Page 67 of Trapped with the Forest Ranger
He leans into me slowly, deliberately like a wolf assessing prey. His heated gaze licks down my spine. Every nerve ending screams for contact.
The silence stretches, thick with tension. My skin prickles. My core clenches on emptiness.
"You thought control meant keeping you here." He stops in front of me and catches my chin with calloused fingers. Forces my eyes to his. "But real power is knowing when tolet go. When to walk away. When tomakesomeone else walk away."
His thumb brushes my bottom lip. I fight the urge to suck it into my mouth.
He steps forward. Crowds me back until cold wall meets heated skin. His clothed body presses against my nakedness—rough denim, soft cotton, hard muscle.
"And you—Harper—you would've stayed." His breath feathers across my face. "You would've twisted yourself in knots trying to be what you think I need. And six months from now, you'd wake up beside me with resentment in your eyes. You'd blame me for what you gave up. And that?" His grip on my chin tightens. "That would kill what we're building before it ever had a chance to start."
Tears prick my eyes because he's right. Because he sees me too clearly. Because he's willing to hurt us both tosaveus.
"So this is for my own good?" My voice cracks, thick with emotion and arousal.
"No." His eyes burn into mine. "If you're talking about me fucking you, that's going to be for me—to remember you during the next six months, and for you to decide if you want to return to me." His thumb traces my bottom lip. "If this is what you want… If I’m what you want, then you'll honor my wishes. Go to Australia. Think about what you want, and whether that means more of this."
"But that’s not… It makes no sense."
"Not asking." He looms closer, towering over me. "This is me choosingusby letting you go. You’d resent staying. That resentment wouldroteverything we’ve started."
"Then prove it," I snap. "Show me."
A beat. Then another. His eyes darken—not with anger, but something else. Something deeper. Wreckage and want, grief and need. A storm I feel in my bones.
He closes the distance.
His mouth crashes into mine, a brutal, desperate kiss that tears the air from my lungs. This isn’t softness. It’s not seduction. It’s obliteration. Teeth. Tongue. Hunger. He devours me like he’s drowning and I’m the only breath he’ll ever get.
When he pulls away, we’re both gasping, chests heaving. His forehead rests against mine, our breath mingling in jagged rhythm.
“You don’t get it, do you?” His voice is wrecked. “This is me loving you.”
The words hit harder than any touch ever could. My knees almost buckle.
"Outside. Now."
He takes my hand and leads me into the night.
Barefoot, breathless, nerves alive, I follow. The cold bites, sharp and bracing, but I barely feel it over the wildfire under my skin. The scent of pine and woodsmoke. The silence of snow-draped forest. Moonlight turns the clearing silver, dreamlike.
The boulder behind the house waits, still warm from the day. He stops beside it, turns to face me, and cups my jaw in one broad, calloused hand.
“You remember what you said… about this stone?” His voice is low, rough, vibrating through me. “What I said I wanted to do to you? Out here like this?”
Heat floods my face. My breath catches.
I nod.
His mouth curves in a wicked, knowing smile. “Yeah. You remember.”
I swallow hard. My thighs press together involuntarily, breath quickening.
But then—he lets go.
Steps back.
The loss of contact makes me sway. The sharp edge of disappointment slices through my belly. Until his hands are suddenly at my waist, lifting me effortlessly onto the boulder. It’s smooth against my bare skin, warmed by the sun but cooled by evening, grounding and solid beneath me.
