Page 83 of Devoured By the Forbidden Mountain Man

Her fingers moved lightly over my knuckles. “This one isn’t.”

Something warm spread through my chest as Georgia shifted closer until our foreheads touched.

“I want to live here because I want you. I want breakfast at that table and your terrible supply system and waking up with you taking up too much of the bed.”

I laughed. “I do not take up too much of the bed.”

“You are six-three and built like a refrigerator.”

Georgia smiled through the remaining tears, then her expression softened again.

“Yes, Rex. I’ll move in.”

Relief went through me so quickly that I had to close my eyes for a second.

When I opened them, she was still watching me.

I slid my hand around the back of her neck.

Georgia touched my cheek.

“I’m falling for you too.”

The words settled somewhere deeper than relief.

I kissed her, and Georgia wrapped her arms around me, pulling me closer beneath the blankets.

Epilogue

Georgia

The kitchen smelled like browned butter, sage, and the cinnamon I had added to the apples cooling beside the stove. Every burner was occupied, the oven timer had twelve minutes left, and Rex was standing at the island with a potato masher in one hand and the concentration he usually reserved for considerably less forgiving problems.

I slid a pan of roasted vegetables onto the warming rack and checked the potatoes on my way past. They were smooth without being overworked, which meant the man had actually listened when I told him there was such a thing as being too aggressive with dinner.

Rex caught me looking.

“You can taste them if you don’t trust me.”

“I trust you.” I reached for a clean spoon anyway. “I’m verifying.”

His mouth moved at one corner while I tried them.

He had gotten the butter right, and the salt too. A month ago, the contents of his refrigerator had suggested he considered six eggs a meal plan. Now he could make Thanksgiving potatoes without supervision, which felt like measurable progress.

“They’re good,” I told him.

“I know. You made me do a practice batch Tuesday.”

Rex scraped the potatoes into the serving bowl while I rinsed the spoon.

“You complained about the practice batch.”

“I ate all of it.”

That was also true.

I set the spoon in the sink and went back to the stove before the gravy could punish me for neglect. Rex moved around the island behind me, putting away the cream without needing to ask where it belonged.