The Mountain Man Ranger’s Christmas Rescue Bonus Scene

“West,” I whisper, trying not to smile, “you love coffee more than I do.”

“Mm.” His nose brushes the back of my shoulder, slow and possessive. “Love you more than coffee. Which means you’re staying right here.”

My breath catches.

He says it so casually. So instinctively. Like it isn’t a confession at all, just a fact.

And maybe it is. I snuggle back into him, melting into his steady warmth. “Love you more than coffee, too.”

His arms tighten, a soft growl of satisfaction rumbling through his chest.

“But,” I murmur, though my pulse is already fluttering. “The sun’s up. The world’s awake. My Christmas trees—”

“Nope.” His arms are steel bands. “Trees can wait. Coffee can wait. Town can wait.”

He shifts, rolling half on top of me, warm and massive and unavoidable. His weight presses me into the mattress in the most delicious way, and his beard grazes down my neck, sending sparks straight through my body.

“You,” he murmurs, lips ghosting over my skin, “cannot wait.”

Heat flares through me, pooling low, my breath turning into a soft gasp as his firm arousal gouges into my hip.

“West…”

“Been awake for an hour,” he admits, voice rough. “Just watching you. Thinking about this week. Thinking about how close I came to losing you.”

His hand slides along my hip. Slow, reverent, claiming. “Not letting you out of this bed until I erase every last one of those thoughts.”

My heart stutters. “That seems … ambitious.”

“You have no idea.”

He kisses the curve of my shoulder, soft at first, then more certain. Sunrise hits his bare skin, turning the scars on his chest to warm gold. He looks like something carved out of heat and devotion and determination.

Then, his hand finds my thigh.

“Oh,” I breathe.

“Yeah,” he growls. “Oh.”

His body covers mine fully now, warm and heavy and relentless, and the way he looks at me…

Like I’m his dawn. Like I’m the first thing he ever wanted. Like he’ll break daylight itself before he lets me go.

“West,” I whisper, dizzy already, “the coffee—”

He cuts me off with a slow smile that’s pure sin and pure worship rolled into one.

“Cowgirl, the only thing getting stirred this morning … is you.”

His hot mouth drops to my breasts, circling and teasing my nipples until my fingers tangle in his hair urging him on. Then, he disappears beneath the covers, which is laughable considering how huge the man is. He nearly takes the comforter, blankets, and sheets with him. Only I’m too busy gasping and moaning, hips bucking and hovering off the bed, to notice.

The man is criminal. His tongue a Federal offense of the best kind. Swirling, lapping, licking, filling, and claiming me every way until my whole existence is one word. “West” screamed between ragged breaths.

When I fall over the precipice, float away, gushing and spasming beneath his skilled mouth and hands, it wrests a triumphant groan from him as he doubles down, refusing to stop until I’m jointless. I barely have a moment to recover, to think or breathe before he flips me over, wraps my hair around his hand, possessive and demanding, and takes me from behind.

Everything is heat and need and the way he stretches and claims me. Everything is pounding flesh and fast-paced breaths, his other hand on my hip, demanding and raw. Adjusting the angle, relentlessly finding the spot that drives me wild, the head of his cock gliding over my need again and again until wet heat gushes between my legs, and I unravel with a full-throated scream.

Two more possessive thrusts, and he’s following me over the edge, waves of heat throbbing through my body as he comes undone. His body spasms, pleasure escaping his lips, flesh against flesh. Hot, sweaty, alive.

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The world comes back slowly.

First, the heat of him. Then, the weight of his arm draped over my waist. Then, the quiet. The kind of quiet that only happens after the storm inside your chest finally settles.

I breathe out shakily, still trembling with the tiniest aftershocks while my cheek rests against West’s chest. His skin is hot, slick with the aftermath of effort and devotion and something deeper neither of us has dared name yet.

His hand moves first.

Not to roam. Not to start anything new. Just a slow sweep up my spine, gentle as a sunrise.

“You okay?” he murmurs, voice low and impossibly soft for a man who could level a building with his shoulders alone.

I nod against him, but apparently that’s not good enough.

“Look at me, Cowgirl.”

I lift my chin.

He studies me like he’s cataloging every breath, every flush of my cheeks, every possible sign I might be hurting or overwhelmed. It’s protective in the purest sense. Not possessive, not anxious, just care distilled into one focused, unblinking gaze.

God help me, it almost undoes me more than what we just did.

“I’m okay,” I whisper. “Better than okay.”

Relief softens the edges of his face. His thumb brushes my cheekbone, then trails to my jaw, then tucks a damp strand of hair behind my ear.

“You’re shaking,” he says quietly.

“I’m not cold.”

“I know.” His voice roughens, thickens. “Still want to take care of you.”

He reaches for the quilt at the foot of the bed, pulling it over us like it’s instinct. I swear he wraps it around me before he even realizes he’s doing it. His body curves around mine again, fitting perfectly as if the bed, the blankets, the world was built around this moment.

My hand drifts across the planes of his chest, tracing a line of heat through the soft hair there. “You’re warm.”

“That’s the idea,” he mutters. “Storm’s still gonna take hours to fully clear. I’m your furnace until then.”

I grin into his skin. “You planning to keep me pinned like this all day?”

“Yes.”

No hesitation. No humor. Just certainty.

I swallow past the sudden rush of emotion. “West…”

His fingers hook under my jaw, lifting my face again. His eyes are a deep, molten gold in the leftover glow of morning.

“What’s going on in that head?” he asks quietly.

I exhale. “You. Just … you. How gentle you are afterward.”

A muscle jumps in his throat. “Wasn’t always like that,” he admits in a rough whisper. “Didn’t always … know how to stay. Or what to do with myself once the adrenaline wore off.”

I slide my hand up, cupping his cheek. “You stayed now.”

“Yeah,” he says, leaning into my touch like it’s gravity. “Because you make it easy.”

I don’t think he realizes what that confession does to me.

“West…”

He presses a kiss to my forehead, slow, grounding, tender.

“Tell me if anything hurts,” he murmurs. “If you’re sore, if you’re overwhelmed, if you need water, food, a break. Anything. You say it, I fix it.”

My chest goes warm and achy all at once. “You don’t have to fix everything for me.”

“Yeah, sweetheart,” he murmurs into my hair, “I do.”

There’s no macho bravado in the words. No posturing. Just truthful devotion spoken in a voice that sounds like he’s finally allowed to feel something he’s denied himself for too long.

I don’t cry, but the sting behind my eyes is undeniable.

He feels it. Of course he does.

His thumb wipes beneath my lower lash without comment.

“Come here,” he whispers, pulling me tighter, guiding my head to rest beneath his chin. “Let me hold you. Let me be here. That’s all I want.”

I curl into the breadth of his body, wrapped in warmth, wrapped in the steady rhythm of his breathing, wrapped in the certainty that this man is not going anywhere.

Slow minutes pass. Maybe hours. The world is quiet—storm-muted, fire-warmed, bed-soft.

And I realize something quietly devastating.

“I’ve never felt this safe,” I whisper.

His fingers still for the briefest heartbeat.

Then they slide slowly into my hair, anchoring me to him with a devotion so deep it steals the air from my lungs.

“You always will,” he says. Not a promise. A vow. “And not just because I’m a Ranger.” His lips brush my temple, soft as a secret. “But because you’re mine now.”

My breath catches.

But I don’t correct him. I don’t argue. I don’t tease.

Because for the first time in my life … I know it’s true.

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Want to read more about Wolfe and his Army Ranger crew? Explore the Rough & Ready Country series and beyond, available now in KU.

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