Page 13 of Forgotten Mountain Man

Plus, I just gave him an eyeful from the waist up, naked tits and all, when I threw myself out of the water thinking a bear got in with me.

Because a bear did get into the hot pool with me.

I wrapped my hair around me like a cocoon a second time, but at least now it was by design. “I thought you were supposedto do it the other way around,” I grumped as he watched me with curious eyes. “Hot pool, then cold pool.”

Walker shrugged. “I’ve never been worried about others' expectations.” He caught one loose end of my hair and held the wavering end in his large, scarred hand in the water. “What happens if I pull on this?”

I stared at him breathlessly. “Do it, and see.”

His mouth flickered at once side, his eyes dark pools on their own in the flickering light that reflected off the water’s rippling source. He wrapped the strand of my hair around his finger, tugging once as he moved closer until I could see the fine smattering of hair that covered his chest. Inked, as I suspected, all the way across his shoulders and chest and down to his stomach. That one tug was all he did, and he then let go.

Disappointment merged with a hot rush of need that the pool swept away. We stared at each other across a small expanse of unbroken water, then he turned away and swam across the pool with long, sure strokes until he reached the far wall.

And stayed there.

“You’re safe here, Faith. I promise.” His raspy voice, ruined from talking so much with me after what seemed to be years of not speaking to anyone at all apart from what was probably a handful of squirrels or other assorted wildlife, gave out to a faint whisper.

But I still heard him.

I sank lower in the water, pretending the heat I shared from his mountain came from him instead and gave him my equally soft answer.

“I know.”

CHAPTER SIX

WALKER

Faith occupied my spare room for a week. I managed to keep my hands off her while it rained, but it was a near thing. Her presence occupied my every waking thought. The night before in the pool, when she flung her body out of the water, I got to see just how perfect she was.

Not skin and bones, but perfectly toned all over, perfectly in proportion. She wasn’t too small or too big. Just…her. Faith. I’d be damned if I didn’t want to call her mine. Make her mine, here, on my mountain, where I wanted her to stay and never let her go.

It was impossible.

I kept my hands and my opinions to myself, waiting across the pool with my gaze averted until she was out of the water and wrapped in a towel before I let my eyes wander back to her bare feet that had become something of an obsession for me.

I hadn’t lied to her when I said that the wall adjoining the warm/cold pool room beneath the mountain also had a walk around wall that led to my shower. The whole thing was like a circle. I could collect a beer from the pantry without leaving my bedroom, technically.

I showered cold the next morning, and headed out to the kitchen hoping the rain had cleared so I could see what damage had been done and what I could fix from here. Not that there would be much I could do; we’d either be walking down to the ranch or the boys would be driving up to collect her at some point. My bet was on the former.

My secondary bet with myself was that Faith and her high heels wouldn’t like that idea much at all.

I paused at her doorway that sat a few inches ajar telling myself I was just checking in on her, making sure she was alright this morning. Which was true—but ever since the first morning I'd seen her dance, that, along with her bare feet, had become my newest obsession.

Today was no exception, and she didn’t disappoint.

Because Faith had decided that today, she had forgone clothes.

Not altogether, just mine. The borrowed component. She still wore the lace underwear she washed fastidiously and managed to dry—partially because there wasn’t much of it. Her luscious as fuck breasts were cupped in scalloped gold lace that matched the semitransparent panties that hugged her ass like a second skin.

Some of the lace disappeared between her rounded ass cheeks as she bent forward, folding her body in half and I suppressed a groan. I wanted to trace my fingers along the backs of her thighs, feel her heat and earn her moans as I touched her while she danced for me, swaying and arching like she did now, her ass pressed backward to the bed.

Fuck.

I raked my nails over my scalp, using the pain to bring myself back. She didn’t need a randy hermit of a man lusting after her when all she probably wanted was to get out of my damn hair—what was left of it. I didn’t agree with what she wanted from me, what she hauled her stunning ass all the way up here to do.

The least I could provide was a safe space where I didn’t perv on her like some motherfucking creeper.

Growling under my breath, I stormed along the corridor to the kitchen, determined to find her a giant coffee mug and make her the biggest, hottest and strongest drink I could for the morning.

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