowded sections and clear diseased or dead trees.”
“Oh.” She still looks suspicious.
“I needed you to trust me long enough to let me help you,” I add.
A faint flush crawls into her cheeks at the reminder of exactly how much help I ended up giving her last night.
“Well,” she mutters, folding her arms defensively. “You could have explained that afterward.”
“You were exhausted and terrified.”
“Yeah.”
Silence stretches between us for half a second before she narrows those beautiful green eyes at me again.
“That still doesn’t explain why there were no traps when I know what I saw.”
I’m not saying you imagined it.”
“You kind of are.”
“I’m saying I didn’t find anything.”
Frustration flashes across her face as she pushes closer into my space despite barely reaching my chest. “Well, maybe if the park actually kept people like that out—”
I cut her off the only way my rapidly disappearing self-control can think to. I kiss her. Hard.
Her words vanish against my mouth in a startled sound before her hands slide from my chest to my shoulders instead of pushing me away.
Fuck.
The second her lips soften beneath mine, something low and possessive twists inside me. I pull her flush against me with one hand at her waist, deepening the kiss as she parts her lips for me almost immediately.
Sweet. She tastes sweet and warm and dangerously addictive.
A groan leaves me before I can stop it as I angle her head and kiss her even deeper, slower this time, trying and failing to get enough of her.
My heart jumps at the wet contact and I groan, wrapping my left hand around her waist and yanking her flush against me.
And there it is again. The innocence, the sweetness that clings to her lips like a drug.
And I can’t help but chase the high. I grip her hair and angle her head as I slide my mouth wetly over hers, giving into the need I’ve tried to hold back.
I want her .
The realization hits harder than it should.
I want to touch every inch of her. Learn every sound she makes. Find out what makes those gorgeous eyes go hazy with pleasure. Which makes me a bastard because she’s injured, stranded, and technically under my care right now.
But then she moans softly against my mouth and presses herself against my chest, and whatever self-control I have left starts crumbling faster.
“Walker…”
Her voice wrecks me. My hand slips beneath the oversized T-shirt she borrowed, finding warm bare skin instead of panties, and my brain nearly shorts out at the realization.
“Jesus Christ,” I mutter against her mouth, gripping her tighter as I pull her against the hard length straining behind my zipper.
She gasps softly when she feels me, but instead of pulling away, her fingers tighten in my shirt. Encouraging me. Dangerous fucking mistake.
I drag my mouth down her throat, breathing her in. Soap. Warm skin. Faint traces of pine still clinging to her hair.
She shivers beneath my hands. I kiss just below her ear before pulling back enough to look at her flushed face. Goddamnit, I want her.
Some of my thoughts manifest in a feral growl as I dip my head to her neck and lick along her skin.
“I can smell myself on you,” I pant, brushing my lips up her throat before nipping nip at her earlobe.
“I smell my soap in your hair and on your skin. It’s driving me insane, Kelly.
” I brush my lips over the shell of her ear and feel her shiver against me.
“I bet the rest of you smells just the same. Should I find out?”
“H-how?” she whimpers as I rub the ridge of my shaft against her naked pussy.
When I pull back, I read the answer in her eyes before she pushes up to capture my mouth in another needy kiss. I groan into her lips, sliding my tongue against hers and getting drunk off the taste of her lips. Sweet and intoxicating, and now I can’t wait to taste the rest of her.
Blood pounds in my ears as I break the kiss to trail my mouth down her body. I grab the T-shirt and pull it over her head before tossing it aside, and in the dim light of the cabin, I take a second to admire her soft, pale skin.
Christ, she’s beautiful.
I keep my eyes on her dazed ones as I kiss a path down the center of her body, groaning softly as I catch more of my scent still lingering on her skin.
She whimpers when I close my mouth around one stiff nipple, rolling my tongue over the sensitive peak and sucking gently.
She cries out, her fingers tunneling into my hair as she pulls me closer against her chest.
“Oh God,” she pants, tossing her head back and revealing the sleek lines of her throat flushed pink with heat. She shudders when I give the other nipple the same attention. “That feels… Oh God. I didn’t know…”
No, I don’t think she did. Or that another man has ever shown her what I am about to.
I release her nipple with a soft pop before moving lower, dropping to my knees in front of the most gorgeous woman I have ever seen. She gasps when I press my lips against her sex, chasing her scent as the sweet tang of her arousal hits me hard.
“Fuck,” I groan, lifting her injured leg carefully onto my shoulder, opening her wider before me. Her startled gasp echoes through the kitchen as I nuzzle her folds before dragging my tongue over her clit in one slow stroke.
Her entire body jerks with a sob.
My cock strains painfully behind my jeans as I taste her properly for the first time.