Nia was moaning with every thrust. She was lost entirely in the moment, all the overthinking was gone. All she could do was feel. It was that beautiful line between pain and pleasure and she loved every single second of it. She felt utterly possessed in the best way by Soren.
She felt the beginnings of an orgasm building deep inside her. She felt like this was building to be the biggest orgasm she had maybe ever had. It felt different, Soren fucking her in a way she had never been fucked before.
Suddenly Nia felt her orgasm ripping through her and her pleasure releasing from her in a big gush over Soren’s hand and over the bed.
Thatwas certainly something new.
“Oh… my… god..” Nia gasped.
Soren’s smile when Nia opened her eyes was absolute satisfaction at Nia’s orgasm.
“That’s it, Doc. You’ve made a beautiful mess of these sheets,” Soren laughed.
Later—minutes or hours, Nia couldn’t tell—the storm had quieted. The only light came from the small lamp and the reflection of the tree’s glow across the snow. Soren lay besideher, one arm draped over her waist, thumb tracing idle circles against her hip.
Nia stared at the ceiling, heart still racing, a faint smile ghosting across her lips. For once, her mind was silent.
“Doc,” Soren murmured against her hair, voice low and rough. “Still think you’re not the kind to get caught in storms?”
Nia turned her head toward her, meeting her gaze. “Maybe I just needed the right one.”
Soren’s answering grin was lazy, warm, and full of promise.
Outside, snow continued to fall—soft and relentless, covering every trace of the path that had led them here.
4
SOREN
The first thing Soren noticed when she woke was the quiet.
That heavy, muffled kind of quiet that only came after a serious snowstorm—the whole mountain holding its breath.
She lay still for a moment, staring at the ceiling beams of her cabin. The air was cold enough that she could see a faint puff of breath when she exhaled. Usually she liked mornings like this: coffee brewing, the world blanketed and still, no one needing her to fix anything yet. But this morning, everything in her chest ached in a way that had nothing to do with the weather.
Her bed smelled like pine soap and sawdust andher.
Not Nia—Nia had smelled like clean linen and something expensive and floral—but herself. The difference made the room feel emptier.
Soren groaned and rolled onto her back, draping an arm over her eyes. She hadn’t meant to leave. Not really. But sometime after the storm had quieted and Nia had fallen asleep—soft breath against her shoulder, hand curled in the sheets—Soren had panicked. The kind of panic that didn’t come from fear of the person next to you, but from the rare, dangerous sense that it mattered.
She’d told herself it was better this way. A one-night thing. Clean, simple.
Only it didn’t feel clean or simple now.
The images kept replaying: Nia’s breath catching under her hands, that flash of surrender in her eyes, the way her voice had cracked on a half-whisperedplease.Soren squeezed her eyes shut, a helpless smile tugging at her mouth.
“Damn, Doc,” she muttered into the empty cabin. “What the hell did you do to me?”
Outside, a gust of wind rattled the shutters. Soren pushed the blanket back and swung her legs over the side of the bed, bare feet finding the cold wood floor. She tugged on sweatpants and a flannel, padding over to the window.
The view took her breath for a different reason.
The snow hadn’t stopped—it hadburiedeverything. The pine trees sagged under white weight, the road down the ridge was invisible, her truck a smooth, rounded mound with only the mirror peeking out like a periscope.
“Looks like we’re not going anywhere,” she muttered.
Coffee came first. She scooped grounds into the old percolator and waited for the hiss and gurgle to fill the silence. Her thoughts kept drifting back to Nia: how composed she’d been when they met, all edges and restraint—and how quickly she’d burned through every wall once she let go.
