Page 33 of On the Mountain

I smiled, feeling like even though we didn’t know each other well, I mattered to Melody. That was an incredible feeling. “I can do that.”

As soon as we ended the call, I climbed into bed and curled up into a ball, with my cell phone clutched in my hand, watching each minute tick by. The anger was still there. Crow had locked me in a room and then driven down the mountain. What if there’d been a fire? What if Melody hadn’t called me and he’d gotten arrested? A million things could have gone wrong.

I was unsure what to expect when he came home too. Which Crow would I see? The one who’d been completely shut off when he’d nearly broken Billy’s hand? The one who’d cooked me meals and took a bath with me and taught me how to weatherproof windows and can vegetables? Or would it be a completely different Crow, one I hadn’t met yet?

None of that mattered to me, though. I just wanted him home.

Time ticked by too slowly. Every minute felt like a decade as I lay there waiting for him.

At some point I must have dozed off because I didn’t hear the truck. I didn’t even hear the bedroom unlock until Crow was pushing open the door.

I rolled over and jumped out of bed, not caring that I was still naked. “What were you thinking! Why did you go without me? Why the hell did you lock me in the room?”

Can’t you trust me? Will you ever?

It took me a moment to notice his eyes, the wildness to them. His pupils were huge, and his breaths sounded close to a pant. There had been numerous times before when I thought Crow looked wild, feral, but they had nothing on him at this moment as he took a step, then another toward me.

I walked backward, goose bumps racing across my skin. The hairs on my arms stood on end. It was me who couldn’t speak now, my adrenaline spiking. My gaze shot to his wrists when he moved closer. Bruises colored his skin from the handcuffs, making some of the fear inside me melt. “Crow? It’s me. I won’t hurt you.”

As unbelievable as it might sound, it was almost as if something flashed in his eyes, like when the electricity flickered off, then on again. He moved forward, and I went backward, like he was stalking me. Part of me knew I should be scared, but I couldn’t be—not of him.

The back of my legs hit the bed, and I fell down onto it.

“Need.” The one word came out broken, and grittier than I’d ever heard from him, like it had taken everything inside him to get it out. He started to shake, like he was struggling to contain himself, like he didn’t belong in his skin. “Yes or no,” pushed past his lips, clueing me in.

“Yes. God yes.”

And then Crow was on me.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Crow

I felt caged, like I still had the cuffs around my wrists. Once I’d gotten on the mountain, I’d hoped that feeling would go away, but it didn’t. My heart hadn’t slowed its beat. My limbs tingled, everything inside me feeling restless. I didn’t know how to fix it, how to clear my head and relax my body. I just needed.

I grabbed Cyrus and flipped him to his stomach. I kicked out of my shoes, climbed onto the bed, and jerked my jeans down my thighs. I spit on my fingers and pushed them between his ass cheeks. The tip of my digit circled his rim before pushing inside.

“Fuck…Crow…”

A low rumble started deep in my chest. The way he said my name…it was almost enough to pull me out of this frenzy, his voice a life raft, thrown to me while I was lost at sea.

I fucked one, then two fingers into him, Cyrus thrusting against the bed. My other arm wrapped around him, tugging him up onto his knees so I could reach around and stroke his cock. It was hot and hard in my hand. My erection throbbed, ached and pulsed with all the need inside me to let loose, and the only way I knew how to do that was with him.

I pushed a second finger into him again, blinded to anything except the pale arch of his back beneath me, but when he tensed slightly, flashes of our only other time together played in my head—how difficult it had been to push inside him, his tender hole afterward.

Jerking away from him, I stumbled off the bed. My jeans almost made me fall, so I tugged them up.

“Where are you going? Why did you stop?” I hated the broken sound of his voice, the soft ache in it telling me he thought I didn’t want him. How he could care that much about me, I didn’t know, but he did.

“Crow? It’s me. I won’t hurt you.”

He hadn’t been afraid of me. Despite everything and who I was, he’d worried I would be afraid of him rather than fearing for himself.

I didn’t have inside me the words he deserved, but I picked him up and went toward my room.

“Crow?” he asked as I dropped him onto my massive bed. I’d built it myself. I’d built everything myself, but this was one of my prized pieces, the head and footboards made from thick, heavy logs.

I pulled him to the side of the mattress and hefted him up onto his knees. I pushed my pants to mid-thigh again, then plucked the lube from my nightstand. I needed to come, needed my balls to unleash and release some of the panic inside me. I pushed two slick fingers into his hole, and Cyrus moaned in response, pushing back against me and fucking himself on my hand.