Chapter Four

Shaw

"Shaw, I'm sorry but I can't."

Her lips say one thing and her body says another. How can she tell me she can't accept my advances when she's rubbing circles on my chest, her feathery touch driving me to the brink of insanity?

Fuck, my cock is practically drilling holes in my jeans and begging for release. I'm hard as steel and it's not something I have experienced before. Of course, I have been aroused before, I am, after all, a warm-blooded man with needs like any other, but it's never been this bad.

I've never been this hard in my life and my balls are threatening to bust if I don't bury my throbbing cock inside of her this very second and unload my seed in her tightness.

Fucking hell! Saying she can't doesn't necessarily mean she doesn't want to and everything in me wants to grill her on the why .

Is she married? The thought leaves a sour taste in my mouth and the absence of a ring doesn't necessarily mean that she doesn't belong to another man. Why else would she turn me down… unless...

Fuck, what if it has something to do with my scars and my monstrous features, but then again, the way her body reacts to my touch says otherwise. The way she leans into my fingers when I graze her cheeks and how her breath catches every time I call her Angel tells me that the attraction goes both ways.

Then why ?

Does it matter? Whatever reason that's keeping a wall between us shouldn't matter and I vow to take it down, brick by brick. If that's not possible, then I'll tear it down until mine's the only name on her lips and in her mind.

She became mine the second she set foot on my mountain and now I won't stop until she's begging for me to breed her, fuck her so hard that everyone on this mountain will hear us.

But I'll wait.

I've waited for a decade, never daring to dream. I can wait a little longer for her to come to me.

"Okay," I say through clenched teeth, pushing back from her and wincing at the hard pulse of my cock. It takes everything in me to move away from my angel, but I manage to. "Okay, let's head out."

She nods, following me out of the bedroom and cabin. I guide her around the cabin to the little garden I started when I first moved to the mountains. It took tons of trial and error and years of reading up on farming to be able to grow anything back here and now I've cultivated enough food to sustain me through different seasons. I even built a shed to store firewood and my harvests.

"Oh my God, you weren't kidding," Jean gasps from my side, pushing forward to get a clear view at the crops I am growing. "When you mentioned apple picking, I never pictured this."

I fold my arms over my chest and watch as she walks towards the rows of apple trees I have spent years growing. She reaches for one, but turns to me before she picks the fruit and I nod for her to go ahead. She flashes me a smile and picks one, her eyes lighting up when she bites into the fruit.

Fuck, she looks so goddamned pussyy, standing there dressed in nothing but my flannel shirt, smelling of me and eating my fruit. Does she have any idea that she's quickly getting sucked into my world, and with every second she spends around me, she lowers her chances of ever leaving this place?

Mine!

Jean turns around to face me, her long blond hair whipping around when she does so. "Do you want one?" she offers but I shake my head, walking towards her to join her under the apple tree. I reach up for two ripe red ones and pass them to her. "Thank you," she says with a shy smile.

"Do you like them?"

"I do. They taste so much better than the store-bought ones." She looks up at me and her eyes squint against the harsh evening sun and I am tempted to look away, to hide the imperfection that is my face, but then that would mean missing out on watching those perfect blue eyes in their purest form. "Can I ask you something?"

"Sure."

"How long have you lived here?"

So long I have forgotten about my old life back in the town that turned its back on me, but I don't want my precious angel to look at me with pity, so I give her the standard answer. "I moved here when I was roughly twenty so fourteen years, give or take."

"B-but you've left, right? You don't live here all year round, right?"

I shake my head. "This is my home, Angel. I don't leave the mountains for anything."

Her eyes widen in disbelief. "B-but, what about supplies? How do you get anything up here if you've never left?"

"I have everything I need here. I hunt for food, fish in the river, and forage for fruits and nuts that I can't grow myself. The other essentials are brought up by my brother every few months when we meet."

The day I almost choked Tommy to death, I ran into the mountains where I stayed for two days living off berries before I was arrested. I expected to be ferried to prison, but everyone felt sorry for the ugly, scared kid who'd just lost his parents in a fateful accident, and I was in jail for only a week before they let me go.

Moving here did not happen in a single day. My brother and I sold all our parents' assets and divided them equally. We both dealt with our grief differently. While he joined the military as a means of coping, I used my money to buy three acres of land where I started building my permanent home. There was deep anger and resentment in me that pushed me into building a home up here and to start living in solitary.

"You have a brother? Does he live here too?" Jean's voice snaps me to the present and I turn back to her.

"No, he lives on the other side of the mountain, a more habitable part of the forest."

"Oh, do you guys meet often?"

"No." We are both lone wolves who prefer to keep to ourselves and only meet up when it's necessary.

Jean doesn't ask me to explain myself, which I appreciate. I turn around to look at the garden, mentally thinking of what to make tonight for dinner. Of course, I could go back to the forest to check up on the traps I left to catch rabbits for meat, but the thought of leaving Jean alone is not something I am willing to entertain.

Vegetable stew it is.

I start picking at the tomatoes and other greens, surprised when she joins me. She mostly does a poor job at picking the vegetables and accidentally steps on quite a few plants, but I can't bring myself to find fault in her actions. Anyone else and I would be raising hell but Jean…

She's mine.

She can do no wrong.

"I've lived in the city all my life. I've never picked vegetables before. Everything I use is store bought," she says as she follows me to the cabin, hugging the tomatoes to her chest.

"And where do you live?"

"San Francisco," she says. "I know, it's a long way from Sweetheart Falls but my friends were adamant I make the trip. They promised me a camping trip I will never forget. I had no idea how true that would turn out to be," she adds, muttering the last part but I catch it.

"And where are your friends? Did they leave you–"

"Oh no, nothing like that," she hurries to say, placing the tomatoes on the kitchen counter. "You see, we all went to college together and after graduation, some of them moved to different cities. We were supposed to meet up in town and head up together but when my flight got delayed, I told them to send me the directions and that I would make it up to the campsite myself."

I gather the vegetables into a bowl and place them in the sink to wash them. "And then you got lost?"

"Well, yeah. That's the short version of the story."

"What's the long version?"

She offers to chop up the onions and tomatoes when I grab the cutting board so I pass them to her, not missing how homey and comfortable all this feels with her around.

"Well, the long version is that I rented an old car from a charming little guy in rainbow suspenders, and it broke down halfway up the mountain. I got out of the car to try and catch a phone signal but got lost in the forest instead and now… here I am." She keeps her eyes locked on her hands as she works, carefully slicing the tomatoes. "I guess, I came here looking to find something? San Franscisco is nice but it's loud and always so busy. My job is frustrating sometimes too, I don't even think the manager knows my name and I've been there for a while." She smiles solemnly at herself before handing me the knife, "So when my friends called asking me to join them, I jumped at the chance for a break."

And now she's here… with me and I am not letting her go.

She leaves me to finish up making dinner as she grabs a shower and comes back just in time to eat. By the time we're done, Jean seems visibly exhausted and doesn't argue when I guide her to my room. I offer her the bed and wait until she's fallen asleep before I leave the room to sleep on the couch.

Soon, she and I will be sharing my bed, but for tonight, I will settle for the couch and listen to the sounds of the night while my angel rests.