Total pages in book: 110
Estimated words: 106090 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 530(@200wpm)___ 424(@250wpm)___ 354(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 106090 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 530(@200wpm)___ 424(@250wpm)___ 354(@300wpm)
Liam
Third day in this fucking cabin, and I still can’t stop watching him.
Knox sits by the fireplace, stoking embers that don’t need stoking, his shoulders tense beneath that black thermal. The storm outside has quieted to a low moan, snow piling against the windows like it’s trying to bury us alive. Maybe it is. Maybe Marlena’s counting on nature to do what she’s been too busy monologuing to accomplish herself.
Hailey’s still asleep in the bed, buried under a mound of blankets, her breathing slow and even. She crashed hard after yesterday—we all did, in different ways. But sleep won’t come for me. Hasn’t come for me in years when Knox Bishop is in the same room.
The logs shift and settle. Knox doesn’t flinch.
I study him from my spot on the floor, back against the wall, knees drawn up. The firelight catches the angles of his face, sharpens them into something almost brutal. He’s aged since Afghanistan. We both have. But on him, it looks good. Silver threading through the blond at his temples. Lines around his eyes that weren’t there before. He’s harder now, leaner, like the years stripped away everything that wasn’t essential and left behind only muscle and memory.
I’ve replayed a lot of moments in my head over the past decade. Jobs gone wrong, close calls, people I’ve lost. But there’s one moment I come back to more than any other. One night that’s branded itself into my brain so deep I can still taste the dust on my tongue, still feel the heat of his body close to mine.
The silence stretches between us like a wire pulled taut.
“In Afghanistan.” The words spill from my mouth. “The night before you shipped out. You remember?”
Knox’s hand stills on the poker. He doesn’t turn around, but I see his spine go rigid beneath his shirt. For a long moment, I think he won’t answer. That he’ll pretend he doesn’t know what I’m talking about, that we’ll keep dancing around this thing between us like we’ve been dancing for years.
Then: “I remember.”
Two words, barely audible over the hiss and snap of burning wood. But they hit me like a gut punch anyway.
We’d been drunk that night. Not sloppy drunk, but loose enough that the walls came down. We’d ended up alone in the barracks, everyone else passed out or gone, and he’d looked at me the way he sometimes did when he thought I wasn’t paying attention. I’d moved closer. He’d moved closer. Our mouths had been inches apart, breath mingling, and then—
Nothing.
We’d pulled back. Both of us. Too dangerous, too complicated, too much at stake. The next morning, he was gone, transferred to another unit, and I’d spent the next ten years telling myself I’d imagined the whole thing.
But I hadn’t. I know I hadn’t.
“I’ve thought about it every day since.” I push off the wall, get to my feet. My body moves toward him without conscious thought, like he’s got his own gravitational pull. “Every fucking day.”
Knox finally turns. His eyes find mine across the dim room, and the look in them makes my chest tight. He’s not surprised. He’s not confused. He knows exactly what I’m talking about because he’s been thinking about it too.
“Why didn’t you ever say anything?” He keeps it quiet, careful. “All those years. You could’ve found me.”
“Because you terrified me.” The words come out jagged, broken. “What I felt. What I wanted. You weren’t just some guy I could have hooked up with overseas. You were—” I stop, teeth clenched, fighting for control. “You made me feel things I wasn’t ready to feel. Want things I wasn’t supposed to want. So I ran. Buried it. Told myself it was a fluke.”
I’m close now. Close enough to see the pulse jumping at the base of his throat, to smell woodsmoke and sweat and skin. Close enough that if either of us leaned forward, we’d be touching.
“And now?” His eyes drop to my mouth, then back up.
“I still want it.” No point in lying anymore. No point in pretending. “I still want you.”
Knox exhales, a sound that’s almost a laugh but not quite. “We’re trapped in a cabin, about to die. Probably not the best time.”
“Probably the only time.”
He stares at me for a long moment, and I watch the battle play out behind his eyes. Duty versus desire. Caution versus need. I’ve seen Knox face down enemy combatants without flinching, but right now, looking at me, he’s the most uncertain I’ve ever seen him.
Then something in him gives.
He closes the distance between us in one step, his hand fisting in the front of my shirt, yanking me forward. His mouth crashes into mine—hard, demanding, unleashing years of pent-up want in a single devastating kiss.
I respond like I’ve been waiting forever. Because I have.
My hands find his waist, his back, anywhere I can touch him. He tastes like coffee and something more dangerous, and when his tongue sweeps against mine, I groan into his mouth, my whole body igniting. This is nothing like the careful almost-kiss from Afghanistan. This is a wildfire. This is everything we’ve been holding back finally breaking free.