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Go back upstairs, Sage. Where it’s warm. Like a normal human being.

Instead, she stepped out into the freezing air.

The snow crunched softly under her boots as she followed the path around the side of the barn. The world felt hushed and sacred in that in-between hour — mountains black against the slowly lightening sky, stars still faintly twinkling. The cold slipped under the hem of the coat, kissing the strip of bare skin at her waist. She pulled the heavy sheepskin tighter around herself. It smelled like him — pine smoke, leather, and something warmer, deeper underneath — and she tried very hard not to think about how safe that scent made her feel.

“Stupid… stupid sexy… crack-of-dawn mountain man,” she grumbled, the words fogging out in front of her like little white ghosts of terrible decisions. “Dragging my fat ass out here before the fucking birds are even awake… This is not normal.”

She paused, boots crunching in the snow, then let out a long, defeated sigh. “Yeah… normal. Right.” She said as she rounded the corner.

She heard him before she saw him.

Or maybe she felt him first — that quiet shift in the air, the way the world seemed to pull inward around something massive and steady. She stopped at the corner of the barn where the path curved toward the hot spring pool, her heart hammering against her ribs.

She looked.

The hot spring sat in a natural hollow behind the barn, like the builders had shaped everything around the land instead of forcing it. The water steamed gently in the freezing air, thick curls of mist rising slow and dreamy off the dark surface. Volcanic stone edged the pools in rough, beautiful formations, but Cal had clearly built in some quiet luxury — smooth, wide steps leading down into the water, a flat stone patio that blended almost perfectly with the natural rock, and a couple of sturdy wooden chaise lounges tucked off to the side for warmer months. Beside the main pool was a smaller, cooler one ringed with delicate ice at its edges. And climbing out of the smaller one⁠—

Oh my God.

Cal stood at the edge, water streaming off his body in glistening rivulets. Sage’s brain managed one single, useless thought — he’s only in his briefs — before it completely powered down.

She’d been living with the idea of him for over a week. She thought she understood the shape of him — the way rooms quietly rearranged themselves when he walked in, the careful control in every movement, like he was always aware of how much damage a man his size could do.

She did not understand Cal Meridian at all.

Without the flannel, without the heavy coat, wearing nothing but a pair of dark, soaked briefs riding dangerously low on his hips… he was something else entirely.

He was monstrous in the most devastating way. Not just tall. Not just broad. Every inch of him had been forged by twenty brutal years in the SEALs, black-ops work that didn’t make it into reports, and a lifetime of punishing conditioning most men couldn’t survive for a month. His chest was thick and powerful, heavy slabs of muscle that rose and fell with each breath, water tracing every ridge and valley. His stomach wasn’t gym-cut — it was real, dense, hardened by actual use, the kind of core that could take a hit and keep moving. Shoulders like bridge beams, arms hanging heavy at his sides, veins standing out even in the cold, forearms thick enough that her fingers itched with the insane urge to wrap around them and fail.

Sage pressed her back harder against the rough barn wall, the wood biting through the coat as her pulse hammered in her throat.

The scars only made it worse. They weren’t decorative — they were history written in violence. A long, silvery ridge along his left ribs. Two ugly, puckered marks high on his right shoulder. A vicious burn that spread across his left flank and disappeared behind him. And that thin, wicked scar low on his abdomen that disappeared beneath the waistband of his briefs…her eyes followed it helplessly, locking onto the thick, heavy bulge beneath the wet fabric. It shifted as he moved, full and unmistakable even in the cold.

She bit her lip so hard she tasted copper.

Don’t.

She yanked her gaze up just as he ran a big hand through his wet hair, pushing it back from his face. The casual motion made the muscles in his chest and arms flex and roll, water flinging off his chiseled forearms in sparkling arcs. Something low and hot twisted tight in her belly and refused to let go.

He turned toward the flat stone ground between the pools and the barn… and went completely still.

Sage froze too, barely breathing.

Then he moved.

No warning. No warm-up. One moment Cal was still — and then everything unfolded.

He moved through a fluid, brutal martial arts sequence, his massive body cutting through the cold air with shocking speed. Not showy. Not choreographed for anyone’s eyes. This was real — precise, meditative, the kind of motion that understood exactly what a body like his could do to someone else. The snow fell softly around him, indifferent, while his breath clouded steady and controlled in the freezing air.

Sage became aware of several things in quick, dizzying succession.

Her back was pressed fully against the barn wall. She didn’t remember moving there.

The thin cotton of her tank top suddenly felt rough against her skin. Her pierced nipples had tightened into hard, aching points — only partly from the cold — and every nerve ending felt raw, electric, the fabric doing nothing to help.

Her thighs had pressed tight together.

She was biting her bottom lip hard enough to bruise.