Page 122 of These Tears

Metal flashes.

His hand snaps around my wrist mid-swing. The force stops me so abruptly my shoulder screams, and the hatchet judders between us before he wrenches it from my grip, taking my glove with it.

Pain streaks up to my elbow.

I gasp, but the moment the weapon is loosen, he hauls me up against the largest tree.

With a grunt, he presses against me and my palm cracks over his face with a force that stings even me. His goggles fly clean off, disappearing into the snow like a thought snapped mid-scream.

A low, brief growl tears from him.

The sound leans far too close to pleasure.

Jesus Christ, who is this man?

I barely have time to scramble before one of his hands catches both my wrists in an iron grip and pins them against the tree.

I’m flattened against the trunk, the taste of metal-cold air filling my mouth as my ribs compress.

He holds me tight, his weight covering me from chest to hips like a living, burning shackle, his breath sawing against my ear, his chest heaving with restraint that feels as if it could break with a single wayward breath. I feel the hard throb of him through the fabric, the harsh flex of his thighs bracing in the snow, the tremor in his arms as though he’s holding himself back from something worse.

Our eyes lock.

He yanks down his face cover in the next beat.

And his mouth crashes into mine.

Cold lips.

Teeth.

Fear.

Need.

My head knocks back against the tree and the sound I make vanishes into him as his other hand clamps around my jaw, holding me there and drinking panic straight from my mouth.

My mind blanks, then floods as heat rips through me so fiercely I stop feeling the cold altogether. It bites at my knees, at my cheeks, but I barely feel it beneath the weight of him and the wild look in his eyes when he finally tears himself off me.

Our breaths shudder against each other. I drag air into my lungs and hate the sound that escapes with it.

He holds me like that with all the threats of this world at his disposal. As if he’s waiting for me to pick which one I want to be my last.

‘Don’t. Fucking. Move,’ he rasps against my lips.

But he doesn’t kiss me. He just keeps there. Fierce and unbearable, like a possibility that never comes.

‘If you move, I’ll forget every civilised thing I have in me, Leah,’ he breathes, words spilling against my skin. ‘Do you have… any… bloody idea… what you’re doing to me?’

I can’t answer. My tongue doesn’t work. My thoughts don’t connect.

All I can feel is him grinding against me and the way my body wraps around him in a reflex I didn’t give it permission for.

He draws back just enough to look at me. His eyes move over my face, searching, as if whatever he might find there could tip him one way or the other.

‘I love it when you fight.’

It’s worse than a threat because it’s honest.