Page 11 of Mountain Storm (Mountain Shadows #1)

CARYN

Idon't sleep. Not really. Not after what he did.

Every time I close my eyes, it replays in flashes—his mouth on mine, my body arching against his, his voice rasping in my ear like gravel and sin.

The sheets are warm but feel like shackles, heavy with his scent.

My breath stutters every time I move, reliving the weight of him pressing me down, pinning me in place.

There's heat in my blood that won't burn off, no matter how far I pull the blanket up or how hard I try to forget the way his hands mapped me like he already owned every inch.

Sleep doesn't come—not when every heartbeat reminds me something fundamental inside me has changed, and I don't know if I'll ever get it back.

My body hums like it's been rewired, nerves exposed and vibrating beneath every breath.

I can still feel the ghost of his mouth on my skin, the relentless press of his tongue, the gravel-thick growl when he told me I belonged to him.

He didn't fuck me. Not technically. But that was the most possessive, depraved, completely dominant thing anyone has ever done to me.

And the worst part? I didn't stop him. I couldn't stop him.

My body betrayed me. Hell, my soul betrayed me.

And now I'm tangled in a kind of shame I don't know how to wash off.

The storm still howls outside, but in here, it's quieter. No more thunder. No more lightning. Just the crackle of the fire and the echo of my own disgust. I pull the covers tighter around me. They smell like him—woodsmoke, leather, and something uniquely male. Something primal.

I should hate it. I should hate him. Hate the way he unraveled me without mercy, peeled back every layer of resistance until I was trembling and raw. But the truth settles like a brand against my skin—I don't hate the bastard. I crave him in a way that scares me.

I crave the way his voice curls through my blood like smoke, the way his presence consumes the air until I can't breathe without him in it.

I crave the domination, the control, the brutal certainty of being his—because when everything else in my life is chaos, he's the only thing that makes me feel anchored.

And that terrifies me more than anything else ever could.

I force myself out of the bed, shivering as the cool air bites at my skin. I find one of the flannel shirts folded on the edge of the dresser and tug it over my head. It swallows me, sleeves falling past my fingers. His scent hits me again, and I breathe it in before I can stop myself.

My knees nearly buckle as I clutch the flannel tighter around my chest, the fabric suffocating with his scent.

Shame prickles under my skin, hot and crawling.

The part of me that should be screaming in outrage is silent—drowned beneath a tidal wave of need.

What kind of woman breathes him in like a drug and begs for another hit?

What kind of woman burns for the man who broke her?

A weak one. God help me, I'm so fucking weak.

The floor creaks beneath my bare feet as I creep into the main room.

It's empty. Good. I don't want to see him right now.

I don't trust what I'll say. Or do. My gaze drifts toward the fire, then to the heavy wooden desk tucked near the wall.

There's a drawer cracked just enough to tempt me. I shouldn't. But I'm already moving.

I pull it open and find files—not just one or two but dozens. Some labeled. Some not.

My fingers hover just above the edges of the manila folders, the cardboard soft and worn from too much handling. The drawer smells faintly of cedar and ink and something else—something private, like the breath of a secret finally exhaled.

As my throat tightens, my thumb brushes the top one, a tremor skittering down my spine.

My name is on it. Handwritten in all caps.

Bold. Unapologetic. It stares up at me like a challenge, daring me to open it.

I hesitate—because deep down, I already know what I'm going to find.

Newspaper clippings. Handwritten notes. Photographs.

My breath catches.

The first photo is of me.

Younger. College, maybe? My smile is wide, the kind I haven't worn in years. The kind I buried when Dad died. It's an old candid—me at a book signing. Not one of the popular ones. A small indie store in Seattle. I only remember because they had a rescue cat with one eye and an attitude.

I dig deeper. More photos. Some recent. Some far too recent.

One catches me mid-jog—ponytail swinging, earbuds in, face flushed from the morning heat.

Another shows me leaving the gym, damp hair pulled back, tank top clinging to my skin, oblivious to the lens that found me.

Then one that sends a fresh wave of unease crawling up my spine—snapped outside a bookstore in Houston last year, after I gave a talk on cartel corruption and the journalists who'd gone missing covering it.

I'd lingered to chat with a student afterward, answered a few questions about safety in the field, smiled for someone's phone camera.

That smile is frozen in the photo now—easy, open. Exposed.

He's been watching me. My fingers go cold, breath catching like it hit a wall of ice. A rush of memories surge forward—every time I thought I felt eyes on me that I dismissed, every subtle unease I chalked up to paranoia. But it wasn't paranoia. It was him.

My hands shake as I flip through them. The notes are worse.

She hasn't changed much.

Still stubborn.

Still won't admit she's mine.

She'll come back.

A sound claws its way up my throat—a jagged, choked thing caught somewhere between a sob and a bitter laugh. It rips free before I can swallow it down, raw and aching, a sound scraped from the hollow part of me I didn't know was still bleeding.

"Find what you were looking for?" His voice slashes through the silence like a blade.

I whirl, papers slipping from my hands, fluttering like wounded birds to the floor.

He stands in the doorway, filling it with raw, immovable mass—arms crossed over that broad, scar-ridged chest, the shadows carving menace into every hard line of his body.

Barefoot. Shirtless. And still managing to radiate danger like heat off asphalt, every inch of him a warning I didn't heed.

"How long?" I whisper. My voice trembles, but I force it steady. "How long have you been stalking me?"

A muscle jumps in his jaw, the restraint in his eyes more chilling than rage. His voice drops, rough and unyielding.

"Since the day I dragged you to that hospital… the day I should've kept you."

"You're sick." The words hiss from my lips, but even as I say them, my voice cracks—not with doubt, but something worse. Recognition. Fear.

He shrugs. "I watched. I made sure no one else could take what was mine."

"I'm not yours."

His gaze darkens. "You've always been mine. You just didn't want to admit it."

I take a shaky step back, heart pounding so hard it echoes in my ears.

The edge of the desk bites into my spine—cold, immovable, a stark contrast to the searing heat radiating off his body as he advances.

I need space. I need air. But he stalks forward like a predator scenting blood, slow and deliberate, his gaze locked on mine with merciless intensity.

"You knew I'd come back?" I ask, trying to keep the fear that's creeping up my spine from coloring my voice.

"Yes," he says, voice rough. "I've been preparing for that eventuality."

My heart slams against my ribs with a violence that robs me of breath, each thud echoing like a war drum in my chest. A sharp, invisible hand clenches around my lungs, and for a moment, I forget how to inhale.

The world tilts, my balance thrown, not from his touch—but from the raw, unrelenting truth unraveling inside me.

"You built your whole fucking existence around me? Around the chance I'd come back? You're obsessed."

He shrugs. "You call it obsession. I call it inevitability."

"That's not love. That's control."

"The two aren't mutually exclusive."

I stare at him, stunned—like the floor just dropped out beneath me and I'm still free-falling. He means it. Every fucked up, twisted word.

The certainty in his eyes roots me in place, cold and paralyzed, as if the heat rolling off his body is the only thing anchoring me to this moment.

I want to scream at him, call him delusional, dangerous—but part of me knows the madness in his voice mirrors something buried in me.

Something dark. Something hungry. And it terrifies me.

He steps closer. I can smell him now—wood, sweat, the faintest trace of me still clinging to his skin.

"You want to hate me. I get it. You need to make me the villain. But deep down, you know why you came back up this mountain. It wasn't for the view."

"Fuck you."

His mouth lifts in a slow, dangerous smile. "You already tried that. Didn't take."

I swing again, the slap landing hard enough to snap his head to the side. But he doesn't flinch. Doesn't curse. Doesn't even look surprised.

When he turns back to me, there's no pain in his eyes—only a gleam that's sharper, darker…

dangerous. I draw my hand back for another hit, but I don't get the chance.

His arm moves like a striking snake, fast and precise, his fingers clamping around my wrist mid-air before the blow can land.

His grip is firm. Not punishing. But there's no mistaking the power coiled under the surface.

My breath catches, held hostage in my throat. His grip is hot and unrelenting, the contact sending a jolt through my system like a live current. My pulse skitters. The balance of power shifts in an instant—and we both feel it.

He's not smiling anymore.

"That was your last free shot," he says, voice low and edged with steel. "You want to try and smack me again, sweetheart? Be ready to take the consequences."

"I made sure you got to take that snowmobile," he murmurs.

"I let you make your own way up here. Because I needed to know how far you'd go to convince yourself you weren't falling.

Needed people to know you weren't inclined to save yourself.

That ends now, but you should know, no one will be looking for you, until Spring thaw. "

My throat tightens. "What are you going to do? Lock me up? Chain me to the bed?"

His gaze heats. "Would that scare you? Or turn you on?"

"You're insane."

"No," he says, releasing my wrist only to drag his knuckles down my cheek. "I'm committed. There's a difference."

I want to scream. To run. To claw the truth off my skin until it bleeds.

But my body's already leaning into him, drawn by something primal and perverse.

My spine arches despite the dread, breath hitching as heat pulses low and traitorous.

I hate how easily he pulls this response from me—how desire tangles with revulsion in a sick, dizzying knot.

I don't want to want him. But my body never got the memo.

"You don't get to rewrite our history," I whisper. "You don't get to pretend this was fate."

His hand slides into my hair, tugging just enough to tilt my head back. "I'm not pretending anything. I'm carving the truth into you. Every look. Every breath. Every moan. You feel it. I know you do."

I shake my head, tears pricking my eyes.

"You're right to be afraid," he says. "Because I'm done waiting."

My pulse thunders. "Zeb..."

He dips his head, lips grazing mine—just a whisper of contact, enough to ignite every nerve ending like dry kindling catching flame.

The heat of his breath fans across my skin, and I freeze, not from fear, but from the confusing, treacherous pull that knots deep in my belly.

My heart slams against my ribs, torn between fleeing and arching closer.

The graze of his mouth is a claim veiled as a caress, and it terrifies me how much I want more of it.

"You came back, and this time, you don't get to leave."

The door slams shut behind him with a finality that echoes like a gunshot through the cabin, the vibration of it shivering up the walls and lodging in my spine.

I stand frozen, breath caught in my chest, clutching the photos like a lifeline—or a loaded weapon—fingers trembling, knuckles white.

Each image burns into my palms, the proof of his obsession searing through the paper as if it might brand me too.

The silence swells, thick and smothering, wrapping around me like a noose. And in that silence, one undeniable truth takes root and blooms like a bruise: I was never out of his grasp. Not really. Not for a single day.

He never stopped watching me. The realization settles like ice in my chest. I wonder if I ever really escaped—or if I just had a longer leash.