Page 13 of The Mountain Man Lumberjack’s Claimed Bride

"Hunter."

"Right here." One thumb drags across her left nipple. Her whole body jolts. "Not going anywhere."

My mouth closes over the peak, tongue circling slow while my hand cups the other breast, rolling the nipple between thumb and forefinger. She grabs my shoulders, fingers digging into the muscle through my thermal, pulling me closer. Her hips press forward, seeking contact, finding my thigh between hers.

The thermal comes off. Her hands are on my chest immediately. Palms flat, fingers spread, mapping the terrain of muscle and scar tissue and chest hair with the same focused attention she gives everything. When her thumb traces the line of an old scar below my collarbone, a logging cable that snapped when I was twenty-four, she leans forward and presses her lips to it.

Something cracks open in my chest. Something older than six days. Older than eight years. Something I bricked over so long ago I forgot what was behind the wall.

Her jeans button under my fingers. The zipper follows. The denim peels down her thighs, taking her underwear with it because patience stopped being a resource I have access to about thirty seconds ago. She steps out of them, naked in the moonlight in my bedroom, and the breath leaves my lungs.

Curves. Real, soft, generous curves. Hips that flare wide from a waist my hands can almost span. A stomach that isn't flat and isn't trying to be. Thighs that are strong from walking mountain terrain for a week, pressing together at the top where the light doesn't reach.

Beautiful isn't the right word. Beautiful is for things you look at. Nora is something you feel. Something that rearranges the furniture in your chest to make room for itself.

"Lie down."

She sits on the edge of the bed, then slides back, watching me strip off my jeans. Her eyes drop. Widen slightly. Not with fear. With the particular expression of a woman who is doing math and liking the result.

The bed dips under my weight as I kneel over her. Both hands planted beside her head, my body covering hers without pressing down yet, close enough that the heat between us has nowhere to go. Her hips shift underneath me, restless, seeking.

"Six days." My mouth finds the space below her ear. "Six days I've been watching you in my kitchen. At my table. Walking my land." Teeth against her earlobe. "In my bed tomorrow, that's what I kept thinking. Every morning. She'll be gone by tomorrow. And every morning you were still here, making coffee, asking questions, looking at me with those eyes, and I wanted?—"

"What." Her fingers thread through my hair, pulling just hard enough. "What did you want?"

"This."

My mouth travels south. Down her throat. Between her breasts. Across her stomach, where her muscles tense under my lips. Lower. The crease of her hip. The inside of her thigh, where her skin is impossibly soft and she's already trembling.

Her knees fall open. The scent of her arousal fills my head, dark and sweet, and my cock throbs painfully against my own thigh. Later. This first. This has been building since the ridge, since flour on her cheek and her hand on a chainsaw and the way she saidmy dad was a forest rangerwith no idea what those words did to me.

My mouth finds her pussy. One slow, flat stroke of my tongue from entrance to clit, tasting her fully, feeling her whole body arch off the mattress. Her hand tightens in my hair. A moan, louder now, fills the dark room.

"Fuck." Her hips roll up against my mouth. "Hunter, oh my god?—"

The clit gets attention next. Circling. Slow at first, then firmer, reading her body the way I read timber. Pressure here. Ease off there. When she moans, more of that. When her thighstense around my ears, she's close, so pull back just enough to keep her right at the edge.

Two fingers slide inside her. Tight. Wet. Hot enough to make my vision blur. The noise she makes is raw, animal, the sound of a woman who has stopped thinking about anything except the man between her legs. My fingers curl forward, finding the spot that makes her hips buck, and my tongue flattens against her clit at the same time.

"Don't stop, don't stop, don't—" Her back arches clean off the bed. Thighs clamping against my head. Fingers pulling my hair hard enough to sting. Pussy clenching around my fingers in rhythmic pulses as the orgasm tears through her, shaking her from the inside out.

I work her through it. Slower. Gentler. Tongue easing off as the aftershocks ripple through her body and her grip on my hair loosens. When the trembling stops, she's breathing like she's just summited the ridge, chest heaving, eyes glassy in the moonlight.

My mouth presses against the inside of her thigh. Then her hip. Then her stomach, climbing back up her body while she comes down, tasting her skin, memorizing the sounds she just made and cataloging every single one for future reference.

"You taste like you were made for me." The words come out against her breast, where my mouth finds her nipple again. "Every part of you."

Her hands find my face. Pull me up. Kiss me deep and slow, tasting herself on my tongue. Her legs wrap around my waist, heels pressing into the small of my back, pulling my hips down against hers. My cock slides through the wet heat between her thighs, nudging against her entrance, and every muscle in my body goes taut with the effort of not pushing forward.

"Condom," I manage.

"Nightstand?"

A breathless laugh scrapes out of me. "How'd you know?"

"Librarian intuition." She reaches past me, opens the drawer, finds the foil packet. Her fingers tear it open while I press my forehead against her collarbone, trying to breathe, trying to maintain some semblance of control while this woman unravels me one layer at a time.

Her hand wraps around my cock, rolling the condom down. Firm grip. Confident. Not tentative, not teasing. The touch of her fingers on my shaft sends a groan out of me that vibrates through both our bodies.