Total pages in book: 57
Estimated words: 56624 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 283(@200wpm)___ 226(@250wpm)___ 189(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 56624 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 283(@200wpm)___ 226(@250wpm)___ 189(@300wpm)
The door creaks again.
What if I’m alone? What if someone did hurt him, and I’m stranded here—alone, in the fucking woods, with nothing to defend myself?
I get to my feet.
No. I’m not just going to sit here and wait. I won’t let Owen get hurt. There’s been enough of that for both of us. And I didn’t survive everything I’ve gone through just to be left behind. Not now. Not after him.
I grab the hot poker by the fire and stick it deep into the coals until it’s glowing orange. Then, brandishing it like a weapon, I turn and face the door, my heart racing.
If someone walks in here, they’re not going to find some helpless girl. I’m fucking ready.
The door creaks again.
And then—it’s him.
Owen fills the doorway like something conjured from another time—a model, a soldier, a bearded fucking god, muscular and dangerous. The firelight flickers over the ridges of his neck and the edge of his chest, bare under the jacket he barely bothered to zip.
He looks completely unfazed.
“What the bloody hell are you doing holding that?” he says, his brows raised.
“I didn’t know if someone was going to get you,” I snap. “And I didn’t want to be alone. I was ready to kill someone.”
“With that?” he asks, eyeing the poker. Then his expression shifts into something thoughtful, impressed.
“That might actually work,” he mutters. Then, a little more serious, “You know where it hit?” He gestures toward the outside. “Ice came off the roof. Took out the sled, the big one. It’s dangerous.”
I blink. “Are you sure?”
He nods. “Aye. I’d know if someone was out there.”
“But I thought I heard an animal?”
“In the distance. Nothing nearby, like I suspected. Sounds carry in the cold out here, with nothing to block or insulate them.”
And then he steps in closer, his voice like gravel and thunder. “If someone was here, Emma, I’d fight to the fucking death.”
My chest tightens. “I know,” I whisper. “I do know.”
The snow melting from his boots hits the fire. There’s a hiss… the scent of damp wool. And I’m back—seventeen, sobbing into my pillow.
Owen found me sobbing in my bedroom, heartbroken over a stupid boy who didn’t deserve an ounce of me. I didn’t see him standing in the doorway, but he saw me—watched me fall apart, silent and still.
He saw me, even then. And he never walked away.
He walked in and sat back down beside me.
“Who was it?” he asked.
He was eighteen then, barely skimming the edge of manhood, but already solid—sturdy in that way boys are just before they become dangerous. His hands were the size of frisbees, wide and calloused, already capable of damage.
“I told you,” I said. “He didn’t do anything wrong, Owen.”
“He didn’t know what he had.”
Owen looked away as he said it, regret in his voice. “I should’ve protected you. Something else is bothering you, lass.”
I couldn’t look at him.
The first betrayal—pictures of me, floating around on the internet, without my consent. Barely clothed, in a skimpy bathing suit, the strap undone, my tan lines and the undercurve of my breasts showing.
Me, trusting someone I shouldn’t have.
I never knew what Owen did to him. The boy who took them, added captions, and spread them everywhere.
All I knew was that he left school and never came back. And I’ve always wanted to ask.
I blink. I want to ask him.
But I can’t, not now. Not when the ice is still melting from Owen’s boots and puddling on the floor. Not when he’s looking at me like that—like I’m something worth coming back for.
He locks the door, kicks off his boots, and shrugs off his coat. Then he stands there—bare-chested in gray sweats, his muscles sharp under soft firelight.
I follow him to the fire and watch him toss another log into the flames. I watch the way he moves… slow, controlled.
He stokes it, and the flames climb higher—snapping, crackling, dancing.
And my writer’s mind… it imagines that’s what he’s doing to me—setting me ablaze. Some sort of metaphor for the way he ignites every part of me.
“The snow’s fresh, Emma,” he says, looking toward the frosted window. “No one’s come near the cabin.”
“Still,” I murmur, chewing the inside of my lip.
He turns toward me, his jaw a clean, hard shadow.
“Emma,” he says. His voice is low. Final. Stern. “No one’s here. But if they were, no one is getting past me. You’re safe.”
A twitch pulls at the corner of his mouth, a hint of something warm and amused. “And if they did, by some miracle, get past me,” he adds, “I’m confident you’d take them out with that fireplace poker.”
I laugh under my breath. “You’re mocking me.”
“Nah,” he says, shaking his head.
But I believe him. Not just because of how tall and terrifying and immovable he looks… but because of the way he looks at me.