Page 17 of A Mountain Man Walks into a Library

“Me too,” I say, and I turn my head to receive an awkward kiss from him over my shoulder. “Now please fuck me.”

Sam grins, a sharp, pretty thing, and says, “God, you’re perfect,” and then he begins tomove.

The first thrust turns my nerve endings inside out. The second brushes over my prostate, and I shout, the shower spray streaming down my face. On the third, Sam reaches out and wraps his fingers around my hard cock, and he strokes me.

I’m so close. I’m so close and I’m going to come so soon and I can’t even find the spare attention to be embarrassed about it. Sam doesn’t sound too far off.

“Baby,” he breathes into my hair, his face pressing in close to my ear. “Remy.”

I come with another yelp, my release striping thick and white over the tile. Heat sears up out of my lungs, through my limbs, to the roots of my hair. My body is so full of Sam that I can barely think, but when he tightens his arms around my waist and groans into my neck, I know he’s coming too.

Sam’s thrusts turn erratic and sharp, deeper and harder, and the pain of it mingles with the pleasure and as he pants behind me, my dick gives one more hard pulse, and semen spatters onto the floor.

And then my vision goes blurry. My heartbeat turns rapid, and I waver on my feet enough that Sam grips me tighter to keep me upright.

I’m sure he thinks it’s the orgasm and nothing more alarming than that, but he holds me close anyway as I brace myself against the tile wall.

It happens often enough that I’m used to it. I’ll get out of the steamy shower, eat something, and I’ll be fine. I’ve got it under control. I’ve got myself under control. But that doesn’t mean I wanted Sam to see it. Not yet, anyway. I don’t want

Sam just presses open-mouth kisses to my shoulder, my neck, the top of my spine, caring for me like he has for the last six months.

After, Sam dries us both and corrals me back to my bed. He leaves and returns a moment later with an untoasted bagel and cream cheese from the kitchen. My heart rate spikes again. Sam I don’t know when my parents will be back. I don’t care. They assumed we were doing this anyway. And it’s not like I could move if I wanted to.

In bed, Sam strokes my back absently as a cool breeze drifts in through the open window.

“How long could we have been doing this?” I ask him, scratching my fingertips gently through the dark hair on his chest.

Sam’s hand rubs up and down my arm as he thinks. After a while, he says, “I think you should probably be the one to answer that. Because, for me? Day one.”

I snort, but he tightens his grip.

“I’m serious,” he says, and when I glance up, his grin has gone wide and goofy, a little hazy at the edges from the orgasm. “Day one. I walked into the library to request a book by Bruno Latour, and you looked up from the desk with thoseblue goddamn eyes,and your hair fell forward into your face. I haven’t been able to look away since.”

Goosebumps rush up the length of my body.

“There was no delay,” Sam says, arcing his neck to kiss the arch of my cheekbone, “between meeting you for the first time and wanting you.”

He keeps stroking my skin: my arm, my back, the curve of my hip. It’s such a soothing touch, hypnotizing. I’m nearly asleep when Sam speaks again.

“I grew up here on the mountain,” he says. He’s speaking low, like he’s not sure if I drifted off and he doesn’t want to wake me. I spread my hand on his chest to let him know I’m awake.

“It’s beautiful,” I say.

“It is,” he agrees, “and I’d like a place up here again someday. But it was hard too, you know? I have the best family any kid could ask for, I really did, but it didn’t change the fact that I was lonely as hell up here.”

I press a kiss to his collarbone.

“My brothers and my dad, they weren’t readers. They were good with their hands—fixing things and growing things and making things. I learned too, because there wasn’t a lot to do up here, but I wasn’t passionate about it like they were. I’ve always been a book guy,” he says with a soft laugh, and I smile into his chest. “And that was fine. No one made fun of me. My dad was always happy to take me to the library on the weekend. I had a constant stack of books beside my bed, and I devoured them. But there wasn’t anyone I could talk to.”

I think about my own childhood, my house full of books. My dad is a history professor at U of M. My mom is a nurse with a lifelong love of fantasy fiction. I had no shortage of books—and no shortage of people to talk with about what I had read.

“When I went to college,” Sam continues, “I met people who wanted to talk about books. But I’m...this.” He gestures at himself: his broad body, his beard, probably other things about himself that are less obviously visible but are undeniable nonetheless. “So it was hard to fit in with the academic crowd, you know?”

“What did you study?” I ask him. I feel like I should know this already, but I don’t.

“English literature,” he says, his smile going sheepish, “with a philosophy minor. A very useful skill set for a landscaper and plow truck driver.”

His tone is self-deprecating, and I hate it.

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