Page 27 of Trapped with the Forest Ranger
“I’ll grab you dry clothes. Start the fire,” he adds, already moving like a man fleeing an ambush. “There’s a towel in the cabinet. Use it. And get under the blankets.”
“Caleb—wait—” My voice catches, tangled with everything I want to ask. Want to feel again.
But he’s already at the door. His hand on the knob. Rain slants behind him in silver sheets, catching the porchlight like static.
“I need to check the water line,” he says, voice low. Distant. “Make sure the runoff didn’t wash anything out.
Bullshit.
We both know it.
The storm can wait.
I can’t.
“Caleb.”
He stops.
One hand pressed against the doorframe. Shoulders tight. Jaw clenched. His head bows like he’s praying for control.
“I just need…” His voice scrapes out of him, low and rough. “I just need a minute.”
And then he’s gone.
The door shuts behind him with a sound that feels like a slammed heartbeat.
And suddenly the room is too quiet. Too still. Too empty.
The fire hasn’t been lit yet, but the heat that filled this space only moments ago is already gone—dragged out into the storm with him. I stand there, heart pounding, body humming, lips still aching from the memory of his mouth on mine.
And the silence he left behind wraps around me like smoke.
Not warmth.
Just the echo of a man who kissed me like he couldn’t stop…
Then ran like he had to get away.
I’m left standing there, heart pounding, lips still tingling from the kiss I never saw coming but can’t stop reliving. The air he leaves behind feels cold and expansive, as if the room has forgotten how to hold heat once he walked out of it.
Chapter 8
Sleep is a joke.
I spend most of the night tangled in damp sheets and worse thoughts—replaying that kiss on an endless loop. The heat of his mouth. The bite of his fingers digging into my waist. The way he kissed me like he was starving, and I was the only thing left to feed on.
I analyze every breath, every flick of his tongue, every sound that escaped me. And reach exactly zero conclusions.
Except that I want it again.
Desperately.
Dangerously.
By the time I crawl out of the cot, it’s late morning and the fire’s burned low. Caleb stands at the stove, back rigid, broad shoulders tense beneath clean flannel. Not the same one from yesterday. That one was soaked through, clinging to every sculpted inch of him like sin
This one hides more, and somehow, that only makes it worse.
