Page 4

Chapter 4

Heat and Hunger

This kiss is nothing like our first. Where that one held surprise and discovery, this one burns with certainty and intent. His lips move against mine with confidence, knowing exactly how much pressure to apply, when to be gentle, and when to demand.

His hands frame my face, holding me steady as he kisses me with a thoroughness that leaves me breathless. I grasp his waist for balance, feeling solid muscle beneath the soft fabric of his shirt.

When he finally pulls back, his eyes are dark, pupils dilated with the same desire coursing through me.

"I've been waiting all week to do that," he murmurs, one hand sliding down to cup the nape of my neck. "To touch you. To taste you."

"Then don't stop," I breathe, rising on tiptoes to press against him.

He laughs softly, the sound rumbling through his chest. "So demanding, Dr. Carrington." His grip tightens slightly, just enough to establish control. "But I think we need to slow down. Talk a little. Make sure we're on the same page."

The restraint he shows, when I can feel how much he wants me pressed against my hip, is strangely more arousing than if he simply swept me to the bed.

"You're right," I concede, though my body protests vehemently.

He reluctantly releases me but keeps one hand lightly on my waist as he glances around the room. "Have you eaten? We could go down to the restaurant."

"Honestly? I'm not hungry." Not for food, anyway.

"No? What are you hungry for?" A slow smile curves his mouth.

"You." The deliberate tease in his tone makes me bold.

Something flares in his eyes, hot and primitive. For a moment, I think he might take me up on my offer, consequences be damned. Then he visibly reins himself in.

"Come." He takes my hand. "Let's go downstairs. Not to the restaurant," he adds when I start to protest. "There's a better place."

Curious, I let him lead me out of the room and down the hall to the elevator. In the enclosed space, his presence feels even more imposing. His clean scent surrounds me. Our shoulders brush, and even that small contact sends electricity skittering across my skin.

Instead of the lobby, he takes us to a lower level I didn't know existed. When the doors open, I understand immediately why he brought me here.

The space is a private lounge, clearly meant for small gatherings or intimate conversations. A massive stone fireplace dominates one wall, a cheerful blaze already burning in the grate. Plush couches and armchairs are arranged around it, with small tables holding hurricane lamps that cast a warm, golden glow over everything.

Best of all, we're completely alone.

"How did you know about this place?" I ask as he leads me toward the fire.

"I grew up coming to this lodge," he explains. "My parents brought us here every winter. This used to be the old game room, but they remodeled a few years back."

"It's beautiful."

"I thought we could talk here," he says, gesturing for me to sit on the couch nearest the fire. "Get to know each other properly, without distractions."

"Without distractions?" I raise an eyebrow, acutely aware of how the firelight accentuates the angles of his face, casting shadows that make him look even more devastating.

He laughs, settling beside me with casual grace. "Well, fewer distractions, anyway."

The couch is smaller than it looks. Our thighs nearly touch. Cole stretches one arm along the back, not quite embracing me but establishing a subtle claim on the space around me.

Perhaps even a claim on me.

"So," he begins, his eyes reflecting the dancing flames, "tell me something I don't know about Dr. Tess Carrington."

It's such a simple question, yet it catches me off guard. I'm used to talking about my work, my accomplishments, my goals—not about myself.

"I play the cello," I say finally. "Or I used to, before residency. Haven't touched it in years, but I still have it."

His eyebrows rise in genuine surprise. "Classical training?"

I nod. "Since I was six. My parents thought it would improve my focus and discipline." I smile at the memory. "They weren't wrong."

"I'd like to hear you play someday." There's something in his voice—a quiet certainty that we'll have a 'someday.’ That makes my chest tighten.

"Your turn," I say, deflecting. "Tell me something I don't know about Cole Blake."

He considers for a moment. "I build furniture. Nothing fancy, just practical pieces. Tables, bookcases. It's meditative, working with my hands in a different way than medicine."

I picture him in a workshop, sleeves rolled up, concentration on his face as he shapes wood into something lasting and useful. The image fits him perfectly.

"Did you make anything in the clinic?" I ask.

"The reception desk. The shelves in the dispensary. The couch you slept on."

"Really?" I'm impressed despite myself. "They're beautiful."

"Thank you." The firelight catches the gold flecks in his blue eyes. "I like creating things that last."

We continue like this, trading small revelations. I learn that he has two older sisters who still live in Chicago, that he broke his arm twice as a kid trying to jump his bike over increasingly ridiculous obstacles, and that he reads military history for relaxation. He learns about my parents' medical practice in Denver, my college year abroad in Spain, and my secret addiction to reality cooking shows.

With each exchange, the sharp edge of my nerves dulls. That anxious buzz that’s lived under my skin since he arrived intensifies—turning into something slower. Heavier. A pull I feel low and deep.

But under the comfort, under the steadiness he wraps around me without even trying… desire builds. Steady. Dangerous. It simmers behind the heat in his gaze, in the way he watches my mouth when I speak, like he’s already imagining what he’ll do to silence it.

He brushes my hair back. Fingers trail along my arm, light and unhurried, like he’s taking inventory. Then—his thumb finds the inside of my wrist. Slow. Intentional. Tracing the thrum of my pulse like it belongs to him.

A shiver rolls through me, sharp and unbidden.

“Cold?” he asks, but the glint in his eye says he knows better.

“No,” I admit softly, eyes flicking up to meet his. “Not cold.”

His gaze darkens, heat and intention blooming there, and suddenly, the air between us crackles.

He turns then, his full focus locked on me. One hand slides from the back of the couch to the side of my neck. Not rough—but firm. Certain. Fingers splayed beneath my jaw, his thumb pressing lightly just under my ear.

“Tess.” My name from his lips is low. Reverent. A sin and a promise. “I need you to hear me.”

My breath hitches. The part of me that always expects rejection braces.

Here it comes.

He’s taken. He’s not interested. He’s not looking for anything.

I brace myself for disappointment, but that’s not what this is.

“I want you,” he says, voice steady. “Badly. Have from the second you walked into my clinic. Before we go any further…” His thumb glides down my throat, pausing in the dip where my pulse pounds like a warning. Or a welcome.

A pause. Intentional. Weighted.

“I’m not soft. I don’t move slow. I take what I want. I love hard. I fuck harder.” His gaze dips to my mouth and lingers. “I don’t pretend to be anything less than what I am.”

I forget how to breathe.

His thumb traces a slow, burning path down the side of my throat, pausing at the hollow where my pulse pounds wildly beneath the skin.

“Some women,” he continues, voice dropping into a darker register, rougher, hungrier, “hear the warning, and they bolt. And that’s fine.” He shifts closer, crowding me just enough that the air between us turns molten. His fingers flex against my skin. “But others…” His eyes flick back to mine, and the heat there steals whatever will I had left. “They burn for me.”

My thighs press together, instinctive and useless. I go still, the truth of his words sinking in, lighting me up from the inside.

“I want to make you burn." His voice dips lower, turning to smoke and heat. His mouth hovers close, but he doesn’t kiss me. He waits. Letting me feel the weight of his words.

The inevitability of him.

He’s a man who wants ruin.

“I want to be clear. Once I start, I won’t stop until I’ve had every part of you.”

My pulse stutters. He hasn’t even kissed me, and already I feel unraveled—peeling open under the heat of his voice alone.

I swallow hard. “What does that mean… to burn for you?”

“Enough to scare some women away.” He leans in, just enough that his breath brushes my lips—warm, deliberate, unmistakably in control. “Enough to draw others like moths to a flame.” His gaze pins me, dark and unrelenting. “So tell me…” His voice is a low rasp now, intimate and commanding. “Are you willing to burn for me? Or are you going to hear my warning and run?”

A pause follows, thick and taut, heavy with everything he refuses to soften for my comfort.

I swallow, pulse racing, throat dry.

“That depends.”

His brow lifts, just barely. “On what?”

I hold his gaze, even though my heart thuds against my ribs.

“Are we talking shades of gray?” I let the words hang for a beat, then finish. For a second, he’s completely still.

Then—a wicked, low laugh, the sound rolling through him like thunder that knows exactly where it’s striking.

“Darker,” he says, voice rough with promise. “Much darker. The kind you don’t read about in glossy paperbacks with safe words printed in bold.”

His hand tightens ever so slightly on my neck—not to control me, but to steady me.

“Still want to play with fire, sweetheart?”

A week ago, I would’ve laughed at the question. Me, surrender control? Impossible.

But with Cole—this man who radiates certainty, who sees past the armor I wear like glass—I want to know what it feels like to let go.

To let him lead.

And maybe, just maybe… to burn for him.

"Make me burn," I whisper, the word falling from my lips like a confession.

Something flares in his eyes—satisfaction, desire, and something deeper I can't quite name. His hand tightens slightly on my neck, thumb pressing gently against my racing pulse.

“I knew you wouldn’t run,” he murmurs.

The words hit something primal. Something buried. Something that aches to surrender—not because I’m weak, but because for once… I don’t have to be strong.

My voice is a breath. “Light the match, Cole.”

His smile is slow. Dangerous. Triumphant.

“Gladly.”

And then he kisses me.

Not tentative. Not testing.

Claiming.

His mouth crashes into mine with the kind of force that should bruise but doesn’t. Because somehow, even now, he holds back just enough.

One hand fists in my hair, angling my face to meet him the way he wants. The other stays wrapped around the side of my neck, grounding me. His lips move over mine like he’s tasting something he’s been craving for far too long—hungry but in control.

Deep.

Demanding.

Like he’s carving the memory of this moment into bone.

I gasp against his mouth, and he takes that, too—tongue sliding past my lips like he has every right to it.

He tastes like heat and danger, something I’ve never had before, and something I won’t be able to live without.

He doesn’t pull away. Doesn’t pause. Doesn’t give me time to think.

He devours.

And I let him.

I want to let him.

My hands find the hard line of his chest, fingers curling into his shirt, needing more even as my body lights up like I’ve been plugged into a live wire.

The kiss turns darker. Deeper. Dirtier.

His grip tightens in my hair just enough to make me gasp again.

“I knew it,” he growls against my lips, voice rough with satisfaction. “You were made for me.”

For him.

I’m already burning.

And I never want it to stop.

His free hand slides to my waist, then lower, pulling me firmly against him until I’m half in his lap. I should feel ridiculous—thirty-two years old, making out on a couch like a teenager—but all I feel is a burning need for more of him, more of this.

“Cole,” I gasp when he finally releases my mouth to trail kisses down my neck. “There could be people?—”

“There won’t be,” he murmurs, nipping gently at my earlobe. “Lodge manager is a friend. This room is ours for the night.”

The implication that he planned this—secured this space in anticipation of our reunion—sends a fresh wave of heat through me. Instead of feeling manipulated, I feel seen. Cared for. Desired.

His mouth finds that sensitive spot just below my ear, and I moan, my fingers digging into his shoulders.

“Like that?” he whispers against my skin, and when I nod, he does it again—slower. “Tell me what you want. I need to hear you say it.”

The demand pulls me from the haze. It would be easy to give him something vague. But this man? He deserves more than vague.

“I want you to take me,” I say, voice steady. “I want to feel your hands on me. Your mouth. All of you.”

His smile is devastating—tender and predatory all at once.

“And then? What else do you want?”

I meet his eyes without flinching. “I want you inside me.” A breath. A heartbeat. “I want you to make me yours.”

His breath hitches. I’ve hit something deep.

But I’m not done.

I slide my hand to his jaw, forcing him to see me.

"To be what you need." My voice is low, but there’s no mistaking the conviction.

His eyes go molten.

" Fuuuuck ," he breathes, the rare profanity revealing just how affected he is. "You have no idea what you do to me when you talk like that."

He doesn’t move, doesn’t breathe—just stares at me like I’ve undone something inside him.

Then he exhales, rough and reverent.

“Jesus, Tess.”

His mouth crashes into mine, and this time?

There’s no restraint.

Only fire.

His hands slide to the hem of my sweater—no hesitation, no request. Just claiming.

He lifts it slowly, dragging the fabric up my torso, over my ribs, higher—each inch baring skin kissed golden by the flickering firelight. When it clears my head, he tosses it aside without looking, his eyes locked on me like I’ve become the only thing he sees.

He leans back just enough to take me in.

His eyes darken. Jaw flexes.

Possession settles into him like instinct.

“Look at you,” he murmurs. Low. Rough. Reverent. “All mine.”

I move toward him, heart pounding, body already swaying toward the gravity of his, but?—

“Stand.”

One word. A command.

It lands between my legs like a spark to dry tinder.

I rise. Unsteady at first, breath shallow. But his gaze holds me upright, centers me in a way that feels both terrifying and safe.

He stays seated. Legs spread slightly, hands resting on his thighs, fingers flexing just once as his gaze rakes down my body.

Like he’s starving. Like he’s already decided how he’s going to consume me.

“Now…” His voice is silk stretched tight over steel. “The jeans.”

I reach for the button. My fingers tremble, but I don’t look away from him.

“Slowly.”

The word is soft. Dangerous.

I pull the zipper down. The sound feels impossibly loud in the charged silence between us.

"Eyes on me." Another command.

I hook my thumbs into the waistband, dragging the denim down my hips, inch by inch.

His eyes never leave mine. Not once.

He watches me watch him.

I’ve never felt more exposed. More wanted. More desired.

I step out of the jeans, firelight catching on bare skin and pale blue lace. My pulse thuds in my ears, heat licking up my spine.

“Bra,” he says simply.

I reach back, hands moving to the clasp?—

“Don’t.”

The single syllable stills me.

His gaze drops to my chest, then back to my face.

“Leave it,” he says, voice low and guttural. “I like the way it looks on you.”

A beat passes. Tension coils tight.

Then—

“Panties.”