Page 5 of Tormented Mountain Man

“So, you want kids?” I asked, trying to keep my voice as neutral as possible.

She started to lift her wineglass to her lips, but then she froze and looked at me, still not taking a sip.

Why I was clocking her alcohol consumption was beyond me. Maybe a part of me just wanted to see how strait-laced she was. Was she against drinking? Profanity? Sex?

I had to be honest with myself. Sex was the specific thing I was thinking about. Mallorie was twenty-three or twenty-four, so I assumed Joely was around that age.

“Just one,” she said. “I want to do a little bit of everything before I die. Have a career I love. Be a mom. Fall madly in love.” She paused before adding, “Have sex outdoors. You know, the usual.”

With that, she took a long sip of her wine like she hadn’t just uttered words that went straight to my groin. Should I comment on it or just let it go? No, I couldn’t just let it go.

“About that last one,” I said. “Does that come before or after you fall in love?”

I wasn’t sure what I’d think if she said she was waiting until marriage to get really kinky. She was in her early twenties and lived in the city, so I assumed she’d had normal kinds of sex before—just not the outdoor stuff she mentioned.

“Before,” she said. “I don’t plan to fall in love anytime soon. I know that’s something people don’t exactly plan to do. Most of the guys I meet in Nashville bore the crap out of me, anyway.”

She stopped and stared, once again studying me. Was she comparing them to me? Was she trying to decide what it was about me that was similar to the guys who bored her in Nashville? Or maybe she was trying to figure out whatever this was between us.

“They’re not outdoorsy like you,” she finally said.

I raised my eyebrows. “You see me as outdoorsy?”

“You work outside all day. And you live in the mountains, so I assume…”

I was about as outdoorsy as they came. She definitely read me right on that one.

“There’s no way I could stand being in an office all day,” I said. “But I couldn’t live in the city either. The traffic, the noise…”

I needed greenery around me. That came, in part, from my deployment. I’d spent far too much time in cramped spaces, sleeping in bunks and waking before sunrise. Sure, we’d been outside, but we’d hardly had a chance to appreciate our surroundings.

“The first thing I did when I got here was walk out on the balcony and breathe in the air,” I said.

“When you first arrived in Seduction Summit?”

“No. Well, that too, but the balcony is specific to arriving here at this house.”

“You have a balcony?” she asked. “I don’t.”

“You can come share mine anytime.”

That was definitely flirtatious. She might even see it as coming on to her. And hell, if she did, that was fine with me.

“I may take you up on that,” she said. “I love a good balcony.”

With that, she took another long sip, not taking her eyes off me as she did. Was this woman hitting on me? And was I so out of practice I didn’t know what to do about it?

Yes and yes. Those were the answers.

I still had game. I’d just buried that part of me so deep, I wasn’t sure I could even access it anymore.

I inhaled deeply and said exactly what the old Hunter would have said—the one who didn’t worry that he’d scare off a woman by flirting with her. “Why are we sitting here, then? Let’s go get some fresh air.”

Without waiting for her response, I stood and headed toward the same stairs our friends had taken minutes earlier. Thank God our rooms were on a separate end of the house from everyone else’s, because if I could talk this woman into going to bed with me, I planned to rattle the rafters by the end of the night.

3

JOELY

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