Page 77 of Shared By the Mountain Men

He shrugged. “I wanted to. Future’s not guaranteed. Giant meteor could kill us all tomorrow. No point worrying about the future ‘til it happens.”

I looked at my friend with bewilderment. Ash wasn’t the YOLO kind of guy. This was a totally new attitude for him. At least since I’d known the man.

It’s Melissa, I thought, glancing down at her again. A lock of hair had fallen across her face, so I gently brushed it back.She has this effect on all of us.

Ash was staring at her too, I realized. He bent down and gave her a soft kiss on the forehead—another uncharacteristic action—and then got out of bed.

“You can stay,” I offered. “This bed is big. Room for all of us.”

“I like to sleep alone.”

“There’s the guest bedroom down the hall. It always has fresh sheets.”

Without hesitation, he said, “I like my tent.” He gave Melissa one more look—some mixture of caring and passion crossing his expression—and then left the room without so much as a goodbye.

Yeah. He’s still the same independent Ash. Yet if he was willing to admit he liked Melissa…

I watched her sleep for a bit and thought about what Ash had said. That he’d never seen me like this, and that Jack agreed.

And with this beautiful woman in bed next to me, I was afraid they were right.

33

Melissa

It all felt like a dream. A crazy, sexy dream.

But I woke up the next morning wrapped in Noah’s arms, spooning with the handsome doctor. And the memories from last night were far too vivid, too real, to have been a dream. The images bombarded me in quick succession.

Alternating blowjobs on the couch.

Ash taking me on the edge of the couch, spreading my legs wide while Noah fucked my mouth.

Noah bending me over the edge of the couch.

His tip entering my back door.

Both of them coming at the same time, one at each end.

Loving every second of it.

A sexy shiver ran through my body as I re-lived the night of scintillating passion. It was like it happened to a different woman. Someone so much more adventurous than me, Melissa Harden from Toledo, Ohio.

But it was me. I had done that.

That’s when I realized Noah and I were alone in bed. Ash was gone. The window was dark, so it was still early. He might have gotten up early to leave for work.

I had to pee, so I silently got out of bed and used the bathroom. On the way back, I paused to look out the window. Ash’s truck was still parked outside, and his tent stood alone in the field by the campfire. He hadn’t left us after sex to go sleep alone, had he?

That annoyed me. I wondered if he regretted things after the fact. I didn’t want that layer of shame added to an otherwise amazing threesome, so I borrowed a robe from Noah’s closet and went outside.

Even with the robe, I was freezing as I walked across the field to Ash’s tent. I hesitated, wondering if I was being too intrusive. Then again, we had explored each other’s bodies last night. This was a minor intrusion compared to that act.

I yanked the zipper up.

Ash immediately sat upright in his sleeping bag. A wood-handled ax was in his hand, gripped up high near the blade. His dark eyes fluttered open, focused on me, and then he let out an annoyed growl.

“The fuck are you doing?”

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