Page 8 of Mountain Man's Mail Order Runaway
She nodded. “Yes. I want to know what it’s supposed to feel like. What it’s supposed to be. With someone who won’t hurt me.”
God help me. I closed the distance without remembering moving. She was already turning toward me, lips parted in anticipation, eyes wide and waiting.
I touched her cheek. “Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
So I kissed her, gently and carefully. Just the brush of my lips over hers, enough to feel the tremble that went through her. But when I tried to pull back, she leaned in harder, her hands catching the front of my shirt like she needed something to hold on to.
She tasted like lime and something wild and innocent. She kissed like she was hungry for something she’d only just discovered existed.
I don’t know when it happened, but the next thing I knew, she was on my lap, straddling me, her small hands fisting my T-shirt as her mouth opened under mine. Sweet little gasps spilled against my lips. One of her hands caught mine and guided it to her thigh. She pressed it there, then moved it higher.
My brain shut down.
“Angel,” I breathed. “We can’t…”
“Yes,” she whispered. “We can. Please.”
“I don’t want to hurt you. I don’t want you to think you owe me anything?—”
“I don’t. I know I don’t. I want this. I want you.”
She moved my hand again, even higher this time, and I groaned.
“I’ve waited my whole life to make my own choices,” she said. “Let me make this one.”
She kissed me again, deeper this time. Her hips rocked forward, and I felt the heat of her through my thin T-shirt. My need for her threatened to consume me, it was so strong.
“Please,” she whispered. “Take me to bed.”
I looked into her eyes. There wasn’t fear there. Just yearning. Trust. And no damn way I could say no.
“Okay,” I said hoarsely. “But if you want me to stop, you say so. Anytime. Doesn’t matter when. Doesn’t matter how close I am. You say stop, and I stop. Got it?”
She nodded. “Got it.”
I stood with her still clinging to me, legs wrapped around my waist like she belonged there, and carried her to the bedroom, silently praying I’d be good enough for her first time. Because one thing was certain now. I didn’t just want to touch her. I wanted to keep her.
5
FINLEY
Ididn’t want to get naked.
It seemed a little silly, considering I was in Logan’s bed, watching him take his clothes off. Even in the dark, a small amount of light came through the window. But I wasn’t ready to be seen nude yet. Not even by a man I trusted with my safety, my body, and my heart.
“I’m going to grab a condom from the bedside table,” he said.
I could barely make out his form. But I did see his silhouette against the faint moonlight as he turned to the table next to the bed and opened a drawer. A condom. I hadn’t even thought about protection. As far as I knew, nobody back at the compound ever used anything like that. The girls weren’t on birth control, and the men didn’t worry about STDs. They were only having sex with people inside our small, closed-off group, anyway. As for pregnancy—well, the more kids, the merrier. They were building a community. Every birth meant more hands to do manual labor…or be a leader’s future wife.
The bed shifted under Logan’s weight as he crawled back in. I was still wearing his T-shirt. I was grateful for the cover of darkness, but part of me hated it too. I wanted to see him. Reallysee him. I was curious what he looked like—whatitlooked like, down there.
I’d never seen a man’s privates. Not even in pictures. But I’d heard gossip. Whispers among the girls in my age group, usually in awkward language.
Would I ever be comfortable baring my full body to a man? To this man, maybe, but no other.
“You okay?” he asked.
