Page 36 of Rescue in Misty Mountain

Her mouth is on mine, hot and demanding.

I walk her backward toward the couch, hands under her jacket, her fingers in my hair, and everything else fades as I tug her leggings down her hips and settle myself between her legs.

As I bury my face between her thighs and she cries out my name, there’s nowhere on Earth I’d rather be.

ELEVEN

TESSA

Later, I rest my head on his chest, tangled in blankets and the kind of silence that feels sacred.

His heart beats steady beneath my ear—like it’s always been there, waiting for mine to sync up beside it.

“You can tell me,” I whisper.

I’m not even sure what I’m asking for him to say. I can just tell that he wants to speak. And I want him to know that I want to know whatever he has to say. Everything.

He’s quiet for so long I almost think he won’t.

Then his fingers thread through mine, calloused and warm.

“Before I got into animal rescue…”

I keep my head against his chest, listening to his heart.

“I lost someone,” he says. “During a fire.”

I don’t move. Just breathe. Just listen.

“My partner, Avery. We were part of a hotshot crew—Smokejumpers. We were trying to evacuate a family in Alaska before the winds shifted. We thought we could make one more trip in.”

He pauses, the weight of it landing in my chest before he even finishes.

“I made it out with the family. Barely. Avery didn’t.”

“Oh, Gage...”

His voice is low and rough around the edges. “After that, I couldn’t go back in. I couldn’t sleep. Every time I closed my eyes, I kept seeing the look on his mom’s face when I gave her the news. So I came here. Figured I’d be better off alone. No one to lose. No one to fail.”

I squeeze his hand, holding on like it’ll make the memory hurt less. “But you’ve built something here. Something good.”

He turns to face me. His eyes—gray and stormy—lock onto mine.

“And then you showed up,” he says. “All sass and sweetness and that mouth—” the faintest ghost of a smile curves his lips “—and I didn’t know how to let you in.”

I reach for his face, cup his cheek. “You don’t have to do it alone anymore.”

There’s a shift between us. Something deeper. Something that can’t be undone.

Then the radio crackles from the shelf, slicing through the quiet.

“Gage. You copy? Got a situation. One of the eagles—you know the one with the bandaged wing—was spotted near the southern ridge. It looks like there was a rockslide.”

He’s already moving. I don’t even have time to process before he’s out of bed, pulling on pants, boots, jacket.

“Wait—don’t go alone,” I say, sitting up, heart already thudding.

“I have to move fast.” He grabs his pack, checking the straps. “I’ll radio in when I reach her.”

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