Chapter 11
CHAPTER ELEVEN
GREG
The crisp mountain air fills my lungs as Joanie and I hike the trail to my favorite lake. I’ve wanted to share this place with her, and today seemed like the perfect opportunity.
“Ugh, why did I agree to hike to a fucking lake in the mountains the day after Christmas? I’m going to be picking ice out of my ass for a week,” Joanie grumbles from behind me as she picks herself up from her third slip.
I snicker and shoot her a look over my shoulder. “Can’t handle a little snow, city girl?” I tease.
She stops and plants her pole-filled hands on her hips. “Last I checked, two feet of snow is not a little.”
“I guess that depends on where you’re talking about. Though last I checked, Seattle gets its fair share of snow from time to time,” I respond. “And it’s not like you aren’t wearing snowshoes and using poles.”
“I’m a runner, mountain man, not a snowshoer, remember? I live in one of the hilliest neighborhoods in north Seattle, but I do not go gallivanting about in these conditions. These are stay inside and fuck conditions.”
“We’ll get there, but you’ve got to earn it first,” I tease her. She shoots me a deeply unsatisfied look, and I can’t help but laugh. “All right, fine. Climb on.” I shift my pack to my front and crouch down for her to get on my back.
“Seriously?” she asks incredulously.
I smirk at her over my shoulder. “Seriously, city girl. Come on, I’ll carry you. Part of the mountain man boyfriend privileges.”
The small rosy circles on her cheeks expand, presumably due to the B-word. I had to try it out to see how she’d react. When she climbs on my back, I decide she must’ve liked it.
“You know I could whisper all sorts of dirty things in your ear right now,” she murmurs, her hot breath fanning over my ear and cheek.
I smile but don’t respond. Well, at least not in words. My hardening dick sure has an opinion. She must’ve really liked my using the B-word.
I push forward, and as we crest the final hill, the lake comes into view, its still surface reflecting the surrounding snow-capped evergreens like a mirror. The flat expanse of the serene water is surrounded by snowy rocks, dense white-flocked evergreen forest, and dramatically tall, snow-covered mountains against a clear blue sky. I hear and feel Joanie’s small gasp, an excited puff of hot air on my neck. I turn my head to see her jaw drop and her eyes widen.
“It’s beautiful,” she murmurs.
I slide her gently back to the ground and slip my arm around her waist, pulling her close. “Not as beautiful as you.”
She rolls her eyes but leans into me. “Cheesy much?”
I chuckle and press a kiss to her temple. “Only for you, baby,” I murmur in her ear. I feel her shiver, and I smile against her cheek. “Remember what you asked me about my mountain man life?”
I see the moment she remembers as she slowly turns her head and looks at me like I’m crazy. “We are not swimming in that naked. It’s freezing!”
A mischievous grin spreads across my face. “Just for a minute. I dare you.”
Her eyes spark with challenge. “How about we have sex on that rock instead?” She gestures with her chin toward a large, flat rock that’s bare of snow. Presumably, that melted off under the midday sunlight that’s hitting it. “That’ll warm us up.”
I raise an eyebrow. “I thought you said it was too cold?”
She shrugs, already pulling off her pink gloves. “In the water, sure. And skinny dipping is so cliché. I bet you’ve never fucked by a lake, mountain man.”
“And you have, city girl?” I taunt back.
She reaches down and feels the front of my dark blue snow pants. “Not yet. Worried someone will catch us?”
A thrill shoots through me at the idea of someone happening along while I’ve got this woman panting under me, screaming my name. “Nope. Just worried I can’t get my dick out of my pants fast enough.”
She grins and pulls me along before unbuttoning her snow pants and pulling them down with her leggings. With both around her ankles, she bends over, planting her hands firmly on the rock, her sex glistening in the sunlight like the gates to heaven.
I drop my pack, and I’ve never pulled my pants down faster. Within seconds I’ve shoved my now rock-hard cock into her soft, slick waiting flesh. The way she’s bent causes me to slide all the way home with no effort at all, and her wet heat around me sends a surge of blood to my dick that nearly knocks me unconscious.
She groans at our joining, and the sound brings me back to earth. And then she starts to move, and my senses snap into focus as I watch my cock disappear into her pussy over and over.
Fuck, this woman.
I stand there for another moment longer while she fucks me before I grab her by the hips and take control.
I slam into her hard, pounding and fucking and taking until she’s limp in my arms, until I’m holding her up by her hips as I unleash myself on her, driving into her over and over as indecipherable noises tumble out of her mouth, as my balls tighten and heat spreads through me.
I feel her walls flutter around my dick, and I sink in deep, wrapping an arm around her to tease her clit while I tilt my hips over her to rub her deep inner wall. It triggers her climax, and her inner muscles strangle my cock, wringing my orgasm out of me all at once as I empty into her, hot and hard.
As she convulses in my arms, as I come inside her, I walk through the gates to heaven, and the feeling of bliss spreads through every cell in my body.
Our knees give way simultaneously, pitching us into a crouched heap on the ice-cold rock. The frigid surface is a welcome contrast to the heat radiating from our still-joined bodies.
“I think they call this position ‘make a child pose’,” Joanie jokes from under me in a sultry, sex-saturated voice.
I stroke a hand down her side and laugh because she’s not wrong. With her head resting on the rock and her arms splayed in front of her while I’m still buried in her from behind … it’s like the bastard Kama Sutra-Yoga baby of doggy style and child’s pose.
And when Joanie lets her chest sink down, her ass tilts up ever so slightly, causing my slippery cock to slide in deeper.
“Fuck,” I grunt at the unexpected friction. “That’s … holy shit.”
Joanie giggles and flexes her hips. And holy. Fucking. Shit. My flagging cock starts to harden again.
“You like that?” she asks sensually. But I know she can feel me getting hard again, so I don’t answer.
Instead, I press my chest into her back, letting my dick slide through her folds, teasing her sensitive labia. She groans under me. “As much as you like that,” I finally murmur in her ear. “God, I love fucking you, Joanie.” She trembles beneath me, and it eggs me on. “I love feeling you surrender that pussy to me.” Her breaths turn short and sharp, and she tilts her pelvis frantically. “You want me to keep fucking that beautiful, tight pussy?”
“Fuck yes,” she breathes. “Fuck it, baby.”
A bolt of lust shoots through me, and I’m fully hard once more. So I do exactly as she asks, fucking her with sharp, shallow tilts of my hips that I know are hitting her G-spot based on her rapid breathing and hungry cunt that sucks me in with every thrust. Something about the position, about her clear surrender, undoes me on a level more primal than I’ve ever felt.
And I unleash. Hard then deep, soft then shallow, fast then slow; I lose myself to how she feels, how my body responds to hers, to the dirty words she inspires me to growl in her ear as our bodies realign on a level I didn’t even know existed until all that I am is hers, and all that she is is mine. Until my world shrinks to one woman, this woman, and my heart expands with the understanding that she has offered herself to me in a way I don’t think she’s ever offered herself to anyone; a way beyond sex, even though it’s the language our bodies seem to understand each other best.
So I say everything I’m feeling by worshipping her with pleasure. I offer myself as a partner who can speak the language she understands. The language of her body. Of our bodies, entwined. And as she convulses underneath me, gasping my name over and over, as I explode once more inside her, I know when all the pieces of me come back together, they’ll be rearranged.
And they will all be hers.
They all are hers.
I’m hers.
The thought has gravity, and it settles deep in my chest as we both come down from orgasm.
I pull away slowly, retrieving a towel from my discarded pack and using it to gently clean Joanie and myself. She rolls over on the rock and lifts her hips to shimmy back into her pants while I put my own to rights.
I’ve caught my breath by the time I sink down beside her. Mostly. I lose it a little again when I look at her. Her alabaster skin is flushed, her ice-blue eyes bright, and her dark hair spilled out from under her cap and splayed over her shoulders and neck. She’s just-fucked beautiful, and with the snow-covered trees and mountains behind her, she’s this mountain man’s dream girl.
That feeling in my chest burrows deep, and words escape me. At least all the ones that mean anything. I know she doesn’t usually do deep, and the last thing I want to do is scare her off so soon.
So I settle for asking, “Hungry?”
She grins, and her face lighting up outshines the bright winter sun above us. “Starving.”
I unpack the lunch I brought, and we settle on the rock, side by side.
Joanie lifts her sandwich with a laugh. “First grilled cheese, now PB&J? You sure you weren’t a mother hen in another life?” she teases, taking a big bite of her sandwich.
“Hey, I’m no Mia, but I’ll have you know I make a mean PB&J,” I tease back.
She chews, a thoughtful expression on her face before finally giving a slow nod. “That you do.” She looks like she wants to say something else. Eventually, she asks about my work at the community center.
Even though I’m pretty sure that’s not what she wanted to say, I go with it.
“It’s rewarding,” I tell her. “I get to help people, whether it’s seniors staying active or kids learning new skills. Plus, it gives me plenty of time for my own hobbies, like fishing and hiking.”
She nods. “Sounds idyllic. Very different from my old life.”
“What kind of law did you practice?” I ask, realizing I don’t know much about her career.
She sighs. “I was a corporate defense attorney. Basically, I helped big companies get away with shady shit.” She shakes her head. “And the higher-ups never took me seriously no matter how good I was. I was too ‘aggressive’, apparently. A man with my style would’ve made partner years ago.”
I frown. “That’s bullshit.”
“Tell me about it.” She takes another bite of her sandwich. “Anyway, enough about my past. Tell me more about this town. Who runs what around here?”
I’m surprised by how little she wants to discuss herself, but I don’t push it. So, I give her the rundown.
“My Uncle Henry owns the grocery store where he handles the second half of business hours, with my cousin Ned, who you’ve met —” Joanie smirks “— handling the first half of the day. My Uncle’s wife, Margaret, runs a small mail shop with the world’s tiniest post office inside. My father and uncle co-own the gas station and convenience store-slash-tackle shop. Jerry owns the tavern and the sad excuse for a coffee stand. Then, of course, there are Nate and Mia’s businesses. And as you know, I own the community center, though I also own the land with the pond, my house, and a good amount of acreage besides. Oh, and I co-own a shit ton of land in and around the town with my father.”
“Hm,” she murmurs. “So what’s with the whole Old West vibe? The wagon wheels and stuff?”
I explain the town’s gold rush history and the shuttered museum.
Joanie mulls on that for a minute before asking, “Who owns the museum?”
I stop, realizing I’d never thought about that. “I don’t know,” I admit.
“So no one in your family then?” she presses.
I shrug. “Guess not. Anyway, my dad had all these grand plans to turn Alpine Ridge into a Wild West tourist trap, which sounds great, in theory, since that’s the town’s roots. But all of his ideas were so over the top that they’d make a mockery of it. Themed campgrounds, boardwalks, the works. He even wanted to put in an amusement park. But he couldn’t get approval for any of it, thank fuck.”
Her eyes narrow. “So he’s not on the town council?”
I laugh. “God, no. He only inherited land here a few years ago. He hasn’t spent much time in Alpine Ridge, but he’s sure got opinions on what to do with it.” I shake my head. “His pushiness has made things harder for me with the council. They’re all old-timers who resist change, and now they don’t trust me much either.” I pause, debating whether to ask her something.
“What’s that look?” she asks, furrowing her brow.
“I’m just not sure why you’d care about any of this,” I say, not technically asking while asking.
The corner of her mouth lifts in a half-smile. “I guess I just wanted to know more about this town. Because it’s important to people I care about. Including you.”
I reach over and tuck a strand of hair behind her ear. “I care about you too, Joanie,” I say, my voice thick with more emotion than I’ve felt in a long time.
We stare into each other’s eyes, a thread of understanding weaving between us. Her eyes soften, and she leans in to kiss me deeply.
When she pulls back, there’s a glint in her eye that I’m coming to recognize. “Take me home, mountain man. I’m not done with you yet.”
I grin and start packing up. “Yes, ma’am.”
Later, as Joanie sleeps curled against my chest, I think about what she said to me. She’s right — Alpine Ridge is important to me. And the idea that Joanie might be warming to it makes me feel even more protective of it. And of her.
My last thought before drifting off is that maybe, just maybe, I’ve finally found a place worth fighting for ... and someone worth fighting for.