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In her place is someone else, someone new. A woman in touch with the raw, untamed essence that's been simmering beneath the surface all along, merely awaiting the right spark to set it ablaze.
"You feel it too, don't you?" I murmur, reaching up to trace the harsh, beloved planes of Tucker's rugged features.
His mouth curves in the hint of a smile, somehow both wolfish and unbearably tender as he cradles me impossibly closer. "Hell yes, I feel it," he rasps in a voice like gravel over raw silk. "Been feelin' it since the moment I first laid eyes on you."
I blink in surprise, but a soft, wondering smile blooms across my lips at his candid admission.
"And now that I've had you, been inside that sweet, silken heat..." He shakes his head, letting out a low rumble from somewhere deep in his broad chest. "Ain't nothin' in these mountains gonna sate this hunger for you."
His scorching confession steals my breath, my heart thundering in my ears like the distant roar of a waterfall. Because I know, deep in the wildest places of my heart, that there's no going back.
That I've found what my soul has been craving all along.
A wildness to call my own.
Chapter 6
Tucker
The crisp mountain air stings my nostrils as we move in silence through the dense timber, our boots crunching over the thick carpet of fallen needles. Dawn's first golden rays are just starting to filter through the canopy high overhead, casting long shadows that stretch before us like obsidian claws.
Rhylee pauses every few yards to check another one of her makeshift monitoring stations—a tangle of wires and sensors strapped to tree trunks or half-buried. She frowns in concentration as she consults a bulky handheld device, meticulously recording whatever data her gadgets have collected overnight.
I hang back a few paces, my eyes constantly roving the surrounding terrain for any sign of our elusive prey's movements. Snapped twigs, tufts of coarse fur snagged on branches, piles of scat—all the subtle clues that a tracker would recognize.
And all the while, I can't stop my own thoughts from circling back to those heated memories from last night. To the feeling of Rhylee’s lush curves melting against me, her nails scoring delicious trails down my back. To the whimpers and gasps that spilled from her parted lips as I buried myself to the hilt over and over until we were both shuddering with release.
Just the echo of those fevered sensations has my blood pumping hotter, my palms growing damp as I curl them into fists at my sides. Christ, she damn near made a feral beast out of me with those sweet cries and sinful writhings alone. Like she was made for taking every punishing inch, yet still hungry for more of my brutish claiming.
My jaw ticks as I force the dangerous thoughts aside once more. I can't afford any distractions right now, not when we're deep in unfamiliar territory with an unpredictable apex predator stalking about. One misstep, one lapse of focus out here, could prove deadly for both of us.
"Hey, you need to take a look at this," Rhylee murmurs, her brow furrowed as she beckons me over to her latest monitoring station.
I grunt in acknowledgment, lengthening my stride to reach her side.
"What am I looking at?" I grouse, peering over her shoulder at the jumble of numbers and charts flickering across the screen.
"This is displaying a heat signature analysis from one of the remote sensors I set up yesterday," she explains, jabbing a finger at a bright, amorphous blob glowing in the center. "See this concentrated spike here? Based on the intensity and radius, it could indicate a rather sizable warm-blooded mass passing through this area sometime overnight."
One thick brow arches as the implication dawns. "You think it was one of the big cats?"
Rhylee purses her lips, her eyes narrowing as she toggles through a few more screens of data. "Potentially. Though the thermal footprint seems larger. Almost like... a human?"
An uneasy prickle crawls up my spine at her assessment. I straighten, my senses instantly kicking into high alert as I scan the shadowed undergrowth around us.
"Where'd you set up that sensor?" I ask.
She points toward an overgrown game trail cutting through the trees about a hundred yards ahead. "Just up that ridge over there."
I stride over to where Rhylee indicated. Something isn't right here. I can feel it in my bones—that same sixth sense that's kept me alive through too many close calls to count.
I crouch low, inspecting the churned earth and crushed undergrowth. And there, a battered aluminum can half-buried, embossed with a logo I recognize all too well. Bud Lite.
"Shit..." I hiss through clenched teeth, my grip tightening on the rifle slung across my back. Only one kind of low-life scum would be littering my territory with this kind of trash.
A few more steps reveal another damning piece of evidence—a spent shotgun shell caked in crimson stains that could only be blood.
"Tucker?" Rhylee appears at my side, her eyes going wide as she catches sight of the cartridge cradled in my palm. "What is that? What's going on?"
