“Tell me to stop now, Izzy,” he commanded, his voice tight, agonizingly strained. “Because in about five seconds, I won’t be able to.”
She didn’t speak. Instead, she slid her hands up the hard, corded expanse of his arms, reached for his shoulders, and pulled him down to meet her.
A low, guttural groan broke from him, and then the last of his restraint shattered entirely.
He took her mouth again, hard and possessive, as the world dissolved into a blind, bruising blur of skin and sweat—the slick heat of his chest slicking against hers as he came undone—driven by a desperate, heavy rhythm that left her entirely breathless. There was no more thinking, no more tomorrow, just the crushing, relentless claim of his body finally moving with hers—all that pent-up wanting shaking loose after days of him pretending she was nothing more than an obligation in borrowed boots. He held her so tightly against him that it felt like he wanted to press her straight through the bed, anchoring them both against the storm.
For the rest of the night, the storm was the quietest thing in the room.
On the nightstand, beside his watch and a heavy brass lamp, lay the open sketchbook. In the dim, shadowed light, the charcoal lines of the Hollis ridge were a jagged scar, and the faint, scratched-in wings of the plane hovering over them both—a silent, paper witness to a secret that was finally waking up.
22
Grant’s House — 8:00 AM
The storm had passed, but the sky was still heavy. Low clouds pressed down over the ridge, the light dull and gray as it slipped through the cracks in the blinds.
Izzy walked into the kitchen, her body still humming from the night before. She felt found. Centered. The scent of him still lingered on her skin, a warm ghost of the master bedroom.
She wanted to reach out—to touch the small of his back as he stood by the stove.
Grant turned. The look in his eyes was a bucket of ice water.
He was already dressed. A fitted black tee stretched across his shoulders. Dark jeans. His hat sat on the counter like a border he’d drawn in the dust. His jaw was set, rigid and carved, looking like it belonged to the mountain itself.
“Coffee’s hot.”
His voice was clipped. Professional.
The warmth in her turned to lead.
“Grant?”
“Last night shouldn’t have happened.” He didn’t look at her. He watched the coffee drip into the pot like it required his fullattention. “I let it get out of hand. It can’t happen again.” He finally looked up, and for a fraction of a second, his eyes dropped to her mouth, his jaw tightening as if he could still taste her.
The words hit. Hard.
Izzy felt the sting burn behind her eyes—she forced it back, iced it over, replaced it with something colder.
“Shouldn’t have happened?” she repeated. Her voice trembled, but it wasn’t soft. It was sharp. “How dare you. How dare you reduce it to that.”
“I’m pulling us back,” he said. Now he looked at her. His eyes weren’t cold—that would’ve been easier. They were tight. Controlled. “Burke and Caitlin can’t know. We’re not going to make things uncomfortable every time we’re in a room together, because we crossed a line. This gets messy fast.”
He didn’t flinch. Wouldn’t.
In his head, he saw Sam Talley. A man who had stopped living the day an artist walked out of his life. Waiting. Watching the road for something that wasn’t coming back.
That wasn’t going to be him.
He’d settle down when he was ready—with a girl from Sylva. Someone who understood this place and wanted the same things.
He’d seen Izzy in the mud, helping him with the yearling. He knew she had grit. But it didn’t matter. She was leaving in five days. This was crazy.
It hit her suddenly—sharp enough to make her angry. Grant Scott would walk into a lightning storm for a panicked horse without thinking twice. He’d throw himself between danger and anybody he cared about on pure instinct.
But this?
This terrified him.
