I climb him.
My legs wrap around his waist and he holds me one-armed, his forearm locked under me like a shelf, my weight nothing to a frame built for the ring. He turns us. My back presses against the rough bark of the cedar and his body pins me there, seven feet of heat and muscle between me and the winter, his cock pressing against my inner thigh through the thin cotton of my underwear. His free hand cradles the back of my skull, his fingers spread through my hair, gentle despite the growl rolling through his chest.
I reach between us. I shove the cotton aside and guide him to my entrance. The head of his cock pushes against me, thick and hot. I'm wet enough that the first inch slides in and the stretch burns through me, full and relentless. I gasp and grip his shoulders and he stops.
His whole body locks. Every muscle in his arms, his back, his legs braced wide on the frozen ground.
I cup his face.
"Garrett."
His eyes find mine through the snow falling between us. Fierce with a need he still doesn't believe he's allowed to have.
"I choose you."
Not a plea. Notdon't leave.Not the voice of a woman asking for reassurance.
A declaration.
His hips roll forward. He pushes deeper, slow, the stretch building until he's fully inside me and the sound I make carries through the firs and startles a bird from the canopy above us. His forehead drops against mine. The growl drops low enough that I feel it in my spine, in my jaw, in the wood pressed against my back.
He moves.
The cold stops existing. He radiates enough warmth that steam rises off his shoulders where the snow keeps falling and melting, and my skin is flushed and burning everywhere he touches. His arm holds me steady. His free hand moves down my stomach, his thumb finding my clit. He reads my face. He adjusts. He figures out what I need in the space between one breath and the next and gives it to me.
My fingers dig into the fur at his shoulders. I rock my hips against him, meeting each thrust, taking him deeper, and the drag of his cock inside me paired with the pressure of his thumb builds a heat low in my belly that winds tighter with everystroke.The purr hums where his chest presses against mine, so deep I feel it behind my ribs.
"Garrett." I can't keep my voice level.
"I know, sha'li." Three words. The most he can give me and they're enough. His thumb circles faster. His hips drive harder, the tree creaking behind me, the rough trunk scraping my bare back, the growl in his chest splits raw and possessive and animalistic.
My orgasm hits in a wave that starts at my centre and rolls outward through my thighs, my stomach, my chest, my hands locked on his shoulders. I clench around his cock in tight, pulsing spasms, my head drops back against the trunk and his name tears out of me into the cold air. He thrusts twice more, deep, his arm tightening around me, and he comes inside me with a shudder that rolls through his whole body. His face buries in my neck. The growl dissolves into the purr,the vibration spreading through the trunk at my back,low enough to shake snow from the branches above.
We stay pinned together against the tree.
His forehead against my neck. My legs locked around his waist. The snow falling on us both, melting against his skin, sticking in my hair. My heart slamming so hard I feel it where my ribs press against his.
He lifts his head. His eyes are wet. His mouth finds mine. He kisses me like he's afraid I'll disappear if he stops.
I shiver. Not from fear. Cold catching up now that the flush is fading from my exposed skin. He feels it. He pulls out of me, careful, gathers me against his chest with one arm under my knees, and carries me back through the snow, up the steps, through the cabin door.
He wraps me in every blanket he owns.
The quilt from the couch, the wool throw from the back of the rocker, the heavy comforter from his bed hauled through the hallway and draped around my shoulders until I'm buried in a nest on the floor by the hearth and the fire he's rebuilding blazes high enough to turn the whole room gold. He feeds it log after log, the kindling catching, the flames climbing, and then he lowers himself to the floor beside me and sits with his back against the base of the couch.
I stop shaking. The fire does its work. He does the rest, radiating warmth through the layers between us. I lean into him and press my face against his arm and close my eyes.
His hand finds mine under the blankets. His thumb strokes once, across my knuckles.
I wake on Christmas morning in his bed. His arm locked around me, heavy and warm, his chest pressed to my backand the purr steady against my spine.The carved hummingbird sits on the nightstand. Through the window, the clearing has gone white overnight. Fresh snow covers the tracks we left, the path from the tree line to the porch, the tire tracks from the sedan. All of it buried.
My phone buzzes on the nightstand.
I slide out from under his arm and sit up against the headboard. FaceTime. Mami, and behind her the chaos of aCastell Christmas: six siblings crowding the frame, Papi in the background holding the youngest nephew upside down by one ankle, Tía Valeria yelling from the kitchen about the pozole. I angle the camera toward the window so they can see the snow, the fire still glowing in the hearth.
"Mija, where are you?" Mami's face fills the screen, dark eyes sharp, the crease between her brows that means this conversation isn't over.
"In Oregon, Mamá. I'm exactly where I'm supposed to be."
