Everything.
I’d never been much for speeches. Not even with new rangers. My unit could testify to that. I’d been fairly abrupt with my scant words of wisdom. But the mountain, with its bare face and thick foothills, offered no recourse at all.
Only a promise.
I'll be here long after you become dust in the dirt on which you stand.
The mountain’s silent reply was humbling and powerful.
I stared up at it, awed rather than cowed. When the air chilled, I returned to the house, my tools packed away for the afternoon. It wasn’t until I’d reorganized the entire log pile out the back and restacked my new rounds inside that I realized Eve hadn’t come back down at all.
Breaking my promise about house rules a few scant hours after I made them, I grabbed the gift I’d brought in for her from my jacket and took the stairs two at a time, her name ready on my lips. My boot kicked her door open, I half lunged inside, prepared for whatever scene would greet me, and froze.
The fact that I’d just invaded the space of the woman I loved, the woman who I had scared less than a week ago by barging in without an invitation, slapped me in full.
Outside, I swore the mountain rumbled, laughing at me.
Hell, maybe I should be laughing at myself.
I leaned one shoulder against her doorway, inhaling the pine and pomegranate scent that seemed to follow Eve around every time I saw her, Mind, that had always been at Christmas, but it was something I knew I would associate with the thought of her for the rest of my life. The perfect Christmas morning.
She bent over her bed, stretching for something on the other side, and treated me to a damn fine view of the curve of her ass.
I cleared my throat before I left my perch and did something far too inappropriate.
“Eve,” I stared, pausing when she leapt straight, whipping around to face me, armed with a cushion.
“Archer,” she gasped breathlessly. “I didn’t hear you come up.”
“Yeah that’s me, silent tracker and all.” I grinned.
“I wouldn't know,” Eve murmured, gripping her pillow tight between both hands. It strained in the middle. Her gaze was guarded, but nothing could hide the pain that seeped in from the sides, as though begging to be healed.
I frowned; I’d thought that with the extra help coming into the ranch, she wouldn’t be quite so stretched. Taking a slow step into the room, I waited on her reaction. But she gave me nothing at all. I risked a second step, and another.
“You should know. We’ve spent some good moments together.”
“Have we?” Eve looked up at me blindly, desperation creasing her brow, tightening the corners of those lush pink lips I’d dreamed of kissing for so long back in Texas.
And damning all the risks of her pushing me away to any hell, I didn’t care which, I pulled her into my chest, wrapping my arms around her tight.
Eve stood stiff as a length of wood for a long moment, but as warmth transferred from my body to her colder one, she sank into my embrace, pressing her cheek to my chest.
My heart might have burst with pain or relief. I didn’t bother working it out as I kissed the top of her head, catching her chin with my knuckle to tip her lips up to meet mine.
Christmas.
Eve smelled and tasted like Christmas.
I groaned as she opened to me, trying to take it slow, but it was damn hard when her light kisses turned hotter, and she pressed closer into me. Winding my arms tighter around her, I breathed her in, reveling in the tiny mewls beneath my lips.
“This wasn’t what I came in here for.” I smiled against her lips to soften my words.
“I don’t care, Rhys. Please,” she begged.
Fuckingbegged.
I inhaled sharply, and claimed a lungful of her scent for my efforts, hardening me past the point of painful. Those dark lashes lifted, exposing the need in her eyes that matched her voice, and I was gone.
