Page 7 of Marked by my Stalker (Inked and Possessive. Rugged Mountain Ink #1)

Kera

“Don’t answer. Easy. Don’t answer ever again. We’ll cut down some trees, build a little cabin, and live up here for eternity not answering anyone or anything.”

Jack stares toward me as though he’s already carving the blueprint of that cabin in his mind. The phone keeps ringing.

His gaze flicks toward the dash, then back to me. There’s no judgment in it, no pressure, just a silent question. One neither of us are ready to face.

I press my forehead to his collarbone and close my eyes.

“Don’t,” I whisper.

He doesn’t. Jack lifts the phone, presses the side button, and silences the ring. Just like that, the world feels like ours again.

“She’ll call back. I give her five minutes, tops.”

I don’t know the words to say to my mother that’ll explain why I’ve just spent the afternoon fogging up windows with my dad’s old buddy. It’s probably because they’ve never been said before. There are no combinations of syllables that make this all better.

I think I’ll just stay up here forever until the wild reclaims me.

“Little girl.” Jack tucks his hand under my chin, lifting my gaze. His touch is warm, grounding, like the sun that’s just started to dip behind the ridgeline. “I can’t lie to her.”

“Yes, we can, Jack! No one needs to know about any of this. We can see each other out here. Mom never comes to the mountains. Hell, she never leaves Nebraska.”

He stares at me long and hard as though that’s not the right answer, but it’s the one I like the best. The one that doesn’t disappoint my mother.

“The sooner she knows, the sooner she can manage it all.”

“There’s no managing this.” I laugh under my breath, a sound laced with disbelief. “Are you kidding? What we’re doing is totally fucked up. Completely fucked. She’s not gonna give us her blessing and throw us a wedding.”

Jack tilts his head, smirking. “A wedding? That escalated quickly.”

I groan, half amused, half mortified. “Sorry, I didn’t mean—”

But before I can finish, he pulls me into his chest and my heart thuds against him like it’s trying to echo every word.

“It’s terrifying,” he adds, “how easily I fit with you.”

And just like that, time folds. Everything behind us and ahead of us feels far away.

How did we get here?

I mean, some people spend years waiting to feel seen, and here I am, looking at a man over twenty years older who sees every bead of sweat coming from my very guilty brow.

This is insane. Totally, completely, recklessly insane, but is there any better way to describe freedom?

He leans in to kiss my forehead, breathing me in with a steady sort of pressure that eases every worry and ache I’ve ever felt.

“Hey,” he groans low, his rough palms snagging on the fabric of my sweater. “They’re here.”

Staying close to his massive frame, I turn forward, keeping my back against his chest as I stare out at the beauty before us through the windshield of the truck. Pine trees, rolling clouds, the peaks of Rugged Mountain, and galloping across the valley… a band of wild horses.

They’re just as he described, whipping, hooves kicking up dust, muscles carved into motion like some living poem. I catch my breath. I don’t even try to hide it. They move with unapologetic, untamed grace, like the world was made for their excitement.

Jack doesn’t speak. He doesn’t have to. His chest rises and falls slowly against my back, grounding me in the moment, reminding me that with him I’m always safe.

“They’re perfect,” I whisper.

He hums in agreement, a sound that reverberates through his chest and into me.

The last of the wild horses vanish over the ridge, their silhouettes swallowed by horizon and dust, but the moment doesn’t slip away. It lingers, stitched into the air like a memory still being born.

It’s electric. Something in those galloping hooves shook loose a reminder that life is about wild love and quiet belonging. They weren’t just animals. They were everything I’ve been afraid to say out loud.

I turn slowly, still wrapped in Jack’s arms. “Thank you,” I whisper, eyes meeting his.

His smile is soft but certain. “For what?”

“For this. For reminding me what it’s like to be alive.”

The words hang between us, warm and trembling. His gaze flicks from my mouth to my eyes and back again, and then he leans in.

Fast, hungry, warm. His heat steals my breath as restraint unravels into raw need.

Our lips press together, and his hand hooks onto the back of my neck as he presses in with a growl. The sound is rough and archaic, desperate and yearning, like he’s trying to fight this, but he can’t.

He pulls me forward closer against his chest. “Why do you have to taste so fucking good?”

I smile, panting between each kiss as the phone rings again. “Are you ready to ignore it yet?”

“We have to answer,” he says quietly. “Maybe I’ll invite her out here. Tell her in person, show her the mountains, let her fall in love with all this too.”

“No way!” My stomach drops and twists at the thought of telling my mother anything real.

Last week, I said I skipped dinner, and she sent two separate delivery drivers with food.

I can’t imagine how she’d respond to me having found feelings for a man she hired to protect me, for my dead dad’s friend.

Jack reaches for the phone and my heart stalls.

“Hey, Linda. How’s your day?” His voice sounds less than innocent, though maybe it’s all in my head.

“Not great,” my mother groans. “I can’t get ahold of my Kera bear. Where is she? Everything okay?”

I really wish he’d take the phone off speaker.

Jack glances toward me, gauging whether or not I want to answer. Spoiler, I don’t. I really don’t. I really, really don’t.

“Hello?” my mother presses.

Dear God, the words are gonna spill from my lips like a wildfire I can’t help but spread. I just know it. I’m not good with secrets. Never have been.

“Hey, Mom.”

Her voice stills, quietly conveying that she can’t fathom why I’d be with Jack. “Kera?”

“Yup, right here,” I answer, my voice thin, carried by the heat still emanating off my skin from Jack’s touch.

“What’s going on? Why are you two together?”

“Oh, umm… I was just…” I glance up at Jack hoping to find the words in the strong line of his jaw.

“I brought her to the mountains to photograph the horses, Lin. She’s okay.” His voice is calm and steady, like it always is.

“Horses? Why are you two hanging out, and why are you in the mountains? Jack, she shouldn’t be in the mountains. There are cliffs in the mountains. She could fall off or a bear could attack her.”

A squirrel darts across the gravel near the truck as silence stretches tense and bristling. Even the wind seems to pause.

“Mom, stop. We’re taking pictures.” And touching each other inappropriately.

“I don’t understand,” she presses. “Why are you two hanging out? You hated the idea of a bodyguard, Kera.”

“I did,” I stammer. “Still do.” I stop talking before I say something stupid.

The pause on the line stretches longer this time, like she’s grasping the subtext but refusing to believe it. “Okay, well… I guess I’ll drop my bomb then. I’m at your dorm. I thought it would be fun to stop by and see my Kera bear.”

My heart stalls. For what feels like an eternity, my chest is empty of life. I glance up at Jack, worry stitched into my eyes.

“That’s a long drive, Lin. When did you leave?”

“Oh, I left early this morning, but stopped a few times. That’s when I sent Kera those pictures I’d saved on my phone.

” There’s something off about her tone that I don’t like.

It’s ominous like she knows something. That, or now I’m paranoid.

“Anyway, I’m just sitting here waiting for you, chitchatting with your friend Penny. ”

Oh God. My stomach tightens. Why does she do this? Why does she insist on inserting herself into every layer of my life? I’m an adult! I’m in college! I can take care of myself!

“Where’s Brick today, sweetheart? He have a football game tonight? We could go watch him together.”

I swallow hard. “He does, but I’m not going. I was, ugh,” I need to rip one of these Band-Aids off, “I found him sneaking out of another girl’s room this morning.”

“Honey,” she presses, “you overthink everything. I’m sure it was innocent. Brick is a good boy. He helped fix your dad’s old truck up. Guys like that wouldn’t waste their time if they don’t care about you.”

My chest tightens and I glance up at Jack, ready for him to take the reins. Thankfully he does.

“I was there, Lin. He’s been manipulating her. He’s a jerk.”

“No,” her voice rises as though she’s going to choose this to stick her teeth into, “he’s a helpful guy. He’s good for you. Plays football like your dad did.”

“Mom,” I sigh as a hawk caws overhead, “Brick isn’t dad, and he was most definitely sleeping with some other girl. I saw it with my own two eyes,” I say, my tone rising, ragged and rough.

I love my mother, but I don’t know how to help her anymore. She’s stuck, fixated on the past, desperate for me to do everything the way she sees fit despite the fact that it’s rotting me from the inside out.

Jack pulls me against his chest. “Everything is good here, Lin. We’ll head back into town and meet you for dinner.

There’s a place right around the corner from the university that’s good.

Italian place with a big orange flag waving outside.

You can’t miss it. We’ll call when we’re twenty minutes out. ”

“Okay,” her voice cracks with something ominous I can’t place, “I’ll see you then.”

Jack hums out a reply as I squeeze the tips of my fingers deep into the sockets of my eyes.

When the line has disconnected, I glance up at him. “Do you see what I’m dealing with? She didn’t even ask if I was okay.”

“I do now, yeah. That’s pretty bad.” He glances to the side and back again. “You okay?”

I nod, but it feels fragile. Like if I move too fast, the whole day will splinter apart. I don’t want this moment to end. I want to stay up here forever in Jack’s arms, safe from everything and everyone.

Jack’s warmth is steady against my skin, and that should calm me, but it only makes the ache sharper…

because I know I’ll never really have him.

Never have this. Never know what it’s like to lie out on a bed, cradled in his arms. Never know what it’s like to roll a grocery cart down the center aisle and throw random shit inside on a Saturday morning with him touching my back.

Never know what it’s like to build a life with him.

I exhale slowly, the weight easing with the deep rumbling sound of his breath. I should know better. This day we’re having can never be anything more. We can’t exist in the world, Jack and I. It would never work.

“We came up here for pictures,” he says. “We should take some.”

I nod and lean into his lips gently, savoring the way his beard tickles my face. I should stop all this. I know nothing can come of it, but this feeling is like a drug, and I’m one hundred percent, wholeheartedly, without a shadow of a doubt, a complete and total addict.