Page 13 of Wrong Number, Right Grumpy Mountain Man

"What?" she says.

"Nothing. You're just..." Words fail. For a man who communicates in clipped sentences, this is new territory.

Her hand reaches for my shirt. Tugs the flannel off my shoulders. Pulls the Henley over my head. Her palms slide down my chest, over the hair there, across my stomach. Her eyes follow her hands.

"You're just, too," she says.

Then she lies back and pulls me down with her.

My mouth moves from her lips to her throat to the space between her breasts. Her nipple is warm against my tongue when I take it into my mouth, and the sound she makes is loud, unguarded, nothing held back. Her fingers tighten in my hair. My hand slides down her stomach, over the soft curve below her belly button, into the waistband of her shorts.

She lifts her hips. The shorts come off. Then the underwear, yellow cotton, and she's naked in my bed. Full thighs, round hips, the dark curls between her legs already glistening.

"Holden." My name in her real voice, not through a screen. Wrecked. Urgent.

My mouth trails down her stomach. Past her navel. Between her thighs. The first stroke of my tongue along her pussy pulls a sound out of her that echoes off the cabin walls. She's wet. Hot. Her clit swells against my tongue as I circle it, slow, deliberate, learning every response. Her hips roll. Her thighs tighten around my ears.

"Oh god. Oh fuck." Her hand finds the back of my head, holds me there. "Don't stop."

Wouldn't dream of it. Two fingers slide inside her, curling, finding the spot that makes her back arch off the mattress. My tongue flattens against her clit while my fingers work, a slow rhythm that builds until she's panting, until her thighs are shaking, until she breaks apart with a cry that sounds like my name torn in half.

Before the aftershocks finish, I'm reaching for the nightstand. Drawer. Condom I bought three days ago after shesaid she was coming, because even grumpy mountain vets have hope they won't admit to.

She watches me roll it on. Her eyes are hazy, skin flushed. She bites her lower lip and the sight of her teeth against that full mouth almost finishes me.

"You bought condoms."

"You said you were coming."

The laugh dissolves into a gasp as I push inside her. Slow. Watching her face. The stretch of her around me, the wet heat, the way her eyes go wide then heavy, all of it. Devastating.

"Fuck." Her nails dig into my shoulders. "Holden."

My hips pull back. Drive forward. Deep. Her legs lock around my waist, her heels pressing into my lower back, pulling me closer. The angle shifts. She cries out.

There. Right there.

Every thrust hits the same spot. Her moans are constant now, broken syllables, my name, Yoruba words I don't understand but feel in my bones. My forehead drops to hers. Our breath mingles. The bed creaks against the wall.

"Look at me," I say.

Her eyes open. Brown. Warm. Full of everything she's been typing at midnight for two months. Every confession, every truth, every scared and brave and lonely word she sent across five thousand kilometers to a stranger who needed them more than he'll ever be able to say.

"Come for me, Mara."

She shatters. Tight around my cock, nails in my back, voice breaking open. The clench of her pulls me over the edge seconds later, my face buried in her neck, her name ripping out of me raw.

Silence. Just breathing. Her fingers drawing slow circles on my spine. Mountain light through the window. The rocking chairon the porch, empty for five years, visible through the bedroom doorway.

"Holden?"

"Yeah."

"Your coffee is still terrible."

A sound comes out of me. Low, rusty. Foreign. It takes a second to recognize it.

Laughter.