“Come for me, Meghan,” I rasped. “I’ve got you.”
She shattered with a high, keening cry, her body clamping down on me so hard my vision whited out. Waves of tight, pulsing heat milked me relentlessly, and I couldn’t hold back. I buried my face in the curve of her neck, breathing her in—warm skin, faint vanilla, sex—as I came with a deep groan, spilling inside her in long, blinding pulses.
The release crashed over me like nothing I’d ever felt—raw, overwhelming, like every locked-away piece of me finally broke free. I held her through it, arms wrapped tight around her trembling body, our hearts pounding together in the quiet that followed.
As the aftershocks faded, I held her close, reality settling in. This woman—this brave, beautiful woman—was the only one I wanted beneath me, above me, beside me. For the rest of my life.
That’s how I knew I was already falling for her. Hard. Irrevocably.
I grabbed the throw blanket from the back of the couch, draping it over us as she snuggled into my side, her head on my chest. Her breathing evened out, warm against my skin.
But as the fire crackled low and the storm howled outside, doubt crept in. She’d given me something precious tonight. Her first time. Her trust.
What if, when the snow melted and the power came back, she realized she didn’t feel the same? What if this was just the storm for her—a moment of heat in the cold—and nothing more?
5
MEGHAN
Iwoke to the hum of the refrigerator.
It took me a moment to place the sound. I’d grown so used to silence—just the fire and the wind and Wolfe’s steady breathing beside me—that the sudden noise felt jarring. Foreign.
The power was back.
I shifted under the blanket, blinking in the gray morning light filtering through the curtains. The storm had quieted sometime in the night. I could still see snow falling, but it was gentle now, lazy flakes drifting past the window instead of the violent whiteout from before.
Wolfe wasn’t beside me.
I sat up, clutching the blanket to my chest, and found him across the room. He was already dressed, pulling on his boots by the door. His coat was in his hand.
My stomach dropped.
“Hey,” I said, my voice rough with sleep.
He looked up. Those dark eyes met mine, and for a second, I saw something flicker in them. But then it was gone, replaced by that careful blankness I’d seen when he first arrived.
“Power’s back,” he said. “Heat should kick on soon. You’ll be fine now.”
You’ll be fine now. Like I was a task he’d completed. A box he could check off.
“Oh,” I said. “Okay.”
He stood, shrugging into his coat. His movements were efficient, practiced. He wasn’t looking at me anymore.
This was it. He was leaving. And he was acting like last night had never happened.
I wanted to say something. I wanted to ask him to stay, to tell me what he was thinking, to give me anything other than this sudden wall he’d thrown up between us. But the words stuck in my throat. Maybe I’d imagined the connection. Maybe I’d been so desperate to feel something that I’d convinced myself it meant more than it did.
He was at the door now, his hand on the knob.
“Wolfe,” I said.
He stopped but didn’t turn around.
I couldn’t do this. I couldn’t let him walk out that door without knowing. Even if the answer broke me, I had to ask.
“Was this just the storm?”
