She breaks.
Her whole body goes tight and she says my name like a prayer and I feel her pussy clench around me in waves and it's the hottest fucking thing I've ever felt.
I fuck her through it. Don't stop. Don't slow down. Just keep driving into her while she's still coming and when she finally goes limp against the rail I'm right there on the edge.
"Harper—"
I bury myself deep and let go. My orgasm hits like a freight train, everything going white behind my eyes, and I feel myself pulsing inside her and her body taking it all and for a moment there's nothing but her and me and the mountain night around us.
When I come back to myself, I'm leaning over her, both of us braced on the rail, both of us breathing hard.
I pull out carefully. She makes a small sound and I feel my cum start to drip down her thigh and something primitive in me wants to keep her exactly like this.
Instead, I pull her jeans back up. Button them. Turn her around and kiss her soft this time, slow, the opposite of what just happened.
When I pull back, she's looking at me with eyes that are dark and satisfied and something else I don't have a name for yet.
"That was—" she starts.
"Yeah."
She laughs. Soft and real. "You didn't even let me finish."
"Didn't need to."
I pick her up. She makes a surprised sound and wraps her legs around me automatically and I carry her inside, kick the door shut behind us, and take her straight to the bedroom.
This time we make it to the bed.
This time I take my time.
And when she falls asleep hours later with her head on my chest and her hand over my heart, I lie there in the dark and feel something that's been locked down for years finally settle.
She's mine.
Chapter 17 – Harper
I wake to coffee and sunlight, full gold pouring through the cabin like the mountain decided everything will be okay now.
Ronan isn’t in bed.
I sit up, pull the sheet around me, and find him at the kitchen counter in jeans, pouring coffee, his back to me. The light catches every line of muscle and scar like a map written into his skin.
"You're staring," he says without turning around.
"I'm appreciating."
He turns. Hands me a mug. Black, the way I've been drinking it since that first morning, the way he noticed without asking.
"Derek's car crossed the state line at oh-three-hundred," he says. "Stone confirmed it. He's gone."
I take a sip of coffee. Let that settle. "For good?"
"Judge put the word out through some contacts. Derek Sutton shows up within two hundred miles of Copper Ridge, we'll know about it before he gets gas." He sits on the edge of the bed. "But my read is he won't. Men like him don't operate where they can't control the terrain. He knows he lost here."
I set the mug down. Look at this man who spent last night making sure I understood exactly what protection feels like, and I feel something shift in my chest.
"Thank you," I say quietly.
