Kept By The Mountain Man (Montana Mountain Men Book 3)

by Gemma Weir

  “Please don’t try to convince me I’m wrong. I’m not. I live my life in a certain way so I don’t ever have to see anyone else look at me the way my sister looked at me when she told me she was leaving. Even after the short time I’ve known you I can see you’re a good person, I won’t infect you with my poison.”

  “Honey, there’s nothing poisonous about you.”

  Shaking her head, she tries to pull away from me, but I hold on tightly.

  “You listen to me. I know we only met yesterday but it only took me a moment to know you were mine. You are it for me, I’ll never find anyone else and I can guarantee you fate wouldn’t send me someone who was a bad person, or who would hurt me or my family.”

  “You don’t know me,” she argues.

  “You’re right, I don’t. So tell me. Tell me how you’ll hurt me.” Cupping her cheek, I force her chin up, daring her to look away.

  “I’m needy, I’ll drive you insane with my constant insecurities.”

  “I already told you I want you to need me. If I had my way, I’d make it so you can’t breathe without me.”

  “I’m clingy. I won’t want to be alone, to be independent.”

  “Be clingy. Move in with me, marry me. I’ll do that all now happily. I don’t want you away from me ever again. You can come to work with me, we don’t ever have to be apart.”

  “I’ll lay all my shit at your door; I’ll need you to take care of me and all my problems.”

  “Give them all to me. I want them, I’ll take your problems, issues, idiosyncrasies, I’ll take them all, just give me you in return.”

  Shaking her head, she closes her eyes. “You’ll hate me.”

  “Impossible,” I instantly reply. “It’s been two days and I’m already head of over fucking heels in love with you. There’s nothing you could do to ever make me hate you.”

  Her shocked inhale makes me pause for a blink of an eye, remembering that I just confessed how caught up in her I am, that I already feel like my world makes no sense without her, that I love her, even though it’s ridiculous and impetuous and insane, but I don’t care.

  Alice wants to run, even though I know she really wants to stay, all of her reasons are just excuses, but I’ll do whatever she needs me to do to keep her. I’ll dress her, pay for her, love her, touch her, fuck her, overwhelm her. I’ll be her lover, captor, controller, I’ll take away every choice if she needs me to and I’ll do it happily, because she’s my life now and I won’t, can’t let her go.

  Her body’s as stiff as a board and I feel the moment that she decides to bolt. Rolling her beneath me I trap her to the mattress, resting my weight on her, stopping her from moving. “Tell me what you need and I’ll do it.”

  “No. No, you need to let me go.”

  “I can’t, so tell me what you need. Show me the worst and I’ll prove that I want it all.”

  Her head shakes from side to side, so I reach out and trap her cheeks with my palms. “Tell me. We have tonight, then the next two days, show me how needy, how clingy, how much you’ll need me. If by Monday night it’s too much, I promise I’ll tell you, I’ll help you leave and I won’t follow.”

  “You promise?”

  “I promise if I can’t handle you, I’ll let you go, but if I can, you have to promise to stay, to take the job with Beau if that’s what you want, or just spend every day with me. But you have to promise to stay.”

  “I—”

  I can sense her hesitation so I interrupt her, not giving her a moment to come up with an argument. “Feel this.” Parting her legs, I push my dick into her, impaling her until I’m fully seated inside of her, her legs stretched wide around my hips. “You’re mine, tell me you feel it too, I know you do.”

  “I—”

  “Tell me.” Pulling out, I slam forward, fucking her roughly, too roughly. “Tell me.”

  “I’m…”

  Dragging my dick almost all the way out of her, I slam home again. “Tell me,” I demand.

  “I’m yours,” she cries, as her pussy clenches around my dick and she comes on a garbled cry.

  I try to hold myself back, to drag this out, force her to confess she belongs to me over and over, but her orgasm triggers my own and my body takes over, fucking her ruthlessly until I come, filling her with my release, biting my lip so I don’t tell her that I hope it takes root, that I hope I breed her.

  “Granger.”

  I love hearing my name on her lips, even when she sounds as small and as unsure as she does now. Siding out of her, I roll us to the side, keeping her close to me. “Yeah, honey?”

  “Please don’t hate me.”

  “Never,” I assure her, pulling her closer as sleep drags me under.

  13

  Alice

  The sound of someone knocking at the door pulls me from sleep just as Granger climbs out of bed and silently pads to answer it. Opening it a crack, he shields the bed and me from whoever’s at the door, speaking quietly, before closing it again and turning back to face me.

  “Hey honey, sorry, didn’t mean to wake you up.” Crossing the room, he sits down next to me on the bed, leans down and kisses me. The moment his lips touch mine, I relax. How can he affect me like this? I know he said he wanted my worst, but he can’t really mean it, no one wants a mess of a twenty something girlfriend who becomes annoyingly dependent.

  “What’s the matter?”

  “I just…” I trail off, unsure what to say.

  “Tell me, I want to know all your thoughts, all of them, not just the things you think I want to hear,” he says, his expression serious.

  “What we talked about before.”

  “About you showing me how bad you think you are so I can prove that I can handle it,” he says succinctly.

  “Yeah, that was… That was, I shouldn’t have said anything.” Heat is pooling in my cheeks and I drop my gaze, too embarrassed to look him in the eye.

  His thumb hooks under my chin, forcing my face up, waiting for me to look at him. “I’m glad you told me, I want all of your fears, all of your insecurities. I’ve got big shoulders, I can take them so you don’t have to.”

  I try to shake my head, but his hold on my chin tightens to just shy of painful, keeping me still. “Tell me what you need me to do. I can take complete control if you want, fuck if I don’t think I might like that.” His smirk is sin itself and my body trembles.

  “Complete control?”

  “I can dress you, feed you, fuck you. I can make you my willing pet, never more than an arm’s length away.”

  His voice is seductive, but there’s a hint of amusement that makes me feel like he’s making fun of me. “I’m not a child,” I snap, pushing his hand away, but only making his grip firm until I’m frozen beneath him.

  “I know you’re not a child, you’re a beautiful independent woman, but even the strongest of people can enjoy giving up control.”

  “Is…” I pause. “Is that what you like, for your girlfriends to give up control?”

  “It’s not something I’ve ever dabbled with before, but then I’ve never really had anyone I cared about enough to want to be in control. Everything’s different with you, I’m different with you.”

  “I don’t understand,” I whisper.

  “Neither do I,” he confesses. “You make me feel out of control, so maybe exerting some of that on you will balance things out.”

  “You’ll get sick of me.”

  “I doubt it. You think you’re needy and clingy, but you feel too far away right now and my hands are on you.”

  A giggle escapes my lips and have to bite my lip to fight the smile that tries to fall free.

  “How bout we lay down some ground rules, so we both know where we are,” he suggests, lifting me up from the bed like I weigh nothing and placing me back down in his lap.

  “Rules?” I furrow my brow.

  “Yeah, nothing over the top, just simple things. I want you with me all the time, but I’m not a fucking psycho
, I know that’s not always gonna be possible, so when we’re not together if I ring you, you answer, if you ring me, I answer, no questions.”

  I nod, not wanting to tell him that if I’d called and he didn’t answer I’d drive myself crazy thinking he hated me and was ignoring me. “I can do that.”

  “If I text, I expect a reply within five minutes and the same for me, you text I’ll reply.”

  “Okay.”

  “You’re in my bed every night, no excuses.”

  “Until Monday,” I say, reminding him that we have a time limit on this.

  “No, permanently. I said if I couldn’t handle you at your worst I’d let you know by Monday night, but if I can, you stay, permanently.”

  “I—”

  “That’s non-fucking-negotiable, honey. Unless you’ve got a husband and a brood of kids waiting for you somewhere, then the only reason I can see that you’re fighting this thing between us is because you have these fucked up ideas that you’re toxic. Well I’m gonna prove that you’re wrong, that you’re my fucking elixir, not my poison, and I don’t want you to go into this counting down till Monday. I want you to plan to stay, to want to stay.”

  God, I wish it was as simple as just saying yes, but it’s not. He thinks I’m exaggerating, he thinks I’m just a normal woman with a few issues, he has no idea. I’m obsessive, compulsive, a fucking nightmare and when he finally looks at me the way everyone eventually looks at me, it’ll devastate me. But I want to play pretend with him, even if it’s only for a couple of days, so I humor him and nod, even though I’m sealing both of our fates and the pain that will follow.

  “What else do you need from me?”

  His expression is so earnest that instead of answering, I just lean forward and kiss him. It’s the first time I’ve initiated anything between us and the familiar doubts fill my head just as he takes over, devouring me and vanquishing all thoughts but one, that he’s mine, at least for the moment.

  “God, you have no idea how much I want to fuck you again, but I don’t want to hurt you and you’ve got to be sore, I’ve barely kept my dick out of you since we met,” he says, tearing himself from my lips and resting his forehead against mine, his arms still holding me tight. “Talk. We need to talk.” His words sound like he’s warning himself, more than me. “So tell me how bad you think you’ll get.”

  “It’s not. I’m not.” I swallow, wondering how I can explain this. “I’m not crazy, I’m not gonna go Norman Bates and be wielding a knife in the shower. I just. I’m insecure, but like a million times more than a normal person. I’ll assume you hate me, so I’ll either overcompensate by harassing you, or I’ll withdraw and not speak because I’ll think I should just stay quiet. I’ll wear a shirt, then assume I look like a frump, or a slut, then I’ll obsess over it and either ask you a thousand times if I look okay, or worry that you hate it. I’m too much. I know I am.”

  “So how about I look through your stuff and pick you something to wear,” he says with a shrug, like the solution is obvious.

  “It’s not just clothes, it’s everything. Have I eaten too much, too little, am I too blonde, not blonde enough? Am I strong enough, weak enough, assertive, submissive, loud, quiet?” Fuck, I can’t believe I just spewed all that at him. Clamping my mouth shut I squeeze my eyes closed and will time to go backward so I can erase this entire conversation.

  “Honey.”

  Inhaling slowly, I ignore his voice.

  “Alice, look at me.”

  If I can just block him out, I won’t have to see the look in his eyes, the one that says I’m a fucking mess and he doesn’t want to deal with me anymore.

  “Alice, look at me now.”

  The order in his words has my eyes snapping up and finding his, that aren’t hard like I expect them to be, but soft and full of warmth. “I can’t make you more secure overnight; I wish I could, and in time, I promise I’ll do whatever it takes to make you feel like you can trust yourself and this thing between us. In the meantime, when you start to worry, just ask.”

  “Just ask,” I cough incredulous.

  “Just ask. That can be one of your rules. You start to overthink, then you ask me about whatever thought is spinning in your head at a million miles an hour.”

  “I can’t.”

  “Why not?” he asks simply.

  “Because.”

  “Because you think I won’t answer? Or because you think I’ll lie. Would it make you feel better if complete honesty is one of my rules?”

  I think for a minute and yes it would, but how can I believe he’d tell me the truth even if he promises me complete honesty.

  “What are you thinking right now? I can hear your brain spinning.”

  “You don’t want to know what goes on inside my head,” I say with a self-deprecating smile.

  “Another rule for you is that you have to answer my questions when I ask them. As much as I wish I could read your mind, I can’t, so you have to be honest too.”

  Stiffening my shoulders, I glare at him. “Fine. I was wondering how I can be sure you’d tell me the truth.”

  I’m not expecting it when he smirks down at me. “Have I lied to you so far?”

  “I…” I faulter, not sure how to deal with his calm attitude. Don’t guys get defensive when you question their honesty? Shouldn’t he be attacking, not calm and just… waiting.

  “I asked you a question, honey.”

  “I don’t know if you’ve been honest.”

  “I wish I could prove it, but you’re not a mind reader either, so you’re just gonna have a little faith. You have to be in this too, Alice.”

  I nod, unable to speak past the huge lump of fear and worry and hope that’s lodged in my throat.

  “Good girl,” he praises, turning my face and claiming my lips in a heated kiss that has me wanting to climb into his lap and curl up like a kitten. “Now shower, before I forget about all my good intentions not to slide into that wet pussy of yours again.”

  Slapping my ass, he lifts me out of his lap, lowering my feet to the floor before following me up, taking my hand and leading me to the bathroom. I don’t argue when he turns on the shower, then pulls me with him under the spray, taking over and caring for my body like it’s the most natural thing in the world for him to do. By the time he’s done, I feel pampered and cared for and wanted. It’s a heady feeling.

  Instead of letting me walk, he carries me to the bed, sitting me down on the edge as he chooses clothes for both of us. The adult who walked away from her family so she didn’t have to burden them with her toxicity rises up inside of me, telling me I shouldn’t be doing this, that I shouldn’t hurt him, that I shouldn’t allow this to happen. But the lonely little girl who longs to be wanted somehow wins, because this feeling he’s managed to create inside of me is almost overwhelming. I want to be wanted. I want him to want me and so I’ll take all he can give me; I’ll bask in his care and attention.

  Pulling a clean bra and panties from the dresser drawer where he put my stuff alongside his own, Granger returns to me, crouching down at my feet. Pressing a kiss to the front of one foot, he guides my panties up my legs, pressing a soft kiss against my mound as he pulls the fabric over my butt and into position.

  His palms curl around my ass and he buries his nose in my slit over the soft cotton, pressing his face into my pussy. “You smell like mine. If it wouldn’t drive me insane to know you were bare, I wouldn’t let you wear panties. I like the idea of your jeans rubbing over your wet pussy all night.”

  “Granger,” I gasp, when he pulls the front of my panties down and pushing his tongue between my folds.

  “Just a quick taste, honey, then I promise I’ll be good.” His tongue strokes over my clit quickly, then he pulls my panties back into place and stands. “I like you naked too much, it feels wrong putting clothes on you.” His pout is adorable.

  “I can’t be naked all the time,” I giggle.

  “When you come to work with me, you can. No
one but us goes in in my workshop, you can be my reward for working hard, my naked little prize. I suppose in public I’ll have to let you wear clothes.” Holding up my bra, his brow furrows and he stares at it for a moment, then at me. “Gonna be honest here, honey, and say I have no idea how to put this on you, I’ve only ever taken them off in the past.”

  Reaching out, I try to take the bra from him, but he snatches it back. “No, I want to do it, you just need to tell me how.”

  Blushing, I talk him through it and moments later, my bra is in place and fastened while Granger plays with my nipples. “Fuck, Alice, I can’t get enough.”

  “Stop touching me then.”

  “Never,” he mock gasps, palming both my breasts in his huge hands and pulls me to him, my back flush against his front.

  A giggle bursts from my lips, and I smile wider than I can ever remember smiling. He spins me in his arms, and when I look up at him, he’s smiling too. “I like you like this, without the shadows in your eyes.”

  When his lips touch mine, I sigh into him, wondering if this is all a dream, or if by some odd twist of fate it’s all actually real.

  The rest of my clothes go on quicker and soon I’m dressed in tight jeans, a pink knit sweater and my boots. My hair is wet and still up in the towel Granger wrapped around it when we came out the shower. “Where’s your hair dryer?”

  “I don’t have one, I usually just let it air dry.”

  Granger’s dressed in a few moments, and somehow he looks even sexier with his hair rumpled with water, wearing jeans with rips at the knees and a flannel shirt. “Come on,” he says, offering me a hand to take.

  I take it and he leads us out into the living room. When he spots Cora he winks at me, then says, “Cora, can you blow dry Alice’s hair? It’s too cold for her to go out with wet hair.”

  “Sure,” Cora beams. “Bonnie does the most gorgeous braids if you want to get it out of your face for the night.”

  I tense, hating that all of my ease and happiness from only moments ago has evaporated. As if sensing my change in mood, Granger’s arm curls around my waist and he pulls me back into him, his lips moving to my ear.