Page 17 of Her Mountain Man Recluse

“Just wait a second. It’s coming up.”

Seconds later, I skate into the frame, with Audrey following behind me. I’m moving awkwardly, unsure of myself. Then I lose my balance. I start flailing, arms helicoptering wildly, my face a comical mask of shock. My legs slide apart until I’m almost doing the splits, then with a loud “OOF!”, my feet slide out from under me and I fall hard on my ass, my limbs flopping around like I’m a rag doll. The video ends there, but in real life, Audrey skated over to make sure I was okay and we both laughed our asses off.

“I don’t understand,” Ridge says, frowning at the screen. “You said you went viral?”

“Yeah.” With a sigh, I scroll past the video, down to the comment section. “The video was never the problem. It was all…this.”

I let Ridge read through the comments, but I can’t bring myself to look. When I first discovered that the hilarious fall at the ice rink had blown up on social media, I saw the funny side. In a way, I was glad somebody had captured it—Audrey and I had a lot of fun that day, and it was a cool memento. But everything went wrong as the comments section filled up. I was naively expecting people to comment things like ‘lol’ and ‘haha’, not pages and pages of jokes about my size.

i’m surprised the ice didn’t crack

is this what causes earthquakes? lol

chicks that size shouldn’t skate

The comments kept coming, and people kept liking them. Now the video has over 400,000 views and all the top comments are trolls. It sucks. Before all this happened, I feel like I was learning to love myself. Being away from my mom helped a lot, and I was beginning to feel comfortable in my own skin for the first time. But the video brought my self-esteem crumbling down. In the days after it went viral, I spent hours refreshing the comment section, reading until I was numb. Without Audrey’s support, I don’t know how I would have gotten through it. My best friend is curvy like me and ten times more confident. I wish I could be like her, but right now, it feels impossible.

“Fuck,” Ridge mutters darkly. “This is sick.” His grip on my phone tightens. “Who the hell do these assholes think they are? Hiding behind a screen…fuck, if I knew where these people lived, I’d pay them all a visit and give them the beating they deserve.”

He sounds furious. His voice is almost trembling with rage, and I feel a rush of affection for him.

“I know I shouldn’t let them affect me,” I say. “They’re just dumb internet trolls fishing for likes, but still, it hurts.”

Ridge makes a noise deep in his throat and exits off the video. Then he looks at me, eyes blazing with emotion. “These assholes don’t deserve to breathe the same air as you, Lila. You hear me? You’re fucking beautiful. And you’re sweet and kind and better than these losers in every way.” He points at my screen. “You have to be pretty fucking pathetic to write shit like that about a stranger. I’d like to see anyone try to say stuff like this to your face. I’d break their fucking legs.”

His words leave me breathless. Ridge always looks grumpy, but I’ve never seen him look genuinely angry before. He’s looking at my phone like he wants to burn it, but then his eyes flicker to me and his gaze softens.

“I mean it, Lila,” he says. “You’re beautiful. Your curves are sexy as hell, and you have nothing to be ashamed of. It’s these bastards who should be ashamed of themselves. Not you.”

You’re beautiful.

Your curves are sexy as hell.

I’m tingling all over, replaying the words in my head. Ridge is looking at me, and our eyes meet. My screen turns off and the light is gone, but even in the dark, I can feel him staring.

“Thank you, Ridge,” I breathe, my voice barely audible.

“Don’t thank me, beautiful. It’s the truth.”

I hear Ridge shift slightly and the lamp on his nightstand clicks on, bathing us both in a dim orange glow. Swallowing hard, I set my phone aside and look at him, my heart thudding as I ask, “Why did you turn the light on?”

“So I could look at you.” I’m hardly breathing as he reaches out a large, calloused palm and touches it to my cheek. “You have no idea what you do to me, Lila.”

Desire blooms, hot and slick between my thighs. The way he’s looking at me awakens something primal and desperate inside me. I’ve been pushing it down, trying to resist. But I’m only flesh and blood. I can’t hold back any longer.

We both move as one. Our noses touch, his beard brushing my chin, and then his lips are on mine, warm and firm. The world disappears. Nothing else matters. Not my job, not my parents, not the dumb video. Just me and Ridge, our mouths melding as we kiss each other desperately, all our frustration bubbling to the surface. He tangles his hands in my hair, pulling me closer to him, groaning against my mouth in a way that makes me shudder with need. My arms loop around his neck, and he shifts on top of me, his body weight pushing me down into the mattress.

This is happening.

It’s really happening.

I whimper as Ridge slides his tongue between my lips, filling my mouth with his masculine taste, raw and musky. I surrender myself to him, our tongues sliding hungrily together as I instinctively wrap my legs around his hips, gasping as the hard bulge in his jeans presses between my legs.

“Fuck,” he grunts. “You’ve been driving me crazy, Lila, you know that?”

Before I can respond, he kisses me again, a hard, bruising kiss that turns my body to mush. His hardness grinds against me, and my clit tingles with pleasure until I’m aching for more, tightening my grip on him. Those giant hands reach for my t-shirt, and I help him pull it up over my head, tossing it to the floor. When I’m topless, I freeze for a moment, wondering how I look to him. My breasts aren’t perky—they’re plump and heavy—but my self-consciousness dissolves when I see the way Ridge is gazing at me. His eyes roam my body like I’m a work of art, and he reaches down to brush my pebbled nipples, sending a zip of pleasure through me.

“You’re so beautiful.” He runs his hands down my hips like he’s trying to memorize my shape. “So damn beautiful.”

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