Total pages in book: 18
Estimated words: 16571 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 83(@200wpm)___ 66(@250wpm)___ 55(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 16571 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 83(@200wpm)___ 66(@250wpm)___ 55(@300wpm)
"If you’d rather be out there in the cold, be my guest!” I fire back, gesturing to the door. I tried to make this nice for her, at least till she could get herself back on her feet – it's what Anna would have done, and that’s all I’m willing to admit to myself this is about – but if she’s going to come at me with the attitude of an errant child, I’m not going to put up with it.
She springs to her feet, the plates clattering on the table in front of her.
"Maybe I will," she shoots back, and, stepping into her gray shoes, just as weird as the rest of her clothes, she storms to the door and throws it open.
I grunt as I run a hand through my hair, not looking back at her, not willing to give her the satisfaction of knowing that she has made it under my skin. Woodrow goes to follow her but I plant a hand on the back of his neck and stop him. I don’t want her thinking she’s going to be rewarded for throwing a fit like this, even if the flush to her cheeks did send something coursing through me that I’d rather not admit to.
I finish up the rest of my breakfast, made with the eggs I got from the town nearby – they’re always telling me down at the grocer’s that I should meet with Elias and offer to bring him and his newly-pregnant wife something while I’m down there, but I’ll be damned if I’ll put myself on the line for a man like that. We’ve had enough disagreements over the years as it is. He can handle his own shit.
I count out the seconds since she left, waiting for her to think better of it and turn her ass around to come back, but it doesn’t happen.
I snarl a curse under my breath and shove the chair back from the table to take off after her. If the fall she took before is anything to go by, she doesn’t know this place, she’s going to get herself hurt if she spends too much time out there alone, and I am sure as hell not about to let that happen. Not again.
I stalk out of the cabin and follow the dented marks in the grass that she must have followed to the firepit nearby. Sure enough, when I arrive there, she is standing over the blackened remains, her arms wrapped around herself, my shirt hanging off her and only making her look even more tiny than she did before.
When she hears my footsteps, she turns to face me, and her lips part – perhaps to offer an apology, perhaps to tell me to leave her alone.
But whatever it is, I don’t get a chance to hear it. Because, before I can stop myself, I catch her face in my hands, and bring my lips to hers.
She lets out a slightly-surprised noise against my mouth, and I think that she’s going to shove me off – but, instead, her hands rest against my chest, her fingertips digging in to my skin, and I drag her to the ground right then and there, ready to start a whole new fire of my own.
"You can’t be out here in the cold," I growl against her mouth, as I move on top of her, pinning her to the ground – her fingertips lace into my hair, her eyes hazy with something overwhelming, something neither of us can quite put into words.
She just pulls me down again for a kiss, her tongue in my mouth with a hunger that I haven’t felt for a long time.
My manhood swells to a firmness I’ve not felt it at in years, in longer than I’d care to admit – I wait for the wave of guilt to wash through me, at the thought of doing this after so long without Anna, but it doesn’t come.
I grasp her face in my hands, pulling aside the pants she’s wearing just far enough that I can expose her, and move my fingers between her legs to make certain that she’s ready for me.
She gasps against my mouth, her breath stuttering for a moment as I graze her folds for the first time. Her hips rise from the ground below, silently begging me for more. And, in that moment, it’s all I want, too.
All the questions I have about this woman have fallen away, to be replaced by the raw, animal need that throbs in the space between us.
Our tongues dive greedily against each other as I draw myself into my hand, guiding my fullness to her entrance as she raises herself up to meet me.
And, in one swift motion, our bodies come together.
The sound she lets out is enough to send a few of the birds in the surrounding trees flying for their lives, but I don’t care.