Page 9 of Cracking with the Mountain Man

I give her more. Deep strokes that bottom out, my hips grinding against her clit at the end of each one. Her ankles lock behind my back, changing the angle, taking me deeper. She's vocal. Telling me what she wants with her body and her words, and every sound she makes winds me tighter.

"Harder. Owen, please."

My hand slides under her hip, tilting her up, and the next thrust pulls a cry out of both of us. Faster now. The headboard taps the wall. Her breasts bounce with each stroke. I drop my mouth to her neck, her collarbone, her ear.

"You feel incredible," I manage. "Been dead for three years and you're bringing me back to life."

Her nails rake down my back. Her pussy clenches. "I'm close. I'm so close."

My thumb finds her clit. Tight circles while I fuck her deep, watching her face, watching her come apart. She breaks with my name on her lips. The clench of her around my cock pulls me over with her. My forehead drops to her shoulder as I come harder than I have in years, buried inside her, both of us shaking.

Quiet. Her fingers in my hair. My face against her neck. Heartbeats hammering against each other through pressed chests.

"Owen?"

"Yeah."

"That was better than my pie."

A laugh. A real one. Full, from somewhere deep in my chest that hasn't been accessed since before the fire. She feels it against her skin and holds me tighter.

Boone's nails click across the cabin floor outside the bedroom door. He sighs and settles against it with a thump.

I should get up. Get dressed. Walk back up the mountain and spend the night staring at the ceiling and cataloging all the reasons this can't happen again.

My arm pulls her closer. Her back against my chest. Her hair tickles my chin. The aspens throw gold light across the bed.

This can't happen again.

My nose presses into her hair. She smells like ghee.

This is absolutely going to happen again.

CHAPTER FOUR

PRIYA

Aweek of Owen Tate looks like this.

He shows up at my cabin around eight every morning with Boone trotting ahead. Doesn't knock anymore. Just opens the door, pours himself coffee from the pot I started making for two, and sits at my kitchen table while I work on recipes. Sometimes he reads. Sometimes he watches me knead or chop or stir. Sometimes Boone puts his head in my lap, and Owen's mouth does that almost smile that makes my stomach flip.

By afternoon we've migrated to wherever the work takes us. His porch, where he splits wood while I write on my laptop wrapped in a blanket. My kitchen, where I test recipes and he tastes everything without being asked twice. Twice he's fallen asleep on my couch with Boone across his feet, and both times I covered him with a quilt and kept typing because a sleeping Owen with the hard lines of his face gone soft is something I could stare at for hours.

At night, we end up in my bed. Or his. His cabin is sparse, just essentials, but his mattress is better than mine, and there's something about the view from his bedroom window at dawn that makes the whole valley look like it's burning gold.

The sex is extraordinary. Patient when I need patience. Rough when I grab his shoulders and pull. He learns my body with the focus of a man who used to read trail conditions for a living, mapping every ridge and valley, testing every surface. Last night he held me on the edge for so long I said his name with syllables I didn't know I had. Then he drove into me with his hand in my hair and his mouth at my ear telling me to let go, and I shattered so hard the headboard cracked against the wall.

After, he holds me. Chest to back. Arm tight around my waist. He sleeps deep when I'm there. No 3am pacing. No staring at the ceiling. I know this because the first night I stayed at his cabin, I woke at four and his breathing was slow and even against my neck. The man who can't sleep, sleeps when I'm next to him.

Something is building here. Something I can feel in the architecture of our mornings, the way he started buying good coffee beans instead of the canned stuff, the way Boone has a water bowl at both cabins now. We haven't named it. Haven't talked about what this is. But it's there, in every shared meal, every time his hand finds the small of my back when we walk the trail between our cabins.

The Crimson Hollow fall harvest market is Saturday. Sage mentioned it three weeks ago when I was in town buying cardamom. She said they do cooking demos, local vendors, live music. Her coffee shop runs a booth. This year she asked if I'd want to do a demo. Something from the cookbook. "Bring that mountain man of yours," she added with a grin. "Get him out of that cabin."

My phone sits on the counter with the text I drafted an hour ago.

Sage:

Demo spot is confirmed for Saturday 11am! You're doing the chimney cake right? the one you finally nailed?