Page 10 of Forbidden Mountain Man

“I want you to be my first time,” I said. “I’m a virgin.”

7

LUCAS

Ijust lost a major battle. That battle was with the growing erection in my pants. I’d been fighting it since watching Darby lick ice cream off that spoon. At the time, I was pretty sure she had no idea she was even turning me on, but the bomb she just dropped had confirmed it. This woman was clueless about the effect she was having on me.

I looked at her then, and I knew all efforts to keep my expression neutral had failed as well. Another battle lost. My desire for her had to be showing in my eyes. In my clenched jaw. In the way my chest rose and fell dramatically with every breath.

“You’re telling me you’ve never been with a man?” I asked.

Darby shook her head. “Never. I’m bad about knowing I want something and not being able to pinpoint exactly what it is.”

I narrowed my eyes at her, suddenly noticing out of the corner of my eye that her chest was rising and falling too. It was hard enough to keep my attention on her face instead of those generous curves.

“Until now,” she said.

My eyebrows rose. “Until now?”

She took a deep breath and turned to look at the fire. If that made it easier for her to open up to me, I was all for it. Maybe it would give me a few minutes to get this erection in check.

“It’s crazy, considering my car’s all smashed up,” she said. “But from the second I saw you, I knew this was different. This is what I’ve been looking for my whole life.”

She was only twenty-three, and I was assuming she hadn’t even thought about guys until at least the age of eight or nine, maybe even older. Still, no matter how I tried to justify keeping her at arm’s length, the truth was, her words went straight to my heart. They were exactly what I wanted to hear.

“I feel the same,” I said. “And I suck at this stuff. I’ve been with women before, of course.”

Shit. I probably shouldn’t have said that. It was a complete dick move to bring up other women in front of her, but she should know some things about me before we took this any further.

“But I’ve never gotten close to any of them, even the ones I actually dated.”

Sighing, I turned to face the fire. Yeah, it was definitely easier to open up this way. Looking at Darby just tied my brain in knots.

“When your own mom doesn’t want you, I guess you don’t really feel like anyone else will either,” I said in a quiet voice.

She was looking at me now. I saw that out of the corner of my eye. I maintained my focus on the fire.

“My dad raised me,” I continued. “He was a son of a bitch, but at least he kept me out of the foster care system. Although hell, maybe I would have been better off.”

I was cussing a lot. Not something I usually did in front of a classy woman like this. The subject got me fired up, though.

“Mostly, I raised myself,” I said. “As long as I stayed out of trouble and got passing grades, he left me alone. One fuck up, though, and…” I shook my head. “Well, it didn’t go well for me.”

She didn’t need to know about any of that. In fact, if I could protect this woman from all the nastiness in the world, I would. I’d wrap my arms around her and make sure nothing bad ever got to her.

But what I didn’t count on was how I’d feel when she reached over and put her hand on my arm. I was the one who wanted arms wrapped around me. I wanted the love of a good woman and maybe a family of my own someday. Kids I’d raise better than my own dad raised me. I’d right those wrongs if it took me the rest of my life to do it.

“Where is he now?” she asked, leaving her hand on my arm.

I took a deep breath and let it out. “Dead. I guess technically he’s in a cemetery over in Adairsville. His body is, anyway.”

He took his own life, but I wasn’t going to mention that. He didn’t even leave a note. But it wasn’t like he would have bared his soul in one final letter.

No, I had to get closure on my own. And that closure was telling myself I didn’t need a family. I was just fine on my own.

“You deserve better,” Darby said. “You deserved a mother and a father who loved you and raised you right.”

My mother was dead too. I’d avoided trying to track her down for years, but a couple of years ago, I went online and paid some money for her death certificate. She died of a drug overdose in New Orleans, of all places. How she’d ended up there was a mystery, but it didn’t really matter. All that mattered was I had no family. Not even an aunt or uncle I could track down. I was truly alone.

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