“I’m practical.”
“You’re the most gorgeous woman I’ve ever seen,” he said. “Even if you worry about things that don’t matter.”
She laughed quietly. “I should be going home. I have an early start tomorrow.”
“Stay.”
She’d known he would ask.
“I can’t, Scott. This was to get whatever it is out of our systems.”
“It isn’t out of mine yet.”
And if she was honest it wasn’t out of hers.
“I still need to get home. And even if I left here at four in the morning, which is in less than three hours, someone will still see me doing the walk of shame.”
“So? You stayed back tonight even though everyone had gone. We’ll be the talk of the town tomorrow,” he said. “Actually we won’t. That’ll be Lena’s sister. Stay.”
His heartbeat was steady against her, his hands soothing and as rough and needy as the sex had been, she felt as if he had wrapped her in soft blankets and safety.
“Did Marley ever stay?”
His laugh was almost a choke. “You are jealous.” He kissed her hair. “No. It wasn’t anything like what we just did.”
“What did we just do?”
“Rocked each other’s world?”
10
The cold wind was what he needed. Right in his face, it was bracing and icy, enough to give him a slap for being such a fucking moron.
It was Saturday and he hadn’t heard from or seen Keren Leigh since she’d snuck out of his bed at some unearthly hour on Monday morning. She’d woken him, and he’d turned her over and fucked her again, having a godawful feeling in his stomach that she’d try to ghost him and this was to be their last time.
Except this was Severton and she couldn’t do it for long, although his dental check-up had been scheduled with the other dentist she employed at her practice, not her. Small town, very little room to hide. Except so far this week she had done a good job of it.
A very good job.
He’d left with her on Monday morning, not taking any chances given that Lena’s attacker was still looming. Keren had protested, as he knew she would, but he hadn’t given in. It was all very predictable.
As was her avoidance.
So he’d left the bar in Bez’s capable hands for the day and gone for a trek up two of the peaks, needing to get rid of some of the pent up energy he’d been harbouring. He knew he’d been a shit to be with all week, grumpier than usual, getting progressively worse with the longer it had been since he’d seen Keren.
He was screwed.
The weather was bleak, matching his mood. As usual, they were having a last icy blast of winter, just enough to kill off a few shoots of spring that had optimistically popped their heads through the soil. He empathised with them.
It was such he would’ve dissuaded novice climbers or hikers from Lantern Pike. It was never an easy climb even in perfect conditions, but he knew it would be fine for him, and it was. He’d chosen to scale a face of the peak at one point, needing the adrenaline and the strength to be used in his muscles, to make him forget the woman who wasn’t leaving his mind.
He took the longer route down, the one that meandered through the forest, part of which was owned by a family friend who kept a fir tree farm that Scott and his family helped him fell and sell every Christmas. It was an easy descent, the path sheltered from the wind that had gotten up and he was looking forward to getting warm and having a pint and hot food when he got back, maybe tapping up Alex, if he’d finished flying the ‘copter.
He heard the whirring of wheels, the sound of a bike behind him. The route down was used by experienced mountain bikers on a semi-frequent basis. Experienced, because it was steep in places and there would often be water running from higher up, making some surfaces slippery.
“Move right!” he heard a familiar voice yell.
He shifted right, jumping up a slight embankment next to a huge pine tree. Then the whirring became a skid and then a loud thump, followed by a bang.
