A sudden high, frantic peeping sound reaches us.
I stop, then follow the sound to the base of a thick beech tree. On the ground, on a bed of dead leaves, a tiny bird is hopping and squeaking. Downy gray feathers, beak wide open, too young to fly. High above us, a nest sits in the crook of a low branch, another chick visible at the rim, peering down.
“Oh no.” I crouch beside it. “It’s fallen out.”
Corey looks up at the nest. “I can’t reach it. Even jumping.”
“Boost me. I can get it from your shoulders.”
I scoop the chick into my cupped hands. It’s warm and impossibly small, its heartbeat fluttering against my palm. Corey crouches, and I awkwardly climb onto his shoulders, gripping the tree trunk with one hand, the bird in the other.
“Okay,” he says. “Hold on.” He rises, his hands gripping my thighs, high, steadying me, his fingers pressing into the muscle through my leggings, and the contact sends a jolt through me. I reach up to the nest, which is just there. My fingers find the rim, and I lower the chick in. It tumbles against its sibling, and both start peeping furiously.
“Done,” I breathe.
He lowers me down. I slide along his back, my body pressed flush against his, and when my feet find the ground, he turns. We’re face-to-face. Inches apart. His hands are on my waist, on bare skin where my top has ridden up, and his palms are on fire against my sides.
“You good?” His voice is low.
“Saved a bird. Can’t ask for anything more heroic than that.”
“You’re my hero,” he murmurs with a striking smirk.
The forest is quiet except for the peeping above and my pulse roaring in my ears.
“We don’t seem to be moving,” I whisper.
“Probably best we wait. Make sure the birdie doesn’t fall out again.”
“Good plan.”
His fingers flex against my sides, and the pressure sends heat rolling through me so fast I forget to breathe. My body is raging, needy, every inch of me too aware of his closeness, the solid weight of him beneath my hands. The space between us keeps shrinking as though neither of us has any interest in saving ourselves.
“If you kiss me,” I say, my voice barely holding together, “I may not be able to stop.”
His gaze darkens. “Counting on it.”
My pulse trips hard. “Then what? We sleep here? There are bears. Raccoons.”
“Wolves,” he adds, mouth hovering close enough to steal the word from my lips.
I freeze. “Wait, there are wolves?—”
Instantly, his mouth lands on mine, and the sentence dies there, swallowed under the force of him.
One hand drives to the small of my back, the other cradles the back of my head, and he pulls me in hard enough that every soft part of me meets the solid heat of him. There’s no hesitation. No careful easing into it. He kisses me like the last thread of restraint just snapped, tongue sliding against mine, teeth catching once at my lower lip, his breath rough. I fist the front of his shirt and cling to him because the whole damn forest seems to tilt beneath my feet.
He holds nothing back.
This isn’t the playful Corey who grins at everything and turns every awkward moment into a joke. This is something darker, hungrier, the Alpha under the charm, kissing me as if he’s been trying not to all day and has finally stopped pretending he can behave.
My toes curl in my boots while my body arches into his, chasing pressure, heat, and the low sound that tears from hischest when I press closer. His heartbeat pounds against mine, and I’m drowning in the sweet taste of his mouth and the terrifying realization that if he wanted to ruin me right here against the tree, part of me would beg him to hurry.
When he breaks the kiss, I moan. Forehead against mine, his breathing is ragged, his eyes darkening.
“Think the bird should be safe,” he groans.
“Maybe we should just make sure.” I push up on my toes and kiss him again, harder this time, my hands sliding over his chest to his neck. Corey growls into my mouth as if I’ve snapped the last thread holding him together.
