Page 34 of Challenged By the Mountain Man

"You look like a different guy," Hannah says, still catching her breath, water dripping from her hair down her face.

I tread water, watching her. "When I'm here, I am."

"What do you mean?"

"This place." I gesture around at the waterfall, the trees surrounding us. "When I'm here, I can be the person I was before the military. Before everything went to shit. Before I learned that the world is full of things that want to kill you and sometimes they succeed."

"Yeah. I get that."

She starts swimming backward, away from me, moving toward the waterfall. The thermal shirt she's wearing is plastered to her skin, and I can see everything: the curve of her waist, the swell of her hips, and fuck, her breasts. They move with every stroke, jiggling slightly under the wet fabric that's gone nearly transparent, and I can see the outline of her nipples, hard from the cold water.

And she's smiling. Actually smiling, her face lit up in a way I haven't seen since she got here, maybe in a way she hasn't felt in three weeks. Water droplets catch the sunlight on her skin, and her hair is slicked back from her face, making her eyes look bigger, brighter.

She looks gorgeous.

Absolutely fucking gorgeous.

And my body reacts like I'm some kind of teenager who's never seen a woman before. My cock stiffens, straining against my briefs, and I'm suddenly very grateful that we're underwater. Very grateful that the cold hasn't completely killed my ability to get hard, even if the timing is absolute shit.

*Get it together,* I tell myself. *She's not here for that. You're not doing this for that.*

But my dick apparently didn't get the memo, because it's definitely interested in the way her body moves through the water, the way that shirt clings to every curve, the smile on her face that makes her look like someone who hasn't been broken by fear.

"You have family back home?" I ask, desperate to think about literally anything else. "Besides your mom?"

She stops swimming and treads water, considering the question. "Just my mom. We're not close, though. She remarried a few years ago, moved to Arizona. We talk maybe once a month."

"That's it?"

"That's it. No siblings. No cousins I'm close to. My dad's out there somewhere, but I haven't heard from him in years and I'm fine with that." She floats on her back for a moment, staring up at the sky through the spray. "What about you? Before your parents died, were you close?"

"Yeah. They were good people. Didn't understand why I joined the military, but they supported it anyway." I swim closer to the waterfall, letting the spray hit my face. "My mom used to send care packages when I was deployed. Cookies, magazines, stupid stuff from home. Made the guys jealous."

"That sounds nice."

"It was."

We're quiet for a moment, just the sound of the waterfall and our breathing. Then, because I apparently can't help myself, I ask, "You got someone waiting for you back home? Boyfriend?"

She laughs, and it echoes off the rocks. "No. Definitely not."

"Definitely?"

"I've never really... dated. Unless you count Tommy Morrison when I was thirteen, and I don't because all we did was hold hands at the movies once before he told everyone I had cooties."

I can't help it. I smile. "Cooties?"

"He was very concerned about them."

"Sounds like an idiot."

"Oh, he absolutely was." She rights herself, treading water again. "What about you? Ever have someone serious?"

"Once," I say. "In the military. We dated for about a year."

"What happened?"

"We realized there was no love there. We were just two lonely people trying not to be lonely. Didn't work."