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“Just enjoying this moment so thoroughly it can never escape me. And you?”

“Same,” he rasps, all bedroom eyes and a kind of attentiveness I’ve never experienced before.

“Been thinking about this… thinking about us for a while now,” he confesses, dimples peeking out from his bearded cheeks. “Better than I ever could have imagined, though.”

“Agreed,” I admit. “Though I can’t wrap my head around it.”

“Which part?”

“A city girl voice actress and a reclusive cowboy mountain man.”

“A girl raised on her grandaddy’s dairy farm, and a guy who doesn’t have a half bad reading voice… at least, according to the professionals,” he teases with a wink, fanning my hair out across the pillow.

“Verygood,” I agree. “When you keep reading.”

He chuckles. “Caught me off guard at the bookstore. Probably not kosher in mixed crowds, you know.”

“Speaking of which,” I say, stretching toward the nightstand next to the bed. “There’s something I’ve been thinking about a lot, too. Read to me,” I murmur with a naughty smile.

He freezes. “This an audition?”

I nod. “I think our voices go well together… if you can deliver your lines without melting.”

He chuckles, heat rising on his neck.

“Just a line or two. I don’t care.”

He finds the same page, eyes flicking to mine. “Burned this into my brain at the bookstore.” His voice drops, a velvety growl, and my body reacts before my mind can.

“Mmm,” I moan softly, ear-to-ear smile crossing my face.

“Yeah?” he asks. “Do I get the job?”

“Yeah,” I say, stroking his arm.

His finger dances lazily over my collarbone, followed by his lips. “Can’t get over how soft and smooth you are.”

I laugh again. “Were you expecting something else?”

“No. You’re just so different from me. I like it.”

“And I like us,” I say, amazed by the boldness of my words.

“Me, too,” he says, thumb brushing over my cheek. “Could get used to this.”

“Earlier, you said you’d give me anything I ask for.”

His smile fades, replaced by focus. “What if I need to know you won’t forget this—later.”

“I won’t.” And I know it’s true.

He nods once, face relaxing. “Now, tell me how you need me, Allie.”

“I need all of you.”

The hearth crackles, casting a coppery hue on the cabin’s warm log walls. Cozy, calm, safe.

A lazy smile captures his face, boyish in the firelight glow.