Chapter 4
CHAPTER FOUR
NOELLE
Five days in, my hands have calluses.
Real ones. The kind that catch on fabric when I pull on a shirt. The kind that come from hauling fence wire, gripping a bow saw, splitting kindling because Dane showed me once and then stood back to let me figure it out.
My manicure is destroyed. My silk shells are hanging in a closet I haven't opened since day two.
Every morning I wake up at four fifty, pull on jeans and one of the stiff flannels that are finally starting to soften, lace boots that are losing their newness, and walk across the dark grass to his porch.
Every morning he's already there. Coffee made. No greeting beyond a nod.
We work.
And every night after dinner, we stand too close in his kitchen while he washes dishes and I dry them, our arms almost touching, the kiss from the creek sitting between us like a live wire neither of us will grab again.
Until tonight.
The corporate group arrives tomorrow. We've spent the day finishing the north route, clearing the last blowdown, marking the trail with orange tape.
My shoulders burn. My lower back aches in a way that feels earned.
Dinner was elk steaks he grilled on the porch while Hatchet watched from the paddock with what I'm learning is permanent judgment.
Now we're in his kitchen. Him at the sink. Me with the towel. The satellite phone on the counter between us, silent. Outside, the sky is doing something absurd with a variety of bright orange shades.
"You're good at this," he says without turning around.
"Drying dishes?"
"The work. The trail. All of it." He scrubs the cast iron. "Most people quit by day three."
"Most people aren't running from federal indictments."
He glances sideways. Almost a smile. That mouth twitch I've been tracking for five days, the one that means he finds me funny but won't commit to showing it.
"You ever think about what happens after?"
The towel stops moving in my hands. "After what?"
"After the two weeks. After whatever happens with your firm." He shuts off the water. Turns to face me. His sleeves are pushed up, forearms wet, that scar catching the overhead light. "Mountain Match says we're supposed to decide if this works."
My heart does something complicated. "And?"
"And I'm asking what you think."
Six days ago this man picked me up at a bus stop with a knife on his belt.
Five days ago he fed me elk stew and didn't ask why a corporate attorney was hiding in middle-of-nowhere Nevada.
Four days ago I watched him talk to a mule for ten minutes about the quality of the morning light while thinking he was the most interesting person I'd ever met.
Yesterday he kissed me by a creek and it rewired my nervous system.
"I think you already know what I think."
He steps closer. One step. The kitchen is small enough that one step puts him in my space, close enough that I can see the silver threading through his beard and the gold flecks in his brown eyes.
Close enough that when he takes the towel out of my hands and sets it on the counter, his fingers brush mine.
"Noelle."
"Dane."
"If I kiss you again, I'm not stopping this time."
My pulse hammers. "Good."
His mouth is on mine before the word finishes leaving my lips.
One hand on my jaw, the other sliding around my waist, pulling me flush against him.
The kiss by the creek was slow. Careful.
This one isn't. His tongue pushes past my lips and I open for him, grabbing fistfuls of his henley, pulling him down to me.
He tastes like coffee. His beard is rough against my chin. When I make a sound against his mouth, his grip tightens on my waist, fingers pressing into the curve of my hip hard enough that I feel each one.
"Bedroom," I say against his mouth.
He doesn't answer. Just lifts me. Both hands under my thighs, my legs wrapping around him, my back against the wall for one searing second before he carries me down the short hallway to his room.
The bed is made because of course it is.
Military corners. He lays me on it and stands over me, breathing hard, looking at me with an expression I've never seen on his face.
Hunger. Raw. Undiluted.
My fingers find the buttons on my flannel.
He watches me undo them. When the shirt falls open, his jaw tightens.
No bra underneath because the only ones I packed are underwire corporate torture devices I stopped wearing on day three.
His gaze drops to my bare breasts, my nipples already tight from the cold air and from him.
"Come here."
He pulls his henley over his head in one motion. Broad chest, dark hair trailing down his stomach, muscles earned from hauling pack frames up mountains for a decade. More scars than the one on his forearm. He kneels on the bed, lowers himself over me, mouth finding the curve of my neck.
My back arches. His lips drag down my throat, beard scraping the sensitive skin above my collarbone. When his mouth closes over my nipple, I gasp, my fingers threading into his hair. He sucks gently, then harder, his tongue flicking while his hand slides down my stomach to the button on my jeans.
"Lift."
My hips come up. He strips the jeans down my legs, taking my underwear with them. No ceremony. No hesitation. His eyes move down my body, naked on his bed, and something possessive flashes across his face.
"You're beautiful."
Coming from a man who rations words, it lands like a full speech.
He kisses my stomach. My hip. The inside of my thigh.
When his mouth reaches my pussy, my fingers grip the sheets.
His tongue drags flat through my folds, slow, deliberate.
He finds my clit with the precision of a man who reads terrain for a living, circling it, sucking gently.
Two fingers press inside me, curling up, stroking a spot that makes my vision white out at the edges.
"Dane." My voice doesn't sound like me. Wrecked. Breathless.
He doesn't rush. Works me with his mouth, his fingers, his patience. The orgasm builds from somewhere deep, rolling through me in waves that pull sounds from my throat I'd be embarrassed about if I could think. His free hand presses flat on my lower stomach, holding me open while he takes me apart.
When I come, my whole body bows off the mattress. He stays with me through it, gentling his tongue, easing me down. Then he's over me again, jeans gone, reaching for the nightstand. Condom. He rolls it on.
My eyes open. His face is close. Those brown eyes, dark now, locked on mine. He pushes inside me in one long stroke, filling me completely. My mouth falls open. He stays still for a beat, letting me adjust, his forehead against mine.
Then he moves.
Long, deep strokes. Slow at first, his hips rolling against mine, hitting an angle that sends sparks up my spine. My legs wrap around him. His hand finds my thigh, hitches it higher, changes the angle. Deeper. My nails rake down his back.
"Fuck, Noelle."
The words are gravel. Low. Almost reverent.
His pace picks up, harder now, his thumb finding my clit, rubbing tight circles while he fucks me.
The friction is unbearable. Every nerve in my body is focused on the place where we connect, his cock stretching me, his thumb working my clit, his mouth on my neck.
"Right there." My voice breaks. "Don't stop."
He doesn't. His thumb presses harder, circles faster. When the second orgasm hits, it tears through me, pulling him with it. He groans against my throat, hips stuttering, driving deep one final time. Holding there. Pulsing inside me while my body clenches around him.
For a long moment, neither of us moves. His weight is on me, heavy and warm. My fingers are still in his hair. Our breathing fills the small room. Outside, Hatchet brays once, then goes quiet.
"That mule has terrible timing," I whisper.
His shoulders shake. Actual laughter. Low, rumbling through his chest into mine. He lifts his head, and the smile on his face is the first full one I've seen. No twitch. No almost. Teeth, crinkled eyes, the whole devastating thing.
"I like you having you here.”
"In your bed?"
"In my bed. In my cabin." His thumb traces my cheekbone. "You’re welcome here for as long as you want."
My chest aches. The good kind. The terrifying kind. Because lying in this man's bed with his hand on my face and his body still inside mine, I realize the truth I've been avoiding since the bus stop.
This isn't a two-week trial. This isn't a fresh start in someone else's life.
This feels like mine.
"The corporate group comes tomorrow," I say.
"Yep."
"You need an employee who can handle herself on a three-day wilderness expedition."
"Already got one."
My fingers trace the scar on his forearm. The bear scar. The one he jokes about but never fully explains. "Dane."
"Yeah."
"I'm falling in love with you. Which is insane because it's been five days."
His eyes hold mine. Steady. Warm. Patient in a way that only a man who's comfortable with silence can be.
"Took me three," he says.
The laugh that comes out of me is wet, surprised, raw. He catches it with his mouth, kissing me slow, and when he pulls back, his forehead rests against mine.
"Your firm. The evidence. We'll figure it out."
"We?"
"We." No hesitation. "Nobody gets to you up here, Noelle. Not while I'm breathing."
Later, wrapped in his flannel sheets, my head on his chest, his hand tracing slow circles on my bare back, I listen to the absolute silence of a mountain with no cell towers, no traffic, no notifications from a world that tried to destroy me for doing the right thing.
Five days ago I arrived in Whisper Vale with two suitcases and a flash drive full of evidence.
Tonight I'm lying in a man's bed wondering if this is what safety feels like. If this is what home sounds like when everything around it goes quiet.
Hatchet brays one more time.
Dane's chest vibrates with another laugh. "He approves."
"How can you tell?"
"That's his approval bray. He's got four. Approval, disapproval, hunger, and one specifically for when I'm being an idiot."
"Which one did he use when you picked me up at the bus stop?"
"Idiot."
My laughter fills the cabin. His arms tighten around me.
And for the first time in seven months, I sleep without dreaming.