Page 32 of Mountain Man

She moaned desperately.

Then I felt it, felt her clutching my cock over and over again. Her scream echoed around the room as she came for me—and I lost it. Curling my arm around her waist, I flipped her to her back and went with my instincts. I hitched one knee high, so she was spread wider, so I went deeper, and pounded into her with frenzied thrusts that jarred her whole body and had her tightening more, screaming all over again.

My own orgasm nailed me, and I slammed forward, filling her as deep as I could go. I roared like the animal I was in that moment, filling her with my come, grunting with every pulse of my cock.

My body trembled so hard the bed shook. I pressed hot kisses over her cheeks, her forehead, her lips. “So perfect, sweetheart, so damn perfect. What will I do without you?” I gripped her tighter, shoved my face against her throat, and kissed the racing pulse there. “What am I going to do?”

9

Birdie

His words swam around my head. What was he saying? Or was it just something he’d said in the heat of the moment?

I was trying to figure out how to reply when a door slammed. “Yo!” Beau’s voice echoed up from downstairs.

Hank stilled a split second then lifted his head. His eyes didn’t meet mine. “We better get up. We’ve got a long drive ahead of us.”

My fingers flexed, pressing into the dense muscle of his back, and I watched his eyes slide shut. He leaned in, pressed a kiss to my mouth, then rolled away.

I wanted to pull him back and never let him go.

* * *

From Hank’s home, we could travel by truck to town. There wasn’t really a road, more like a track, but my aching thigh muscles were thankful for it. I wasn’t sure I could walk another mile. I was sandwiched between Hank and Beau, since he needed supplies from town, and I found myself leaning into Hank, soaking in every bit of him I could before I had to say goodbye.

Beau chatted the whole way. Hank stayed quiet.

The two-hour drive flew by, far quicker than I would have liked. We dropped Beau off in the center of the small town to get what he needed, and my heart raced as Hank looked down at me.

“Where’s your place, Birdie?”

I gave him directions and we drove there in silence. Finally, he pulled up outside the small cottage I rented and turned off his truck. We climbed out and he walked me to my door.

I found my key in my backpack and let myself in. Hank followed me inside and I watched as he took in my small home. I sewed and did a lot of arts and crafts to fill in my weekends, since they were usually spent on my own, and Hank was absorbing it all.

My couch was covered in cushions and had a patchwork quilt over the back. “You made those?” Hank asked.

“Yes.” I hated how husky my voice sounded. The sadness I was feeling was coming through loud and clear.

“They’re nice,” he said. “My grandmother used to sew.”

“I assumed the quilts must have been hers when I saw them. She was talented.”

He turned from my couch, gaze coming to me. “She loved it. Often filled her days in her sewing room.” He shrugged. “She loved the life; it suited her. My grandfather was a lucky man to find that.”

“You don’t think you ever will?” I asked, my heart in my throat.

His Adam’s apple slid up and down his thick neck as he swallowed. “It’s a hard, lonely life. I think…” His jaw tightened. “I think I’d be asking too much of any woman to live out there with me.”

I would, in a heartbeat.

The thought shot through my mind, sucking the oxygen from my lungs. That wasn’t me, though, was it? I didn’t stay in one place.

I didn’t know how.

He rubbed the back of his neck. “Good thing I prefer to be on my own, I guess.”

And there it was.