Page 4 of Hero

Sinuous tendrils of heat lick every inch of my skin with exquisite torment as he captures my tongue and holds it hostage.

He latches onto my waist with his other arm, holding me against his gigantic frame. His body is scorching. Waves of heat ratchet up my temperature and skyrocket my pulse.

Holy hell.

He kisses me like it’s his god-granted liberty. Like he was born to hold my tongue for ransom in exchange for my mewls and whimpers.

Concerns—my family, marriage, the white picket fence, and a husband who would come home to me every day and hold me at night, once solid foundations to build my place in the world, shatter into fragments and land at my feet as debris.

When he breaks the kiss, I feel transformed.

“You okay, darlin’?”

How can you ask that when you just snatched my consciousness and turned my knees to jelly?

“Save me,” I whisper, before I’m able to stop myself.

He squats down, hooks an arm around my legs, and easily lifts me onto his shoulder. I’m too kiss-drunk to protest or explain that carrying me like a proud caveman is not what I meant.

I’m too busy quelling the butterfly uprising in my stomach. Because he kissed me like he needed me, like his entire existence was staked on the meeting and merging of our lips.

And now, in cool, languid strides, he marches over to his pickup and gently puts me in the bed of the truck.

I spot a small crowd of people pointing their phones in our direction. Dad looks outraged, mother looks like she’s about to have a stroke and Ophelia folds her arms and pouts. Even the man Silas was pursuing, now cuffed to a light pole, wears a look of disbelief.

No one stops him, it’s like they’ve accepted that he’s staked his claim to me and that I now belong to him.

He climbs into his car and the engine purrs to life before he revs it and pulls away from the curb. I draw my knees to my chest and hug them as the distance between me and my family increases.

The look on Dad’s face tells me that he’s less bothered about his daughter being kidnapped and more concerned that his lottery ticket is being stolen.

I get an inkling about our destination as the air grows crisper and the scent of pine trees grows stronger. We’re going up Thunderpeak mountain, ascending the foothills on winding roads that twist and turn, through sharp bends around the mountain.

He’s taking me away from all my worries and fears into a fantasy land. This is too freaking unreal.

My brain is scrambled—the kiss, the hot-as-sin mountain man, being tossed over his huge shoulder, and the feeling of being wanted for the first time in my life all play a role in the hostile takeover of my mind.

And by the time I make a full recovery, it’s too late. I’m in his cabin.

In his bed.

Silas

Adrenalineand lust course through me. I’m running on pure instinct.

What the fuck have I done? I took a woman.My woman,my body screams.

I fire off a text to Mason to tell him that I’ve left the mark cuffed to the lamp post outside the town church. A job half-assed. I’m not proud of it. No doubt my client’s going to be up my ass about how I’ve handled this one and will probably cut some of the reward money, but none of that matters now.

She’s the only thing that matters.

But what the hell was I thinking? I protect civilians, but while hauling her to my truck, I was primed to gouge out the eyes of any guy who dared to look at her. I took a sick pleasure in tossing her weasel fiancé into the bushes. The thought of a little prick like him even getting close enough to get a whiff of my beautiful girl’s scent pissed me off royally. I mean, he didn’t even have stubble. His face was as smooth as a baby’s bottom.

And beautiful doesn’t even come close to describing her cinnamon-kissed eyes flecked with gold, and her porcelain skin that I want to caress beneath my fingers, and those plump lips that stir up something wild inside me whenever I think of them.

My dick was hard as iron the whole time I drove up to my cabin. And why the hell not? She’s who my body was made to breed with, to choose as the woman who’s going to carry my children.

I pace up and down the living room of my cabin, shooting intermittent glances up at my bedroom.

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