Updated Apr 11, 2026 • ~10 min read
Chapter 11: Unbearable
Jackson
By day ten, the sexual tension is unbearable.
It’s in every look, every accidental touch, every moment of forced proximity in this too-small cabin. It’s in the way she watches me when she thinks I’m not paying attention, and the way I find myself watching her when I should be focusing on literally anything else. It’s in the charged silence that falls when our eyes meet and hold for just a beat too long. It’s in the way my body responds every time she’s near, every time I catch her scent, every time she laughs at something I’ve said.
It’s killing me.
I’m outside chopping wood—not because we need more, but because I needed to get out of the cabin before I did something stupid—and I can feel her eyes on me from the window. She’s been watching me for the last ten minutes, and I’m hyperaware of every movement I make, every swing of the axe, every flex of muscle.
I’m showing off, and I hate myself for it.
But I don’t stop.
I sink the axe into another log, splitting it cleanly, and when I look up, she’s right there. Not in the cabin anymore, but standing a few feet away, wrapped in my spare jacket, her cheeks pink from the cold and her eyes dark with something that makes my mouth go dry.
“See something you like, city girl?” The words come out rougher than I intend, edged with the desire I’ve been trying to ignore for days.
She doesn’t look away, doesn’t pretend she wasn’t staring. “Maybe.”
That one word—that simple, honest admission—snaps something inside me.
I drop the axe.
The sound of it hitting the snow seems loud in the quiet clearing, and then I’m walking toward her, closing the distance between us with slow, deliberate steps that give her every opportunity to retreat, to tell me to stop, to remind me of all the reasons this is a terrible idea.
She doesn’t move.
She just stands there watching me approach with those gray-blue eyes that see too much, her breath coming faster, creating little clouds of vapor in the cold air.
I stop when I’m close enough to touch her, close enough to see the flutter of her pulse in her throat, close enough to smell that pine soap that’s been driving me crazy.
“This is a bad idea,” I say, and my voice comes out low and rough, barely more than a growl.
“I’m full of bad ideas lately.” Her eyes drop to my mouth, and the want in her gaze is so naked, so honest, that it steals my breath.
I should walk away. Should go back to chopping wood or checking traps or literally anything that doesn’t involve touching her. Should remember that she’s leaving in a few days, that this can’t go anywhere, that getting involved will only make everything harder when she goes.
Should, should, should.
But I’m done with should.
I cup her face in my hands, my palms rough against her soft skin, and give her one more chance to stop this.
“Sloane—”
“Kiss me.” She says it like a command, like a plea, and her hands come up to grip my jacket. “Please, Jackson. Just… kiss me.”
So I do.
The first touch of my mouth against hers is electric, a spark that ignites something that’s been building for ten days. She makes a small sound—surprise or relief or need—and then her arms are around my neck and she’s pressing against me and the kiss goes from tentative to desperate in the space of a heartbeat.
She tastes like coffee and honey and something uniquely her, and I can’t get enough. I angle my head, deepening the kiss, and she opens for me with a soft gasp that makes heat pool low in my gut. Her fingers thread through my hair, tugging slightly, and the small bite of pain mixed with pleasure makes me groan against her mouth.
I back her up against the cabin wall, my body covering hers, and she arches into me like she’s been waiting for this, craving this, needing this as much as I have. Snow is falling around us, cold flakes landing on our heated skin, but I barely feel it. All I can feel is her—soft and warm and responsive and perfect.
The kiss is hungry, almost frantic, like we’re both trying to make up for lost time, for all the moments we could have done this but didn’t. My hands slide into her hair, angling her head so I can taste her more deeply, and she makes these small sounds of pleasure that are going to drive me out of my mind.
When we finally break apart, we’re both panting, our breath mingling in the cold air, and she’s looking at me with eyes that are dark and dazed and full of want.
“We shouldn’t—” she starts, but her hands are still fisted in my jacket, still holding me close.
“I know.” My forehead drops to rest against hers, and I’m trying to find the willpower to step back, to be smart, to think about consequences.
But then she pulls me back down and kisses me again.
This kiss is slower, deeper, more thorough. It’s a promise and a question and an answer all at once. Her mouth is soft and demanding, her body pressed flush against mine, and I can feel every curve, every breath, every rapid beat of her heart.
I kiss her like she’s oxygen and I’ve been drowning. Like she’s the first warm thing I’ve felt in five years of cold isolation. Like she matters more than all the very good reasons why this is a mistake.
My hands slide down to her waist, pulling her even closer, and she gasps into my mouth when she feels exactly how much I want her. There’s no hiding it now, no pretending this is anything less than what it is: desire, raw and honest and overwhelming.
“Jackson,” she breathes against my lips, and the sound of my name in her voice makes something in my chest crack open.
“Yeah, I know.” I pull back enough to look at her, and she’s so beautiful it hurts—flushed and breathless and looking at me like I’m something precious instead of broken. “This doesn’t change anything. You’re still leaving.”
“I know.”
“This is just… physical. Just surviving.”
“Is it?” She searches my eyes, and I can see that she knows I’m lying, knows this is so much more than physical, but she doesn’t call me on it. “Okay. Just physical.”
We’re both lying to ourselves, and we both know it.
But right now, with snow falling around us and her mouth still swollen from my kisses and her body pressed against mine, I don’t care.
“Come on.” I step back, instantly missing her warmth. “We should get inside before we freeze.”
“What if I don’t want to go inside?” There’s a challenge in her voice, a heat in her eyes that makes my blood run hot despite the temperature.
“Sloane—”
“What if I want to stay out here and keep kissing you until we both forget every reason why this is a bad idea?”
God, she’s going to kill me.
“That’s a good way to get hypothermia,” I manage, even though every part of me is screaming to give her exactly what she’s asking for.
“Then warm me up.” She pulls me back down, and this time when she kisses me, there’s nothing tentative about it.
It’s pure heat and want and need, and I kiss her back with everything I’ve been holding back for the past ten days. My hands roam over her body, learning her curves through too many layers of clothing, and she makes these soft sounds of pleasure that make me want to strip her bare right here in the snow just so I can discover what other sounds I can pull from her.
But I have enough presence of mind left to know that’s actually a terrible idea.
“Inside,” I rasp when we break apart again, both of us breathing hard. “Now. Before I do something we’ll both regret.”
“I wouldn’t regret it,” she whispers, but she lets me pull her toward the cabin door.
Bear is waiting inside, watching us with those too-intelligent yellow eyes as we stumble through the door still wrapped around each other, and I swear the wolf-dog looks amused.
“Not a word,” I tell him, and Sloane laughs—actually laughs—and the sound fills the cabin with warmth.
We stand there in the doorway, melting snow dripping off our clothes, our hands still on each other, and I know I should let her go. Should put distance between us again. Should go back to pretending that the past ten minutes didn’t fundamentally change everything between us.
But I can’t seem to make myself do it.
“So,” she says, and there’s a slight tremor in her voice that might be cold or might be adrenaline or might be the same thing I’m feeling—this overwhelming sense of having crossed a line we can’t uncross. “That happened.”
“Yeah.” My thumb traces her lower lip, still swollen from my kisses, and she shivers. “That happened.”
“What do we do now?”
That’s the question, isn’t it?
We’re trapped in this cabin together for at least another few days, maybe a week, and now that we’ve crossed this line, there’s no going back. The tension isn’t going to get better. If anything, it’s going to get worse, more desperate, more impossible to ignore.
We could pretend it didn’t happen. Could go back to our separate corners and maintain our boundaries and be smart and careful and safe.
Or we could acknowledge that this thing between us is real and powerful and—however temporary—worth exploring.
“I don’t know,” I admit. “But I know I’m not sorry I kissed you.”
“Good.” She smiles, and it’s soft and genuine and devastating. “Because I’m not sorry either.”
We stand there a moment longer, both of us processing what just happened, what it means, where we go from here.
And then she goes up on her toes and kisses me again, soft and sweet and promising, before pulling back and heading to her bed like she didn’t just turn my entire world upside down.
I watch her go, my heart still racing, my lips still tingling from her kisses, and try to figure out how I’m supposed to survive the next few days with her when I can barely survive the next few minutes without wanting to kiss her again.
This is a problem.
A huge, complicated, impossible problem.
But as I watch her smile at me from across the cabin, her eyes still dark with want and promise, I can’t bring myself to care about the problems.
All I can think about is when I can kiss her again.
And how much I want to do a hell of a lot more than just kiss her.
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