Page 49 of Possessed By the Mountain Man
Aspen stands there watching me, breathing hard.
Not scared but soft. Open. Flushed.
That look again.
The one she shouldn’t have given me.
The room goes quiet. Heavy.
She breaks it with a whisper. “I can’t believe how utterly unbearable you are some days.”
My throat goes tight. Shit.
Her eyes hold mine. Raw. Too close.
I say nothing.
She steps closer until she’s in front of me. Close enough to breathe me in. Close enough to ruin every wall I’ve built since the day my sister died and I walked away from a world I didn’t want to belong to anymore.
“Say something,” she whispers.
“No.”
Her brows knit. “Why not?”
“Because if I do, I’ll touch you.”
Her breath stops.
Her cheeks flush.
And she whispers—God help me—“So do it.”
Fuck.
My control shreds like old rope.
I reach for her, hauling her close by the waist—but I stop with her body flush to mine, barely holding myself back from pinning her to the nearest surface.
“No,” I rasp. “Not yet.”
She blinks. “What?”
“Not like this.”
She frowns. “I don’t underst?—”
“I’m not taking your mouth because fear spiked your pulse,” I growl. “I’ll take it when you beg me for it. When you’re shaking because you need me. When you look at me like I’m not a mistake you’re about to regret.”
Her lips part.
Her eyes heat.
Her voice trembles. “And what if I already do?”
She doesn’t know what she’s doing to me. She can’t.
But her hands slide up my chest anyway—slow, cautious, teasing the line between safe and fucked—and my self-control goes razor thin.
