Page 37 of Challenged By the Mountain Man

She stares at me. "What?"

"Tell me to stop, Hannah. Tell me this is a bad idea and I'll leave right now."

"I—" She blinks, processing. "You want me to tell you to stop?"

"I want you to tell me what you want. Because what I want right now is to keep kissing you. And if you don't want that, you need to say so."

Her hands are still on my shoulders, fingers curled into the wet fabric of my shirt. She doesn't let go. Doesn't pull away.

"I don't want you to stop," she says.

"You sure?"

"Griffin." She leans in, her nose almost touching mine. "I'm soaking wet, freezing cold, sitting on a lumpy bed in a cabin with no power, and you just made me jump into a freezing waterfall. If I didn't want this, I would have pushed you away already."

"Just checking."

"Stop checking and kiss me again."

I don't need to be told twice.

This time when I kiss her, I don't hold back. My hand slides up under her wet thermal shirt, finding bare skin that's cold to the touch but warming under my palm.

Her hands move from my shoulders to my hair, fingers tangling in the wet strands, pulling slightly, and fuck, that feels good. I groan against her mouth, and she makes that sound again, that little whimper that goes straight to my cock.

I'm hard again, and there's no hiding it now. Not with the way we're pressed together, not with the way she's practically in my lap. She can definitely feel it, the rigid length of my cock pressed against her hip through our wet jeans.

She doesn't pull away. If anything, she presses closer.

My hand slides higher under her shirt, fingers skimming the underside of her breast. No bra. I already knew that from the waterfall but feeling it is different. Feeling her soft weight, the way she shivers under my touch even though we're both warming up now.

I cup her breast fully, my thumb finding her nipple, and she breaks the kiss with a gasp.

"Griffin!"

"Too much?" I'm already starting to pull my hand back, but she stops me, her hand covering mine through the fabric of her shirt.

"No. Not too much. Just…" She looks at me, and there's something vulnerable in her expression. Something nervous. "I need to tell you something."

I go still, reading the tension in her body. "Okay."

"I haven't—" She takes a breath, and I can see her gathering courage. "I've never done this before."

It takes me a second to understand what she's saying. "You're a virgin?"

She nods, not quite meeting my eyes. "I told you I’ve never dated, and I know that's probably weird at twenty-eight, but I just never… There was never anyone I trusted enough, and then after a while it became this thing I'd built up in my head, and—"

I kiss her again, cutting off the rambling explanation. When I pull back, I make sure she's looking at me.

"It's not weird," I say firmly. "And I'm glad you're telling me."

"You are?"

"Yeah. Because it means we're definitely going slow, and you're definitely going to tell me if anything doesn't feel right."

"You're not... disappointed?"

"Disappointed?" I almost laugh. "Hannah, I'm trying very hard not to think about the fact that if we do this, I'll be your first. Because that thought is doing things to my head that probably aren't healthy."