Page 21 of Running to the Mountain Man

A sadness creeps up then, and I tell him, “Once all the changes came, with all the new rules, people were suspicious of me. They called me a witch. But they put up with it because I made things that healed people.”

His hands are fully on my lower cheeks now, and it feels oddly protective. “That’s fucked up.”

I have to agree. “Itisfucked up,” I say, now feeling more comfortable with that word.

A smile plays on Barrett’s full lips. I want to touch them. I want to know what they feel like against my skin. But everything in me holds me back. A kiss seems too intimate, more so than all the other touching we’re doing. Even more than the rigid cock nudging my inner thigh. I feel like as soon as I kiss someone, that will be the moment I really have left my community forever.

“Goldie,” he says after a while.

“Yes?”

“The way you keep staring at my mouth makes me a little crazy.”

“Oh,” I say, suddenly ashamed, moving my gaze to his eyes. “Sorry. I didn’t know.”

His hands caress my ass, building that fire of need within me. “No, baby. Don’t ever apologize for making me want you.”

He wants me. It should be obvious, with the way he keeps massaging my ass like it’s the end of the world and mine is the last ass he’ll ever touch.

“Are you saying that because you’re a lonely mountain man who’s badly in need of company?”

“So what if I am? We’re both two lonely, misunderstood people who found each other. What could be more perfect than that?”

Whatever blood remains in my horned-up brain now rushes south. Way, way south.

There’s just one problem. He’s going to laugh at me when I say it out loud.

Chapter Ten

Barrett

“I don’t know how to do this, Barrett. I’ve never even kissed a boy before. And I’m scared.”

The way that makes my cock twitch should be some kind of crime.

The thought that she’s never been touched by another man—since when have I ever given a fuck about that? Never.

It wouldn’t matter to me if she’s fucked dozens of guys sideways or up against the wall. But the fact that this golden beauty is here now, sitting on my dick, and I’m the first…it’s overwhelming.

I want to be her first, and her last.

It makes no sense. We just met. I’m only 90 percent sure she didn’t kill that Trace guy. But here we are. I want her, and she wants me.

“Scared to kiss me or something else?”

“Kissing is actually the scariest part. It feels like I’m totally separating from everything. I know it’s wrong, but it’s just the reaction I feel.”

A smile creeps across my face. “Well, what part isn’t scary?”

Her expression heated, she drags her hands away from my shoulders and down my chest. Her light touch is exhilarating as she caresses my chest, then my stomach.

“Can I touch your…um…”

“Fuck yes,” I rumble.

Her lips give a twisted, wicked smile as she eases back and reaches down to cup my length.

I let out a controlled sigh, resisting the urge to move, to thrust and buck, to pin her down and?—

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