My Mountain Man Muse

by Olivia T. Turner

  He smiles as he puts his bare foot back in the snow. His. Bare. Foot!

  I have to look away. This is torture just watching it.

  “To each his own,” he says as he pulls the boot off his other foot. He starts unbuttoning his faded jeans and I nibble on my bottom lip as I watch.

  “You should come in,” he says. “It’s refreshing.”

  “It’s ridiculous.”

  I swallow hard when he pulls his jeans and underwear down to his ankles. My eyes are locked on his hard naked ass as he steps out of his jeans, leaving them in the snow.

  He’s completely naked now. He’s also completely insane.

  It’s freaking January in the Rocky Mountains and he’s got nothing on but a smile.

  “Please don’t,” I say as he takes a step toward the deathly cold river of doom. “You’re going to die. Like literally die.”

  He looks at me over his round shoulder and it makes me melt. I still can’t believe my luck. How did I even find this guy? He’s like no one I’ve ever met before. Who else says to themselves, ‘hey, it’s snowing in January and cold as fuck. Perfect time to go swimming in an icy river of death.’?

  Jayden does, that’s who.

  “I’m not going to die,” he says with a shake of his head. “I do this three or four times a week.”

  My mouth drops as he turns and sprints toward the river. With a holler, he jumps in and disappears below the swirling water.

  That’s it. That’s the last time I’ll ever see him.

  Rescuers will have to come back in the spring and thaw him out.

  My stomach is in my throat as I wait for him to pop back up.

  He finally does and I take a breath of relief.

  “Okay,” I shout as he swims around. “You’ve proved your manliness. Can you come out now before I have a heart attack?”

  “Come on in,” he says with a grin as he floats on his back and looks at me. “Take those big bulky clothes off and let me see that beautiful body of yours.”

  “Not going to happen.”

  “Afraid your nipples will get too hard?”

  “Yeah,” I say with a serious face. “I’m afraid they’ll get so hard from the cold that they’ll shatter.”

  He laughs as he wades back to the shore. The cold isn’t even bothering him. He must not be human. He’s probably some weird half-human, half-mountain man hybrid species or something.

  “All right,” he says as he starts walking out of the river. “But you’re missing out.”

  “I’m not missing out at all,” I mutter under my breath as I stare at the stunning view. His wet body is rock hard and looking sexier than ever as he walks back out with drops of water rippling down. Even after exiting the freezing cold water, his cock is still huge. No shrinkage here. It’s just hanging down his thighs as he walks in the snow toward me.

  “How about a hug?” he says as he opens his wet arms.

  “Not going to happen,” I say with a slight edge of panic as he comes closer. I’m already freezing and I don’t want to touch anything wet, even if it comes attached with that beautiful cock.

  He starts running toward me and I scream as he wraps his big wet arms around me and picks me up in a bear hug. He spins me around as I laugh and squeal like a little girl.

  Maybe the hug wasn’t so bad, I think as he gets dressed.

  Nothing about this week has been bad (besides the ankle pain—that still sucks).

  I’m starting to really like it here with Jayden and the mountain is really growing on me.

  I might just end up swimming in the river with him next time.

  Wait. Who am I kidding? That’s never going to fucking happen.

  After a couple of amazing days with Jayden, I’m able to finally put some weight on my ankle. It’s still swollen, but I’m able to get around a lot easier.

  So, when he asks me if I want to learn how to chop wood, I quickly agree.

  But now that we’re outside and there’s an ax in my hands, I’m not so sure.

  “What happens if I cut my foot off?” I ask as he places a log on the chopping block.

  “You’re not going to cut your foot off,” he answers with a shake of his head. “I’ll be with you the entire time.”

  “What happens if I cut your foot off?”

  “Just…” he says with a chuckle. “Just do what I tell you and we’ll both be fine.”

  “You don’t know that,” I say as he comes up behind me and presses his warm body against mine. “I’m like a gold medalist in being clumsy.”

  “I’m sure you’re not that bad.”

  I turn and look at him over my shoulder with my eyebrows raised. “Have you seen my ankle lately?”

  He laughs. “Good point. We’ll do it together.”

  I fight back a moan as he slides his hands down my arms, swallowing me in his big hulky embrace.

  “What you want to do is aim for one of those cracks that run toward the middle.”

  “I have to aim too?” I ask with a heavy breath. “I’m just trying not to hit a foot.”

  He calms me down with his comforting touch and his soft voice as he explains how to hold the ax and swing it over my head.

  “You can do this!” he says as he takes a few steps back.

  I look at him in panic. “What happened to us doing it together? What happened to those big arms around me?”

  “You’ll be fine,” he says with a chuckle. “Go ahead.”

  I take a deep breath and swing the ax up like he told me and bring it down on the crack in the log. It sinks right through the log, splitting it in two.

  “I did it!” I shout as I drop the ax and throw my hands in the air. “I’m a mountain woman!”

  He laughs as he tells me I did a good job. “Do it again.”

  “Oh no,” I say as I limp away from the chopping block. “I’m hereby announcing my retirement from chopping wood forever.”

  “Forever? What if you need to build a fire?”

  I give him a sexy little smirk. “That’s why I have you.”

  He shakes his head as he picks up the ax and continues splitting the wood. “City folk,” he mumbles.

  After a few minutes, he asks me about my book and I talk his ear off for fifteen whole minutes while he chops and listens patiently. He never interrupts. He just listens closely as I ramble on.

  I’m all worked up with excitement as I explain chapters twelve to sixteen. I can’t help but wave my hands around as my voices races with passion.

  “Sounds like you love writing,” he says when I finally shut up.

  “I do.” I don’t know why it took me this long to finally do it.

  “So, where do you go from here?”

  I sigh. “I’ve never felt so alive than I have this week.” Writing my book, but also with him.

  “And does your job make you feel that way?”

  I snort out a laugh. “You mean my job as an office administrator at Proper Propane? It makes me feel the opposite.”

  “Then quit.”

  He says it like it’s so easy. Like I can just do whatever I want.

  “I can’t.”

  “Why?”

  “I need money. What do you do for money?” It only occurred to me to ask him now.

  “Sometimes in the summer, I’ll do some logging. I sell firewood. I’ve worked on a crabbing boat before. Anything that’s physical and keeps me outside. But I don’t need much. The mountain provides me with almost everything I need.”

  “Well, I don’t know where I’m going to hunt for food in the city,” I say with a sigh. “I’ll probably get thrown into a mental institution if I start chasing the squirrels around with a homemade spear.”

  “Then stay here.”

  My heart stops as the words hang between us.

  Jayden picks up another log and continues chopping as if he didn’t just drop a bomb at my feet.

  “I can’t.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because… reasons.
” They just aren’t coming to me right now, but I’m sure there are perfectly legitimate reasons.

  It’s easy for people like him to do whatever they want. But people like me, not so much.

  “You want to be a writer, right?”

  “Yeah.”

  “And you like me?”

  My cheeks start to get hot. “Yeah.”

  “Then stay. Live your passion. Become a writer. Stay with me.”

  He lowers the ax and locks eyes with me. My legs buckle a little.

  “Don’t let fear win. There’s never a good reason not to follow your heart, Lily. Never.”

  He raises the ax and keeps chopping as my mind starts spinning with a million thoughts.

  I can’t stay, says the sane, rational voice in my head. It would be reckless. Irresponsible. So not me.

  But then another voice starts whispering through the negative thoughts. An inspired voice that sounds a lot like Jayden…

  But what if I can?

  “Okay,” I say as I rub my freezing hands together. “I can do this!”

  I take one step toward the river and then panic. “Wait! No, I can’t!”

  Jayden laughs as he takes my hand. We’re both completely naked, completely freezing, completely insane.

  “We’ll go on three.”

  “No!”

  “One.”

  “I can’t.”

  “Two.”

  “No, no, no, no, no!”

  “Three!”

  I scream as the two of us run toward the icy cold river of death and jump in.

  A million knives stab my body all over as I sink below the surface. I immediately turn around and run back out of the ice-cold river as my chest constricts to the point that I can’t breathe.

  I can hear Jayden chuckling behind me as I trample through the snow, grab the thick towel, and wrap it around my shivering body.

  My teeth are chattering and my knees are knocking as I turn around and look at him floating there like he’s on vacation in Jamaica.

  “Come back,” he says with a grin on his face. He takes some water into his mouth and then spits it out, looking like a sexy fountain. “The water is great.”

  “Not going to happen,” I say in my shaky voice as I get dressed as fast as I can.

  I can’t believe I just did that. I jumped in that river in the middle of January.

  I don’t do those kinds of things. That’s not me.

  But I did it.

  So, maybe it can be the new me.

  Jayden has inspired me to do so much this week.

  I’m freezing, but I feel exhilarated and thrilled that I did it.

  It makes me wonder…

  What else can I do?

  Chapter Ten

  Katie & Lily

  “It’s going to be okay,” Evan said as he paddled the boat through the rough ocean waters. The blood of the infamous Captain Theo Bones was still fresh on the sword-thingy (*google what a pirate sword is called) hanging from his belt.

  Katie swooned as she watched the love of her life maneuver the small boat over the turbulent waves. He had saved her and slain her vicious captor in the process.

  Her heart swelled as she turned back to look at the burning pirate ship as it began to sink into the sea. The flames licked up the wooden posts, catching the sails and destroying the notorious Bones’ flag forever.

  She was a free woman once again and the cursed red ruby, which turned everyone who looked at it insane, was now safely stored at the bottom of the ocean. Perhaps a hermit crab would use it as a shell. Perhaps not. Maybe a shark would look at it and lose its mind. (*Way too lame, Katie. Come on!)

  She turned back to her lover as she nervously played with the necklace he whittled out of a coconut shell for her. Evan had said they would be together forever, but now it was the time to prove it. Would he leave her when they finally got to shore or would he take her to the French Countryside and purchase a goat farm like he promised, living the rest of their lives in each other’s arms?

  That’s what she wanted. She knew it in her brain heart.

  She definitely didn’t want to go back to her sad little apartment and crappy job old life. This was way more exciting.

  Just as the sun began to set in the distance, casting the vast sky in vibrant hues of pink and red, Evan turned and smiled at her.

  It was in that moment she knew, they would be together forever. They were meant to be together.

  They had the rest of their lives to be as one and it started now.

  In the end, Katie’s horrible day turned out pretty damn good.

  My fingers are tingling as I type The End, the most exciting six letters a writer can type.

  I sit back, take a deep breath, and stare at the thick piled of typed pages.

  I’m finished. Of course, I still have a few edits to do and I have to retype it all into my laptop, but amazingly, the first draft is done.

  Even if nobody buys the book, I finished it. I’m a real writer now.

  Jayden walks into the room and I turn to him with a big grin on my face.

  “Don’t tell me,” he says with his brown eyes lighting up. “Is it…?”

  “Finished!” I say proudly.

  He walks over and puts his big hands on my shoulders, massaging them with just the right amount of pressure. I drop my head forward with a moan as he rubs my back.

  “So, they destroyed the ruby?” he asks as he reads the last page.

  “They sure did,” I say with a grin. “Evan can do anything.”

  His hands stop on my shoulders as he leans down. “I think I’m getting a little jealous of this Evan guy.”

  “I wouldn’t,” I say as I lift my mouth up and kiss his furry chin. “He may be a little bit based on you.”

  “A little bit?” he asks with a raised eyebrow.

  “Loosely based,” I correct. He’s not buying it. “Okay, he’s totally based on you.”

  Jayden smiles and the sight makes my chest feel like it’s going to explode.

  “What about Katie?” he asks. “Is she based on you?”

  “Not really,” I say with a shrug. “Other than her getting herself in a predicament and having a hot muscular man come and save her.”

  “Aw, that’s too bad.”

  I jerk my head back around and look up at him. “Why do you say that?”

  “Well,” he says as he stands up straight and lets his hands fall away from me. “It says here they were meant to be together, Evan and Katie. If Evan is based on me, then…”

  “Maybe she’s a little based on me,” I quickly correct. “In fact, I think she’s a carbon copy of myself. Besides, the whole pirate and magical ruby thing.”

  “Ah,” he says as he rubs his chin. “That’s good.”

  That’s good?

  What does he mean by that’s good?

  But before I can ask him, he wanders off, leaving me with my head spinning.

  I want to be his. I want to stay here and see where we go from here.

  This has been the best week of my life and I don’t want to go back to what I had before.

  My crappy apartment is going to feel so cold and empty without Jayden there. And I don’t even want to think about what my bed is going to feel like.

  And I’ve never felt so alive as when I’ve been writing this book. Maybe I’m not Nora Roberts now, but maybe with some practice, I can get better.

  My old job as an office administrator in a propane processing plant doesn’t sound too exciting anymore, not that it ever was.

  I really want to stay here with Jayden.

  He’s been saying a lot of things, but it’s always in the heat of the moment. It’s easy to get carried away during sex, but asking someone to stay for real, especially for a recluse mountain man, is a little bit harder.

  I sigh as I stare at my last page that’s still perched on the typewriter.

  Katie got her happy ending.

  But will I?

  Chapter Eleven />
  Jayden

  I watch with my pulse racing and my hands clenching in and out of fists as Lily walks up to Mr. Miller, the owner of the cabin she rented.

  He’s an older man and we’ve had our share of problems over the years with all of the loud ass city folk he’s rented too, but right now I don’t care about any of that.

  It’s her last day here and Mr. Miller has come to check on the cabin and take back the keys from her.

  She still hasn’t given me any sort of answer on what she’s going to do and it’s been driving me mad. My whole body is tense as I picture myself pushing her car over a cliff and carrying her back to my cabin.

  I want her to stay.

  I’m not sure what I’m going to do if she insists on leaving.

  But I love her too much to make her stay. She’s going to have to come to that decision on her own.

  The only problem is, she’s due to leave in the next hour or so and she hasn’t decided on staying yet.

  Mr. Miller’s eyes narrow when he sees me.

  “Hi Lily,” he says as he gives me the stink eye. “I hope the locals weren’t a problem.”

  “Not at all!” Lily says brightly. “Jayden has been wonderful. He let me stay at his cabin when I locked myself out.”

  “You locked yourself out?” he says with his eyes widening. “Why didn’t you just use the spare key?”

  “Spare key?” she chokes out.

  “There’s a spare key right here,” he says as he reaches behind the mailbox and pulls it out. “It was in the instructions I sent you. You did read the instructions, right?”

  Her cheeks are blushing as she turns to me with a cringe on her face. “He he. Must have missed that part.”

  I shake my head as I chuckle. That’s why I love this girl. She keeps everything interesting.

  Little does she know that I have the key in my pocket, but I’ll never tell her that.

  Mr. Miller opens the door for her and I wait outside while she goes in and gathers her things. She can walk pretty well now and it shouldn’t be a problem to drive home on her ankle.