Page 19 of The Nook for Brooks (Mulligan’s Mill #6)

“I don’t think I’d like that,” I admitted. “Always leaving. Always losing people.”

He squeezed my shoulder. “That’s because you’re a roots guy, Brooks.

You build towers and bookshops. I chase horizons.

Doesn’t mean one’s better than the other.

Just… different ways of living. Who knows.

Maybe someday I’ll stop walking away. Maybe someday I’ll meet someone I never want to say goodbye to. ”

I gave a suggestive shrug. “Maybe you could travel now and then… to write an article or two… but always have someone to come home to.”

He looked into my eyes, and the gaze lingered.

Softly, in the firelight, he smiled. “Maybe that could work.”

The silence stretched between us, filled only by the crackle of the fire and the rushing of the falls in the distance.

Cody’s eyes searched mine, steady, unflinching, and I felt something inside me loosen… the same knot I’d let unravel in the old mill the day before.

He leaned in, slowly, giving me every chance to turn away. I didn’t.

Our lips met softly at first, tentative, almost questioning. His mouth was warm, tasting faintly of spice from the chicken pie and smoke from the fire.

When I parted my lips for him, the kiss deepened, hunger blooming between us with startling intensity.

His hand cupped the side of my face, thumb brushing along my cheekbone, and for once I didn’t think about who or what might be watching, or whether the night was too damp or the tent was too flimsy to protect me.

I had him to protect me.

All I thought about was him. Only him.

When we finally pulled apart, I was breathless.

As his forehead pressed to mine, he whispered, “Come on.”

He stood, unbuttoned his shirt down to his navel, then reached for my hand.

I let him pull me to my feet.

We slipped inside the tent, the firelight outside casting a flicker across the nylon walls.

There was no sliding inside the sleeping bags. Instead, Cody eased himself down first, stretching out flat on top of the crinkled nylon. He grunted softly at the hardness of the ground beneath, but settled anyway, tugging me down with him until I was stretched along his chest.

“You’ll be more comfortable this way,” he murmured. “Let me be your lumbar support.”

I wanted to argue, to tell him he didn’t need to play the martyr, but I laid my head against his chest for a moment and the steady thrum of his heartbeat beneath my ear silenced me.

I rested there, listening, letting the warmth of his body radiate into mine until the growing chill of the forest night was an afterthought.

He tilted my chin, coaxing me up to meet his lips again, and every nerve in my body sparked to life.

My hands found their way to his chest next, tracing the solid mounds of his muscles, the warmth of his skin. He tugged me closer, so he could see me better in the dim firelight filtering through the tent.

“I want you,” he said, voice low and yearning. “Every part of you.”

The words stripped away the last of my inhibition.

I kissed him hard, fumbling for the last few buttons of his shirt until it was completely undone.

He helped me tug it off his shoulders. His skin glowed faintly in the flicker of light, muscles shifting as he guided my hands down his torso.

He undressed me in turn, unbuttoning carefully, peeling away the fabric.

We heeled off our boots.

We unzipped each other’s shorts and released the heat inside.

Soon we were nothing but two naked bodies, one lying on top of the other.

Kissing.

Longing.

Desperately wanting what was to come next.

Swiftly he reached for his pack again, pulling out a foil packet and a small sachet, and all I felt was a rush of gratitude, relief, and something far deeper.

“I’m like a boy scout,” he smirked. “I always come prepared.”

“I think this is a case of preparing to come,” I grinned.

He laughed. “That too.” Then he kissed me again.

When our lips parted once more, he positioned me so I was straddling him now.

I could feel the heat of his hardened cock beneath my ass.

My own dick stood stiff and throbbing over his stomach.

He panted as he stared at it, biting open the condom wrapper and quickly rolling it down over his cock. He popped open the lube and lathered his shaft, then I groaned as I felt it…

One cool lubed finger…

Then two…

Sliding gently into my passage, massaging me open, keen to have me, to make me his.

My breath caught as I felt the swollen head of his dick push between my ass cheeks.

I inhaled sharply, and then—

He was inside me.

He moaned and his eyelids fluttered as my ass enveloped him.

With one lubed hand, he took my own throbbing dick in his fist.

Slowly he stroked me as I began to slide up and down his shaft, groaning every time I sank my ass to his hips.

He moved inside me with reverence, every thrust measured. I clung to him, nails raking lightly down his chest as the rhythm built, faster, harder.

I came undone first, a rush of release spilling hot across his stomach and chest as I groaned his name.

He followed seconds later, hips jerking, cock pulsing inside me, teeth biting down hard on his bottom lip as he came.

Panting, we let the last of our cum spill, before I collapsed back against his chest, feeling him soften inside me.

Afterwards, he held me close, our bodies slick, our hearts still racing.

The forest outside had gone quiet, as if even the night itself had stilled in the aftermath of our lovemaking.

“You all right?” he asked softly, brushing my hair from my forehead.

I nodded, pressing my face into his chest. “I’m more than all right,” I said. “I’m with you.”

I woke with a start.

The tent was dark, the fire outside reduced to little more than glowing embers, and the forest had fallen into a silence so complete it pressed against my ears. My heart gave a jolt when I reached out and found only an empty sleeping bag beside me.

Cody was gone.

Panic seized me instantly. I sat bolt upright, clutching at the sleeping bag, my breath loud in the stillness. I told myself he’d gone for water, or to check on something outside, or—heaven forbid—to relieve himself. But all I could feel was the hollow space where his warmth had been.

That’s when I heard it.

A sound drifting through the night air.

A low, mournful wail.

At first, I thought it might be an animal—a coyote perhaps, or some hideous Wisconsin wolf. But then the sound sharpened into words.

A human voice.

It was calling out for something.

No, someone!

“Heathcliff…”

My blood ran cold.

I froze, every inch of me stiff with dread. The hairs on my arms turned to prickles and I clutched at my chest, convinced my heart had stopped altogether.

“ Heathcliff…” The voice came again, wailing, desperate, hollow with grief.

I knew that voice. I knew it from the pages of Wuthering Heights . It was Cathy, moaning for her lost love on the moors. Only now she was here, in these forsaken Wisconsin woods, her ghostly spirit stalking our campsite in the dead of night.

“Cody!” I squeaked.

Where was he?

Why had he left me?

Had he been taken by the ghostly apparition?

“Cody!” I hissed, louder. “Cody!”

I scrambled to my feet, tugged my shorts on in a frenzy, and cautiously opened the tent flap. “Cody!”

A short distance away, caught in the dying shimmer of the fire, I saw him—naked as the day he was born, a flashlight in one hand, his body gleaming faintly in the embers’ glow. He wasn’t running. He wasn’t panicking. He was standing perfectly still, his beam pointed up toward the ridge.

“Thank god!” I stumbled toward him, half sobbing. “You didn’t leave me! You didn’t—”

“Shhh.” His voice was calm, commanding. “Listen.”

I held my breath, clutching at his arm.

The voice came again, floating down through the trees. Mournful. Harrowed. A lonely cry, desperate with loss.

“ Heathcliff…”

I gripped him harder. “It’s her! It’s Cathy’s ghost! She’s come for us! We’re doomed!”

Cody shook his head slowly, never taking his eyes off the ridge. “That’s not a ghost. And it’s not a woman.”

The cry sounded one last time, then faded, drawn out into silence until the forest swallowed it whole.

I stood trembling beside him, my entire body shaking with terror, convinced Cathy—or something —was still out there, watching, waiting to drag us into the moors of hell.

Cody lowered the flashlight but didn’t move, his jaw tight, his eyes still fixed on the ridge. “It’s gone,” he said finally, his voice quiet, measured. “For now.”

“For now?” My voice cracked. “What do you mean, for now ? People don’t just moan ‘ Heathcliff ’ in the middle of the Wisconsin wilderness unless they’re dead, deranged, or damned.”

He slipped an arm around me, tugging me close, but it did little to calm the racing of my heart. “We’ll find out in the morning,” he murmured. “Whatever it was, it’s finished for tonight. You’re safe.”

Safe. The word sounded absurd out here. The embers crackled softly, the trees creaked like old bones, and the darkness pressed in all around.

I clung to him anyway, desperate for his protection.

But my eyes stayed wide, unblinking, scouring the shadows beyond the firelight for the shape of a woman in white with tangled hair, drifting toward me with her eternal wail.

Even when he guided me back into the tent, zipped us in tight, and curled his body around mine, I couldn’t shake the sense of dread.

Within minutes Cody fell back into steady, even breaths.

I, on the other hand, lay wide awake, heart thundering, eyes fixed on the darkness, stiff as a corpse…

Which at this point felt like a rehearsal.