Page 25 of Possessed By the Mountain Man
Doesn’t flinch.
Doesn’t evenpretendto care that I’m a six-foot-four threat still holding an axe and dusted in sawdust and cold rage.
She just keeps humming some off-key Halloween tune, hips swaying in those short black shorts that have no business being worn in late October.
The woman is infuriating.
The woman is trouble.
The woman ismine—and that last thought hits me so hard I have to lock my jaw to hide it.
Because she’s not mine.
And that’s a problem.
I stomp snow off my boots and set the axe by the door. “Aspen.”
“Yes, Mountain Man?” she says sweetly—fake sweet, wicked sweet—still not looking at me.
“I told you: no decorations unless they’re fire-safe and approved by me.”
“Well lucky for you,” she says, stretching higher to tape a bat garland to the wall, “I don’t do approval.”
“I mean it.”
“I bet you do.”
I walk toward her, slow and lethal. “I’m not joking, Aspen.”
She glances over her shoulder then, red lipstick bright, eyes lit like a match. “You never are. That’s why it’s so fun to ruin your day.”
I step closer. “You think this is a game?”
“I think my entire existence is a blessing on your cold, dead soul, and one day you’ll thank me.”
“Unlikely.”
“Possible,” she sing-songs.
I exhale, long and hard, trying to keep my cool. “Get down.”
“From the table or emotionally?”
“Both.”
She grins.
Hell. That smile.
It does something ugly in my chest.
I reach up—close enough to smell the vanilla on her neck—and wrap a hand around her waist. Her breath locks. Good. She needs reminding who’s in charge here. I lift her off the table like she weighs nothing and set her down on the rug, slow, deliberate.
She stares up at me. No fear. Just defiance.
“You’re bossy,” she says.
“You’re reckless.”
