Page 148 of Mountain Men Heroes

“That’s an entirely different conversation, boys,” she chastised with a gentle slap to Riley’s shoulder.

He excused himself and stepped out into the cold. Fat flurries whipped through the biting cold air and kicked into an angry whirlwind that mirrored the chaos going on in his head.

He slammed the truck door closed and sat there in the dark as the snowstorm raged just beyond the windshield.

He tightened his fingers around the wheel. Fire and determination dripped into his bloodstream and wouldn’t stop the more he thought about the smell of Ivy that clung to him. The fear of losing her. The heat of her body against this and the way she moaned as he took her.

She was his. No matter what he had to do, she would believe him if it took his last breath to convince her.

How the hell did he get through to a woman that didn’t want his help? Didn’t understand the love of a family, and sure the hell didn’t want anything to do with Alaska?

He scrubbed a hand down his face and brushed off the snowflakes that landed in his hair and used the back of the scarf to dry off the little drops of water that clung to his hands. He paused. He smiled. Why, of course.

Looking out over the hood, he pointed the truck back to town and gunned it as a new plan took hold.

Nine

Dodging Damon would be hard, but she would slip out the back door and let the darkness swallow her. Drake said fifteen minutes and to meet him at the tiny airstrip a mile outside of town. She worried about the snowstorm but he reassured her it wasn’t anything to ground them.

Yet.

In another hour or so she would be screwed and snowbound for another day, maybe longer. Much longer.

Checking to see that no one was in the hallway—no one being Damon—she slipped from her door, leaving behind the key above the frame where he’d pulled it down her first night.

“I had a pussycat named Ivy. She was as black as your hair and just as skittish.”

She turned on her heel and stilled. Yellow eyes cut through the dark hallway, and she suddenly felt like a trapped animal. “I’m not an animal and I’m not skittish. I just don’t like being cornered.”

“Same thing.”

“Is not. What are you doing here?”

“I live here, remember?”

She took a step back as Damon advanced down the hall closer toward her. If he touched her, she didn’t know if she would be strong enough to leave. He called her his soul mate before leaving earlier and she’d spent the whole damn time packing thinking on those two words.

He was right.

But too damn bad.

She refused to open her heart for yet another person to trample on her love.

“Then why are you running back to an empty apartment thousands of miles away from anyone who cares about you? And on Christmas Eve of all nights?”

“Who do you think you are to lecture me on what is right and what is wrong? Just because I fucked you doesn’t mean anything, Damon.”

The harsh words tore from her lips and dragged a piece of her heart with them. She hated being like that with him, but he pushed her to the ledge and she either pushed back or fell into his arms.

She never fell. Not since she turned eighteen and finally had control over her life. No one would ever take that away from her again.

“Your virginity meant everything to me. I know what it is like to lose control over yourself, Ivy.”

She gasped. “It’s like you’re in my head.”

He took another step. “I understand the hurt you’ve gone through. Or at least a fraction of it. The betrayal of others. I’m not those people just as you are not the person who hurt me years ago. We both have a chance here. A gift. When you took me into your body and you clamped over my cock you took something from me just as much as I took your virginity.”

His words brought a rush of desire to spill over her senses and her emotions pinged like radar seeking the source of what affected her. “I’ll lose myself to you, Damon and I can’t have that.”