Page 9 of The Mountain Man's Siren

His fingers are around my head, checking for bumps and bruises. “Did you hit anything? I didn’t see you hit anything but shit, we were going so fast I could have missed it if you did.”

“I think you took most of the impact,” I reassure him. I never felt a thing other than the dizzying roll down the mountain.

He lets out a relieved sigh. The simple motion leaves me suddenly aware that he’s on top of me. His weight is pinning me to the ground.

I feel every hard plane of his body, each inhale of air he drags through his lungs, and that place between his legs where there is a very large and very obvious bulge.

He recognizes the moment too and something in the air shifts. There’s a new awareness between us. The attraction is deeper and more powerful than it was yesterday.

He swallows. This close to him I can see all the gray flecks in his blue gaze. He closes them and leans closer, his lips inches from mine.

6

OWEN

What the fuckare you doing? Get off her.

It takes superhuman strength to not kiss Everly and instead roll off her body. I want—damn, I want that kiss. But I know I won’t stop there. The moment her lips touch mine, the monster will be free. He’ll take her innocence, consume her sunshine until there’s nothing good left.

I deserve this. I deserve to be tormented every day, to live my days out in hell. I just never thought the devil would send an angel to tempt me.

Forcing myself to my feet, I ignore the pain in my back. The tree may have hurt like a son of a bitch, but it broke our fall and kept us from tumbling into a ravine.

“Oh no.” Everly is on her feet again. She’s staring into the distance, and it takes me a moment to spot what she’s looking at. The sled is broken to pieces against another tree, the one we would have hit head-on if I hadn’t pulled us from the malfunctioning ride.

“It’s not a big deal,” I reassure her quickly, hating the idea that she’s upset. “I can build you another one.”

Hell, I’ll build this woman a hundred more sleds if it will put a smile on her face. I don’t know when or how but at some point,her happiness became the most important thing in the world to me. Now I’ll do anything for her because I could live for a lifetime on just one of her pretty smiles.

“You must have worked so hard on that,” she whispers.

She looks so cute with her pouty full lip that I sling an arm around her shoulders. “As long as you weren’t hurt, I don’t give a damn about that silly toy.”

When she glances at me, I fight the urge to kiss her all over again. I want to spend my days and nights kissing her everywhere, putting my lips all over her skin. I want to know what those freckles on her face taste like and nip at the creamy skin of her tits before sticking my tongue in her pink hole.

“Look,” I say, forcing myself not to dwell on thoughts of what I can’t have. “I said I’d show you what I do. Follow me.”

I don’t hold Everly’s hand as we walk this time. I know the moment I feel her soft skin against mine, I’ll want to pin her up against the nearest tree and give her three mind-blowing orgasms in a row. Shit, I’m not sure even that would be enough.

We step around the bend and there in the distance is the second cabin I built. It didn’t take nearly as long as it did when I built mine.

“You own cabins?” She asks as we step onto the front porch.

“I build them. I’ve built two besides my own and when the winter is over, I’ll start on the third one.” I’ve purchased a considerable amount of land around these parts. The work I did may have been classified, but it also paid damn well.

I grope for the key I hid around her and unlock the door so she can go inside. I want to see it through her eyes just this once. I love the way she looks at the world, her innocence and optimism despite her own struggles with her illness and the loneliness it causes her.

“But you already have a cabin,” she points out as she enters the living room. This cabin features a wall of glass windows thatlet the light in. Despite the fact that the day is overcast, she still somehow glows against it. Maybe it’s just her, her natural sunshine. “Do you plan to sell them?”

I shake my head. “These are vacation homes. I loan them to veterans and their families. It gives them space to decompress when they come stateside. It’s also a retreat where they can reconnect with their families without the stress of jumping immediately back into everyday life.”

I got the idea after seeing my brother Amos struggle when he retired from the Marines. He never complained about it, but I knew his transition could have been smoother. He could have used a space like this, the option to get away from everything and simply come back to himself. I want to give that to other veterans.

“You’re amazing,” she whispers. The awe in her gaze is making me feel like I’m a fuckin’ hero and not the monster I am. Dammit, I want to be worthy of that awe. I want to wake up to see her looking at me like that every morning. Maybe then the pain and guilt would be quiet, at least for a few hours. But that’s more than I deserve, and I won’t ask for it.

The snow outside which has been light flurries for most of the morning picks up, the flakes becoming bigger. The sky is darkening again, and we still have a mile before we’re back at my place.

I clear my throat, reminding myself that she wouldn’t say that if she knew about the things I’d done, the choices I’ve made. “We should go.”

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