Noah’s mouth traveled down my neck, across my collarbone, lower...
My fingers tangled in his hair, pulling him closer. His hands worked magic along my sides. He moved over me, his weight pressing me into the mattress. I wrapped my legs around his waist, pulling him closer.
Time seemed to stop as our bodies moved together, intertwined. I cried out his name, my breathless voice shattering the dreamlike silence as his weight settled between my thighs.
The firelight gilded his skin as he moved back up to kiss me again, his lips soft but insistent. I lost myself in the sensation, inthe weight of him pressing me into the mattress, in the heat building between my legs.
Noah’s mouth grew more insistent, more ... wet? Surprisingly wet. And ... rough?
Wait.
This wasn’t right.
The texture was all wrong, like someone was dragging sandpaper across my face. And the smell ... Noah smelled like pine and rain and mountain air, not like ... dog breath and wet fur?
I cracked one eye open and found myself staring into Yeti’s soulful gaze as she enthusiastically licked my cheek, her tongue leaving a trail of slobber from my chin to my forehead.
“Ugh, Yeti, no,” I groaned, pushing her furry head away. “That is NOT the kind of kiss I was dreaming about.”
Sitting up, I peered across the room to spot Noah still asleep on the floorboards in the shadows, the empty LuxeLife cooler bag now serving as his pillow. The sound of gentle snoring confirmed he was still fast asleep, thankfully undisturbed by the very vivid dreams of his cabin mate.
I laid back down, heart still racing, and waited for my breathing to steady. Flopping her considerable weight half on top of me, Yeti pinned me to the mattress in a far less romantic way than Dream Noah had. She radiated heat like a furry furnace.
“Fine,” I mumbled, wrapping an arm around her thick neck. “You’re better than no cuddles at all.”
I buried my face in her surprisingly soft fur, the steady rhythm of her breathing lulling me back toward sleep.
KA-CAW … KA-CAW … KA-CAW
I jolted awake to a crow perched on the windowsill, staring at me with beady-eyed judgment. Sunlight stabbed through the grimy window behind it, and the fire in the hearth was now dead and cold. My brain struggled to reconcile the lingering heat of my dream with the very real chill of the cabin.
“Noah?” My voice emerged as a croak, scraping against a throat parched from sleep and ... other recent activities. The cabin responded with nothing but the creak of old wood and a scurrying noise that sounded far too rodent-like.
I sat up, wincing as my vertebrae cracked like bubble wrap being stomped on by a vindictive grizzly bear. My neck felt as if someone had twisted it into a fancy balloon animal shape.
“Yeti?” I called out, hoping for at least the wolf-dog’s company. “Anyone?”
I was alone. No Yeti. No Noah.
I hauled myself upright, clutching the wool blanket around me like a scratchy protective shield. The cabin looked smaller in daylight, every cobweb and crack visible in authentically distressed detail. Outside, the world glistened after the storm, dew-dropped and sparkling.
But no Noah. No footprints. No horses tied to the tree. No wolf-dog. Just mountains and trees, stretching to infinity. They’d probably seen thousands of abandoned women over the centuries, left to fend for themselves in rustic cabins. In a million years, I’d just be another layer of sediment in their geological history.
“Here lies Samantha Li,” I said to the sky above. “Influencer. Died after losing her iPhone. And almost her virginity.” One of the clouds in the sky resembled a fluffy white question mark. “At least as far as her parents are concerned,” I amended.
Back inside, I surveyed the evidence. The fireplace held nothing but cold ashes, a sad reminder of last night’s warmth. My clothes lay spread carefully across a chair, completely dry.Each piece had been smoothed meticulously, like someone had painstakingly removed every wrinkle without the benefit of an iron. Except for my inappropriate underwear. Those were still dangling on the chair. At least they were dry, though.
Noah’s clothes were gone. His boots, his saddlebag, and all trace of his presence had vanished with him.
My brain conjured multiple disaster scenarios simultaneously, each more catastrophic than the last. Was this some twisted mountain version of revenge for making him show me the authentic Colorado? Or worse, had he regretted our kiss so much that he’d literally ridden off into the sunrise rather than face me?
The thought made my stomach sink as if someone had tied a boulder to my ankle, then thrown me in the lake. I pictured myself years from now, wild-haired and feral, wearing nothing but the wool blanket and whatever I could fashion from pine cones, reduced to talking to rocks I’d named after reality TV stars.
I had a thought. Maybe Noah was out gathering breakfast? Maybe he was out there right now, picking fresh berries for muffins? Maybe he’d found a birch tree and was sapping it for syrup?
Clinging to this newfound hope, I let the wool blanket drop from my shoulders and reached for my underwear. The red lace looked so ridiculously out of place against the rustic setting that I laughed out loud. I held it up, remembering Noah’s expression when he’d placed it drying by the fire, a mixture of embarrassment and something darker, more heated. The same look he’d given me when …
The door creaked open behind me.
