Page 69 of Trapped with the Forest Ranger
For long moments, neither of us moves. Just harsh breathing and racing hearts, gradually slowing. His weight pins me, grounding me as I float in a state of bliss.
Eventually, he pulls out carefully. Gathers me in his arms. I curl into his chest, boneless and sated. His fingers card through my tangled hair. Lips press against my temple.
When he finally speaks, his voice is gentle. “Go to Australia.” His arms tighten around me. “Chase the thing you’ve worked for. Prove to yourself that you can. Shine as bright as you can, and if you still want this with me—wantus—when you come back, I’ll be here. I’m not going anywhere.”
I want to argue. Want to rage against the logic of it, but deep down, I know he’s right.
If I stay, I’ll wonder.
Thatwhat-ifwould poison us.
“I hate that you’re right,” I whisper against his chest.
“I know.” His chest rumbles with a quiet laugh. "I hate it, too."
We don’t sleep. Not really.
Instead, he makes love to me again. And again. Slow and tender, as if memorizing the exact shape of my body beneath his hands. Then harder, rougher, and frantic with the urgency of goodbye.
There are moments when we laugh breathlessly into each other’s mouths, and moments when he fucks me like it’s the last thing tethering him to the earth.
When the first light of dawn slips through the window, we’re tangled in each other, sweat-damp and aching, skin marked with the memory of everything we didn’t say.
Because today, I leave.
Chapter 19
I stand at the gate,backpack biting into my shoulders, camera case clutched like it might anchor me to something solid. Like it might stop me from unraveling.
My body still aches in the most decadent, savage ways. My body is a map of him.
Of Us.
Bruises bloom across my hips like love notes in violet and gold, his beard left my thighs tender and flushed, and every shift of my weight awakens the soreness he carved into me.
My hips are sore from how hard he held me. My thighs tremble with the ghosts of his hands, the rasp of his beard, the way his mouth dragged over my skin like he was memorizing the taste of goodbye.
I still feel the way his hand flattened across my skin, grounding me.
And lower—where he claimed me so fiercely—I ache. Still slick with the memory of him. Still swollen from being taken, again and again, until I couldn’ttell where he ended and I began.
I shift again, thighs pressed together, and it hits—the pulse. The slow, throbbing reminder that I was his. That I am his, even as I board this plane and leave him behind.
God, I didn’t expect it to feel like this. Like grief and glory braided together. Like walking away from fire and into shadow.
Some stupid part of me—hopeful, delusional—thought he might come. Thought maybe I’d turn and see him at the end of the corridor, arms crossed, flannel shirt open at the throat, eyes burning with the kind of need that makes men forget their reasons and chase what they want.
But he’s not here.
Just ticketed passengers with suitcases and cell phones, calling out to bored children or texting people who are waiting for them on the other side.
No one is watching me with reverence. No one is imagining my skin under their hands. No one here will miss me like he will.
His voice echoes inside me—gravel and warmth, pain and purpose—all tangled into the words he whispered against my hair as sunlight slid across the cabin floor. He lives in my bones now. That final command, murmured into my hair as the sun crept across the floor of his cabin, painting us both in honey and farewell:
“Go. And come back to me whole.”
I choke on the way it echoes inside me.
