Page 12 of Jealous Lumberjack

“Four. You tried to run.”

My face burns.

“Five. You pointed a gun at me.”

The next slap lands sharper. My breath hitches, eyes watering, not from pain but from the storm brewing inside me.

“Six. You snooped through my things.”

My pulse skitters. How the hell does he know?

“Seven.” His voice softens, almost intimate. “You never said thank you.”

My throat closes, a hot sting behind my eyes.

He pauses. Then his palm presses heavier against me, not striking, just laying flat against my stinging butt. And…did he just caress me?

Something in my chest lurches, and I tell myself the breathlessness is because of this absurd situation, not…not…

“Eight. Nine. Ten.” His breath fans hot against my neck. “Is deserved punishment because you’re the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen in my life. And I know in my bones—five yearswithout a woman—that you being here,” his voice roughens, primal, and yes, this time his fingers close around one cheek, gripping it tight enough to make my breath catch, “you’re about to bring chaos on my head, little rabbit. Aren’t you?”

My body quakes. My mouth opens, but no words come out.

His hand lifts again, and he adjusts me better on his thick thighs. And that’s when I feel it.

The thick, hard ridge beneath me, pressing against my stomach.

He’s aroused. So aroused it scares me.

Because that thing feels impossibly massive.

He brings his hand down in three sharp raps, the hardest yet. Hot tears sting my eyes as even hotter stings erupt to life between my legs.

I barely register that he’s loosened his grip on me before I’m tumbling off him to the floor. I crab walk backward once again on my elbows and heels, gasping and breathless.

My hair is all over the place, and I know I look a sight with my dress around my thighs.

“You…you can’t do that!”

He widens his knees, plants his elbows on them. “Can. Did.”

Unbidden, my eyes droptothe thick log threatening to rip through his fly. He’s ragingly aroused.

But when my eyes fly back to his face, he doesn’t look ashamed. Doesn’t look like he cares I’ve noticed. His jaw is tight, his eyes blazing, and his whole body hums with feral power.

My chest heaves, heat flooding places I swore I’d never let another man touch again.

He leans closer, eyes raking up and down my body, lingering on my bare legs, my chest, my mouth. Then, in a gruff rumble, he whispers, “Now. You ready to behave, my little rabbit?”

And I know I’m in more danger than I’ve ever been in my life.

Knox

I can still feelher body writhing across my lap, her small fists pounding at my thigh. Can still feel the heat of her, the way every sharp cry threaded fire straight into my blood.

I told myself I’d never let another woman close. Never risk the kind of obsession that rots a man from the inside out. But here I am, spanking this girl like she’s mine, and the truth’s burning through me—my lines began to blur the second she fell into my snare.

She’s trembling on the floor before me now. And it’s not just from fear.