No Gentle Giant: A Small Town Romance

by Nicole Snow

  I’m breathless, biting and letting his beard leave my lips deliciously raw.

  I kiss him with all the nuclear fire and fury and frustration built up inside me, years of repressed emotion and weeks of this forbidden crush and tension so thick it could be hauled in for attempted murder.

  All combusting into this unadulterated animal need.

  I’m not sure who rips at whose clothing first—but next thing I know the front of my dress catches, dragging down around my ribs, about to shear in half.

  His shirt flies across the room, and I’ve got my fingers buried in the thick pelt on his chest, caressing the huge inked muscle expanse under it.

  He’d asked if I wanted to pet him once.

  God, yes.

  I just vibe in that heady feeling, rubbing my entire body against his powerful width like a cat, moaning against the firm, dominating heat of his mouth as I writhe and stroke myself up and down on the vastness of Alaska.

  Manly curls of hair tease my flesh.

  Taut muscle that could shame a bison slides against me until my nipples ache through my bra, my bare stomach shuddering and tightening, and I want nothing more than to feel that hard, heavy bulk moving over me, pinning me down, taking me so deep I scream.

  “Felicity, fuck,” he rasps, fingers sinking harder into my ass, making me twist my hips and grind down into him—and something grinds back, pushing against me, wonderfully molten and hard through his jeans.

  Holy shit.

  Of course he’s huge.

  Not exactly a shocking revelation when he’s the walking stereotype of big hands, big feet, big everything, but to feel his punishing size through barely-there fabric...

  I’m actually a little scared.

  Frightened that if I’m even able to take him, I’ll be ruined for anyone and everything else, even those oversized plastic toys in my secret drawer. I don’t think I’ve ever had a toy anywhere close to as big and thick as him.

  I venture a glance down and instantly bite my lip so hard I almost taste blood.

  His mocha-dark eyes look dazed, drugged.

  Totally drunk on me.

  Holy shit again.

  No man’s ever looked at me like this.

  And just seeing his desire makes me ravenous for more.

  I pull back for a second, overloaded, panting, falling into those hot, yearning eyes. Gawking at him feels like needing to come up for air after diving and having your breath yanked away by some glittery, beautiful other world underwater.

  “Alaska,” I whimper his name, shifting my legs apart wider.

  Then, determined, I arch myself against him and twist my hips, dragging my soaked panties against the thick ridge of his cock, slinking my body against him, catching his lower lip between my teeth.

  The sound that spills out of him seems more bear than human.

  Especially when I slowly bite down harder, harder, urging him on, until he lets out this hungry snarl that brands my ears.

  Then I stop—appalling tease that I am—licking the redness I just left behind.

  He’s always so gentle.

  But there’s nothing—and I mean nothing—gentle about the volcanic tension building between us. Or about the way his hard slab of a body trembles like a beast held on a ratty tether.

  Definitely nothing gentle about what happens when a few more seconds stretch between us, my gut knotting as I move against him again, catching little gasps in my throat as our sweet friction teases me wetter, shoving me to the brink.

  I hold his eyes, silently begging for my own destruction.

  I’m asking if he has it in him.

  I plead for him to go wild and punish me with lavish ecstasy, make me feel good, teach me to forget there’s anything out there except us.

  His eyes are so dark, so hot, so questioning, but I can see his discipline slipping. His finely honed control and that mask of civility he wears pulling down another inch.

  Then it happens.

  He snaps.

  His fingers are a brute’s in my hair, dragging me down to his tongue.

  His mouth owns mine, devouring and raw, animalistic with a passion so pure it scorches.

  And he surges to his feet, taking me with him, my legs wrapped around his waist as he carries me into the bedroom.

  His warring mouth never lets go of mine. His other hand feels so large, supporting me with the broad span of it across my ass, making me feel possessed and claimed.

  I could nearly squeal with the thrill of it.

  And when my back hits the bed hard, I do.

  His body follows even harder, eclipsing me under his bulk, thunder in his throat and harsh demands in his fire caves for eyes.

  I writhe beneath him, luxuriating in his sheer size. Experiencing this redwood of a man like this—a total prisoner to his mercy—hits so different I almost black out.

  But I wouldn’t dream of missing what’s next.

  Not in a trillion years.

  His hands go everywhere, stripping me naked, leaving me all vulnerable skin against his roughness, exposed to his gaze.

  To his touch.

  To his tongue, bending to taste me with a wild light flickering in his gaze.

  Foly. Huck.

  Yes, thank you, I’m already wrecked for words.

  I feel like I’m in heat as he flicks over my throat, my collarbone, my chest, my breasts, my soul.

  His rough tongue-tip lashes my nipples.

  Experienced lips suck me to heaven, kneading hands stroking over my breasts, my waist, my hips.

  His caresses swirl over my navel, down, down, his beard raking my tender flesh with just the right roughness.

  Then, napalm fire everywhere.

  His tongue delves inside me with a growl chasing it.

  True to his name, Alaska is a hunter, a savage frontiersman finding my weaknesses.

  Anywhere and everywhere that makes me arch and buck and fight him just to make him do it more.

  My fingers dig at his thick hair as he takes me high and crashes me down, turning me inside out with slow, deliberate, tormenting strokes followed by quick flicks, wet-velvet friction. He plunges so deep only to circle and flit and swirl and then—

  Oh, God.

  Here we go.

  Ignition.

  Vision flashing white, knees clamping against his muscular shoulders, pleasure spearing me so relentlessly it’s like getting fucked by my own orgasm.

  Coming is an understatement.

  This is rapture, intense and unholy and convulsing through me with seismic power.

  I can’t breathe.

  And he doesn’t give me a split second to try.

  Not when his tongue fades, replaced by his fingers, thick and crude and rough, sliding into me when I’m still clenching inside, touching every raw place.

  He watches me with all-consuming heat, devouring my reaction as I toss my head back and forth, keening and whimpering and nearly chattering teeth with my wanting.

  “You need me, Fliss?” he growls. Gone is the soft-spoken sweetheart, replaced by a feral animal. “You fucking want me?”

  He plunges his fingers in deeper, then, and I can’t even answer as I scream.

  It’s too much but I still want more.

  I want him inside me.

  I want to think about nothing but his body, his cock, and his pleasure.

  Clawing at his shoulders, writhing on his fingers, sucking in desperate breaths, I find my voice.

  Somehow, I give him a broken, gasping, “...yes. Want you.”

  The only words I can manage, my mind spinning.

  But they’re the only words he needs.

  He moves over me, fingers withdrawing to leave me empty, his body spreading me open until I can barely fit his bulk between my thighs.

  His zipper slashing open sounds almost threatening—but when his fullness spills free, burning hot and pressing against me, I shudder with a full-body thirst to feel it.

  I’ve second-guessed so much my
entire life.

  But there’s no doubt I want this.

  I want him.

  And as he takes my mouth again, as he rocks his hips forward, as he pushes his forehead to mine and sets me on fire for the dozenth time tonight with those mad Denali mountains for eyes...

  I hold on.

  I hold him as tight as I can, wrapping my limbs around him, asking him to wreck me like a human wave.

  I don’t know how sex can be so wild and so tender simultaneously.

  He’s a force of nature, so powerful he can’t possibly be gentle, but it feels so flipping good I don’t care.

  Hot flesh moves inside me, spreads me from within, touches me in ways so intimate it’s unbearable. His thrusts deepen, coming faster and harder, his pubic bone grinding at my clit, dragging the pleasure out of me until I’m a whimpering mess.

  Whimpering and shameless.

  Yes, I beg for more, moving with him, rising to meet his every thrust.

  Yes, my heart breaks every time I’m empty, and yes, my body sings each time he fills me, deeper and deeper.

  Yes, I think I scream my way through the whole O that hits, gifted by his pummeling hips—I scream so loud I’m sure it wakes up Ms. Wilma across the inn’s grounds.

  And very yes, his next kiss claims me for life.

  His body overwhelms me.

  His voice falls ragged, wondrous, worshipful as he whispers my name, filled with his own plea.

  “Felicity...Fliss...I can’t fucking hold,” he snarls between bruising my lips with his. “Come with me.”

  One command and I’m no longer on the same planet.

  I’m lost, so lost, and I never, ever want to be found.

  I never want this to end, even as I open myself to Alaska, taking him deeper, aching to feel him explode with guttural cries.

  Our rhythm becomes a fever, slashing hips and sinful breaths, and just when I’m about to lose it again—I feel him swell.

  I feel the full Alaskan wild about to break and spill and flood me.

  His last brute thrust stops at the edge of my womb, his cock swelling, suddenly hotter and bigger and meaner than ever before.

  The last thing I see is how beautiful he looks a split second before the deluge begins. His release must brand his soul with that expression, a mask of the most exquisite torture, this trance that says I’ve given him so much more than trouble.

  Gone.

  Before I can even make out the white-hot fire of his seed pouring into me, riding every spasm he gives, I’m in full surrender.

  Giving myself to this glorious man with absolute trust, with something like love, letting him take control and guide me into shattering, breaking, falling apart, and then dissolving into him.

  I don’t know what this is, and I don’t just mean the psyche-splitting sex.

  I’ve never had anything like this.

  Is it so very wrong to want to keep it for more than one unforgettable night?

  Is it selfish to ask Alaska Charter to stay, to be with me—if by some miracle there’s a life after dealing with Paye?

  I don’t remember falling asleep.

  Actually, I don’t remember anything after the most explosive, sheet-ripping passion of my life.

  Alaska wore me out and wrung me dry, and I have only the vaguest recollection of his arms around me, shielding me as I passed out so hard I slept straight through the entire night.

  Now the morning light beats down on my face, practically lancing my eyes, and I wince.

  “Doesn’t that thing come with an off button?” I mutter.

  Alaska rumbles against my back—and when he rumbles it’s something you feel reverberating all the way through you. Especially with his body wrapped snug around mine, one heavy arm and an even heavier leg draped over me.

  I smile. The thick fur of his chest scratches against my back and his beard mingles with my hair, filtering his breaths against the back of my neck.

  I get chills.

  Little chills of pleasure.

  Especially with the possessive way his arm tightens around me.

  “Perhaps,” he growls, lips moving against my skin, “a window that high facing east was a minor design flaw.”

  “Pretty sure that was on purpose knowing Charming Inn. Apparently, some people like waking up with the sun. Ugh.”

  “Not a morning person?” He chuckles sleepily.

  “Why do you think I had to get so good at making coffee?” I groan.

  But that brings home another harsh reality.

  The real reason I worked so hard to learn how to make good coffee—at first, before it became a thing just for me, a thing all its own—still stings.

  Memories come back and claw me in the face.

  The way my father would smile at me when I’d whip up a brew just the way he liked, keeping him awake on those long flights.

  And everything that happened in the final chapter of his life.

  The threats hanging over my head.

  The gold, the danger, the double vendetta Paye must have against me now.

  We’re just waiting for disaster, even if we’re also frittering away time in an oasis of our design.

  Not to mention the glaring fact that I can only bring misery into Alaska’s life, no matter his assurances.

  Biting my lip, I shift slowly onto my back, facing him.

  He’s stunning in the morning light.

  Sunrise rose and gold splash over him like pastel paints, softening the harsher planes of his face, making hints of light shine in his beard and gilding his kiss-reddened mouth.

  His eyes are soft and sleepy. His shoulders broad and deliciously hard with corded muscle.

  He owns a body made to serve and protect—and no, I don’t care if that slogan’s for police.

  What would it take to break him?

  Then again, do I want to know?

  Isn’t that what I’m so afraid to find out?

  “Alaska...” I touch my fingertips to his lips, struggling for words.

  “Don’t.” He kisses my fingertips. “I know what you’ll say. Fliss, I’m here and there’s nowhere else I’d rather be, so let’s not fret and enjoy it.”

  Apparently, when you look like Hercules you’re part psychic, too.

  He’s too good at reading me.

  Of course, I want to argue. But the instant his lips start roaming me, I have as much fight as a palmful of kitten.

  That kiss travels down to my palm, my wrist, before he dips past my upraised arms to brush his mouth over mine.

  “Stay with me for the day. Please, just stay,” he says.

  So I stay.

  Swallowing my fears, I let myself have this beautiful moment, even if I’m scared to the bone it won’t last.

  Even if the price is pure hell tomorrow, today we’re making heaven.

  I stay through the day, drowsing in his arms for another couple hours.

  Through a lazy breakfast wrapped in the sheets and a whole mile of wild man.

  Through falling back in bed, needing no words, and just holding each other.

  Through taking in the festival we missed last night when we’d been lighting up each other like the fireworks that fill the sky tonight.

  It still feels like it’s been forever since an explosion over Heart’s Edge was a good thing, a safe thing, and not a monster-thing with teeth and claws and raining death.

  The happy atmosphere makes me feel like hope and magic are still alive here, even if they passed over me when the rest of the town rediscovered its hard-fought blessings.

  His hand lingers in mine, thick and balmy as a summer night.

  Pretend. Right.

  ...are we pretending?

  It doesn’t feel like it’s just for show.

  Not when that hand never lets go through the rest of the night.

  Even when he takes me back to the cabin and covers my body with his and pins me to the sheets by our interlaced fingers as he moves over me, thrusting inside me again and again,
he holds the heck on.

  And I think I finally find a little magic after all.

  I forget how to be afraid.

  Because with Paxton, I feel like I’ve found a missing piece of my heart.

  I feel like I can finally, finally come home.

  18

  Chained in Gold (Alaska)

  It’s been a long damned time since I had to think in terms of offensive military strategy.

  Thankfully, I’ve still got the knack. Old instincts never die.

  And those instincts tell me this Lockwood syndicate isn’t a hydra I can handle on my own.

  I need intel. Manpower. Experience. People who know their turf better than I do.

  That’s how I end up in Holt’s office, laying out everything between three heaping mugs of coffee supplied by the woman I’m trying to save.

  I’m not expecting him to drop everything in his busy life and call in backup. Hell, I’m half expecting him to send me straight to the FBI, knowing this town’s had enough rot on its plate, and him personally.

  Surprise—I underestimated Holt Silverton.

  I also underestimated how loyal his friends are to him and to anyone he says needs help.

  So here I am, settled in a loose semicircle around Holt’s desk with the town’s larger-than-life heroes. Warren, Doc, Leo, and Blake, with Holt behind the desk, turning his monitor toward us.

  Doc taps coolly at the keyboard he stole a few moments ago, muttering something about encryption and satellite links and VPNs.

  I’ve got a top security background and even I don’t get what half the shit he says means.

  After a minute, the screen flickers, and a video window pops up.

  I take one look at the woman who appears on the screen. I can tell without a doubt that she’s killed people before.

  A lot of people.

  One trained killer can always recognize another like a dog sniffs out a coyote.

  She’s older, maybe in her mid to late forties, but with a certain stark beauty—like the kind of beauty a well-honed weapon has. That’s what she looks like. A living dagger, crowned with a severe bob of black hair with that single white streak in it.

  I think now I get what Blake means every time he mutters under his breath about black cats finding them again.