the fabric bunches around his fingers, scraping over my nipple. Ridge hasn’t moved a muscle, even as my nipple pebbles beneath his fingertips. There’s something in his expression that says he’s just as surprised at my behavior as I am.
Suddenly, his fingers tighten over my swollen nipple, and I gasp at the way the pinch goes straight to the wet heat between my legs. Ridge curses, his nostrils flaring.
And then his lips crash into mine.
This kiss isn’t as frantic as the one I shared with Dare on the bank of the stream, but it’s just as consuming. I go hot in his arms as he shoves me back against the kitchen counter, grinding his hips against mine. His hands move lower and then he lifts me onto the counter, opening my legs around his hips.
My arms wrap around his neck as I clutch at him a little desperately, my legs hooking around his waist like I’m trying to pin our bodies together. To bind us so closely nothing can pull us apart.
I’ve been wanting to do this for longer than I could ever admit. I’ve needed this for fucking days.
His lips part, and his tongue dances with mine as his hands slide beneath my shirt. When he cups my bare breasts with his calloused hands, I moan into his kiss, my head whirling from the rush of adrenaline and arousal in my veins.
After several moments, he pulls away, both his hands emerging from beneath my shirt to cup my face. He looks into my eyes, breathing heavily, his own cheeks flushed.
God, I like him like this. I love the sight of him coming a little bit undone, and I love knowing that I’m the one who made him that way.
This massive, powerful, controlled man wants me.
Needs me.
And I need him too.
“Ridge, I…” My tongue darts out to lick my lips, tasting the addictive flavor of him on my skin. I don’t know quite what I want to say, what I want to ask for, but I hope he can understand.
The wolf shifter’s amber eyes almost seem to glow in the fading light. He opens his mouth to speak when a soft noise comes from behind the cabin.
He goes tense, his gaze darting to the back door.
“Do you think they’re already back?” I ask, confused by his reaction. If it were only Trystan, Archer, and Dare outside, I don’t think he’d look so ready to fight. My skin prickles with unease.
Ridge’s senses are on full alert. Even in human form, he looks like a wolf, with his nose in the air and his eyes unfocused as he listens to sounds well outside my range of hearing. “No. I don’t think so. That’s not anyone I know.”
Fear strikes a chord within me, and I fight the urge to run. “A stranger?”
Ridge catches my frightened gaze and briefly touches my face, then murmurs, “Stay here.”
Before I can argue, he leaves me sitting on the counter and disappears through the back door into the darkening night.
I clutch the counter beside my legs and feel that old hysteria rising up inside me. I never fully realized how calm and normal my time here at the cabin has become, but it’s obvious now. My panic attacks have become so few and far between that they don’t feel real anymore. The cabin has turned into a safe place, somewhere I can be me without fear of abuse or judgment.
But now there’s something here that doesn’t fit that narrative.
No sounds emerge from behind the cabin. Ridge closed the door behind him. I’m sure he did it because he wanted to protect me, but I don’t like not being able to hear what’s happening. What if he’s in danger? I glance at the counter where our two knives are lying by the cutting board. If all else fails, at least I have a weapon. Of sorts.
The clock on the wall ticks loudly in the silence, counting each second since Ridge walked out. I strain to hear anything beyond the cabin walls, wishing I had the preternatural senses of a shifter.
It’s okay, Sable. It’s probably nothing.
I repeat the comforting words to myself, trying to believe them. Trying not to let my old fears run away with me.
Any moment, Ridge will probably walk back through the door with a grin, telling me he found possums in the trash.
But I know that’s not the case. Ridge didn’t smell an animal outside. He smelled a person. “That’s not anyone I know.”
A loud pop