Page 18 of Mountain Storm
Sleep doesn't come—not when every heartbeat reminds me something fundamental inside me has changed, and I don't know if I'll ever get it back. My body hums like it's been rewired, nerves exposed and vibrating beneath every breath. I can still feel the ghost of his mouth on my skin, the relentless press of his tongue, the gravel-thick growl when he told me I belonged to him.
He didn't fuck me. Not technically. But that was the most possessive, depraved, completely dominant thing anyone has ever done to me. And the worst part? I didn't stop him. I couldn'tstop him. My body betrayed me. Hell, my soul betrayed me. And now I'm tangled in a kind of shame I don't know how to wash off.
The storm still howls outside, but in here, it's quieter. No more thunder. No more lightning. Just the crackle of the fire and the echo of my own disgust. I pull the covers tighter around me. They smell like him—woodsmoke, leather, and something uniquely male. Something primal.
I should hate it. I should hate him. Hate the way he unraveled me without mercy, peeled back every layer of resistance until I was trembling and raw. But the truth settles like a brand against my skin—I don't hate the bastard. I crave him in a way that scares me.
I crave the way his voice curls through my blood like smoke, the way his presence consumes the air until I can't breathe without him in it. I crave the domination, the control, the brutal certainty of being his—because when everything else in my life is chaos, he's the only thing that makes me feel anchored. And that terrifies me more than anything else ever could.
I force myself out of the bed, shivering as the cool air bites at my skin. I find one of the flannel shirts folded on the edge of the dresser and tug it over my head. It swallows me, sleeves falling past my fingers. His scent hits me again, and I breathe it in before I can stop myself.
My knees nearly buckle as I clutch the flannel tighter around my chest, the fabric suffocating with his scent. Shame prickles under my skin, hot and crawling. The part of me that should be screaming in outrage is silent—drowned beneath a tidal wave of need. What kind of woman breathes him in like a drug and begs for another hit? What kind of woman burns for the man who broke her?
A weak one. God help me, I'm so fucking weak.
The floor creaks beneath my bare feet as I creep into the main room. It's empty. Good. I don't want to see him right now.I don't trust what I'll say. Or do. My gaze drifts toward the fire, then to the heavy wooden desk tucked near the wall. There's a drawer cracked just enough to tempt me. I shouldn't. But I'm already moving.
I pull it open and find files—not just one or two but dozens. Some labeled. Some not.
My fingers hover just above the edges of the manila folders, the cardboard soft and worn from too much handling. The drawer smells faintly of cedar and ink and something else—something private, like the breath of a secret finally exhaled.
As my throat tightens, my thumb brushes the top one, a tremor skittering down my spine. My name is on it. Handwritten in all caps. Bold. Unapologetic. It stares up at me like a challenge, daring me to open it. I hesitate—because deep down, I already know what I'm going to find. Newspaper clippings. Handwritten notes. Photographs.
My breath catches.
The first photo is of me.
Younger. College, maybe? My smile is wide, the kind I haven't worn in years. The kind I buried when Dad died. It's an old candid—me at a book signing. Not one of the popular ones. A small indie store in Seattle. I only remember because they had a rescue cat with one eye and an attitude.
I dig deeper. More photos. Some recent. Some far too recent. One catches me mid-jog—ponytail swinging, earbuds in, face flushed from the morning heat. Another shows me leaving the gym, damp hair pulled back, tank top clinging to my skin, oblivious to the lens that found me. Then one that sends a fresh wave of unease crawling up my spine—snapped outside a bookstore in Houston last year, after I gave a talk on cartel corruption and the journalists who'd gone missing covering it. I'd lingered to chat with a student afterward, answered a few questions about safety in the field, smiled for someone's phonecamera. That smile is frozen in the photo now—easy, open. Exposed.
He's been watching me. My fingers go cold, breath catching like it hit a wall of ice. A rush of memories surge forward—every time I thought I felt eyes on me that I dismissed, every subtle unease I chalked up to paranoia. But it wasn't paranoia. It was him.
My hands shake as I flip through them. The notes are worse.
She hasn't changed much.
Still stubborn.
Still won't admit she's mine.
She'll come back.
A sound claws its way up my throat—a jagged, choked thing caught somewhere between a sob and a bitter laugh. It rips free before I can swallow it down, raw and aching, a sound scraped from the hollow part of me I didn't know was still bleeding.
"Find what you were looking for?" His voice slashes through the silence like a blade.
I whirl, papers slipping from my hands, fluttering like wounded birds to the floor. He stands in the doorway, filling it with raw, immovable mass—arms crossed over that broad, scar-ridged chest, the shadows carving menace into every hard line of his body. Barefoot. Shirtless. And still managing to radiate danger like heat off asphalt, every inch of him a warning I didn't heed.
"How long?" I whisper. My voice trembles, but I force it steady. "How long have you been stalking me?"
A muscle jumps in his jaw, the restraint in his eyes more chilling than rage. His voice drops, rough and unyielding.
"Since the day I dragged you to that hospital… the day I should've kept you."
"You're sick." The words hiss from my lips, but even as I say them, my voice cracks—not with doubt, but something worse. Recognition. Fear.
He shrugs. "I watched. I made sure no one else could take what was mine."
