AllFreeNovel
Share Us
She’d been cautioned against being out here right now, out in the woods, because the rumor had been that Zane Fox was back.
She could only barely remember Zane Fox, and the Fox family. He was at least ten years older than her, so she’d been very young when he was arrested out in front of the church, though she could remember it.
She could remember looking out the church window, seeing him bent over the hood of a police car. She could remember thinking of a wolf at the zoo. Her dad had just taken her to Portland and to the zoo. She’d been devastated by the sight of such a beautiful animal in a cage, and seeing Zane in handcuffs...had been like that.
So strange how it lingered in her memory like that.
She turned away from the view and shrugged her backpack higher up onto her shoulders as she continued down the trail.
And for some reason she felt drawn away from the rocky edge. She generally liked to walk so that she could see down below the whole time—the closest thing to risk-seeking behavior she ever engaged in—but right now she found herself drawn into the trees. Maybe because it was warm.
But either way, she followed that still, quiet voice in her soul. She didn’t always think it was God, but given her upbringing, she did sometimes wonder. And she was a little afraid to ignore it when she felt a strong pull toward something.
So away she went, down the winding trail that led into the dark dense of the trees. It was rocky and uneven, but beautiful, silent there in a way it hadn’t been beneath the wide expanse of sky. She could hear branches shifting, birds fluttering.
She paused and listened.
And then she continued on. And stopped.
There, right there, was a cabin. Sheltered by the trees and from the sun. It was dilapidated. To the point of looking abandoned. She hadn’t realized that anything here was private land, and she knew she was trespassing now. And yet she stood, still, unable to move.
This felt like something. The verge of adventure maybe.
And all her fantasies rose up and tangled with that possibility.
Zane Fox.
His name whispered through her, across her soul, and then she heard heavy footsteps.
“What are you doing here?”
She turned sharply, and her heart leapt up into her throat.
It was him.
She could remember. Those blue eyes. But she’d had no idea how big he was. She only came to the middle of his chest, and when he took a step toward her, she felt like she was being swallowed by him.
His face had scars on it, a day’s worth of dark beard. He looked wild, and yet he smelled clean. Like the forest.
He was the kind of man she could find in one of her books. The kind of man her mind conjured up for her late at night.
The kind of man who would know just how to hold her—firm like she wanted it.
Her sexual fantasies had an edge no one would believe. Well, first of all, no one would believe good girl Shayna Clarke had sexual fantasies. Much less that she fantasized about being dominated. That pain and pleasure tangled together in her mind. That she sometimes touched herself with one hand while digging her fingernails into her thigh with the other. Chasing an edge that was hard to find on her own.
That what she liked most of all about men wasn’t a handsome face, but all that strength.
That she felt a deep desire to feel that strength against her own softness. To be held down. Restrained.
Zane could do all of those things.
The thought made her feel thrilled and panicked at once, because this was reality, not the safety of her mind, and she wondered if the mountain air and thoughts of freedom were making her giddy.
The reality was, she was a virgin who should want safety, softness and a man she knew well her first time.
Instead, she wanted a hard, controlling man who would take charge of it all. Who would push her. See what she could handle. She wanted a dominant man, and she knew that.
She’d started reading romances when she’d found them in boxes donated to church charity sales, and it was always the large, commanding men who captured her imagination.
