Page 5 of Loyal to the Mountain Man

That all changed when I took one look at Kelsey.

“You haven’t had sex for eight months?” she asked.

I looked around. There was nobody nearby, but it was my way of teasing her.

“Keep it down,” I said. “I have a reputation to protect in this town.”

She smiled. “That has to be hard.”

“It is,” I said. “Very hard.”

I wasn’t talking about the difficulty of holding out for so long. No, I was talking about something else that was very, very hard right now…and getting harder by the second.

“Have you thought about just hooking up with a random woman visiting town for the week?” she asked.

Had she just said those actual words? I wanted to assume that comment was directed at me, but I was afraid to get my hopes up.

“Not until today,” I said.

There it was, out in the open. But I didn’t want her to think that she’d only be a hookup for me. I also didn’t want to scare her off.

Maybe the plan could be to get her into bed, then convince her to stay. If she felt even a fraction of what I was feeling, I had hope I could somehow manage to make that happen.

“So, you are thinking about doing that with...me?” she asked.

She stared down at her phone, which she’d set on the bar top. She was now shuffling it around nervously with her hand. I watched, fascinated by the fact that I made her nervous.

Maybe this entire conversation was just awkward for her. She’d gone her whole life being a good girl, operating under strict rules, so that made total sense.

“It’s all I can think about,” I said. “From the second I saw you. I don’t want to scare you off or anything…”

“What are you doing after lunch?” she interrupted.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the bartender was approaching with our food, but I barely noticed. Suddenly, I was hungry for nothing but her. But I had a feeling whatever we were about to do, I’d need some energy, so I’d wolf that burger down as fast as I could and then I’d figure out a way to take a quick shower to get some of the morning grime off. In fact…

“There’s a shower on the campgrounds, isn’t there?” I asked once the bartender was gone.

She nodded. “The facilities, they call it. It’s where all the campers shower and use the restroom.”

“But they’re all in a meeting, right?” I asked.

She reached for the bottle of ketchup the bartender had sat down. “I guess they are. Yeah. And then they’re going straight into the afternoon session, so that campground will be pretty much empty all afternoon. Well, until right before the cocktail reception.”

A smile spread over my face. “I have a great idea.”

3

KELSEY

The shower was already going when I stepped into the men’s side of the campground facilities building. It was fairly small—four stalls for showers and four stalls for toilets, along with some urinals on the wall to my left.

I came to a stop in the large dressing area, my knees wobbly as I stared at the reflection in the mirror to my right. This was happening. I was losing my virginity in a public shower.

Every nerve in my body was tingling at that point. This was absolutely the most adventurous, exciting thing I’d ever done, and it was with the hottest man on the planet.

Clothes. I was wearing too many of them. I’d headed to my tent as he walked in this direction, mostly to throw off anyone who might be watching. There was no one around that I could see, but we couldn’t be too careful. But one look through my suitcase reminded me I had not a single thing sexy to wear. Even my underwear was boring as all get-out. No, the only way to be sexy for him was to strip off every item of clothing I had on before he saw me again.

I stepped into one of the bathroom stalls to take my clothes off, stacking them while I looked around for a place to set them. Finally, I came out and put them on the counter with the sinks.

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