Page 11 of Possessed By the Mountain Man
Aspen Taylor is a problem dressed in lipstick. Chaos in combat boots. A goddamn fever I can’t sweat out. She flung herself into my lodge just a day ago and she hasn’t stopped talking—or pushing—or getting under my skin—since.
She shouldn’t be here.
I shouldn’t want her here.
Neither of those facts change a damn thing.
“Generator’s dead,” I tell her, slamming the shed door closed behind me. “Power’s out until I can thaw the line.”
She’s standing in the living room wrapped in sweaters and defiance, arms stacked with pillar candles she found in storage somewhere, hair tied in a messy knot. Her nose is pink from the cold. Her eyes flash.
“Are you sure you didn’t kill it on purpose? Makes it easier for you to brood without overhead lighting.”
I stalk past her and throw another log into the fireplace. “If I killed it, you’d know. You’d be crying.”
“I don’t cry.”
“Then you’d be screaming.”
“That sounds like a threat.”
My teeth flash. “Promise.”
She mutters a sound that’s halfway between a scoff and a moan. “You’re unbearable.”
“You’re still here.”
“Unfortunately.”
“Then pack your shit, princess.”
She tilts her chin. “Never.”
She’s infuriating. Wild. Lawless.
And she has no idea what she does to me.
By sundown, the temperature drops fast. The heat is gone. The mountain bites hard and sharp.
She tries to make a bed on the floor like an idiot.
“You’re not sleeping down here,” I tell her.
She spreads a blanket and lies on it dramatically. “I won’t be bullied by flannel and biceps. Anyway, that guest room you gave me is freezing.”
I haul her up and march her toward the stairs. “You’ll freeze down here.”
“By the fire?”
“Won’t hold all night.”
“I’m fine.”
“You’re—” I stop walking and spin her to face me. “You’re shaking.”
“I vibrate at a high emotional frequency.”
“Jesus Christ,” I mutter. Then I lift her off her feet and throw her over my shoulder.
