Ahalf hour later, I'm huffing and puffing, sweat prickling at my hairline despite the cold.
The Black Pine Mountains at dusk are nothing like I imagined when Elias first carried me up here unconscious and upside down. The trail—if you can call it that—winds through lodgepole pines so tall they block out the last of the failing light, their roots knuckling up through the earth like old hands.
The ground is soft in places, muddy where the snowmelt has pooled, and hard and root-crossed in others. My breath mists in front of me in little white clouds. The air smells of pine resin and cold water and something green and alive underneath it all, the mountain exhaling the last of winter.
I'm wearing his sweatpants—belted with a length of rope he tied himself, looped twice around my waist with a knot that took him approximately four seconds—and his thermal over the t-shirt.
Every exhale stings my lungs pleasantly, the kind of cold that makes you feel alive rather than miserable.
He gave me a compass, a map, and a set of instructions. All delivered with that dark, hungry look in his eyes that made my stomach drop to my knees.
That stillness I found in him when he first brought me here—that careful, controlled quiet—was completely gone. He was tense, vibrating, as if he were running on something I couldn't name. High on it even. His jaw tight, his green eyes tracking my every movement as he explained the route.
I had to force myself to look at the map instead of him.
I check the time now. Thirty-five minutes. The trail marker should have appeared ten minutes ago according to his map. The head start is over. He could be coming for me any minute now.
My gaze returns to the watch, my stomach dipping suddenly. It's sturdy and plain and completely wrong for a wedding dress, which is exactly why I fought the stylist to keep it on that morning.
Marco gave it to me two years ago.You're stronger than you think, Iris. He'd said it like he meant it. Like he saw something in me I never did.
I can’t believe the lengths he went to give me my life back. He did it without telling me because he knew I'd argue.
I swipe at my cheek with the back of my hand.
But Elias—grumpy, scarred, impossible mountain man—gave me myself back. Showed me what it felt like to be seen. To be wanted. To take up space in a room and have someone look at you like you're exactly where you're supposed to be.
For a moment, when he said he'd keep me if there was a baby, it nearly broke my heart clean in two. But I saw the instant regret cross his face. That flash of horror at himself, the way his jaw went tight.
It's strange how well I can read him after three days. I know the particular set of his shoulders when he's fighting himself, theway his eyes go distant when something costs him more than he wants to admit.
He didn't mean it the way it came out. I know that in my heart and so I agreed to let him do this his way. My faith in him, in my love for him, in the connection between us is so strong, so absolute that every inch of me buzzes.
My pulse kicks up, no longer just from the exertion. Somewhere behind me on this mountain, my mountain man is already moving. Already hunting.
And then I hear it.
The rhythmic thud of footsteps on the earth. Steady. Unhurried. Getting closer.
I stuff the compass in my pocket and run.
The cold air rushes against my face, my lungs burning, the sweatpants threatening to slide despite the rope belt as I crash through the undergrowth, pine branches catching at my sleeves.
The ground pounds up through my feet, root and mud and stone, my breath coming in ragged gasps that smoke white in the dark air. The smell of pine is sharp and wild around me and underneath my own sweat and his thermal against my skin I can smell him—that dark clean scent that has learned every part of me in three days.
The footsteps behind me sound close. Then his warmth hits my back, close enough to feel before he even touches me. And then an arm reaches out and I'm tripping, the earth rushing up to meet me.
Clever hands break my fall even as a heavy body covers me, his weight warm and solid and everywhere at once, the cold ground beneath me and the heat of him above, pine needles and damp earth sharp in my nostrils.
"Got you," Elias says at my ear, his breath hot against my neck. "And now I'm going to claim you in the most primal way possible.”
"God, yes. Please."
Heat races through me from my scalp to my bare ankles. His hands find the rope knot at my waist—one pull and it's undone—and the sweatpants slide down my ass. The cold mountain air hits my bare skin immediately, a shock that makes me gasp, gone in an instant as his large palm covers me.
"Thirty-three minutes, Princess." His voice is rough and fractured at the edges, nothing like his usual controlled gravel. "It felt like hell, like a lifetime. I thought I'd go mad."
His palm strokes over the curve of my ass, then his fingers find my entrance and stroke expertly. I moan into the earth beneath me. An arm pulls me to my hands and knees, pine needles pressing into my palms, the cold ground solid under me.
