Page 8 of Protected By The Mountain Man

I liked that he assumed I’d come back out as if this hadn’t been enough to chase me off. It made me feel confident.

“Next time, I’ll definitely bring bear spray. And maybe I won’t let my kayak drift away.”

“Speaking of, I think that’s it over there.” West pointed towards the shoreline.

“Can we stop to gather it?” I asked, but he was already steering the boat in that direction.

This was excellent. It meant I’d have the key to the car, plus my cell phone, and I could put my clothes back on. I didn’t love being naked except for a hot stranger’s DTF t-shirt. I may have been out of my twenties, but I still knew what that acronym meant.

The rain was coming down harder now, and we were both soaking wet. I’d been wet before, from the swim, but now he was, too. I had to say that West looked completely edible with rain slicking down his bare chest. It drizzled all the way down his happy trail, leading my eye in the wrong direction.

The man was hot-hot-hot with a capital H.

He pulled the boat to a stop, dropped the anchor and said, “Wait here. Under no circumstances do you leave this boat. Okay?”

I nodded, “Yeah.”

The lake, which had been placid and calm earlier today for my kayak trip, was now rolling with waves. It didn’t seem safe for him to leave the boat.

“Will you be all right?” I asked, trying to keep the worry out of my voice.

He gave me a hearty grin. “You worried about my safety? I got this.”

West dove off the side of the boat and swam with a confident breaststroke straight to my kayak.

Then he grabbed one end of it and swam back to the boat, tugging the kayak along with him.

The boat was rocking as he stepped up onto the ladder.

“Here, take these.”

He started handing me all my goods. I’d traveled light, so it was just a small bag containing necessities like my phone, keys, and extra water.

My towel, clothes, and shoes didn’t seem to be on the kayak. I could see my towel stuck on the shoreline and one of my shoes was floating twenty feet away. But there was no way I was going to let this man risk his life to gather up any more of my belongings.

“This part might be harder,” he rumbled. “Can you take an end?”

He was talking about the kayak. “Yeah. I can try.”

He lifted one end of the kayak up over the lip of the boat and said, “Grab it.”

I tugged, but it slipped out of my hands back into the water as I fell on my butt. The boat had just been rocked by a big wave.

“Are you all right?” I hollered as I ran to the edge of the boat.

“I’m fine. Try again,” he rumbled.

“The kayak’s not important,” I told him as lightning flashed across the sky. The storm was here in earnest now. What I’d thought was a serious summer storm earlier had been nothing compared to this. It felt more like a squall than a rainstorm.

He didn’t listen to me as he lifted the nose of the kayak out of the water again. “Go on, Mia. Grab it.”

This time I had a stronger grip, and I managed to tug the kayak onto the boat, even though doing so knocked me over again.

I was lying down with my legs spread wide, a kayak half on top of me when West bounded up the ladder, dripping wet.

When he saw me his eyes went straight to my pussy. Desire crossed his face before he tucked it away and pulled the kayak off me.

“You all right?” he asked as he helped me to my feet.

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