Page 4 of Fighting for the Mountain Man

“You’re looking for the hot mountain man,” I said. “Like everyone else.”

I knew it. But it pissed me off. I wanted to be the one who’d drawn this woman to Rosewood Ridge.

Was that jealousy? I hadn’t had that emotion over a woman in a long time. I didn’t even feel jealous over anything these days. I’d led a pretty chill life since moving here.

“More the idea of Jax,” she said. “Any guy can help me achieve my goal. In fact…”

She was eyeing me, and I realized for the first time that sunglasses no longer blocked her eyes. She’d shoved the glasses up on her head and they now held back her hair like a headband would.

Her eyes were beautiful. A light color that was either green or blue. I couldn’t tell from here. They were framed by long, dark eyelashes.

“You’re about ten thousand times more my type than Jax,” she said. “At least what I saw of him, anyway.”

Just as I was processing those words, she said something else. And that something made my breath catch.

“How do you feel about deflowering a woman?”

3

SLOANE

It was a good thing Bryce wasn’t the one with a cup of coffee. If he had any liquid in his mouth, my words would have choked him for sure.

Instead, he just stared at me, and I was the one who took a sip. A long, slow sip from what was my third cup of coffee of the morning.

He opened his mouth to respond, and I found myself holding my breath. But rather than saying something, his face changed again. This time, it switched to a frown. And that was when I heard a buzz as he pulled his phone from his pocket.

“I’ll be right back,” he said.

He turned his back and walked in the direction Nadine had taken a couple of minutes earlier. I was left thinking through what I’d just said.

Did this count as hitting on a guy? I was asking him to take my virginity, so it probably went well beyond hitting on him. This was propositioning.

I made a face and turned, taking the lid off my coffee and grabbing some of the small cups of creamer next to the coffeemaker. That kept me busy while I listened to Bryce talking about tarps. He hung up one call and made another, each lasting only a minute or two. Someone was picking up tarps because Bryce couldn’t do it.

When I turned back around, he was walking toward me, shoving the phone into his pocket. He didn’t stop near the island, instead continuing toward me. Was he going to do it? Maybe he’d kiss me. We could work out the details of my deflowering later.

But he wasn’t heading for me. Not for a kiss or anything else. Instead, he stopped in front of the coffeemaker, standing just a couple of feet away from me.

“Okay, now, exactly what were you saying?” he asked as he slipped one of the capsules into the holder and lowered the lid on top of it.

I groaned inwardly as my eyes slid shut. He was going to make me repeat that? I couldn’t believe I’d said it in the first place.

But it was exactly what I’d come here to do. If I didn’t speak up now, who knew what would happen when we both walked out of here? He could go back to whatever his work was for the day, and I’d never know what his answer might have been.

“I’m a virgin,” I said.

Then I took another sip of my coffee. At that point, it was clear I was hiding behind the cup. It was the equivalent of hopping in bed and pulling the sheets over my head and hiding.

“And you want someone to deflower you,” he said. “That’s why you came to Rosewood Ridge.”

“That’s why all four of us came to Rosewood Ridge,” I said. “My three friends are virgins too. People were talking about all the hot mountain men in towns like this, living alone in cabins.” I took a deep breath. “We were all saying we wished we could do something to help out here before we even saw the video with your friend.”

He laughed. “Jax isn’t my friend. He stays to himself.”

“As all mountain men do, right?” I asked.

He withdrew the now-full cup and reached over to grab sugar. In the process, his chest came within inches of my left arm. The air around us suddenly felt electrified, and my entire body gravitated toward his. I actually had to fight to stay rooted to this spot.

---