Page 9 of Matched with the Small Town Chef (Angel’s Peak #4)

Ten Things and One Confession

I join him, the cot creaking beneath our combined weight. "Is this your idea of the real Angel's Peak experience?"

"Not quite how I planned it." His chuckle rumbles through the small space. "But authentic, nonetheless. Mountain weather waits for no one."

Silence stretches between us, filled with the crackle of the fire and the howling wind. This strange intimacy—trapped together, wearing borrowed clothes, isolated from the world—feels more exposing than our physical encounters.

"I expected you to pounce the moment we were alone in here." The words escape before I can filter them.

His eyes meet mine, amusement mixed with something darker. "Is that what you think this is about? Just sex?"

Heat floods my cheeks. "Our previous encounters suggest a certain... pattern."

"Maybe I want to know the woman I've been having mind-blowing sex with." He shifts to face me more fully. "Let's play a game. Ten things."

"A game?" I raise an eyebrow.

"Ten things we have in common. I'll start." He leans back against the wall. "I hate cilantro. Tastes like soap."

A startled laugh escapes me. "It does. Everyone thinks I'm crazy when I say that."

"Genetic trait. About twenty percent of the population has it." He gestures for me to continue. "Your turn."

"I can't whistle." I demonstrate my pathetic attempt, producing only a rush of air.

"Neither can I." He tries, failing spectacularly. "Drove my grandfather crazy. He could whistle any tune perfectly."

"Your grandfather?" The mention of family snags my interest.

"He raised me after my parents died. Car accident when I was seven." His voice holds old pain, long since accommodated but never truly healed. "He was the cook at the old Angel's Peak Hotel before it burned down. Taught me everything I know about food."

"Is that why Timberline is so important to you?" I ask, forgetting momentarily that I'm supposed to be hiding my professional interest.

His eyes sharpen, but he answers. "Partly. It's his legacy as much as mine." He pauses, weighing something. "Also my redemption."

"From what?"

The stove pops loudly, sending a shower of sparks against the grate.

"I had a restaurant in Denver. Very high-end, molecular gastronomy stuff.

Investors, magazine features, the works.

" His jaw tightens. "My business partner decided he wanted full control.

Sabotaged equipment, stole recipes, spread rumors to suppliers.

By the time I figured out what was happening, the restaurant was bankrupt and my reputation was trash. "

The article my editor sent flashes in my mind. There's always more to the story.

"That's why Lucas gave me Timberline. He was one of the few who didn't believe the rumors.

" Hunter's fingers trace patterns on the rough wool blanket.

"He's not just my friend—he's betting his entire lodge on me.

The Haven is operating on thin margins, staying afloat mainly because of the restaurant. "

Guilt claws at my insides. The weight of my pending review feels suddenly crushing.

"Your turn." He nudges my knee with his. "Something else we have in common."

We continue the game, discovering shared traits both trivial and significant. We both sleep on the left side of the bed. Both lost a parent too young. Both prefer savory to sweet. Both feel most at peace in the hour before dawn.

"Last one." I've shifted closer during our exchange, drawn to his warmth. "I'm terrified of disappointing people who believe in me."

His eyes hold mine—unflinching, open. There’s something raw behind them, something recognizing and wounded, like he’s let me see a part of him no one else does.

“That makes ten.”

Outside, the storm still claws at the cabin walls, but inside, the atmosphere has shifted. Heavier. Deeper. No longer lust, no longer just escape.

“I have a confession,” I blurt, the words pulled from me like breath from lungs.

His hand comes up, cupping my cheek with devastating gentleness. The rough pad of his thumb brushes over my lower lip—slow, deliberate, anchoring me in sensation.

“Confess to me.”

The invitation curls in the air between us. And somehow, it’s enough to make me drop every mask.

“I like it when you take charge.” My voice is low, but it trembles. Not from fear—from truth. “It turns me on when you… control things.”

His smile is quiet. Dangerous. Tender.

“Part of taking charge,” he murmurs, lips ghosting across mine, “is knowing when to go slow…” A kiss. Barely there. “…and when to heat things up.”

I swallow hard. “If you had full control… what would you do to me?”

That stillness returns—the kind that prickles across my skin, anticipatory and thick. When he speaks, his voice is velvet wrapped around steel.

“First, I’d bind your hands. Nothing fancy—just enough to make you feel helpless.”

My breath hitches.

“Then,” he continues, brushing hair back from my face, “I’d strip you slowly. One piece at a time. I’d make you stand there and take it—let you feel every second of being exposed just for me.”

My thighs press together involuntarily. He notices. Of course he does.

“Then I’d test you.” His hand slides to the curve of my neck.

“A few soft taps of my hand. Just enough to make you gasp. Then a little harder. Just enough to make you wonder how much more you can take.” His mouth moves to my ear.

“I’d put you on your knees. Not because you had to—but because you’d want to. Because you’d ache to serve me.”

A shudder moves through me so violently that I nearly collapse against him.

“I want that.” The words break out of me, desperate. “I want you to do that to me.”

His next kiss is slow and possessive, a claiming made of breath and heat and restraint. No rush. No hunger without patience. Just the promise of what’s to come.

When his hands finally slide beneath the flannel, it’s not with urgency—but with reverence. Like he’s unwrapping something sacred.

The cot creaks beneath us as we shift, adjust, and explore.

A new rhythm. A new hunger.

My body arches into his touch as he learns me again—not just to possess, but to command. To know.

And I let him. Because for the first time in my life…sex feels like freedom.

His mouth moves down my neck—not kissing so much as claiming, the heat of his breath drawing goosebumps across my skin.

“Lie back,” he murmurs.

I obey.

The cot creaks beneath me as I sink into it, heart pounding so loudly I’m sure he hears it. My hands tremble as they rest by my sides, but I don’t hide it. I don’t want to.

Hunter stands over me, eyes raking down my body like he’s mentally mapping where he’ll touch first.

“Do you trust me?”

The question lands like a stone in a still lake—rippling, reverberating.

“Yes.”

That’s all he needs.

He takes off his belt slowly—not for shock, not for show—just purpose. Precision. He threads the leather between his fingers, then kneels beside the cot.

“Hands up.” His voice is soft, but unyielding.

I lift my arms, breath catching as he wraps the belt around my wrists. Not tight. Just firm. Restrained. His fingers are careful as he tugs it snug, testing the resistance, watching my face the entire time.

“Too much?”

“No.” My voice breaks, needy.

“Not enough.”

The smile he gives me is pure fire.

He raises my bound hands over my head, securing them to the bedframe with a strip of flannel torn from his own shirt. Improvised. Personal. Intimate. When he leans over me, the muscles of his arms bracket my body, and his mouth hovers just above mine.

“Now you don’t get to touch until I say.”

He strips me slowly, reverently—each button undone like a secret whispered only to him. The flannel peels away, revealing skin already flushed, aching.

“You look better like this,” he murmurs, trailing fingers down my sternum. “Open. Exposed. Waiting.”

My hips lift without thinking, searching for friction, for contact.

He presses one hand to my thigh to still me, eyes narrowing with quiet command.

I still. I burn.

He trails kisses down my torso, lingering at my hip, my belly, each touch a slow dismantling of my control.

Then he sits back on his heels and—with deliberate ceremony—runs a single fingertip up the inside of my thigh.

“Now I’m going to test you.” His voice is low. Serious. “Not to hurt you. But to show you what you can take. What you want to take.”

I nod—breathless, helpless.

“Please.”

His hand lifts.

The first slap lands soft—barely a sting. More sound than sensation. But it makes me gasp.

“Good girl.”

A second one—firmer. Just enough to spark heat beneath the surface.

“Let me hear you.”

I moan—shocked by the sound that escapes me. Raw. Honest. His.

“That’s it.”

He rewards the sound with his mouth between my thighs, slow and devastating.

I arch, bound and exposed and completely at his mercy.

“Stay still.” His voice strokes across my skin like velvet over flame. Not raised, not rushed—just absolute. My wrists tug reflexively against the belt binding them to the frame, but I obey. “You don’t move unless I say.”

His fingers skim the inside of my thigh again, a whisper of touch that leaves me straining for more. But nothing comes.

Nothing… and everything.

Because that’s the game now—he controls the pace, the pleasure, the torment of waiting.

“Breathe for me.”

I do. Inhale. Exhale. Shaky. Loud. Aroused beyond reason.

Hunter watches me—not just my body, but the way I react to the absence of sensation. The way I arch into empty air. The way I clench around nothing.

“Good girl.”

Two words. They land harder than his hands.

He leans in close, breath warm against my ear.

“I’m going to use you exactly how I want. And you’re going to take it. Because that’s what you need, isn’t it?”

I nod, breathless. Desperate.

His hand closes around my jaw, firm but careful, angling my face toward him.

“Words, Audrey.”

“Yes.” I choke on the word. “Please.”

A growl rumbles in his chest—satisfaction and hunger, restrained only by discipline. He moves with calm efficiency, pushing my legs wider, adjusting my hips, and then… stepping away.

The loss of him steals the air from my lungs.

“Hunter—”

“When we’re like this, you don’t speak unless I ask you a question.” His tone sharpens—still quiet, but no longer soft.

I go still. The shame is instant… and so is the heat.

He watches the war play out across my face. His gaze darkens, but there’s pride in it too. He sees me. All of me.

And I want to give him everything.

He moves back between my thighs, brushing his knuckles along my soaked panties.

“You’re trembling.” He smiles faintly. “Perfect.”

He peels the fabric down agonizingly slow, lips following the motion, kissing the path he exposes. Then his mouth is on me again—not gentle this time, but claiming. Ruthless.

I cry out. Hands straining against the belt. Back arching. Body unraveling.

“Stay down,” he murmurs, not even looking up. “Take it. All of it.”

I try. God, I try.

But it’s too much—his tongue, his fingers, the weight of being owned in this moment.

“Hunter—please—I can’t?—”

He looks up now, mouth wet with me, eyes alight with heat and power.

“Yes, you can.” His voice is steel wrapped in silk. “I decide when you come. Not you.”

He returns to his task like a man starving. Every flick of his tongue is deliberate. Every sound he pulls from me is absorbed with purpose. Controlled chaos beneath his hands.

And when he finally slides two fingers inside me, curling them in just the right way, I nearly scream.

“That’s it,” he murmurs. “Let me break you open.”