Page 9 of Trapped with the Forest Ranger (Angel’s Peak #5)

“Thank you,” I whisper, barely more than breath. “For the foxes. For… this.”

I gesture vaguely, helpless to explain the feeling clawing at my chest. The weight of his arm. The safety and the danger of it. The silence between us that’s louder than any scream.

Caleb turns his head.

Looks at me .

Really looks.

And it’s like being struck. Like a match dragged against skin. His gaze drops to my mouth and stays there, and every inch of me pulls taut. Heat coils low. My pulse skitters like prey in a snare.

I tilt my chin without thinking. Lips parting. Needing.

Needing him.

The air crackles, thick with everything we haven’t said. With want. With hesitation. With the kind of pull that lives in bone and instinct, not reason.

His head dips.

Breath brushes my lips. Tastes like rain and restraint.

I forget how to breathe.

My eyes flutter shut?—

CRACK!

A deafening crash overhead.

The hut jolts.

We tear apart like we’ve been struck by lightning, adrenaline and lust crashing together in a jarring, breathless snap.

He stands fast, scanning the roof.

I press a hand to my chest, heart racing like I just jumped out of a plane.

The storm’s still out there.

But the one between us?

It’s only getting started.

My heart, which just moments ago had been cartwheeling from the almost-kiss, now jackhammers against my ribs like it’s trying to claw its way out. Caleb’s already moving—fluid, focused, scanning the ceiling with a soldier’s precision. Every muscle in his body wired and ready.

“Branch,” he says, voice flat. “Deadfall from the upper tree line.”

Like we weren’t seconds away from tearing into each other. Like I wasn’t just about to climb him and beg him to ruin me.

I’m still catching my breath, still trying to reboot every system that short-circuited the second his mouth hovered over mine. He’s checking the roof for leaks. Leaks. As if we didn’t just shatter the atmosphere between us.

The moment’s gone.

Snuffed out like a candle between two fingers.

But the heat?

Still burns. Low and fierce beneath my skin. Curling in my belly. Thrumming between my legs.

He moves to the window and clears his throat, voice neutral again. “Storm’s passing. We should head back before the next system hits.”

I nod, because words are currently a foreign language. Outside, the storm has dulled to a steady patter. I shrug out of the blanket, fingers trembling, and grab my camera, checking that it’s dry under my jacket.

We don’t talk on the hike back. We don’t have to. The silence between us is thick with all the things we almost did. All the things we still want to do.

By the time the ranger cabin comes into view, I’m soaked again. Rain runs down my spine in cold, shivery streams. My clothes cling in all the wrong places. Caleb reaches the porch first, holds the door for me.

I step inside.

Then stop.

We’re standing just inside the cabin, dripping onto the floor, steam rising off our skin as warm air meets cold rain.

And he looks like every dark, primal fantasy I’ve ever had.

His shirt is soaked, transparent, molded to every cut and line of muscle. His chest rises and falls like he’s barely holding it together. And when our eyes meet?—

That’s it .

The air splits.

No warning. No hesitation.

He moves.

One second of stillness, and then he’s on me—closing the distance in two strides like a storm bearing down.

His hand comes up—rough, calloused, his—and it’s on my face, cupping my jaw with a kind of reverent urgency that steals the breath from my lungs.

His palm is warm despite the chill, fingers splayed across my cheek, thumb brushing the corner of my mouth like he’s trying to memorize the shape of it.

His touch is unsteady. Controlled and shaking. Like he’s fighting every instinct and losing all at once.

He tilts my chin up, dragging my gaze to his. And what I see there? It’s not restraint anymore. It’s hunger. Desperation. Raw, soul-deep ache. Like I’m the first light after a lifetime in shadow. Like he’s drowning and I’m the only thing keeping him above the surface.

And then—God.

Then his mouth crashes down on mine.

No prelude. No gentleness. Just fire. Just need.

The kiss is feral. Consuming. Like he’s trying to drink me in, devour every second we’ve denied this. It’s teeth and tongue and heat, the press of his body against mine, the scrape of stubble against my skin, the taste of rain and restraint snapping clean in half.

He kisses like he’s furious it took this long.

Like I’m the only thing that’s ever made sense—and he doesn’t trust it.

My hands fist in his shirt, yanking him closer, anchoring myself to the storm that is him. His other arm wraps around my waist, iron-tight, hauling me flush against his chest like he’s afraid I’ll vanish. There’s nothing careful in him now. No holding back. Just a silent ache turned kinetic.

My spine hits the nearest wall, and I gasp against his mouth—he swallows it whole, groaning low, deep in his throat, a sound so primal it makes my knees buckle.

We kiss like we’ve already fallen.

Like we’re already burning.

Like if we stop—we won’t survive it.

There’s no hesitation. No caution. Just heat. Hunger. Possession.

His lips are like fire against mine, his tongue sweeping into my mouth like he owns it—like he’s finally claiming what he’s been denying himself since the moment we met.

I moan into him, clutching his shirt, trying to pull him closer.

Trying to feel all of him, the press and burn and stretch of him against me.

He groans—low and raw, vibrating between our bodies.

One arm wraps around my waist, yanking me into him like he can’t stand even an inch of space. The other buries in my hair, angling my head, deepening the kiss until I can’t breathe, don’t want to.

His hips drive into mine, all heat and hardness, and it’s like a match to gasoline. I grind against him, desperate for friction, for pressure, for more.

My shirt sticks when he tries to yank it up—wet cotton refusing to move.

He growls, frustrated, tries again.

Still stuck.

We both are.

Caught in this inferno, clinging to each other like the world might end, and this is all we get.

Then he pulls back.

Just enough to rest his forehead against mine. His breath comes fast. Shaky.

“Fuck.” His voice is wrecked. “This isn’t… I shouldn’t have?— ”

I don’t move.

Because I need him to finish. To say something real. To undo or redo what we just did. Anything but leave me hanging here, scorched and shaking.

His hands still rest on my waist. Fingers twitching like he doesn’t want to let go.

But he does.

Steps back, slow and careful, like I’m made of fire and he’s already burned.

His hands lift. Palms up. Fingers spread.

Not surrender.

Distance.

“I’m sorry,” he rasps, voice frayed. “That… shouldn’t have happened.”

But his eyes say the opposite.

His eyes say it had to happen.

His chest rises with a sharp breath—like the air’s been punched out of him and he’s only now realizing he needs it back. But he doesn’t look at me. Not directly. Not after what just happened.

Not after we both let something dangerous and unspeakably real crack open between us like lightning splitting a centuries-old pine.

“You need to get out of those clothes,” he says, backing up another step like I’m the one on fire.

“I’m not?—”

“You’re soaked.” Too fast. Too sharp. He’s not talking about the rain. “Body temp drops fast in this altitude. Hypothermia isn’t something I want on your list.”

My list.

Right. Stranded. Bruised. Heartsick. And apparently one steamy kiss away from sending a battle-hardened ranger into full retreat.

“I’ll grab you dry clothes. Start the fire,” he adds, already moving like a man fleeing an ambush. “There’s a towel in the cabinet. Use it. And get under the blankets.”

“Caleb—wait—” My voice catches, tangled with everything I want to ask. Want to feel again.

But he’s already at the door. His hand on the knob. Rain slants behind him in silver sheets, catching the porchlight like static.

“I need to check the water line,” he says, voice low. Distant. “Make sure the runoff didn’t wash anything out.

Bullshit.

We both know it.

The storm can wait.

I can’t.

“Caleb.”

He stops.

One hand pressed against the doorframe. Shoulders tight. Jaw clenched. His head bows like he’s praying for control.

“I just need…” His voice scrapes out of him, low and rough. “I just need a minute.”

And then he’s gone.

The door shuts behind him with a sound that feels like a slammed heartbeat.

And suddenly the room is too quiet. Too still. Too empty.

The fire hasn’t been lit yet, but the heat that filled this space only moments ago is already gone—dragged out into the storm with him. I stand there, heart pounding, body humming, lips still aching from the memory of his mouth on mine.

And the silence he left behind wraps around me like smoke.

Not warmth.

Just the echo of a man who kissed me like he couldn’t stop …

Then ran like he had to get away.

I’m left standing there, heart pounding, lips still tingling from the kiss I never saw coming but can’t stop reliving. The air he leaves behind feels cold and expansive, as if the room has forgotten how to hold heat once he walked out of it.