Page 11 of Trapped with the Forest Ranger (Angel’s Peak #5)

Caleb’s hands go still.

The silence that follows could shatter glass. He sets the box down like it’s suddenly radioactive. Like touching it any longer might burn.

“I shouldn’t have.” His voice is low. Flat. A forced calm that doesn’t match the storm behind his eyes. “It won’t happen again.”

“That’s not what I asked.”

His entire body goes rigid. And then, like it costs him, he takes a slow step back. One pace. Two. Like putting space between us might scrub away what we both felt.

“It’s the only answer that matters.”

“Bullshit.”

The word snaps through the air—sharp, jagged, louder than I meant it. But I don’t take it back. I won’t.

“You wanted it. I wanted it. So what’s the real problem, Caleb? Because it didn’t feel like a mistake. It felt like the only damn thing in this cabin that made sense.”

He exhales through his nose, slow and controlled, like I’m a wildfire and he’s trying not to fan the flames .

“The problem is we’re stuck in close quarters. Cut off from reality. Running on adrenaline and isolation and goddamn ghost stories. That kind of pressure warps things. Makes people do things they wouldn’t normally do.”

He says it like he’s reading from a manual. Like he’s trying to convince himself.

My pulse thrums like a warning drum. I step closer. The space he created? I take it back.

“Is that what you’re clinging to?” My voice drops, low and steady. “That it was the storm? The cold? Some survival instinct? Tell yourself whatever you want—but don’t you dare lie to me.”

“It’s not a lie.” Grit lines his voice now. “It’s the truth.”

“No,” I whisper, stepping closer. “It’s fear.”

His jaw flexes. I see it. That little tick at the corner where he clenches too hard. He doesn’t deny it.

“You felt something. You’re just scared of it. That kiss—it wasn’t a fluke. It wasn’t proximity or bad timing or some kind of emotional mirage. It was real. And it scared the hell out of you.”

He stares at me like I’m a fault line beneath his feet, and he doesn’t know whether to step forward or run.

“You think you’re the only one who’s lost someone? You think you’ve cornered the damn market on grief?” My voice cracks, the words scraping raw. “You think shutting down makes you strong? It doesn’t. It makes you a coward.”

The air pulls taut. He’s not breathing. Neither am I.

Then, finally—his voice, low and ragged, just above a whisper.

“I’m not afraid of kissing you.”

“Then what are you afraid of?” I press, barely holding myself together. “Me? Or what it would mean if it wasn’t just a kiss?”

His gaze drops. Not to retreat. But because the answer’s already written behind his eyes—and it’s tearing him apart.

He looks away like he’s trying to protect me. Or maybe trying to protect himself. From me. From what this is. From what it could be.

And that? That hurts more than if he’d shoved me out the damn door.

Because if he yelled, if he snapped, if he let something—anything—break through that iron self-control, at least I’d know where we stand. But this?

This is a slow collapse. A quiet retreat. And retreat always comes before abandonment.

My chest tightens. That sharp, breath-stealing ache creeps in. The one I know too well. The one that screams he’s leaving before he’s even gone.

“You are scared.” I don’t move back. I move closer. Right into his space. Right where it hurts. “Not of me. Of what I represent. Connection. Possibility. Something that might crack open the walls you’ve bricked yourself behind.”

His jaw ticks again, tighter this time. He grits his teeth. “Two days, and you think you’ve figured me out?”

“I know enough.” My voice trembles. But I don’t back off.

“You’re kind even when you pretend not to be.

You’d rather freeze than let someone else be cold.

You care about every fox den and broken pine on this mountain like they’re yours to protect.

And you kissed me like you’ve been starving for something real.

Like I was your first breath after years underwater. ”

“Stop.” The word grates out of him like it hurts to say. Like it costs too much.

“No.”

He steps back.

I follow.

“That kiss,” I whisper, eyes burning, heart pounding, “was real. Maybe the only real thing you’ve let yourself feel in years. And you’re terrified of what it means if you let yourself want more.”

His breath shudders. One hand clenches at his side.

But he doesn’t deny it.

And that silence? That silence says everything.

We’re close now. Too close.

Breathing the same damp, electric air. His chest rises and falls like he’s just come down off a sprint, though neither of us is moving. His gaze locks with mine, dark and dangerous, pupils blown wide.

The air crackles—alive with the kind of charge that lives in the sky before lightning strikes.

“You’re leaving in a matter of days.” His voice drops, gravelly rough. “Then it’s back to your life. Planes, continents, chasing light through a lens.”

“So?” My voice is low, defiant.

“So this—” his hand slices the air between us, “—doesn’t end well. We start something here, it only ends with regret.”

“Who said anything about happy endings?” I take a step closer, heat rising up my throat like a fever. “Maybe this isn’t about later. Maybe it’s just about now.”

His jaw clenches.

And for a heartbeat, I think he’ll cave.

Then the radio crackles.

Static slices the moment. Caleb spins toward it like it’s a lifeline, not a fucking excuse. His hands move with too much force, twisting the knob, adjusting the frequency with the kind of precision that only comes from needing something to control.

By the time he turns back, he’s hiding behind that damn mask again. The one carved from stone and silence.

But his shoulders are too tight. His hands too still. He won’t meet my eyes .

“It’s for your own good,” he says.

“Don’t.” My voice sharpens, rage cutting through the heat. “Don’t you dare pull that patronizing bullshit. I’m not a porcelain doll. I’m a grown woman who knows exactly what she wants.”

He moves.

One step.

Then another.

Until his chest nearly brushes mine.

His control slips. It shows in the tightness around his mouth, the heat bleeding from his skin, the hunger vibrating off him in waves.

“You don’t understand,” he growls, voice fraying. “I don’t just want you.” His breath hits my cheek. Hot. Shaking. “I want to take you apart.”

Lightning arcs down my spine. My breath stutters.

“I want to hear the pitch of your breath when I pin your wrists above your head and make you beg,” he grits out. “I want your thighs trembling when I bury my face between them. I want you whispering my name like a prayer and cursing me when I don’t let you come until you’re half-wild.”

My knees weaken. I grip the edge of the table behind me to stay upright.

He steps closer—just enough for his voice to go quiet, deadly.

“I want you bent over the damn boulder behind the shelter,” he rasps. “Your pants shoved down, your ass red from my hand before I take you so deep you forget who you are.”

My mouth opens. No sound comes.

“And that’s just the beginning.”

His voice lowers even further, rough and raw, like he hates himself for this—like he needs me to hate him for it.

“I want your mouth full of me, your eyes wet, your throat raw from how deep I fuck you. I want to hold your head in my hands and make you take every inch while you gag, choke, and beg for more.”

A helpless sound slips out of me—high, broken, wanting.

“I’ll hurt you,” he warns, barely audible now. “Not because I want to break you. But because I don’t know how to do anything less than everything. I don’t do soft. I don’t do careful.”

He leans in, lips a breath from mine, his voice shaking with restraint.

“Is that what you want?”

“Caleb…” My voice is wrecked.

“No.” His fingers curl into fists. “You started this. I’m just telling you the truth. I want you wrecked. Raw. I want to see my handprint on your skin, my name in your mouth, your legs shaking from how hard you came on my cock.”

I shake with the force of how badly I want him. How badly I want that.

“God, yes,” I whisper, fire licking up my spine. “If you knew the things I’ve imagined you doing to me… you wouldn’t be trying so damn hard to hold back.”

He growls—growls—low and primal, like he’s two seconds from snapping the last thread of control he has.

And God help us both when he does.

“Like what?” His voice scrapes through the tension like a blade—low, rough, already unraveling, and then his gaze sharpens, as if I’ve sucker punched him straight in the restraint.

"You want to know what I want?"

"Yes."

"Do you?"

“For the love of God…” His jaw ticks, like he’s about to combust.

“The tree behind the fox shelter.” My voice barely carries over the pounding of my pulse. “The way it curves just right… Every time I saw it, I pictured you pressing me against the bark. My wrists tangled in vines. Your mouth everywhere.”

His breath hitches.

My lips are too dry to speak, but I do. Because now that the dam has cracked, there’s no stopping this flood. My body is aching and ready… for him.

“I’ve pictured you taking me against nearly every tree out there. Bark tearing my jacket. One hand on my throat, the other locked around my hip—holding me in place while you fuck me like you need it. Like you’d die if you didn’t.”

“Fuck.” The word explodes from his mouth, guttural and harsh, like it rips something loose inside him.

“I’m not done.” My voice is trembling, desperate, unashamed. “That boulder behind the shed—your hand, my ass. I want that. I need that. I want your control. Your craving. Your edge. I want all fifty shades of your darkness and everything beyond. Don’t hold back for me.”

His whole body vibrates with tension. His hands clench into fists, jaw rigid, chest heaving.

“It’s like someone carved you out of sin and stubbornness,” he mutters, voice low and ruined, “and dropped you on my porch just so I could break you open.”

“Maybe.” My knees go weak. The air between us pulses like it’s alive.