Chapter 18 #2
“Perfect,” I say, too quickly.
“Liar.”
I open my mouth but reach for my water instead because my body has decided to become my nemesis.
Corey’s laugh is low, but before he can say anything else, he sits up, scanning the tree line, and something shifts in his posture, subtle but immediate, a tightening around his shoulders.
“All okay?” I ask.
“Yeah. Just keeping an eye out. Got told the wildlife up here gets real active later in the day and through the night. Bears, elk. Best we head inside before the sun drops much further behind the mountains.”
I’m on my feet immediately. He laughs but doesn’t argue, and we pack up, hands brushing over the blanket and the basket, every accidental touch registering on my skin as if my body has been waiting for excuses to react to him.
“It’s insane how much a single touch can impact me,” I mutter, mostly to myself.
Corey stills with the blanket in his hands, his gaze lifting to mine. The teasing slips from his face, leaving something darker underneath. “Claire, if I touched you the way I’m thinking about touching you, you wouldn’t be standing there wondering if it mattered.”
My breath catches so hard it almost hurts.
He gives me a slow smile, not smug, not cruel, just devastatingly sure, then goes back to packing as if he hasn’t just set fire to every sensible thought in my head.
Heat rushes through me, low, sharp, and embarrassing, and I press my thighs together as my body answers him in a way I have no hope of hiding from myself.
One sentence, one look, and I’m damp, breathless, and trying to remember why walking back to the cabin is more important than dragging him down onto the picnic blanket.
Corey must see the exact moment my thoughts go there, because his smile turns rough at the edges. For a second, neither of us moves. The blanket is half folded between us, the basket open at our feet, and the air feels thick enough to touch.
Then he exhales, slow and uneven, and glances away first. “Cabin,” he commands, Alpha voice lower than before, capturing every inch of my attention.
“Right.” I grab the basket handle with far too much enthusiasm.
Somehow, we manage to finish packing without either of us doing anything reckless. Barely. Every brush of his hand against mine feels loaded, every glance a bad idea we keep deciding not to follow, until we’re finally walking back through the trees and he’s taking the picnic basket from my grasp.
“So glad you wrongly invited me to the wedding as your date,” he says out of the blue. “Best mistake that ever happened to me.”
I nudge him with my shoulder, trying to hide how much I love those words. “You’re very generous toward accidental kidnappings.”
“I’m a forgiving man.” He nudges me back, but instead of letting the contact end there, his hand finds mine. His fingers slide between mine as if he has done it a hundred times before, and my heart immediately forgets how to beat.
Corey only smiles, and that’s what gets me.
Not the kiss against the tree, though my body still burns from that.
Not even the flirting, or the way he stares at me as if every awkward part of me is worth his attention.
It’s this. The simple confidence of his fingers locked with mine while we walk through the forest, his thumb brushing over my knuckles, his stride adjusting to mine without comment.
He isn’t hiding that he wants me. And I crave it so badly it scares me.
My stomach is full of butterflies because this is everything I wished to have.
We reach the cabin, and Corey finally lets go of my hand to open the door. He unpacks while I collapse on the couch in front of the fire, my palm still tingling from where his fingers had been. “So what’s for dinner?” I call toward the kitchen.
“Still hungry?”
“Always.”
“Steak. Everything’s prepped. Just needs the pan.”
“I’m going to cry. This day is too perfect.”
He’s putting things away when his phone rings. He answers on speaker and sets it on the counter.
“How’s it going up there?” Brody’s voice fills the kitchen, and the sound of it sends a pulse through my chest that I wasn’t expecting. I miss him. It’s been a few hours, and I miss the way he grins and stares at me.
“Best day of my life,” Corey says.
“Fuck me. Keep it in your pants.”
Corey chuckles out loud. He catches my eye and winks, while I roll mine. So I get up and join him in the kitchen. “How’s the security going?” I ask.
“Done. Cameras. Motion sensors around the perimeter. Once you’re back, we just need to sync it to your phone so you get real-time notifications.” Brody pauses. “Nobody is getting near your place without all four of us knowing about it.”
“I love that more than you realize.”
“How are you feeling, Claire? More relaxed?” Jakob pipes in.
“This place is incredible. I can see why Corey booked it.”
“Haven’t been up there yet. Saw the photos, though, and was super impressed.”
Corey leans toward the phone. “Okay, well, we’ve got a hot tub to fire up, so—”
“Right, I’m coming up there,” Brody says immediately.
“Nah, all good. Okay, speak later.” Corey hangs up and grins at me. “That’ll drive them mental.”
I laugh just as Corey meanders around the island, and he’s now standing in front of me, his hands gripping the granite on either side of my hips, his body bracketing mine against the counter.
“So,” he says, his voice low. “We have this whole place to ourselves. What do you want to do with our evening?”
My body makes the decision before my brain gets a vote.
An inferno surges through me, flooding my chest, my throat, my face, and between my thighs a pulse of warmth so intense my hips shift involuntarily.
His scent is concentrated this close, rolling over me, and I’m staring at his mouth.
My lips part, and every rational thought I’ve had today evaporates.
“If you want to kiss me,” he whispers, “just do it, Claire. I can see it on your face. In your eyes.” His nostrils flare. “Smell it in your scent.”
The slick that’s been building up, every touch, every stolen glance, every accidental brush of skin adding to the tsunami my body’s been unleashing without my permission. He knows, and that makes it worse.
“That’s not what I’m thinking,” I manage.
“You sure?”
No. I’m the opposite of sure. I’m drowning. I duck under his arm and cross to my backpack, snatching it off the floor with trembling hands. “What I’d love is chocolate. A drink. And to crash on this couch. Long day.”
“Sounds great. I’ll join you.” He turns to the pantry, relaxed, easy, as if he didn’t just almost dissolve me against his kitchen counter.
Another wave crashes through me. My knees buckle, just for a second, and I catch myself on the back of the couch.
The ache is deep, heavy, centered low in my belly, and the slick is worse, thick and insistent, soaking through my underwear.
This is something deeper, hormonal, that feels dangerously close to—
No. Not my heat. It can’t be. Heats build over days. This has been hours.
“Gonna have a shower first,” I say, too bright, too fast. I grab my bag and rush for the bathroom.
“Sure. I’ll be waiting, sunshine.”
The word sunshine in his low voice unravels the last thread of my composure. I shut the bathroom door, press my back against it, and shove my hand down my pants because if I don’t find relief in the next thirty seconds, I’m going to scream loud enough to wake every wolf on this mountain.
I’m drenched. My fingers slide through heat and slick, and I rub my clit in tight, frantic circles. I come in under a minute, biting down the muffled cry that teases my throat. My legs give out and I slide down the door, trembling, pulsing, gasping.
The relief is brief because the ache retreats but doesn’t leave. It’s still there, coiled and patient, waiting.
This can’t be happening. Not here. Not now. Not in a one-bedroom cabin on a mountain with an Alpha whose scent calls to me.
Up on my feet, I strip and turn on the shower. Twist the dial to cold. Step under the spray. The shock of ice water punches the air from my lungs, and I yelp, pressing both palms against the tile, letting the cold hammer my shoulders and chest.
A knock at the door.
“You okay in there?” Corey’s voice, careful, controlled.
“Yep! Totally fine! Just enjoying the water pressure!”
Silence. “Yeah. Cold water can be refreshing. Hot drink will be ready whenever you’re done.”
His footsteps retreat.
Bastard pays too close attention to everything I do. His Alpha nose picked up every spike in my scent and wave of slick, the arousal I’ve been failing to contain since the picnic blanket.
Okay. New plan: stay in this shower and let whatever is happening pass. Cold water will drive it away. Mind over biology. I’m a grown woman, and I have willpower and control.
The ache surges again, and slick runs down my inner thighs, all while my mind floods with Corey’s hands gripping the counter, his chest under the ripped T-shirt, the way he pinned me against the tree and whispered into my ear what he wanted to do to me.
I press my forehead to the cold tile and close my eyes.
I’m not surviving this trip. Not even close.