by Madison Faye
“Fuck, kitten.”
He rushed towards me, pulling me into his warm, powerful arms and hugging me close.
“No one is taking you from me, do you understand?” He growled, pulling back and tilting my chin up to let his eyes burn into mine.
“But, what if it’s—”
“No one,” he hissed fiercely, his jaw tight. “And if anyone’s stupid enough to try it, they’re going to have to come through me.”
13
Braun
I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t scared. Though, it wasn’t the idea a fight that scared me, it was the thought that I might lose her. I’d just found her — her, the perfect match to my heart. My sassy, wild, beautiful, passionate dream girl.
…And nothing was going to take her away from me. I had no idea what the fuck was coming at us, but I knew damn well they’d need an army and a half to keep me from her, if that was their goal.
There was one rocky drive from the main road up to the cabin, but I was sure short of them having actual tanks, they’d never be able to make it with the snow on the ground. So I sat and waited, gun in hand and eye to the peep-hole in the cabin door, waiting and watching the trail-head. Katrina paced the floor behind me, occasionally coming up to hug me from behind, as if I possibly needed reminding what was at stake.
And then suddenly, there they were.
There were ten men, all in expensive looking, fancy outdoor gear. They were also wearing backpacks and goggles like this was some sort of Arctic expedition. But the earpieces and the guns they carried said the was a different sort of mission.
…And I was fuckin’ ready for them.
The rifle raised in my hands, the barrel slipping out through the little slide-hatch I’d installed next to the front door for this very reason. The rifle cracked across the frozen air, kicking up a huge plume of snow right in front of them and making them all freak out and duck for cover, which was entirely my intention with the warning shot.
“That’s far enough!” I roared through the door. “This is private fucking property, so get your asses hauling the other way right the fuck now.”
A few of them started to raise guns and aim at the door, and I was all set to start bringing down the rain on them, when one of the guys not carrying a gun suddenly started yelling.
“Goddamnit! I know you’re in there, Katrina!”
I heard her gasp behind me, and I scowled, tightening my grip on the gun as I glanced back at her.
“It’s…” She swallowed, her face darkening grimly. “It’s Paul.”
“You’re shitting me,” I growled, turning back and narrowing my gaze at the piece of fucking trash who’d been her arranged fiancé. I knew the little shit had never touched her, but I know he’d wanted to, and I wanted to break his fucking face for ever even dreaming of my kitten.
“Get your ass out here, Katrina!” he screeched again. He turned and beckoned, and three of the guys suddenly brought guns up and started advancing on the front door.
“Those guys with him—”
“His security guys,” Katrina spat out. “They’re technically for his company, but he has them follow him around everywhere.”
“Military?”
She shook her head. “I don’t think so. I think mostly just guys as douche-y as him who like playing with guns.”
My jaw twitched. “Perfect.”
And from the way those pussies had all flinched from one warning shot, I knew she was right. Whoever these “security guards” of her ex’s were, they sure as hell weren’t Marines.
…It also sure as hell meant I was about to bring down some learning on them.
The door slammed open with my foot, and before any of those chumps could even realize what was happening, I laid down some fire. I wasn’t trying to hit any of them, but the spray of bullets I put into the snow right in front of them had every single one of those fakers screaming and ducking for cover all over again.
I roared, charging off the porch and using the confusion to make a bee-line right for Kat’s ex. The little pussy screamed as I grabbed him, kicking and slapping at me as I spun him round and jabbed the riffle into his ribs just as his rent-a-guards came up from hiding.
“This is me asking nicely,” I snarled, jabbing the gun into his side. “Take your shit, walk away, and get the fuck off my mountain.”
“Katrina!”
I have to hand it to Paul, he actually managed to still fight me with that gun pressed into him.
“You fucking bitch, get the fuck out—”
He screamed as I stomped on his foot, probably breaking a toe before I yanked him up by the collar and pulled him close to my snarling face.
“You ever speak to her like that again — actually, no, you ever speak to her again at all, and they will never find your body up here. We clear?” I hissed, rage clouding my eyes. Part of me contemplating killing the piece of shit right there, but I held back. I wouldn’t make the front yard of the cabin we were planning on turning into our home a killing ground.
“But! But!” Paul sputtered, glancing past me at Kat, who’d come out to the front porch. “She’s mine!”
“Wrong,” I snarled, my jaw tight and my fist twitching. “So so fucking wrong.”
“Shoot this asshole!” he screamed, his eyes wild at the guards eyeing us warily. “What the fuck am I paying you to do! Shoot this fucking—”
“That’s enough.”
The man had been wearing a face mask, and when he pulled it down, I instantly knew who he was. Even past the silver mustache, and the gray brows, and the lines on his face, the resemblance was too true.
“Dad?”
Kat’s voice was incredulous as she stepped off the porch.
“What in the world are you doing here?”
“What am I doing here?” The older man scoffed, shaking his head. “We were worried sick about you, Kat! The anti-theft device in the Land Rover told us you’d driven up here in that snowstorm, but it also could tell that the car had been off for a day. We thought…” his shoulders sagged and he looked away before looking up at his daughter. “We thought the worst.”
“I’m fine.” She stepped off the porch. “Sorry, I didn’t realize—”
“That your parents would be worried about you?”
I took the silence as a sign to step back and let them have the moment. I hauled Paul back, roughly shoving him away into the snow as I watched the woman I loved approach her father.
“You weren’t worried about marrying me off to him,” she spat, nodding at Paul.
Her father scowled, slowly nodding. “We made the wrong move, Katrina,” he said softly. “I know that now. Your mother and I both do.”
“I had to get away.” She bit her lip. “I couldn’t just stay and be forced to be with him.”
“I get that now, honey. Look, you’re safe, thanks to…” He turned and gave me a hard look. “Because of this man, I assume, but now it’s time to come—”
“I’m staying, Dad.”
Her voice was quiet, but bold. And slowly she stepped through the snow drifts to my side, and her hand reached down to clasp mine.
Her father’s face darkened.
“Katrina—”
“I’m staying,” she said again, squeezing my hand and standing tall. There were so many things I wanted to say — to her, and to him — but I knew it wasn’t my moment. This was her, standing for who she was and what she wanted, and damn did it make my heart swell.
“I’m trying to make you happy, honey,” her father said gruffly.
“I am happy. I’m happy here.”
His look hardened. “Now, Katrina—”
“This is what makes me happy, Dad. Being out here, away from the city and all of that life, here with Braun.”
Her father’s eyes moved to me, narrowing as he took me in.
Yeah, now it was my turn to talk.
“I’d lay down my life for her, sir.” My voice was tight as I stepped forward, putting down
the gun and looking him right in the eye, like a man.
“I’ll take care of her, and protect her, and I’ll be everything she needs me to be. Always.”
He didn’t say anything. I knew he wasn’t happy, but it didn’t look like he was furious either. Maybe just trying to process it all as he looked away, out over the valley below. Finally, he took a deep breath, and nodded slowly before he turned and looked at his daughter.
“This isn’t the last of this conversation.”
“I hope it's not sir,” I said quietly, holding Kat’s hand in mine.
He frowned. “So, Braun. Is now the part where you going to tell me that your cabin is ‘always open for me’?”
Kat grinned. “Um, my cabin, actually.”
“What?”
She nodded. “It was Uncle Stan’s, actually, but he gave it to me a while back.” She bit her lip. “I didn’t tell you because…”
Her father nodded. “Because you wanted a place for your own.”
“Yes.”
He nodded as he looked away. “Fucking Stan, Jesus.” He looked back. “And you? Braun, how did you manage to get here?”
“Well, he also sort of gave it me, actually. I met Stan in Afghanistan, on one of his build sites.”
Katrina’s father’s brow perked up. “A soldier?”
“Yes, sir. Marine Corps.”
He nodded, his frown melting a little. “I was Navy myself actually.”
Our gazes met, and he nodded again before he took a deep breath.
“We’re going to leave now.”
“What?!” Paul sputtered from the snow. “Sir, you can’t possibly—”
“Paul?” Her father glared down at the little shit throwing a temper tantrum.
“You no longer have my blessing to marry my daughter.”
“What?!” The little dipshit turned bright red, spit flying from his lips. “You can’t do that, you asshole!”
“Watch me,” her father growled menacingly at him before he looked back at his daughter.
“As I said, we’re leaving for now. But, this really isn’t over, okay? Honey I just want you to be happy, and if here is what does that?”
“It is, Dad,” she whispered as she moved into him and hugged him.
“Here, take this.” He pressed a cellphone into her hands. “It’s a satellite line. Call me — seriously. Call anytime.” He turned back to me, and with a final nod, he stuck his hand out.
“Take care of her, son,” he growled.
“You have my word, sir,” I said fiercely back, grasping his hand firmly and shaking.
“Now, I have to go back to the city and calm your mother down, then explain to her that I left her daughter up on a mountain with a man in a cabin.”
I grinned. “I don’t envy that conversation, sir.”
Her father chuckled. “You’re damn right you don’t.”
He looked as his daughter again and hugged her once more before we all said our goodbyes. And then they were gone, with a sputtering, shivering, wet Paul swearing up a storm all the way back down the mountain.
“So you’re staying.”
I turned to the woman I loved as the rest of them retreated down the trail.
“I mean, it is my cabin. I should be asking you if you’re staying.”
I laughed, scooping her up in my arms and spinning her around. She giggled, hugging me tightly and wrapping her legs around my waist.
“Couldn’t keep me away with an army, kitten.”
“No?”
“Not a chance. Nothing in this world could keep me from you.”
“Well, except an avalanche.” She stuck her tongue out at me teasingly.
“Hey, that only slowed me down. And barely.”
She giggled as I pulled her close, kissing her fiercely. I groaned into those sweet lips, feeling my blood running hot and my cock coming alive for her.
“Now how about we go back inside so I can strip your wet clothes off with my teeth and run my tongue all over you?”
She whimpered, gasping quietly as she pulled tight to me.
“I think I’d like that a lot,” she whispered heatedly, her face flush and her eyes hungry.
“Actually,” I growled, the beast inside coming alive with the need to have her — now, always, and forever, but also immediately. She gasped as I spun us around and pushed her back up against a big evergreen.
“Actually I’m not sure we’ll make it back inside, kitten,” I purred into her ear.
Kat moaned softly, her hips rocking against me and her body coming alive for me.
“I do like the woods,” she whispered heatedly.
“Kitten, I’ve got some wood you’re going to fall in love with.”
She moaned, kissing me softly and then fiercer, and fiercer, until we were panting against the tree, our breaths rising in white plumes around us.
“I already am,” she whispered, her eyes searching mine.
“In love with my cock?” I grinned widely, watching her blush.
“Well, yeah,” she giggled before she bit her lip and leaned close. “But I mean you, you dummy. I love you.”
“I love you too,” I growled into her lips, kissing her with everything I had before I turned and walked us back to the cabin, my lips never leaving hers.
And they never would.
Epilogue
Katrina
And I stayed. I mean, how could I leave? How could I have ever left that mountain and gone back to the life I’d known before meeting Braun?
There were tough parts — my mother in particular refused to talk to me or see me for quite some time after she heard what I was doing. But my father really came out of the mold I’d always placed him in with the whole thing. He did come back for more conversations — with me, with Braun, and with the both of us. And it was by the fifth visit I think when he finally got that this wasn’t me “acting out” or rebelling. This was me choosing the life I wanted. And for that, he said he was proud of me.
Eventually, even my mother came around, though she wrinkled her nose at the cabin when she came to visit.
Braun and I were married on our mountain that spring, on the cliffs overlooking Rayburn Falls in a small ceremony. My parents were there, and Stella of course, and all of Braun’s fellow mountain men — the Texan twins Austin and Dallas, Vlad the brooding Russian, and even the reclusive Axe, along with all of their dates.
…One of whom was Stella, actually. But then, that, and the rest of it might be stories for another time.
I could tell you all about life up on that mountain, and about the birth of our first son, and then our daughter. I could tell you about starting the school for ours and other rural families who made Blackthorn and the surrounding countryside their home — folks like us who had no need for city life, and preferred the quiet.
I could tell you how my rough, loving, perfect, gorgeous, incredible mountain man became the best father in the world, and the best husband a girl could ever ask for. I could tell you how he made sure I knew how much he loved me, and how much he wanted me, every single day. I could tell you about the huge addition we eventually built onto our humble cabin to accommodate our growing family. Or about how Braun made extra sure that our new master bedroom suite that looked out over the valley was soundproofed from the rest of the house, and how we moved our favorite hammered-copper hot tub up there as well. I guess I could tell you how nothing made me happier than slowly sinking down onto his huge, beautiful cock in that tub as we looked out over the trees and the moonlight.
But then, maybe those are stories just for me.
What mattered is, I was free, I was happier and more in love than I ever could have dreamed, and out here in the woods, up on that mountain, I’d found my perfect happy ending.
The End.
Featured Content
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Also by Madison Faye
“Dirty Bad Things” Series:
Hard Core
Pretty Dirty
Rough Stuff (Spring 2018)
“Innocence Claimed” Series:
His Little Bad Girl
Tempting Daddy’s Boss
Paying The Debt
“The Triple Crown Club” Series:
Royally Shared
Royally Claimed
Royally Tempted
“Possessing Beauty” Series:
Beasting Beauty
Stealing Beauty
Sharing Beauty
Hunting Beauty
“Forbidden” Series:
Flirting With The Law
Breaking Her Innocence
“Three Times” Series:
Bossed Three Times
Taken Three Times
Paid For Three Times
“Twice” Series:
Twice Driven
Twice Bossed
Twice Tackled
“First Time” Series:
Legal
Professor
Freshman
Standalones:
Trick And Treat