Page 46 of The Lumberjack and the City Slicker

So I cut the distance.

Not with force.

With choice.

I raise her hand—still trapped in mine—and press my mouth to her knuckles, just once, like a test.

Her breath shudders.

The sound wrecks me.

Her fingers curl against my palm, and something inside me snaps loose.

I let go of her hand only to bracket her waist, pulling her close with the kind of care that feels like violence because it takes effort not to take more than she’s offering.

“Tell me to stop,” I murmur against her temple, voice raw. “Clara—tell me to stop and I will.”

She tilts her face up, eyes bright, fearless in a way that makes my throat tighten.

“Don’t,” she whispers.

One word.

And that’s it.

All bets are off.

I kiss her.

Harder than I mean to at first—months of restraint, years of silence, all of it crashing into this moment—but I catch myself, adjust, slow it down, because she isn’t a fantasy, and she isn’t mine to devour.

She makes a sound into my mouth that feels like relief.

Like surrender.

Her hands slide up my chest, gripping the flannel at my shoulders, pulling me in like she’s been waiting for this too.

I deepen the kiss anyway, because I can’t help it, because the taste of her is warm and sweet and human, because it makes the whole cabin feel suddenly too small for the heat building between us.

She presses closer, the robe parting just enough for me to feel the curve of her thigh against my jeans, the soft give of her belly against my hard stomach, and my control fractures again.

I lift her—without thinking, without effort—and she gasps, arms tightening around my neck as I carry her a few steps back until her hips bump the counter.

Her eyes flash wide.

“Greyson—”

I kiss her again, cutting off whatever she was about to say, because words are dangerous right now.

Words make promises.

Words open doors.

My hands slide up her sides under the robe, fingers splaying across her warm skin, and I swear I can feel my own name carving itself into my bones.

She shivers—not from cold this time.

It goes straight through me.