Page 96

I blink.

Yep. There go the panties. Vaporized.

And of course he says it like it’s nothing. Like he’s just stating the weather. Forecast calls for Maple being in heat for the rest of the week.

He steps closer, finally closing the distance, and adjusts the rifle in my hands with careful precision. His fingers brush mine, warm, steady, rough in a way that makes my brain short-circuit and my knees consider quitting their job.

“You’re holding too tight,” he says, voice near my ear. “Relax your grip. Trust your body.”

“Trust it to do what?” I ask, because I’m the worst. “Misfire and embarrass myself?”

His hand curls around my hip without asking. Like he owns it. “You don’t miss,” he says. “I’ve watched you. You overthink, but your instincts are sharp.”

I should say thank you. Or smile. Or at least remember how to be a functional adult woman in daylight. But instead, I whisper, “You been watching me, Brock?”

His fingers flex. Just a little. Just enough to say yes without him saying it. “Long enough to know you don’t need me to teach you how to shoot,” he says, stepping around to face me now. “But you asked anyway.”

I don’t deny it. “Maybe I just like the company.”

“Or maybe,” he murmurs, sliding the rifle from my hands, setting it down with terrifying gentleness, “You like being told what to do… once in a while.”

Oh no.

That sentence goes straight to my clit like a flashbang.

I can’t even play it cool. My whole body goes hot, my breath shallow, my thighs ready to cause problems.

And he sees it. Of course he does. Brock sees everything.

“Thought so,” he says.

He crowds me back until I hit the tree behind me, not hard, just enough to trap me there. His palms settle on either side of my head, big and scarred and grounding. I stare up at him, mouth dry, heart going a mile a minute, and I want to say something clever, something filthy and sharp and confidently insane.

But all I manage is, “You gonna kiss me or interrogate me?”

That earns me the ghost of a smile. Not a grin. Not a smirk. Something quieter. Something dangerous.

“Kissin’,” he says. “That’s your department. I don’t start that.”

“Why not?” I ask, breathless and already rising up on my toes to chase the heat of him.

“Because when I start somethin’, I finish it.”

And then he kisses me. Not soft. Not sweet. Claiming.

Like he’s been holding it back for weeks and decided this, now, is the moment he stops pretending he’s unaffected by me. It’s teeth and tongue and a growl low in his throat when I moan into his mouth, clutching the front of his shirt like I need something to hang onto or I’ll float the fuck away.

And when he lifts me, grabs my thighs and hauls me up like I weigh nothing, and pins me against the tree, I don’t even gasp. I just wrap around him like the shameless, bunkered-up, prepper-crazed nymphomaniac I am and let him hold me there while he takes his time exploring my mouth like it’s a secret he’s waited too long to unlock.

The rifle’s forgotten. The world is quiet. And I am so far gone I might never come back.

Because this man? This grumpy, gun-toting mountain panther of a man?

He’s not following my plan.

And I think I like it that way.

His mouth’s on mine and I’m gone.