Chapter 17 #3
When he breaks the kiss, I moan. Forehead against mine, his breathing is ragged, his eyes darkening.
“Think the bird should be safe,” he groans.
“Maybe we should just make sure.” I push up on my toes and kiss him again, harder this time, my hands sliding over his chest to his neck. Corey growls into my mouth as if I’ve snapped the last thread holding him together.
Then he moves.
One second, I’m kissing him; the next, my back is against the tree, bark rough through my shirt, his body pressing me there with enough force to make my breath break apart.
His hands grip my hips, not gentle now, and the sudden edge of him sends a shock of heat straight through me.
This is the Alpha beneath the crooked smile.
The one who’s been teasing and laughing and letting me believe he’s harmless when there’s nothing harmless about the way he’s staring at me now.
“Claire.” His voice is raw against my ear, his mouth dragging down my neck. “You have no idea how easy it would be to forget we’re on a trail.”
My fingers twist in his shirt.
His teeth graze my earlobe, and my whole body clenches. “To get you under me right here and find out how many pretty sounds you can make before the birds abandon the entire forest.”
“God, Corey…” My voice is barely there, and I hate how close I am to saying yes to a tempting idea. My thighs press together, every inch of me aching for him as if I’ve left my common sense somewhere back by the creek.
His mouth moves lower now, and I arch into him. His hands roam over me, my body giving in, the mountain trail forgotten while he turns every careful part of me wild.
That’s exactly why I pull back.
Trembling.
Panting.
“Yep,” I manage. “Bird looks safe.”
Corey’s forehead drops against mine again. “Definitely safe.”
“We should go.”
“Absolutely.”
Neither of us moves.
Then he forces himself back a step, jaw tight. His chest rises hard, and the front of his hiking pants makes it extremely clear that I’m not the only one losing the fight with restraint.
I turn and grab my bag before I stare myself into another disaster. My legs are unsteady, my lips tingling, while my whole body feels as if it’s been lit from the inside and then told to behave.
Behind me, Corey exhales roughly before his footsteps follow, and soon enough we’re both on the trail again.
“How much farther?” I ask, my voice embarrassingly breathless.
“About an hour.”
“Please tell me we’re not camping or pitching a tent. Especially if there are wolves.”
His laugh comes out low and wrecked. “Do you trust me?”
Trust has never come easily to me. My first boyfriend burned it, and Louis then stomped on the ashes. Every Alpha before these three taught me that wanting more was the fastest way to lose everything.
But Corey is standing on a mountain trail after carrying me through a creek, helping me save a baby bird, and kissing me against a tree as if I’m his everything. And I desperately want to be his.
“Yes,” I admit.
“Good,” he says softly. Then the grin returns, a little crooked, a little wicked. “Then let’s get a wiggle on.”
The last hour passes in easy conversation, and my legs have surrendered to the burn until we reach a plateau.
Wide, open, carpeted in wildflowers, purple and white and gold swaying in the breeze.
Trees line the edges, framing the clearing, and the sky above is vast and blue and streaked with clouds.
To our right, set back among the trees, is a wooden cabin.
A proper, solid, single-story structure with a porch and windows and a stone chimney, new-looking, well-maintained, sitting in this sea of flowers as if it grew here.
“How is this here?” I whisper.
“Private rental and off-grid. I found it months ago and booked it last night, as they luckily had an opening…” He scratches the back of his neck. He takes my hand, our fingers interlacing, and leads me toward the building.
The mountain drops away in layers of green, sweeping down into the valley, past the patchwork farmland and the scattered rooftops of Mistberry Cove in the far distance, all the way to the sea, which stretches to the horizon, silver and endless, catching the late afternoon sun.
“Oh, this is magnificent,” I breathe because the view has emptied me of every other word.
“Just you and me tonight,” he says, still holding my hand. “How does that sound?”
“Exciting. Slightly terrifying. And hoping this cabin has very strong locks.”
He laughs, squeezes my hand, and pulls me toward the porch. “Locks and so much more. Come see.”
I follow him up the steps that creak under my weight while heat coils in my belly from the fact that I’m about to spend a night alone in a cabin with an Alpha whose scent matches mine and whose mouth just made me forget my own name.
I need control. Deep breaths. Boundaries. Rational thought.
Except rational thought checked out somewhere around the baby bird and hasn’t been seen since. And if last night with Jakob taught me anything, it’s that my body doesn’t negotiate with my brain when it wants what it wants.
I step through the cabin door.
God help me.