Shifting Snows by Brynn Paulin Page A

there might be flurries.”
    “He was wrong.” He didn’t pause as he pulled her along with him to God knew where.
    Just great… She’d been rescued from a feral snow leopard only to be kidnapped by a…by a…damn it…really hunky crazy guy.
    She tugged her arm away, panic clawing up her chest. “Look, I’m thankful you saved me, but I’m not going with you. Just give me my bag so I can go.”
    “Right…” He eyed her, his bland expression vaguely amused. “Then I can risk my life saving your ass when you get trapped halfway down the mountain. No deal.”
    “I doubt I’ll get trapped. And what does it matter to you, anyway?” Her gaze skittered between the man and the clouds that grew closer and darker by the second. Rampant nerves danced in her belly. The hike to where she’d left her car at the Lakeview trailhead would take five and a half hours in these conditions—not that she’d tell him that. The thought of navigating the mountain in near-dark unsettled her.
    His jaw tensed. “It matters.”
    Macy’s eyes widened as his deep tone stroked over her pussy like sensually callused fingers. A tremble, having nothing to do with cold, shook her and she took a step backward.
    He stepped forward, and her womb fluttered.
    “I need to go,” she insisted, taking another step away, but his strides were longer and they were suddenly chest to chest.
    “You leave me no choice…” he muttered as he grasped her shoulders.
    “No choice—” Her words cut off on a gasp as his lips covered hers. He’d had no choice but to kiss her? Before she could twist away, his huge hand cupped the back of her head. His tongue slipped between her lips that had parted in shock.
    A garbled protest mumbled between them, despite the way his presence and commanding liquefied her pussy. But it wasn’t right. He shouldn’t be kissing her, even though his lips felt so firm and so perfect against hers. Grasping at her fleeting restraint, she shoved against his shoulders.
    He growled in response, his lips forcing hers wider as his tongue rubbed over hers.
    Macy’s vision blurred, and she would have stumbled had he not been holding her so tightly. She clung to him as she grew dizzy and warm. A muzzy feeling wrapped around her and she wanted nothing more than to rub herself against him.
    In the far recesses of her mind, a faint whisper hissed that this was wrong…too fast…too much… It was drowned by the buzzing in her head, a weird non-verbal urging to just get closer to him, to climb inside him if she could. One leg lifted and wrapped around his legs as she tried to get nearer.
    He sighed and pulled back, his green eyes dark with regret. His hands smoothed over her arms. She wished she could feel his skin without her coat and his gloves between them.
    “Come with me,” he rasped, reaching for her fingers.
    She readily linked them through his. “Uh-huh,” she replied, dazed by the kiss. He wanted her to come with him? Fine. He said it was going to storm anyway. She lifted her face and wet snowflakes pelted her cheeks. They swirled around them as thick as a wall. She had to believe this man—this wasn’t flurries.
    Macy hurried along beside him as he pulled her toward wherever he was going. She didn’t know of any houses up here, but he must have some sort of shelter.
    “Who are you?” she finally asked, a little embarrassed that she’d kissed him and rubbed against him like a cat in heat, yet didn’t know who he was.
    “Sorin Tavian. My people have a settlement near here.”
    She shook her head, wondering if she’d gotten lost in her wanderings today. Leadville was the closest town as far as she knew. And there were no access roads. The nearest one was a couple hours from here and only open from June to August. “I’ve been up here dozens of times in the past few years,” she mused. “I’ve never seen a thing.”
    “It’s well protected.”
    “Hidden, then?”
    “In a way, I suppose.”
    That seemed ominous.