Page 17 of The Mountain Man's Runaway Bride

My gaze stays fixed on her face. The brightness in her eyes. The flush of her cheeks. I can’t look away. “Completely.”

She takes a deep breath and sighs. “I bet I could stand here for the rest of my life and never get tired of looking at this.”

A lump lodges in my throat. I have to clear it before saying, “I know what you mean.”

But we don’t have the rest of our lives to stand here in the moment. No matter how much I might wish we could.

We don’t even have a full two weeks.

I clear my throat again and motion for us to continue down the path. “I’ve always found that nature can do wonders.”

“You’ll get no argument from me.” She gives a short laugh. “Of course, I spend most of my life sitting in front of a computer screen with a pine-scented candle as the biggest excitement in my day.”

“Maybe you could open a window.”

“Maybe. Of course, there’s a lot of traffic outside, and it would probably drive me crazy with all the honking and zooming.” She wrinkles her nose. “Not to mention, there’s a gas station right across the street.”

“So maybe not then.”

“Maybe not.” She loops her arm with mine. “I suppose I could go for more walks. My city has plenty of trails and parks.”

“That’s good.”

“Granted, I’d have to drive half an hour to get to any of them.”

“We’ve been walking for a couple of hours to get where we’re going,” I remind her.

“Yeah, but we’re not stuck in bumper to bumper traffic.” She squeeze my arm and might as well be squeezing my heart. “We get all of… this.”

“Just wait till you see where we’re going.”

“I can’t imagine anything more beautiful.”

I catch the light in her eyes and have to swallow hard again. “I can.”

She beams up at me, and my heart trips. “I guess we’d better hurry up and get to this special place of yours. It must be heaven on earth.”

“Something like that.”

Somehow, I suspect anywhere could be heave on earth with the right person—the right woman—at your side.

We walk in companionable silence for a while longer. Well, as friendly as I can feel when every hint of her sweet scent, every squeeze from her fingers on my arm, every sigh from her lips makes me want to push her back against a tree and kiss every inch of her body.

Starting with her mouth and finishing with my face buried between her thighs.

“Fuck me,” I hiss under my breath.

“What was that?” she asks.

“Nothing.” I straighten and shift my legs slightly to give my dick a little more room. “I was just reminding myself of how much longer we have to go.”

Maybe once she gets there, she’ll be so captivated by what she sees, she’ll leave me alone. I’ll be able to take a breath and get myself under control.

It’s also just as likely the mountain splits in two and swallows me whole.

“Is that why you moved here?”

I start at her sudden change in subject. Has she been talking this whole time, and I haven’t been following the conversation? “What?”

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