"You think I'm here to play house?"
The question catches me off guard. "What?"
"You think I'm here for a break. A breather. A taste of something wild before I go back to my real life."
The words sting because they're exactly what I've been telling myself.
I want to deny it, but the words stick in my throat.
She blinks once, and I see something shift in her expression. A decision being made.
Then she steps toward me, slow and steady, like she's approaching a wild animal that might bolt.
"My real life doesn't feel real anymore, Evan. Not since I came here. Not since you."
She presses her hand to my chest, right over my heart, and I swear she can feel it hammering against my ribs.
"I don't want a fling. I want you."
Silence stretches between us, heavy with possibility and fear and the weight of everything we're not saying.
Then I say the thing I've been holding back for days. The truth that's been clawing at my chest, demanding to be spoken.
"I don't want you to leave."
Her breath catches, and I see hope flicker in her eyes.
I close the distance and pull her into my arms, holding her tight, burying my face in her neck.
"I don't know how to do this," I murmur against her hair. "But I want to try."
She pulls back just enough to look me in the eye, and what I see there takes my breath away. Not just desire or affection, but something deeper. Something that looks dangerously like love.
"Then let me stay. We can work this out."
And just like that, the thing I've been afraid of isn't so scary anymore.
She's not a storm that will tear through my life and leave destruction in its wake.
She's the shelter I've been looking for without even knowing it.
Chapter Eleven: Cassidy
The Next Morning
For the first time since this whole wild thing started, I don't feel like a guest in someone else's life. I don't feel temporary or borrowed or like I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop.
I feel like I belong.
Less than a week ago, I was fleeing the wreckage of a relationship that left me questioning everything about myself. Ithought I knew what I wanted from life and I thought I had it all figured out.
Now I'm in a cabin in the middle of nowhere, wrapped in the arms of a mountain man who's turned my entire world upside down, and I've never felt more at home.
His hand cups my cheek, thumb brushing the edge of my smile, and I see everything I feel reflected in his dark eyes.
His truth. But we also have one nigglingly little issue.
Dylan.
