The Woodsman (Lust in the Woods Book 1) Read online

  I flung the door open and stared at him.

  The man-bun and beard were gone. Totally gone. Buzz cut all the way.

  “What happened to your hair? All your hair?” Despite feeling like my chest might explode just from looking at him, there wasn’t anything I could actually think to say, except comment on his hair.

  A sexy, rough bear-paw of a hand rubbed his shaved head.

  “I cut it off. Obviously. You don’t like it?”

  “You didn’t do it for me.”

  “And what about your hair?”

  I ignored the comment about my hair. God, he still looked amazing. Even without his ridiculously beautiful hair, he looked wonderful. But tired. So, so tired. Why was he so tired looking? I clenched my fist around the doorknob to stop myself from reaching out and running my hand along his brow.

  “Is your mom okay?”

  “Yeah, actually she’s really great. She sends her best. Well, she sent a lot more than that, but we’ll get to that after. I mean, later. Fuck.” He ran a hand over his head again and looked at his feet.

  This was not the Sam I knew. Sam was strong, confident, and borderline aggressive. This dude was none of those things.

  “Can I please come in?”

  “Okay.” I stepped to the side and waved him in. It was only then that I noticed the rucksack on his back.

  I watched him look around the apartment, which took him a total of ten seconds. Standing in the middle of my bedroom-living area-kitchen, he looked enormous. If he made any abrupt movements, his bag was bound to knock something over.

  “Why don’t you put that down over there?” I pointed to the floor to the side of the bed. “What are you doing here, Sam?”

  “Can I sit down?” He pointed toward the bed and I nodded. “So how’s the writing going? Charlie says…” His eyes flicked to meet mine, realizing his mistake.

  “You’ve been talking to Charlie? That’s how you found me?”

  “Maybe. Yes. Maybe. Don’t be mad at her.”

  “I’m not mad at her. Answer my question.”

  “I’m here to see you.”

  My heart lurched and I willed myself to stay still. By some miracle, I didn’t start hyperventilating. “Because….?”

  “Well…” He nervously ran his hands up and down his thighs. “I think there were some things left unsaid between us.”

  That was it?

  I counted to fifteen, waiting for something else.

  Anything.

  When nothing came, I stood up and walked to the door.

  “I think you said everything you needed to say two months ago at the airport.”

  “No, wait, Katy, come on.” He stood up and held his hands up, as if I was the one being unreasonable.

  “If that’s all you have to say, I’d like you to leave. Don’t forget your bag.”

  He reached over to pick it up and slowly walked toward the door. “You’re not even going to give me a chance to explain?”

  “I did. I am. You don’t seem to have anything to say.”

  “It’s not that easy.”

  “You know what? It actually is.”

  His jaw stiffened and he shifted the strap on his shoulder in irritation as he walked toward me. “So this is it?”

  Part of me was screaming inside, trying to get the rest of my brain to realize what was happening.

  He’s here. He’s in your apartment. In Paris! He obviously didn’t come to see the Eiffel Tower. He’s here for you, you complete and utter moron.

  But a part of me, the part of me that knew my heart was still battered and broken, that had spent the last months getting over him, refused to react. This was not enough. There was too much damage done for one grand gesture to fix it all, to rebuild the trust he’d smashed to smithereens outside the airport.

  “No, this isn’t it.” He practically barked out the words. A nudge of the door with his foot sent it flying shut. At the same time, he dropped his bag on the floor and grasped me by the shoulders.

  “You don’t get to do this,” I yelled in his face, pushing on his chest. But of course, he didn’t budge. The monolith of a man simply stood there and then started walking me backward toward the bed.

  “Do what, Katy? Do what? I come all the way here and you won’t even talk to me? You at least owe me a conversation.” His face was red with anger, and I realized that up until now I’d never really seen Sam angry. Irritated, yes. Annoyed, of course. Stressed out of his mind, bingo. But angry? Never.

  “I don’t owe you anything.” It came out as a screech and I raised my hand to slap him. I was having some sort of out-of-body experience, watching a hysterical woman lift her arm to hit the man she loved. I’d never hit anyone in my life.

  Sam grabbed my wrist before it made contact. Instead of his action bringing me back from the depths of dark, swirling wrath I was lost in, it provoked something in me. I snapped and lunged at him, wrenching my wrist away, my hands a blur as I tried to claw at him.

  “You left me. You threw me away. You didn’t want me. How many other ways do I have to say it? How dare you? How dare you come here and demand anything from me? I gave you everything. I gave you my love and you threw it away. You didn’t need me anymore. How dare you say I owe you anything?” I kept repeating the question over and over, even after he’d pinned me to the bed, my hands bound in his above my head. Eventually my energy gave out and the fog of anger cleared. The adrenaline was still surging through my muscles, but now I was hyper aware of Sam’s body pressed down against mine, a feeling so familiar and welcomed that I naturally relaxed under him.

  The sound of his voice, soothing murmurs, filtered through and I finally started listening.

  “I got scared. I don’t have anything else to say but that. I got scared. Anything else I say would just be an excuse. Even if I told you why I got scared. It’s not rocket science. It doesn’t take a genius to figure it out. I just got scared. You scared the hell out of me. I’ve never had someone take care of me, not like that. Not like you did. And then you took care of my family. Even before that, you were freaking me out. I’ve never wanted a woman the way I wanted you. I convinced myself it was something about being alone in the woods with you, isolated like that. I told myself lie after lie. And then I decided to tell you lie after lie to get you to leave. But you wouldn’t fucking leave. You’ve been in my damn head since I handed you that ticket.” The more he spoke, the more the tenderness seeped out of his voice and was replaced with irritation and frustration. “I’m sorry, Katy. I’m so sorry.” He pressed his face against my neck.

  Despite his words, his hands remained firmly wrapped around mine. His hard, heavy body, weighing me down, was impossible to ignore, as was the growing hardness I felt against my thigh.

  His lips pressed against my neck, hardly a kiss, just a contact, a connection, a reminder of something that used to be. The beard that gave me so many little burns was gone, but his lips sang of familiarity as they brushed against my collarbone.

  A moan escaped.

  Both from him and me.

  Inadvertently, I turned my head away, slightly arching against him in the process. The adrenaline morphed into a different kind of hormonal surge, the kind that had me wriggling my legs apart and wrapping them around his hips.

  “Katy, wait.” Sam pressed his hips against me to keep me still but in so doing, he pushed something else even farther against my now-aching core.

  “No, no waiting, Sam. We never waited before. Don’t make me wait now.” My hands fumbled with his shirt as I shoved it up his back, wanting to feel his skin, his muscles, his sweat. Wanting to lose myself in his body.

  “Fuck.” He growled into my neck before he let go whatever control he’d been holding on to. Letting go of my wrists, he lifted up, propping himself up with one hand, glaring down at me, his face contorted in anger and arousal.

  “Don’t you dare move your hands.” Yanking his shirt over his head with one hand, he then bent down and kissed me.
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  Finally.

  It was a hard, bruising kiss.

  This was the man I remembered. The man I wanted.

  “You always push me. Always push until I can barely control myself.” He wrestled with my sleep shirt, yanking it hard enough that I heard parts of it rip. My hands lay above my head, making it all the more frustrating for him, but I knew that was what he wanted. He wanted to have to work for it, in some form. He wanted the subtle resistance, even if he’d dictated my inaction. Because nothing came for free for Sam. Not even my love. My body. My soul.

  His hand wrapped around my wrists once more and I gave in a bit, just a bit as he reached down to unzip his jeans. Naked, bar my underwear, I shifted my hips up as he pulled my panties to the side and thrust home.

  A whimper escaped me, the feeling of fullness bordering on painful, but it was more overwhelming than painful. It was a sensation I’d missed. He lifted his head, making eye contact, checking in with me.

  “This is what you wanted, Katy. You can always tell me to stop.”

  I smiled and almost laughed. How could he not see how much I wanted this? How much I needed this? How nothing in the world could make me tell him to stop?

  My fingers twitched. I was desperate to run my hands over his shaved head, but I kept them still. Instead I lifted my knees, wrapping them high above his waist, and locked my ankles together.

  A hot hand grasped my thigh, large fingers pressing into me so hard I knew I’d have bruises.

  I hated him. I’d hated him for so long I could barely tell the difference between where my love for him ended and the hate began. The mix of emotions, thrown in with the building orgasm was too much. I started to laugh, my chest rising and falling faster and faster as he pushed into me, every thrust a reminder of what we’d had and lost.

  Tears gathered in my eyes as I started to peak. My eyes squeezed shut as I sobbed out my release, my hands reaching around his neck as I held on. Somewhere in that ecstasy I felt him jolt and shiver as he came inside me.

  “I’m sorry. I’m sorry, baby. I’m sorry.” It was his turn to repeat his plea. Although it wasn’t phrased as a question, I knew he was asking me, begging me for forgiveness. I ignored him and continued to cry, even when he pulled out of me and rolled us so we lay on our sides, our arms wrapped around each other.

  Finally, the tears stopped and I relaxed against his chest. His fingers ran up and down my naked back, stopping every once in a while to stroke my hair.

  “Your apartment is really small.”

  I smiled against his skin, loving the casual tone. As if we hadn’t just had hot, wild, hate sex. Well, make-up sex. As if he hadn’t just flown halfway around the world to tell me he was sorry.

  “It only feels small because you’re a giant.”

  “No, this place is a shoebox. Charlie said you had an apartment. This is basically a glorified closet.”

  “I like it.”

  “Don’t get me wrong. It’s not that I don’t like it. I’m just worried about how we’re both going to fit in here. I mean, I’m going to have unpack my stuff in the kitchen.”

  His hand moved to my chin, pulling me up to look him in the eye. Waiting.

  He wanted it, and for a second, a small tiny second, I thought about making him wait. But I couldn’t. There was no use holding on to it. He’d hurt me. He’d let me down, and I had two choices. Hold on to the pain and anger, hold on to the belief that he would always let me down, just as Daniel had. I could feel righteous in the knowledge that I was protecting myself against any more pain and sadness. And in my strength, in my rejection, he would suffer too.

  My other option was to let go. Let go of the sadness and disappointment, let go and hold on to him instead. Hold on to the knowledge that he’d made a mistake and mistakes, I was beginning to learn, were a necessary part of life. I wanted to fill my life with fear and passion, love and anger, and everything in between. I was sick of hiding in my shell, only experiencing the parts of life I could control. I was tired of always looking for the disaster waiting to strike. I wanted to hold on to him. This man with all his strength, a strength so overwhelming it had caused me harm, and as a result, him as well. But a man who was willing to try.

  I stretched up and pressed my lips against his jawline. He hated cities, but I didn’t know if I could give up Paris for him. The thought of making him live somewhere he hated made me feel sick. Could I ask that of him, despite knowing how much he loved living in the middle of nowhere?

  “I think it fits us. We fit. But I know…” I decided I couldn’t bring myself to say it.

  “Don’t even think about it. Yeah, I love the woods. Yeah, I might go crazy living here for the rest of my life. But that’s not what this is. This is an adventure, your adventure, and I want to be along for the ride. I’d have to a total asshole to complain about living in Paris for a few months, with my beautiful, talented girlfriend. This is not the same as being trapped in a shitty apartment, in a shitty town, in a shitty marriage.”

  I leaned up to kiss him, deciding he had to grow his beard back because as much as I loved seeing his gorgeous face, I missed the feel of his beard against my skin.

  “There was something else that didn’t get said at the airport. Something you should have said. Something I should have said. Instead of just thinking it,” Sam said.

  “I know you love me.”

  He glanced down at me, his fist tightening in my short hair to hold me in place. “You’re pretty cocky considering how small you are.”

  “Your mom told me.” I grinned at him, loving the look of surprise on his face. “Why do you think it hurt so much when you dropped me at the airport? I knew before you did that what we had was amazing.”

  “And you love me.”

  “Are you asking me?”

  “No, I know you love me.”

  I shifted my hips slightly as he began to thicken inside me. He’d stayed inside me despite rolling us over. I pushed at his shoulders until he moved onto his back, and then I straddled him. “I do.”

  “Baby, your hair. Why did you cut it off?” He reached up and touched the tips of my pixie cut, both of us ignoring the fact that he was continuing to grow hard.

  “I just cut it off.”

  “I can see that, but why?”

  “Because you loved it, and in a wild moment of anger I decided you loved it more than me. There may have been alcohol involved. I don’t know… It made sense at the time, in the moment. I just wanted to get rid of something you loved so much. To hurt you. To hurt me. The whole thing just hurt. I did it myself and then Charlie forced me to go to a salon before I got on the plane to France.”

  He ran his fingers through it again. “I like how much of your face I can see.”

  I wrinkled my nose up at him. After months of having my hair like this, I finally loved it. The rash action had served its purpose, helping catapult me into getting to Paris and opening myself up to the world again. “You’re lucky it’s still blonde. Charlie talked me out of dying it black. What about you?”

  “You’re going to make me answer you, aren’t you? Basically the same reason. I had long hair because it made me feel free. I tried to set my life up to be as free as possible…” He wavered and looked past me, over my shoulder. Whatever it was, he was embarrassed. “Oh hell, Katy. I did it for the same reasons you did. You loved my hair and I couldn’t stand to look at myself in the mirror and see it. I shaved it off a few days after I took you to the airport.”

  He had done it for me. I just didn’t know it.

  I leaned down, pressing our naked chests together. My elbows rested on either side of his head and I ran my hands over his short hair.

  “Anything you want to say to me?” His calloused hands caressed my back and I took a deep breath. I knew Charlie wouldn’t have given away all my secrets, not that I had many, but she was also a hopeless romantic and probably would have sold her soul to the devil if it meant there was a chance she could get Sam to fly to Paris. “
By the way, I met Daniel.”

  I exhaled slowly before lifting myself up slightly so I could get a good look at his face. “Huh. How did that go?”

  “He came into the coffee shop looking for you. I happened to be there, trying to convince Charlie to give me your address. He told me he was your ex and then Charlie distracted him with one of those crazy muffins she makes.”

  “Daniel is… How can I put this without making myself sound like a total loser? He’s a free spirit. How about that?”

  “His free spirit ass was looking for you for a loan. He’s come across some cash flow problems.” He raised his eyebrows at me.

  “You want to talk about exes right now? When your cock is still inside me and getting harder by the second?”

  “Say ‘cock’ again and it’ll get a little harder, baby.” He thrust upward before rolling us over until I was beneath him, caged under his strong body. “My mom told you about Cecilia. And I know about Daniel, but I don’t need to know more now. Charlie told me he didn’t do right by you. But then again, neither did I, so I managed to resist punching him in the face.”

  “Okay, good, because Daniel is definitely a lover-not-a-fighter kind of guy. He might have had a heart attack if he even got an inkling that you were even thinking about punching him.”

  “I don’t want to talk about Daniel. I don’t want to talk about Cecilia. I brought it up because I don’t want to mess this up again and that means putting it all out there. My past. Your past. The good and the bad.”

  “I know. Me too.”

  “And, baby, you know it’s going to be good. So good.”

  Pulling him down until I could kiss him, I pressed my lips against his before answering him.

  “Best we’ll ever have.”

  The End

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