Page 20 of Grumped By the Mountain Man

Jaxon moves so fast I don’t have time to blink or breathe as his lips crash against mine. His fingers curl around my waist.

When we pull away, his icy eyes bore into my own.

“Give me permission to keep you.”

I don’t hesitate. “I’m yours.”

“We work out our problems. Together,” he says. “If we do this, you don’t get to just walk away. Talk to me. Give me a chance to fix it. If that means mini travels or the occasional party I’ll do it.”

“I’m not walking or flying away, Jax. Whatever it takes to keep us together, we’ll do. I love you exactly as you are. If we’re together, we’re a family. Family comes first.”

As he holds me tighter, his scent of mint and sandalwood wraps around me but so does another scent. A muddy one.

“Jaxon?”

“Yeah?”

“I stink.”

He removed my clothes, but a part of my hair was still slicked in mud, as was my blood-crusted shin.

Jaxon curses, removing the long warm peas. “I was supposed to wrap that ASAP. But it’ll have to wait until after a bath.”

I doubt I can get in a bathtub at all. “I can’t move my leg or my arm much.”

“I’ll do it for you.” He says huskily, unwrapping the blanket around me and eyeing my underwear. “You saw me naked first. So it’s only a fair trade, right?” His fingers snake around my back and stop on the clasp of my bra as if waiting for me to confirm.

“A fair trade,” I say sitting up so that he can pull the garment off of me.

When he does, his gaze is hungry and my heart swells at seeing how much he wants me.

It takes an eternity for him to shift his focus from my nipples to my panties, where he curls his fingers into the waistband and tugs them down with more force than I’d expected. I yelp, grabbing onto his shoulder with my good hand as he slides them over my knees and off my ankles.

I don’t have to look to see that I’m wet. More than wet, soaked, as his eyes rove over me, as his fingers brush across my mound before sliding under my hips. In a second I’m in his arms and he’s taking the stairs two at a time.

He was right about the upper floor being a shell, but his bathroom is completely done, with gorgeous white tile and black fixtures, and a massive window that overlooks the forest. There’s something freeing and a little bit voyeuristic about it, though no one could ever actually see anything.

I open the walk-in shower’s door and he gently rests me on the massive tiled bench before reaching for his jeans and sliding them down his hips. His boxer briefs follow next and I practically slide off the bench at the sight of him again.

How is it possible that he looks even more delicious than when I’d seen him down at the creek? He’s rock hard, his cock pointing directly at me as if begging me to take care of it. Damn, I want to as he tosses his clothes out of the shower and fiddles with the dials. I expect the rainfall showerhead to come on, but he grabs the moveable one from the wall.

He slides on the bench behind me, cradling me between his legs and against his chest. He’s hard all over but it’s the most comforting embrace I’ve ever experienced.

“Close your eyes. I want to shampoo your hair first.”

He doesn’t have to tell me twice. I close them and tilt my head back as he runs the water over my head. He’s careful to keep the spray off my face as he uses his free hand to make sure all of my hair gets saturated. When the water stops and his fingers begin to massage my scalp, I get so comfortable that I could drift off to sleep if his cock wasn’t stabbing my spine and my shin wasn’t still throbbing. But then a familiar scent fills the room and my eyes pop open. It smells like hibiscus and coconut. I look at the bottles beside the bench that are identical to the ones in my bathroom.

Ok, first the peach cobbler soap, now the shampoos? Jaxon never smelled like hibiscus and coconut. He always smelled like sandalwood.

My stomach sinks as I realize we still have a lot to discuss. “Jaxon. Who’s shampoos are those?”

His fingers stop as my unasked question lingers between us.

Does a woman come over here?

His soapy fingers tip my chin so that I can look up at him. “Besides Cali, no woman has ever been to my cabin other than you.”

My stomach settles at that but then why...

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