Page 7 of Drawn to the Mountain Man

If I could do anything but hold on, I would help. Instead, all I could do was move my hips slightly as he held onto me and plunged deep, over and over again.

As he cried out, it hit me that we hadn’t used protection. We’d been that overcome with what we felt for each other.

I just hoped he felt the same as I did. It was inevitable that the two of us would be together, and I wanted a baby to be part of that. Hopefully, he did too.

As soon as he came down, he put me on my feet and stepped away, if only to give his arms a rest. But instead, he pulled me closer, embracing me, moving me away from the wall.

Finally, he moved back a little and tugged his underwear the rest of the way down, into the water. I gasped and prepared to reach for them, but he didn’t seem to care. Instead, he laughed as he watched them float to the other side of the waterfall.

“Who needs underwear?” he asked.

We were still laughing at that as we came out from under the waterfall, hand in hand, naked as jaybirds. But my smile faded as I realized we weren’t alone. There, on the bank, stood a guy holding a bottle of water and staring at the two of us with wide eyes.

Busted.

Instead of wanting to hide in mortification, I squeezed my man’s hand tighter. We were in this together, and that somehow made it easier.

Problem was, he wasn’t squeezing back.

While I still struggled to figure out what was happening, he let go of my hand and retrieved his underwear, shoving his legs into them before heading out of the water without even looking back at me.

Crap. What had I just done? Had I given my virginity to one of those guys who lost all interest once he got what he wanted? Why hadn’t I guarded my heart?

4

COLTON

Owen Rossdale found us. Fucking Owen Rossdale.

If it’d been anyone else on the volunteer ranger team, I probably would’ve gotten a “way to go, man.” Maybe not immediately—the guys were gentlemen, after all, and wouldn’t do something like that in front of a woman. But behind the scenes, I’d be hearing about it for months, maybe years.

Owen was my boss, though. He headed up the top construction company building log cabins up and down these mountains. He was clearly not happy to see that one of the guys he’d referred to help with rescues like this was taking advantage of a damsel in distress.

But it wasn’t like that. It wasn’t like that at all.

“It’s not how it looks,” I told Owen under my breath as I approached him.

I was wearing only my underwear. Not my choice. My clothes were on the other side of him, so I’d have to go through him to get there.

He was still staring at me, now holding that damn bottle of water in one hand and his phone in the other. He’d pulled it out of his back pocket like he was ready to call someone to report what he’d just seen.

But Owen’s expression remained completely unreadable as he glanced toward the water. “That the missing woman?”

When he looked back at me, I nodded. “Olivia.”

I didn’t know her last name. Did she even know my first? We’d had sex. She’d given me her virginity. And I hadn’t even introduced myself. That was ten thousand kinds of wrong.

Owen was fiddling with his walkie, the bottled water tucked under his right arm. Cell phone reception up here was nonexistent, so the rescue team relied on walkie-talkies to communicate.

“I need to let the team know we found her,” Owen said.

Was it too soon to ask if I could grab a couple of waters for me and my new girlfriend? Probably. First, I needed to put on some clothes. Standing out here with my boss wearing only my underwear was the worst.

I went around him and shoved on my T-shirt and jeans, looking out at the water as I did. Olivia was in the center of the pond, most of her body underwater. She didn’t want to come out until she had clothes on.

That sprung me into action. I was still fastening my jeans as I rushed back around Owen, toward the area where I’d spotted Olivia’s clothes. I glanced over at my boss as I scooped them up.

“Could you turn your back for a second?” I asked him. He looked up like he’d forgotten I was even here. I gestured toward the water. “She needs to get dressed.”

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