Page 10 of Stubborn Mountain Man

“You get mostly naked too,” he said. “In fact, maybe we could get a picture of you in my T-shirt.”

I hadn’t even thought of that. It was a great idea. So why did I feel a little bugged about it?

After a few seconds more of thinking on it, I figured out what was bothering me. I didn’t want to pretend I’d lost my virginity to this man. I wanted it to be for real.

“You might have to help me off this rock,” I said with a laugh. “And maybe even out of these clothes.”

His gaze darkened at those words, and the look he was giving me was different. More intense. He was looking at me like he wanted me.

For the first time in my life, I got it. This was why women had told me for years that I didn’t know what I was missing. They were right.Thiswas what I’d been missing, and it was a damn shame.

“I’ll go first,” he said.

He handed the tequila bottle to me and reached for the hem of his shirt. My breath caught as he lifted upward, revealing the same washboard abs and muscular arms and chest that I’d admired earlier.

Only this time, it meant more. This time, it felt like I could reach out and touch those muscles. My fingers itched to do just that.

Instead, I took another swig of tequila, which I immediately regretted, then reached for a piece of sausage to get the taste out of my mouth. It was the only thing strong enough.

“Your turn,” he said.

My eyes widened as they met his. “My turn?”

“To take off your shirt.”

I looked down. I was wearing a T-shirt and shorts, but underneath it, I had on a sports bra and cotton panties. Nothing sexy. I was going for a hike, not on a date. But even if I’d known what was in store, I wouldn’t have had a bra fancy enough for this.

I wanted to put a pause on things and take a quick trip to a lingerie shop, but that wasn’t going to happen. The tequila was doing its job, though. It was lowering my inhibitions and giving me the courage to do what I might have chickened out of otherwise. No wonder they called it liquid courage.

“One thing first,” I said. “It’s something I’ve been wanting to do a while.”

As he watched, I slid the purity ring off my finger, stared at it a long moment, and threw it as hard as I could. All I would have had to do was give it a tiny toss, and gravity would have done the rest. But throwing it felt good. It was like I was suddenly announcing to the world that I was in charge of my life.

“Whoa,” he said, leaning forward. “That one’s a goner.”

I looked at both hands. No jewelry whatsoever. The next time I had a ring on one of my fingers, it would be an engagement ring.

That thought flashed through me, and I sat up a little straighter. It was definitely way too soon to be thinking about marriage to this guy. That was the problem with being a virgin. Guys automatically assumed you were ready to get married and have kids just because you were waiting. And now here I was thinking marriage with the first guy I’d ever even considered sleeping with.

But that wasn’t adventurous. An adventurous person did it without knowing the security of happily ever after was waiting on the other side. An adventurous person threw all caution to the wind.

I closed my eyes, took a deep breath, and reached for my T-shirt, yanking it out of my shorts and pulling it up over my head. I tried not to think about the unsexy white cotton sports bra that I was revealing to this guy.

“How does that feel?” he asked.

I opened my eyes and looked over at him. Had I missed something? What was I supposed to feel right now? I’d half-expected him to be reaching out to touch me when he asked that. And now theonlything I wanted was for him to reach out and touch me.

Kane obviously noticed my confusion because he quickly rushed to add, “Having the ring gone. And having your top off.”

I looked down and winced. “This isn’t exactly sexy or revealing.”

“I beg to differ.”

I looked up at him, and the heat in his stare was impossible to ignore. Oh yeah, he definitely liked what he was seeing. His gaze was firmly planted on my chest. And was that a bulge in his pants?

My college friends talked about looking for the bulge. That’s how you knew you were turning a man on. But this was the first time I’d looked at that area on a man and seen that.

“Women go to the gym in sports bras,” I said.

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