Thaw

Free with Kindle Unlimited

He built his silence like a fortress. Then a stranger crashed into his snowbank and wouldn’t stop talking.

Beck Calloway hasn’t been touched in three years. After his ex outed him to his parents and they cut him off without a word, he retreated to a cabin in the Colorado Rockies with his dog, his woodworking shop, and a sourdough starter he feeds like a prayer. He doesn’t need anyone. He’s made sure of that.

Eli Marsh is a pastry chef who just rage-quit his job after one public humiliation too many. He’s driving cross-country with no plan, no apartment, and a backseat full of knives when his car hits black ice and slides into a snowbank on Beck’s mountain. No cell service. No way out. And the bearded, broad-shouldered recluse who pulls him from the wreck looks like he’d rather leave him in the snow.

But the storm locks them in. And the cabin is small. And there’s only one bed close enough to the fireplace to survive the night. And Eli can’t stop talking, and Beck can’t stop listening, and somewhere between the shared meals and the borrowed clothes and the body heat, the walls start coming down.

When Beck’s hands find Eli’s skin and his voice drops to a register that rewires everything — good boy, louder, you’re not too much — Eli discovers that the silent man on the mountain speaks a language he’s been desperate to hear his entire life. And Beck discovers that the loud, chaotic, impossibly warm man in his kitchen is the first thing in three years that’s made the silence feel like a choice instead of a sentence.

But storms end. Roads clear. And two men who’ve been taught that vulnerability is a weapon have to decide if what they built in the dark can survive the daylight.

You’ll love this if you enjoy:

✓ Grumpy/sunshine with a touch-starved mountain man
✓ Snowed in + forced proximity + only one bed
✓ Praise kink that heals wounds (“good boy” as love language)
✓ A man who cooks like a dream and says nothing
✓ A man who bakes like a dream and never shuts up
✓ Dom/sub dynamics that develop naturally from trust
✓ He falls first, he falls harder
✓ A Bernese Mountain Dog named Bourbon who has opinions
✓ Scorching heat that escalates chapter after chapter
✓ A guaranteed HEA built one shelf at a time