Page 8 of Savage Mountain Man

Skye smiled. “That’s what all men say about their wives.”

I opened my mouth to correct her that Kacie wasn’t my wife, but then I shut it again. I liked the idea of it. My wife. The woman who had vowed to spend the rest of her life with me. I wanted to live in the fantasy if only for a few minutes. I wanted Kacie to be my wife.

“What size do you wear?” I asked. “Not to get too personal.”

I was going through the only rack of bathing suits. Only four design options, total, and two were skimpy bikinis. Even though my first sight of her had been naked, Kacie didn’t seem like a skimpy bikini type of person.

Skye pointed me to her size in the basic black one-piece I was eyeing and rang up that and my plain black swim trunks. Then I headed toward the hot tub, heart pounding.

In my lodge back in Pleasure Point, the hot tub had been out in the open, next to the pool. For whatever reason, this lodge had put it in its own space with a door that apparently locked. But stepping into the pool area, I was puzzled to see no sign of Kacie.

What if she’d had second thoughts and headed home? She’d have no way to let me know. Maybe she’d left a message with Georgia at the front desk.

No, I’d walked right past Georgia. She was on the phone at the time, but she would have definitely called out to me if she’d seen Kacie head out the front door.

I took another glance around the completely deserted pool area before heading to the door to the hot tub. As I approached, I saw through the little window that she was sitting in the hot tub, eyes closed and head tilted back. Her shoulders were bare.

Holy shit. Was she in there naked? My erection notched up a level or two at the thought. Maybe she’d remembered she had a swimsuit in her car or something. No. Once again, Georgia would have mentioned her exiting.

Only one way to find out. I turned the knob and jerked the door open, walking through it with the gift shop bag in hand.

“I figured I’d have to undress in front of you anyway,” she said. “May as well put the swimsuit on underwater.”

Yet another reason I’d expected to see her out by the pool. There were changing restrooms at the far end. She could have easily changed and come out. But I liked her approach better.

“This door locks,” I said, turning and pointing to it. “We could both sit here in our birthday suits and nobody would know.”

“Except for the window.”

She pointed toward it. I turned and looked. She was right. Anyone could come up and peek through it.

I opened the door again and slid the gift shop bag handles over the top of it. Then I closed it and pulled the bag over so it covered the small window. It was almost as if the bag had been sized to give us privacy here.

When I turned back around, Kacie’s eyes were wide as she stared at the bag. She didn’t look shocked or afraid. In fact, the hint of a smile told me she was enjoying the adventure of all of this.

If adventure was what she wanted, adventure was what she’d get.

I shrugged off my coat and pulled my sweatshirt over my head, tossing it to the floor. Her eyes grew even wider as she took in my naked torso. The hours every week I spent in the gym at my lodge, working off steam, were now well worth it.

When I went for the fastening of my jeans, I wondered if I should suggest she close her eyes. But what was fair was fair. I’d seen her naked before I even knew her name.

I didn’t take my eyes off her as I shoved down my jeans, stopping to kick off my shoes and socks. That left me wearing only my underwear.

That was when I got a little shy. I was fully confident in the way I looked naked, but I also put a lot of stock in what this woman thought of me. It was ridiculously important that she liked what she saw.

“Let’s see it,” she said, her eyes on the very noticeable bulge under my boxer briefs. “I showed you mine.”

“It was a little hard to see through all the plexiglass,” I teased.

She narrowed her eyes at me. “Fine. Get naked, andmaybeI’ll stand up.”

That was definitely an offer I couldn’t refuse. I had my underwear off and on the floor next to me in seconds, at whichpoint I began trying desperately to read the expression on her face.

Did she like what she saw? Was she disappointed?

She was staring—gaping, actually. Her expression was completely neutral, although her eyes remained wide. I considered reminding her of her offer to show me hers but thought better of it. I knew what was under that water. I could recreate the scene from this morning a thousand times over—and probably had done just that already.

So instead, I stepped down into the hot tub and settled on the seat on the opposite side. Her expression had changed. Her eyes were glassy and she wore a frown. Had she changed her mind about hot tubbing naked with a guy she’d just met?

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