Page 14 of Horned to be Wild
But he knew better. Annette had taught him that. Allowing himself to forget that would only lead to heartbreak.
With a heavy heart, he stood up and went back inside, leaving the door open for Mabel to follow. Instead she trotted off to her pen.
He sighed and went to bed, hoping that he could find some solace in sleep. He didn’t. The memory of their encounter was on a permanent loop in his brain.
What would have happened if he hadn’t ended the kiss?
The image of his huge, rough hands on her creamy skin flashed through his mind and he groaned. He was far too big for her. Even if by some miracle she was willing, her soft little body couldn’t possibly take him. He couldn’t be with her. Couldn’t touch her.
That knowledge didn’t stop her from haunting his dreams. In his dreams, she welcomed his touch, arched against him, whispered his name with a breathless urgency that made him burn. He kept waking up with her name on his lips and his cock aching. He finally wrapped his hand around his shaft and brought himself to a swift, unsatisfactory climax, hoping it would help him regain control. But his mind kept replaying the kiss over and over again and as soon as it did, he was immediately hard again.
By the time the sun rose, he was exhausted, and his cock still ached. An icy shower did little to cool the heat coursing through his veins, but he forced himself to get dressed, determined to bury himself in work again, to somehow purge her from his system.
When he opened his cabin door, he found Lila sitting in his rocking chair and the shock nearly stopped his heart. She was holding a covered basket that filled the air with a mouth-watering scent, her hair tumbling in loose waves around her shoulders, and her eyes bright despite the early hour. She looked entirely too cheerful, too composed—not at all like someone who’d been manhandled and then abandoned the day before.
“Good morning, grumpy!” she said cheerfully, a teasing glint in her eyes as she rose to her feet.
He stood frozen, one hand still on the door handle. He’d prepared himself for fear, for disgust, for awkward avoidance. This bright-eyed, smiling woman left him utterly bewildered.
“What are you doing here?”
“Waiting for you to wake up. I didn’t want to interrupt your rest.”
The words were innocent enough, but he suddenly felt exposed, as if she could see all those erotic dreams that had filled his sleep and could hear her crying out her name as he came.
“I need to work,” he growled, but she put her hand on his arm before he could move away.
“I know, that’s why I’m here.” She lifted the basket in her other hand. “And that’s why I brought you a bribe.”
“A bribe?”
He couldn’t keep up. He stared at her, searching for any sign of discomfort. There was none. If anything, she looked more relaxed in his presence than she had the previous day.
“I brought pancakes as a bribe because I need your expert advice on repairing my porch.”
A wave of relief washed through him, so profound it nearly buckled his knees. She wasn’t afraid. She wasn’t repulsed. She was here, standing on his porch, and looking at him with those warm brown eyes and offering him food.
“Hmph,” he grunted, the familiar sound now laced with something that might have been happiness. “Fine. But I get the first pancake.”
He reached for the basket, and as their fingers brushed, a small, almost imperceptible tremor ran through his hand. The brief contact sent a current of electricity through him, reigniting every sensation from their encounter the day before.
Her smile widened, and the knowing look in her eyes told him she’d felt it too.
He stepped aside to let her in, taking a deep breath of her tantalizing scent as she passed. He knew this was dangerous territory. Every instinct warned him to maintain his distance, to protect himself from the inevitable pain when she eventually tired of him.
But watching her move comfortably through his space, chattering about her plans for the cottage as she unpacked the still warm pancakes, he couldn’t bring himself to care. She looked as if she belonged here, in his cabin. In his life.
She joined him at his kitchen table with a pot of tea and an enormous platter of pancakes. The first bite of pancake melted on his tongue, as sweet and perfect as the woman who’d made them. As he watched her gesture animatedly about rotting porchboards, her eyes bright with plans and possibilities, he knew with absolute certainty that he was lost.
But for now, at least, he didn’t want to be found.
CHAPTER NINE
The boards creaked beneath Lila’s feet as she handed Torin another nail. Their fingers brushed, sending a tiny electric shock up her arm, and she smiled up at him. This was the third day in a row she’d shown up on his porch in the morning with breakfast and a request for help. Each time, he greeted her with the same disgruntled huff, but he didn’t send her away and he didn’t fool her. He was enjoying this as much as she was, and she breathed a silent thank you to Etta.
Asking him for help had been Etta’s first suggestion.
“Males love to feel useful, especially monster males. Most of them have an innate protective instinct.”
