“Get out!” The angry shout is so close it vibrates through my ribs as I fall to the ground, my arms flying to cover my head as the man bellows again, “Get out of here! Out! Now! Go on!”

Throat tight and blood pumping faster, I slowly part my arms, peering up at the man standing a few feet away. But, of course, I already know who he is.

His isn’t a voice I could ever forget, no matter how much I might want to.

Once upon a time, that voice was the soundtrack that played during my hottest erotic adventures. It made me feel safe and sexy, adored and desired, loved for who I was and who I could be when I was brave enough to put myself in his keeping.

Stupid enough, I correct, curling my hands into fists.

I’m not here to repeat past mistakes. I’m here to get my story and clear my path into the future, which means showing no weakness and no love lost for this man who kicked me to the curb and never looked back. It’s time to woman up and head into battle with something far worse than the wolves yipping plaintively as they scatter into the woods behind me.

I move to stand—knowing I’ll feel better once I’m not looking up at Garrett from my knees—but when I shift my leg, the ground shifts, too, giving way with stomach-flipping swiftness. My lips part, but before I can scream, Garrett’s big hand is locked around my arm, hauling me up and away.

We stumble into the fence as more snow abandons the cliff side, sliding down into the clearing below with a muffled whomp that sends the last of the wolves scurrying into the darkness beneath the trees.

“Thanks,” I say, breath rushing out as I roll my shoulder in an attempt to shake off the touch searing my skin through my thick coat and sweater, making my racing heart hammer faster.

But Garrett only tightens his grip. “The path is only a few feet wide along the fence. Everything else is unstable.”

“All right,” I say, forcing the words out through a clenched jaw. “Then I’ll follow you back to my car.”

“You’ll follow me into the hotel, where you’ll get warm,” Garrett says, as bossy as ever. “The roads aren’t safe. You should never have risked the drive up here in this weather.”

“I grew up in these mountains. I can handle myself in the snow.”

He grunts. “Like you were handling yourself with those wolves?”

“I was doing fine,” I say, lifting my chin. “Now let me go.”

“You were about to be wolf bait.” He draws me closer with a strength that makes my traitorous body hum. “And I’m not letting you go until I’m sure you’re not going to do something stupid.”

“Something stupid like what?” I challenge. “Like buying a hotel in my ex-boyfriend’s hometown and setting myself up as an angel of mercy to all the poor, pathetic people living there?” I roll my eyes and shake my head. “No, wait—that’s not me, that’s you, Garrett.”

His expression softens, uncertainty creeping into his eyes for the first time since he stormed in to scare off wolves. “Why don’t you come inside, Dakota? Let me make you something hot to drink, and give me the chance to explain.”

“I’ll take my explanation straight up, thank you,” I say, finally succeeding in squirming my arm from his fingers. “I don’t have much time if I’m going to get back to town before the blizzard hits.”

“You’re not going back to town,” he says, his gaze darkening again.

“I’ll go where I want, when I want. You don’t get to tell me what to do anymore.”

“I realize that,” he says, the muscle in his jaw leaping. “But there isn’t time to get down ahead of the storm, and I’m not going to let you risk your life just because you’re pissed at me.”

“I’m not pissed at you, Garrett,” I say, eyes narrowing. “I simply dislike you every bit as much as you dislike me. So what the hell are you doing up here? Surely you could have found another piece of shit mountain town to fix up with the Good Samaritan act.”

“Of course I could have. But I happen to like this piece of shit town, and I don’t dislike you, Dakota. Not even a little bit.”

“Well, you could have fooled me,” I snap, hating the wounded tone that creeps into my voice. I stand up straighter, willing my defenses to hold strong. “And you didn’t answer my question.”

His sighs. “Do we have to do this here?”

“Yes, we do,” I say, shivering as a gust of frigid wind rushes in from the north, sending snow flurrying down on us from the evergreen trees overhead.

“You’re cold,” he says in an accusing voice.

“And you’re frustrating.”

“And you’re stubborn.” He steps closer, glaring down at me. “So fucking stubborn.”

I jab a finger his way. “You’re the one refusing to give me a straight answer.”

He motions toward the hotel. “And you’re the one insisting we freeze to death in a blizzard instead of going inside where it’s warm.”

I growl through clenched teeth. “You’re impossible.”

“And you’re beautiful,” he says, sending my next words falling away from my lips. “So beautiful and so angry. And I know I deserve your anger, every bit of it, but…” He exhales sharply, sending a puff of white into the air between us.

For some reason, the sight of his breath makes this encounter real in a way it wasn’t before.

He’s really here.

Garrett. He’s here, standing in front of me, telling me that I’m beautiful.

“But all I want to do is hold you,” he continues in a softer voice, “and tell you that I’m sorry.”

My throat goes tight as I murmur, “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

“I’m not kidding.” His hand comes to cup my face, his skin somehow warm despite the sub-freezing temperatures. “I’m sorry, Dakota. So sorry, and you know it, or you wouldn’t have driven all the way here to confront me.”

I shake my head, pulling away from his confusing touch.

“You knew I was behind this,” he insists. “Or at least strongly suspected.”

It’s the truth, but I shake my head again anyway. I thought I had it all figured out, exactly how I would respond if it turned out Garrett was the one playing Santa Claus in Harry.

But now that I’m standing here, staring up into his oh-so-familiar, oh-so-sexy eyes, it’s not easy to tell him to go to hell.

I’m still angry—so angry I’m shaking with it—but I’m also…tempted.

How could I have forgotten how beautiful he is, how magnetic? How his touch turns me inside out and the smell of him makes me want to claw off his clothes and lick his delicious skin until his taste is imprinted on my tongue?

My thoughts flash to a memory of Garrett that day at the beach, bare to the waist and glistening with sweat, the first time I knelt at his feet without being asked. I see my fingers curling around the waistband of his swim trunks, tugging the damp fabric over the thick ridge of his cock. I remember the way my pulse leaped in a hundred different places as he fisted his hand in my hair and fucked my mouth so deep my throat was sore for days.

“Don’t look at me like that,” he warns, his voice so much lower than it was a moment before.

“I told you—you don’t get to tell me what to do anymore.” I sway closer, a wild, wrong idea floating to the top of my already wayward thoughts.

What if I didn’t tell him to go to hell?

At least, not right away?

What if I let myself touch first? Let myself taste and tease and teach him a lesson about what it’s like to be loved and left without being given a chance to defend yourself?

It’s not the same. He hasn’t done anything wrong.

But I hadn’t, either. I’d done my damnedest not to do wrong, in fact, and gotten zero credit for it.

So maybe it’s time to stop trying to do the right thing. Maybe it’s time to embrace the lessons the ghosts in the car were reviewing all the way up the mountain, lessons about doing what feels good and fuck the consequences. Growing up, none of the adults in my life ever worried about cause and effect. They worried about the next fix. Anything beyond that might as well have been happening on another planet as far as they were concerned.

I’ve always taken pride in the fact that I didn’t end up a drunk or a junkie, but looking up into Garrett’s eyes, I know I’m not so different from my mom. I’m every bit as tempted by things that are bad for me; my drug of choice just happens to be a man so sexy not even an angel could resist him.

And I’m no angel.

Decision made, I reach for my hit, heart pounding like thunder as Garrett’s lips meet mine.