“We agreed to take things slowly,” he said, his voice strained. “Not to test my control.”
“We’ve been taking things slowly for days.” She pressed closer, his erection throbbing against her stomach. “How long until we can speed things up?”
Something dangerous flickered in his expression. His control was slipping—she could see it, could feel it in the tremor that ran through him. One more push and he would break. She wanted him to break.
But he was stronger than she’d given him credit for. With a pained sound, he stepped back, putting distance between them.
“Training is over for today.”
“Rykan—”
“I said it’s over.”
She let him go, watching as he stalked back towards the cabin with his shoulders tight and his jaw clenched. Part of her wanted to force the confrontation that had been building between them since that kiss in the snow. But another part—the part that was learning patience along with combat—understood that some battles couldn’t be won through direct assault.
She stayed in the clearing as the sun sank below the mountain peaks, her body still humming with frustrated need, her mind already calculating her next approach.
That night she moved through the small cabin, tending to tasks that had become second nature—stirring the stew, checking the bread, banking the fire for the evening. He sat at the table, ostensibly sharpening a hunting knife, but she caught him watching her more than once. His eyes tracked her movements with an intensity that made her skin prickle with awareness.
Neither of them spoke about what had happened during training. They didn’t need to. The tension filled the cabin like smoke, impossible to ignore, equally impossible to escape.
She served the stew and sat across from him. Their knees brushed under the small table and he went rigid, his hand tightening on his spoon.
“This is good,” he said after a moment, and she recognized the attempt at normalcy for what it was.
“I’m getting better.”
“At many things.”
Their eyes met. The air between them crackled.
She looked away first, deliberately concentrating on her meal. Slowly, she reminded herself. One step at a time. Even if every instinct screamed at her to abandon caution and throw herself at him.
The meal passed in charged silence. She cleared the dishes. He stoked the fire. The familiar routine of evening settled over them, but nothing felt familiar anymore. Every brush of contact, every shared glance, every moment of proximity carried weight it hadn’t before.
When she went to her bedding that night, his eyes tracked her the entire way.
She didn’t sleep.
CHAPTER 11
Three more days passed in the same pattern. Training that left them both breathless and aching. Kisses stolen in quiet moments—against the cabin wall, behind the woodpile, in the shadows of the forest. Each one hotter than the last, each one pushing closer to the line they’d drawn.
Ember learned the geography of his restraint the way she’d learned the mountain trails. She knew the sounds he made when he was close to breaking—the low growl in his chest, the way his breathing changed, the flex of his hands when he was fighting the urge to grab her. She knew exactly how hard she could push before he pulled away. She pushed a little harder every time.
On the fourth night, they came closer than they’d ever been.
It started innocently—or as innocently as anything between them could be anymore. She’d been reaching for something on a high shelf, stretching onto her toes, when his hands found her waist to steady her. Just a simple touch, but when she turned, she found him right there, barely a breath between them, his eyes already burning gold.
“You’ve been doing this on purpose,” he said. Not an accusation but a recognition.
“Maybe.”
“You’re testing my control.”
“Is that what you think I’m doing?”
His hands slid down to grip her hips, pulling her flush against him. She gasped at the contact, at the evidence of his desire pressing against her stomach. He was hard—achingly, impressively hard—and an answering heat pulsed between her thighs.
