Page 12 of Curves for the Mountain Man

What Ginger doesn’t know is that I fucked everything up when it came to this moment. If I hadn’t given up all hope, I would have a stocked and fueled ATV ready to take us back to my cabin, and I’d have a fully loaded Glock 19, my M4A1 Carbine and XM7 rifles, and my compound bow in case any unluckygame or a certain kidnapper crossed our path. As it stands, my lack of preparedness may not seal our fate, but it sure as hell makes everything painstakingly difficult.

“You’re upset. What’s wrong?” she asks without even looking at me. I have the strange impression she can read my energy or maybe my mind.

“There’s more I have to tell you.”

“Okay.” She raises her chin, eyeing me as if she’s ready to take whatever ugly truth I have to tell defiantly.

“Because I was being a fucking pussy today and almost ended myself, I don’t have half the shit I normally would to protect you. I ran my ATV out of gas, determined to make this my last day on Earth, and I didn’t bring appropriate provisions or clothes like I usually do. I fucked up, and you’re suffering for it.”

Her expression freezes as my words settle into her soul. Finally, she says breathlessly, her voice tinged with awe, “So, you’re telling me the only reason you ended up where we found each other is because you ran out of gas?”

I nod.

Awe throbs in her voice. “There’s no way any of this was a coincidence. You’re going to have me believing in God if you keep this up.”

I wasn’t expecting this reaction or how it makes my heart feel, like the walls I’ve built around it are crumbling. I furrow my brows, observing darkly, “You should be mad at me for my willful lack of preparation.”

The blonde shakes her head, snuggling against my chest. The feel of her flesh on mine…her tiny movements to draw closer are sheer torture. I want her so badly. I’m surprised my heart isn’t beating out the rhythm of her name. Maybe it is.

“As far as I can tell, you’ve spent your whole life preparing for this. You’re a million times more prepared than I could ever be.You’re my miracle, Roscoe. What’s your last name, by the way?” she asks with a little giggle at the end.

“Why the laugh?” I ask in a steely voice.

“Because we’re so close like this, and yet there are so many basic things we don’t know about each other.”

I know more than I need to. Like I want to keep her, claim her as mine. My eyes dig into her, my voice raw. “Vaughn. Roscoe Vaughn. And yours?”

“Harper.”

The cave falls silent apart from the crackling of the fire. Ginger’s fingertips dance over my chest, incinerating the flesh and stoking my yearning. But I’m damaged goods, and she deserves the kind of life I could never give her. Besides, this bubble of intimacy between us has to be an anomaly, something that could never happen in any other place or time. Right?

I have to distract myself. My fucking cock’s beside itself with need, something I’m afraid she feels firsthand, my rod pressed increasingly hard against her hip. She can’t ignore it forever, can she?

Clearing my throat, I say, “Blue.”

“Blue, what?”

“My favorite color.”

“Me, too. Specifically steel blue, like the Atlantic on a stormy day,” she answers.

“Like your eyes.”

She nods, smiling more broadly. “You don’t miss any details, do you, Roscoe?”

“Eye color is more than a detail. It’s the outer vestiges of a person’s soul.”

“For a mountain man of few words, that was rather poetic,” she says, cocking her head to the side.

I shrug, returning to our game, “November 18th.”

“So, you’re a Scorpio?”

“I guess. I never really paid attention to that stuff. What do you know about the sign?” I grasp at straws, trying desperately to deny the lust coursing through my veins.

“Scorpios are intense and mysterious, compelling and loyal, and easily made jealous. They hold grudges like no other, and…”

“And?”

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