Did he even need to ask? I turned my head, my mouth to his ear. “I’ve never wanted anyone the way I want you.”
I felt a shudder move through his frame, then his hips snapped forward and he filled me to the root, giving me all of him. I screamed and dropped my hands to his ass, digging in my nails. Wanting more. Wanting everything. He lifted his head, and his mouth came down on mine, his tongue thrusting in time with the thrust of his hips. He slammed into me over and over in a way that was all about animal need, about listening to his body and what I did to him.
I felt my orgasm rushing me, and knew it was going to blow me apart. I had no control over my thrashing limbs, my nails scoring his skin, or over the sounds I made.
“Don’t stop, never stop,” I cried as I started tightening, spasming around him, crying out as it hit, and fired through me. My toes curled, and I was only half aware of Hank lifting to his elbows above me. I held nothing back, absorbed it all, released everything, gave it all to him. If this was our last time together, I refused to hold one damn thing back from him.
When the last waves of pleasure washed over me, forcing helpless moans past my lips, I opened my eyes. Hank was hovering over me, his gaze moving over my face, intense, dark, hooded. Fierce.
He was still hard, his thrusts slower but powerful. “You’re so beautiful, Birdie. Watching you like this, Christ…I’ll never forget a second. Never.”
He started moving faster, more intense, but he didn’t bury his face against my neck. He stayed where he was, eyes locked on mine. I saw it when he was about to come—could see the way his features tightened, the way his mouth flattened—and I was right there with him again, another orgasm building inside me hard and fast.
His body started trembling and I held him tighter.
“Birdie…” God, the sound that left him was close to a sob as his thrusts got wilder, the rhythm unmeasured. “Only you,” he said, then he grunted out my name over and over, his cock pulsing inside me, filling me with everything he had.
Hank
Birdie lay curled into my front, her face buried against my chest, each exhale tickling my chest. I’d woken up hard, but with her warm breath on me, her smooth soft curves, her small hands holding me, I was getting harder by the second.
Her face as she came apart under me flashed through my mind. I’d never forget it, never. Thinking about letting her go, taking her home today, physically hurt. But I couldn’t hold her here, no matter how much I wanted to. I couldn’t keep her trapped in the mountains and expect her to be happy.
How could I be enough for her?
I couldn’t; I knew that much. My dad, Beau, and me, we hadn’t been enough for my mom. I’d watched her fade over the years, lose the sparkle, the joy in her eyes, until she finally couldn’t take another minute stuck out here and walked away, never looking back.
I couldn’t, wouldn’t do that to Birdie, no matter how much I wanted her, how much I loved her…
I love her.
Birdie moaned softly, and tingles shot down my spine. Her hands gripped me tighter, her arms sliding around my belly, and she nuzzled her face against my chest. I thought she might still be asleep, but then she tilted her head back and smiled up at me. Her eyes were sleepy and hooded, hair wild around her face and shoulders.
“Hey,” she said, voice still husky and sexy as hell from sleep.
Christ, she was beautiful. My gut clenched, and my cock pulsed against her soft belly. “Hey.”
She pressed a kiss to my throat, no hesitation, then gently nudged my shoulder with her hand. I rolled to my back and she immediately climbed on top of me. Her smile turned to a grin, and my heart stuttered behind my ribs then burst into action, hard and thumping as I looked up at her.
“I want you, Hank. You okay with that?” she said, eyes not hiding one ounce of what she was feeling in that moment, how true her words were.
I lifted a hand and curled it around the side of her head, my fingers burrowing in her warm hair. “God, yes.” I pulled her down and kissed her, deep and wet, filled with everything she was making me feel as well.
She ground her wet pussy against my stomach and I growled, my hips thrusting up, seeking her out all on their own. She didn’t break the kiss, but reached behind her, gripped my erection, lifted her lovely round ass, positioned me, and stank down, talking all of me inside her in one downward stroke.
I groaned, my hips snapping up again at the exquisite feel of her wrapped around me, so hot and wet and perfect. But I kept my eyes on Birdie, watching as she rose up, the way her mouth dropped open as I filled her, the way her cheeks grew more flushed with every passing second.
Her hands slid up my chest, nails digging in, then she rolled her hips, squeezing around me at the same time. I barked out a curse, my hands going to her hips to hang on.
She bit her lower lip and did it again. “God, Hank, y-you’re so deep.”
My fingers sunk into her flesh hard enough to leave bruises, holding her tighter. Sweat beaded my forehead and it was taking everything in me not to roll her to her back and pound into her over and over again. “Fuck me, Birdie. Please, sweetheart, I need you to fuck me.”
Goosebumps lifted over her skin then she started moving—really moving. Lifting up and grinding down, working her hips against mine in a way that had the ability to make me insane. The sounds of our lovemaking filled the room: panted breaths, her gasps and moans, my deep grunts, wet flesh slapping wet flesh.
Her breasts bounced and swayed, and I gripped one in my hand, shuddering at the way she overflowed my fingers, at the feel of her tight nipple against my palm.
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.
Even if I decided to try and live in one place, to put down roots, it wouldn’t be with Hank. He didn’t want me, not in a permanent way, and, God, that hurt. I guess it was my own damn fault for falling for him, for letting my feelings run away with me when I knew there were reasons, good reasons, we couldn’t work.
“Yes…good thing,” I said, and it came out as a whisper.
I took a step back, suddenly needing distance from him, before I said or did something to humiliate myself. Like throw myself at his feet, wrap my arms around his legs, and beg him to take me back with him. “Right, well, I better call my boss and tell him I’m back. I need to get groceries and…” My words were cut short by the lump lodged in my throat.
Hank’s eyes hadn’t left me, not once. He dipped his chin. “I better go find Beau.”
“Of course.” I forced a smile. “Thank you, Hank, for everything. You saved my life and I’ll never forget that.”
His whole body tightened—like he was holding himself back? That was probably wishful thinking. But then he’d made no secret that he enjoyed my company, in his bed, anyway. The attraction between us was one thing that was real, unlike my delusions of us together as anything more.
Suddenly, he was moving toward me, but he didn’t scoop me up and kiss me silly or carry me to my bed and take me one last time. He leaned in and kissed my forehead.
I squeezed my eyes shut, and worked hard not to let the tears welling in my eyes spill over.
“Goodbye, Birdie.”
“Bye, Hank.”
Then he turned away and walked out the door.
His truck started a few minutes later and I walked to the window and watched him drive away.
Tomorrow, life would go back to the way it was before—no cabin in the mountains, no sitting by an open fire, no warm body beside me every night…
No Hank.
Hank
I gripped my steering wheel and forced myself to keep driving away, away from her.
“Good thing I prefer to be on my own, I guess.”
My own words ricocheted around my skull.
It was a lie.
I thought I did, before Birdie. Before I knew what it was to have her in my life. God, I’d only said it so she wouldn’t feel sorry for me, so she wouldn’t pity me. I’d seen the look in her eyes.
Pity for the recluse living alone on his mountain.
What else could it be?
I saw Beau standing on the side of the road, grocery bags by his feet, and a woman at his side, talking to him.
My brother’s arm shot out when he saw me, so I didn’t miss him. I pulled over and he put his bags in the back, climbed in, and we headed off.
“Thank God you came when you did, Nadine Cooper was starting to get handsy.” Beau said, then sat back.
I said nothing. My head was full of Birdie, of how wrong it felt driving away from her. How much I didn’t want to leave her in that small house all alone.
“Yo, Hank?”
I glanced at my brother.
His brows lifted. “I called your name like eight times.”
I shrugged.
I felt Beau’s eyes on me and knew he was building up to say something. It didn’t take long.
“Did you make a date to see her again?”
I shook my head.
“Why the hell not?”
“What would be the point?” I said.
“You slept with her again?” Beau asked.
“That’s none of your damned business.”
“You slept with her again,” he said, this time it wasn’t a question. “Brother, you’ve had opportunity to be with women before, and you chose not to. Birdie was different, though. I could see it the minute I walked into your cabin. You wanted her, no doubt, but it was more. You feel something for her.”
“Leave it, Beau. I’m not talking about this.”
“Mom hurt you, she hurt all of us, when she left and never looked back. Don’t let her do it again, Hank. Don’t give her that power. Don’t assume every woman you meet is like her.”
“Please, Mom, don’t leave.” I ran after her.
She stopped when I grabbed her hand, and looked down at me. “I have to, Hank. Being here…it’s killing me,” she said then pulled away from me, climbed in the truck, and drove away.
I turned to my dad. How could he let her leave us? How could he let her leave me? My dad turned and walked away, but I didn’t miss the tears in his eyes.
I realized in that moment there was nothing he could have done to make her stay.
She just didn’t want us anymore.
I shoved the memory to the back of my mind where it belonged. “I said I’m not talking about this.”
“You’re making a mistake,” Beau said.
Was I? All I knew was having Birdie for close to two weeks and walking away was like tearing out my heart and leaving it at her feet. I wouldn’t survive if she gave me more, made me hope for more, then left.
Neither one of us spoke for the rest of the drive. I dropped Beau at his place and carried on to mine.
Once I got home, everything would be okay. Everything would go back to normal, to life before Birdie.
But when I walked inside and looked around, I saw her everywhere. In my living room, sitting by the fire, walking up the stairs. She’d only been there for one night, but the mark she’d left behind was profound.
When I climbed into bed that night, I could smell her on my sheets, could remember the way she’d felt pressed against me…the way she looked straddling me this morning, riding me.
The way she looked when she came apart for me.
I stared at the ceiling.
What the hell was I going to do?
10
Hank
I heard Beau’s truck before I saw it. It was as old as dirt, and after he finished building his house, he planned on buying a new one. None of these things were happening fast enough as far as Beau was concerned, so I did everything I could to help him.
I finished nailing down the sheet of roof iron that had come loose, slid my hammer in my belt, and climbed down the ladder.
Beau climbed out of his truck and tossed something my way.
I caught it. The nails I’d wanted. “Thanks.”
Beau reached back into his truck and came out with a bag in one hand and a plate in the other.
He grinned. “Beer and” —he lifted the plate higher— “cake.”
I smirked. “One of your admirers?”
Beau started toward me. “Nope.”
“Where did it come from
?” I asked as we headed to the seats on the porch.
“Birdie,” Beau said casually.
I stumbled up the step, then spun to face him. “Birdie? You saw her?”
Beau followed me up the stairs, took a seat, pulled a beer from the bag, and took his sweet goddamn time answering me.
He twisted off the cap, took a sip, and sat back. “Yep.”
Yep?
Asshole.
I hadn’t seen her in two goddamn weeks and I was slowly losing my mind. “You want to elaborate?” I gritted out.
His eyes, identical to mine, slid my way. “What do you want to know?”
Jesus, he had me. I’d been acting like I didn’t care, that walking away from her was no big deal. He knew I was full of it, though. Why the hell did I even bother trying to pretend otherwise? “Everything,” I rasped, giving up all pretense of not caring. “Tell me everything.”
My brother’s eyes softened, and I hated it, hated that he could see how much this was killing me, because it would hurt him just as much to see me this way. That’s just how we were.
He sat forward. “I saw her outside the library. She’d just finished for the day.”
My fingers curled at my sides. “How did she look?”
“Pretty,” Beau said. “She was wearing these jeans with butterflies and shit at the pockets, and a fluffy blue sweater. All that beautiful dark wavy hair of hers was loose down her back.” He took a pull of his beer and levelled his eyes back on me. “And sad, Hank. She looked like she’d lost someone she loved.”
I jerked back. “What?”
“There was no way to miss it, the pain she was feeling, but there was a split second when she first spotted me, just a moment, where I knew she thought I was you…and, brother, she lit up like a sunrise.”
I gripped one of the porch railings. “You talked to her?”
“She asked after you, wanted to know how long I was in town and if I could swing by her place before I headed home.” He motioned to the cake. “She rushed home and baked that for you. Wanted me to drop it off.”
I looked at the cake. Chocolate. She remembered how much I liked it. How my grandmother used to make me one every birthday.
“Think it’d only be polite to thank her in person, don’t you?” Beau said.
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