“If you know what’s good for you, you’ll be sound asleep by the time I come back,” he said, making quick work of discarding the condom and putting enough clothes on so he wouldn’t lose any limbs to the cold. “I can’t be held accountable for my actions if you aren’t.”

She sighed with mock heaviness and pulled the sleeping bag up to her chin like a child hiding from a monster under her bed. “With threats like that, I’m not sure I’ll ever sleep again. I guess I’ll just have to pay for my sins, won’t I?”

Harrison’s response was a long, hard look that had no power to move her. As he was rapidly coming to learn, he had no power over her at all.

And to be perfectly honest, he didn’t care one bit. Pain was inevitable, loss a way of life. For now, he just wanted to enjoy Sophie for as long as he could manage to hold on.

Chapter 16

As was the case with most things in life, all good things had to come to an end.

“Um, you know how I mentioned that thing about my mom?” Sophie asked as she, Harrison, and Bubbles pulled up the road to the Parks farmhouse. All three of them smelled like stale smoke and looked like dried meat, but that seemed about right. Camping was serious business. “About how she’s staying at my house right now?”

Harrison grunted a noncommittal response. To be fair, his attention was taken up with his truck’s sharp turn into the drive, but he could have at least provided a yes or a no answer. She wasn’t such a fool that she assumed a few hot sexual interludes in the wilderness would cure Harrison of his taciturnity forever, but she’d hoped they’d at least have reached the monosyllabic stage.

Alas, not even the lure of her mighty vagina was that strong. Her determination to prove the rest of her was that strong, however, compelled her to keep going.

“According to this series of increasingly outraged texts from Dawn, it seems she has no intention of leaving anytime soon,” she said. “She’s even talking about installing one of those beds that pulls down from the wall and making her stay a prolonged one.”

The truck came crunching to a halt, and Harrison cranked the parking brake. “Because she’s being overprotective?”

“Well, yes.”

She shifted in her seat, grateful for the need to get Bubbles comfortably out of the cab. Nothing provided a distraction quite like a puppy. They were a lot like babies that way. Slinging her bag over one shoulder and her purse over the other, she scooped the dog up and opened the door. To her surprise, Harrison was waiting on the other side. Wordlessly, he placed his hands on either side of her waist and helped her down.