Chapter 3
Weston
I should not still be thinking about the taste of her mouth.
I should be driving.
That’s what I’m doing, technically. Hands on the wheel. Eyes on the narrow road curling through the mountain dark. Truck pointed toward her cabin while the first hard spits of sleet start tapping against the windshield.
But none of that changes the fact that every part of me is still back there under the eaves of the community hall, with Lexie looking up at me like I’d knocked the whole world sideways with one kiss.
Hell.
I grip the wheel harder.
Beside me, she sits with her coat wrapped around her, cheeks pink from the cold and the dancing and maybe the kiss. Her hair’s gone a little wild around her shoulders. Her mouth looks soft and kissed and dangerous.
I kissed her.
And she kissed me back like she meant it.
The thought punches through me all over again.
I’ve wanted women before. I’m not dead. I’ve had eyes.
Had a pulse. But nothing like this. Nothing that felt this immediate.
This deep. Like the first second I saw her standing in that cabin doorway, soft and wide-eyed and looking at me like she didn’t know whether to run or let me carry her off, something in me locked into place.
Mine.
I don’t say it because saying it out loud after a few hours would sound unhinged.
Doesn’t make it less true.
Lexie shifts in her seat, stealing a glance at me before looking back out the windshield.
“So.”
My mouth twitches. “So.”
“That was some kiss.”
Understatement of the damn century.
“Yeah,” I say.
She smiles to herself, small and shy and pleased, and it does something violent to my insides.
I have no business liking that expression that much.
No business noticing the shape of her thighs under that green sweater dress. The way it clung just enough to tell a man things he had no right thinking. The soft weight of her in my arms on the dance floor. The sweet, breathless laugh she let out every time I said something that got under her skin.
She’s younger than me by enough years that I should’ve kept my distance.
Should’ve delivered the firewood, kept my mouth shut, and gone on with my life.
Instead, I invited her to a dance, kissed her outside the hall, and now I’m driving her home with a storm moving in over the ridge and every decent intention I had hanging on by a thread.
The sleet turns sharper, clicking against the truck.
Lexie looks up. “Is that bad?”
“Could be.”
That gets her attention. “Could be bad?”
I glance at her. “Storms move fast up here. Roads get slick.”
She goes quiet for a second, then nods. “Good thing I’m with a rugged mountain man, then.”
A laugh almost gets out of me.
Almost.
“You keep saying things like that.”
“Like what?”
“Rugged mountain man.”
She turns in her seat, smile growing. “You say that like I’m wrong.”
“You are.”
“You throw axes for fun.”
“It wasn’t fun.”
She snorts. “Right. Of course. You only effortlessly hit the bullseye in front of half the town out of civic duty.”
I shake my head.
She’s still smiling when lightning flashes far off through the trees.
A second later thunder rolls over the mountain.
Her smile fades.
I look at the road again. Snow’s starting to mix in now, wet and thick.
Damn it.
By the time I pull up outside her cabin, the storm’s come in mean and fast. Wind pushes through the trees hard enough to make them groan. Snow spits sideways under the porch light.
I kill the engine and look out at it.
Then I look at her.
“You’re not staying alone if this gets worse.”
Her eyes go wide. “Weston.”
“I mean it.”
Something soft moves across her face. Not fear. Not exactly. Something warmer. Deeper.
“Okay,” she says quietly.
That one word lands hard.
I get out, circle the truck, and help her down. The second she’s on the ground, the wind cuts through us both, sharp as a blade. Lexie gasps and clutches at my jacket as we hurry to the porch.
She gets the door open with shaking fingers, and I follow her inside, shutting it hard against the storm.
The place feels smaller than it did earlier.
Warmer too.
Like everything inside these four walls knows exactly what happened between us tonight and intends to be difficult about it.
Lexie pushes her hair back from her face and turns to me. “Wow.”
“Yeah.”
The wind rattles the windows hard enough to make her jump.
My jaw tightens.
I know these storms. I know what roads look like ten minutes after the first bad hit. Ice under snow. Visibility gone. Trees dropping limbs where they please. And I’m damn sure not getting back on the road in this.
I’m not leaving her here alone in it, either.
“I’m staying,” I tell her.
Her lips part.
“Road’s too bad already. I’m not making it down the mountain in this.”
That part, at least, is true enough.
The weather may be keeping me here, but it isn’t the reason I want to stay.
Lexie studies me for a second, then nods. “Okay.”
No argument. No nerves. Just that soft trust that makes me want to be ten times the man I already try to be.
I take off my jacket and toss it by the door, then step out of my boots. She slips out of her coat and toes off her boots. The green sweater dress is still there underneath, hugging every sweet curve that’s been tormenting me since I picked her up.
Christ.
She catches me looking.
A flush creeps up her chest.
“You keep doing that.”
“Doing what?”
“Looking at me like that.”
I step closer before I think better of it. “You don’t like it?”
Her breath catches.
“That’s not what I said.”
No.
It isn’t.
Another crack of thunder shakes the cabin, closer now. The lights flicker once.
Lexie glances toward the window, then back at me. “I’ve never liked storms much.”
That decides it.
I move in, take her face in my hands, and kiss her before I can talk myself out of it.
She makes that same soft, surprised sound she made outside the hall, and it wrecks me. Her hands come up to my chest, clutching at my flannel, and I deepen the kiss because I’m only a man and she tastes like cider and sweetness and the kind of trouble a man spends his whole life hoping for.
She kisses me back with more confidence this time.
Still soft. Still a little shy.
But wanting.
God, she wants me.
The knowledge hits like a blow.
I drag my mouth from hers, breathing hard, forehead pressed to hers.
“Lexie.”
“Weston.”
My name in her voice is enough to make a man stupid.
I slide one hand down her back, pulling her closer until every curve of her is lined against me. She gasps at the feel of what she does to me, and I nearly lose the last ragged scrap of control I’ve got left.
Her eyes fly to mine.
Heat. Nerves. Wonder.
And something else.
“Tell me if I’m pushing too fast,” I say, voice rougher than I mean it to be. “Tell me if you want me to stop.”
She swallows. “I don’t want you to stop.”
I close my eyes for one second.
Then I kiss her again.
Slower this time. Deeper. Letting myself have the feel of her mouth without rushing it. Letting my hands learn the shape of her. Her waist. The soft rise of her hips. The lush curve of her back. Every inch of her feels made to undo me.
She’s soft in all the ways that matter. Warm and sweet and responsive under my hands, like she’s been waiting for someone to touch her like she’s something precious instead of something to be tolerated.
A dark kind of anger moves through me at the thought of any man making her feel less than adored.
I force it down and kiss the corner of her mouth instead.
She looks up at me with those big blue eyes and kills me dead.
“What?” I ask.
Her cheeks turn pink. “Nothing.”
“Lexie.”
A tiny smile. “You’re very... intense.”
That almost gets a laugh out of me. “You noticing that now?”
“Yes.”
“Too much?”
Her answer comes quick. “No.”
I touch my forehead to hers again, trying to steady myself.
There’s something I need to say before this goes farther. Something that ought to send her running if she’s got any sense.
“I haven’t done this before.”
She blinks. “Done what before?”
“Kissed women, yeah. Wanted them, sure. But this.” I force the words out. “I was engaged once. Figured my first time would be with my wife.”
Her whole face changes. Something soft moves through it.
“You’re a virgin,” she whispers.
I nod once.
For the first time all night, Weston Stark feels about sixteen years old.
Then Lexie lets out the smallest, most relieved little laugh.
My brow furrows. “What?”
Her hands slide up my chest and rest there. “So am I.”
Everything in me goes still.
“You’re telling me,” I say carefully, “that no man has ever had you?”
Her lashes flutter. “No.”
A dangerous kind of satisfaction rolls through me. Fierce. Possessive. Almost enough to make me bare my teeth.
I don’t. Barely.
Instead, I cup the back of her neck and look at her the way I want to touch her.
“Lexie.”
She shivers.
“If we do this,” I say, “I’m taking my time.”
Her breath leaves in a shaky rush.
“Okay.”
“I’m not giving you anything rough. Yet.”
Another nod.
“I’m making it good for you.”
Her lips part.
“Weston.”
It’s a plea now. A surrender.
That’s all I’ve got left in me.