Page 20 of Eco-Activist's Mountain Men
"Luna!" I call out her name as my cock jerks and spasms inside her.
"Hold me. Hold me tight," she whispers. I wrap one arm around her slender waist and draw her close, feeling her warmth, smelling her scent, hearing her breathing against thestillness of the night. With my other hand, I gently stroke her hair as it cascades around her shoulders.
She closes her eyes, lets out a gentle murmur… almost a purring sound.
Then she sleeps, her body pressed against mine, her head on my shoulder, her chest rising and falling with mine.
A shooting star flashes across the sky—a stray rock wandering too close, burning up in the upper atmosphere. One of thousands of visitors from the Perseid meteor cloud as it crosses Earth’s orbit each year at this time.
They say you never forget your first time.
Somewhere in the distance, I hear the call of an owl. The breeze is soft and warm against my cheek. I close my eyes. It’s a perfect moment. And for the first time in years, I don’t feel like the shy outsider, the awkward academic. I feel wanted. Needed. A part of something.
I don’t know what tomorrow will bring—for me, for Luna, for any of us—but tonight, under the stars, I finally feel alive.
CHAPTER 8
Jack
They say it’s lonely at the top, and I have to say that I’ve never felt like that, not once in the seven or so years I’ve been in charge of this place. Maybe that’s down to the team, or maybe it’s the work itself. Forestry is a dangerous business—in fact, for logging workers, the mortality rate is higher than any other industry in the country, and the non-fatal injury rate isn’t much better either.
I can’t pretend we’ve never had accidents here, but in my seven years, we’ve never had a death. That’s my job: to make accidents as rare as possible. And on my watch, we’ve had an excellent track record so far.
That’s why team cohesion isn’t just some “nice to have.” It’s life or death. You need every man watching not just his own back, but everyone else’s too. Comradeship. Mutual trust. Without it, we don’t survive.
Sure, we get visitors sometimes. Take Eric, for example. He’s a scientist from Oregon State, seconded to the Forestry Service to help with surveying, cataloging, and tagging rare and endangered species. Each tree identified on the ground gets an electronic tag linked to GPS, so growth and survival patterns can be monitored from afar.
Eric’s fine. Smart kid, easygoing. Kind of an egghead, yeah, but he fits in. He’s one of us now.
But this Luna girl? She’s different.
It’s been three days. Just three days, but it feels like three years.
First of all, she’s a card-carrying member of the opposition. An eco-activist sent here to disrupt our work, maybe even shut us down. Kill Climate Change, that’s the group she belongs to. Stupid name. Climate’s been changing for millions of years—ain’t nothing humans can do to stop it.
And she’s out here with banners, trying to paint us as the villains for harvesting timber—timber that can be safely replanted, timber the world needs. We’re not poisoning rivers or strip-mining mountainsides. Hell, I’ve personally planted thousands of acres of saplings over the years. Out of our own pockets, too—not on government subsidies.
She shows up, falls out of a tree, gets herself injured, and now we’re stuck with her. And what worries me most isn’t just that she’s here—it’s the way she’s affecting all of us.
Toby’s acting like a dog in heat, tripping over himself to impress her. Doing her favors, making her sandwiches, carrying her around like she’s royalty. He’d throw himself in front of a chainsaw if it’d make her smile.
Eric? He’s gone soft-eyed. I’ve seen him watching her when he thinks no one notices—those quiet, stolen glances. The kid’s halfway in love already.
As for Luke, he can't even stay in the same room. If she walks in, he walks out. Won’t look her in the eye, won’t talk to her. Just keeps his distance, like she’s a rattlesnake he doesn’t want to tangle with.
And then there’s me. And my dream girl. If that's what it was. If that's who she is.
Jesus. I'm the worst of us all.
She’s everywhere. Her laugh, her voice, that toss of pink hair like she doesn’t care. The steel in her eyes when she argues, the sparkle when she smiles. It doesn’t matter what I’m doing—strapping a log to the skidder, backing a tractor, or filling out progress reports—she’s there. In my head. In my chest. In every damn breath.
And it’s driving me crazy.
So what is it about her that’s got me walking around like some kind of lovesick fool? I don’t know. I keep asking myself that. Is it just that I’ve been out in the wilderness too long? No dinner parties, no dates, no “right kind of women”?
But that doesn’t feel like the answer. Not really.
No, the truth is… there’s always been a gap in my life. I never admitted it before, never had time to face it. But it’s there.
