Page 12 of Ensnared By the Mountain Man

“Yeah. I needed to be somewhere that didn’t remind me of her. Somewhere I could start over and be useful to people and not think about the fact that the one person I took care of my whole life was gone.” I pull the pot off the heat. “Turns out, I just found a whole town to take care of instead.”

I pour the hot chocolate into his two mugs. Plain white, no handles—the kind of mugs a man buys when he doesn’t plan on having anyone to share them with. I carry them to the counter where he’s standing now—close, closer than the doorway—like he crossed the kitchen while I was talking and I didn’t notice.

I hold out his mug. He takes it. Our fingers overlap on the ceramic, and neither of us lets go right away.

“Thank you,” he says, and his voice is lower than it was a minute ago, rougher, like something in it is coming undone.

“Try it first. Your kitchen is working against me.”

He takes a sip. His eyes close, just for a second, and when they open, he’s looking at me in a way that makes my breath go shallow. It’s not the careful look from the bakery or the steady, focused look from the trail. This is something else. This is a man who has been holding himself back for months and is running out of reasons to keep doing it.

“It’s good,” he says.

“It would be better with vanilla.”

“It’s good, Morgan.”

The way he says my name turns it into something I’ve never heard before. He’s standing close enough that I can feel the heat coming off his body, and the kitchen is small and the light is low and the mugs are between us like the last barrier either of us is holding onto.

I set mine on the counter. He sets his next to it. The ceramic clicks against the wood and the sound is loud in the quiet cabin.

“Elias?”

“Hmm?”

I don’t know what I was going to say. I don’t think it matters because he’s looking at my mouth and I’m looking at his and the space between us has been shrinking since the morning he stood at my counter and said please. Maybe since the first morning he walked into Sugar Moon six months ago and didn’t say anything at all.

His hand comes up. His fingers touch the side of my jaw carefully, like he’s giving me every chance to step back. My skin burns where he touches it, and I don’t step back. I lean in.

He makes a sound. Low, quiet, somewhere in his throat. His thumb traces along my cheekbone and his other hand finds my waist and I stop breathing because this is happening, this is actually happening, and I chose it. Not because someone needed me, not because I was being helpful or kind. Because I want him. Just him. Just this.

His forehead drops to mine. We stand there, breathing each other’s air, his hand on my jaw and mine on his chest where I can feel his heart pounding.

“Tell me to stop,” he says.

“No.”

8

ELIAS

She said no.

The no wasn’t to me. It was to stopping. And that single word burns through every wall I’ve built in four years, every town I’ve left, every morning I’ve walked out of that bakery when all I wanted to do was stay.

My hand is on her jaw, and her heart is beating against my palm where she pressed it to my chest. She’s looking up at me with those brown eyes, and I’m done. I’m done being the man who nods and leaves. I’m done with the distance and the silence and the careful, empty life I built so I’d never have to feel anything this big again.

I kiss her.

She tastes like chocolate, and the sound she makes against my mouth undoes the last thread of control I’ve been hanging onto. My hand slides from her jaw into her hair and her fingers curl into my shirt and I back her up until she hits the counter. She gasps at the contact, and I pull back just enough to look at her—to make sure—because I need to know this is what she wants.

“Don’t stop,” she whispers. Her eyes are wide and dark and certain.

I lift her onto the counter. Her legs wrap around me and her hands find my face. She pulls me back to her, and the kitchen is small and the light is fading, and nothing in my life has ever felt this necessary.

I kiss her harder, tasting the chocolate and the heat of her, and my hands slide down her sides to the hem of her T-shirt. I tug it upward, and she lifts her arms to help me, the fabric whispering over her skin before I toss it to the kitchen floor.

Her bra is next—simple, black, practical—and I unhook it with fingers that feel clumsy with need. It joins the shirt.