8. Chapter 6
Theo showed me to a small room upstairs, and I smiled gratefully. It didn’t have the view I wanted, but I’d find the perfect window somewhere.
“Don’t worry about Noah,” he offered as he held open the door. His eyes were downcast, his tone almost too apologetic.
“I don’t want to stay if he truly doesn’t want me here.”
Lies. I needed to stay. The second I stepped foot into this house, my hands itched to create. I bounced with energy, and that was why I couldn’t stay in the car when Theo asked.
But I also didn’t want the Noah guy to hate me this much. It bothered me.
If Theo fit the lumberjack bill, Noah was written for lumberjack porn. He was clean-shaved, with a square jaw and piercing brown eyes. His dirty brown hair was kept close to the scalp, and he was big, his arms like tree trunks. While he was the shortest of the three, he vibrated with dominant energy.
Wylder looked perfect for his name: leaner than the other two, with blonde boyish hair that reached the nape of his neck. He had a sparkle in his blue eyes, a game I was dying to play.
It felt like I was on the edge of reality inside this house. The land was magnificent. The men were jumping out of a romance novel. My heart danced inside my chest, like it knew we were in the right place at the right time.
Even though the room was small and nothing like I imagined. Even though Noah looked like he hated me and wanted me out. Still, nothing stopped the huge smile that covered my lips.
Once Theo let me be, I sat in front of the window, trying to find the perfect angle. It wasn’t great. The bedroom had a perfect view of a courtyard, complete with a small shed, but the mountain was more to the right.
I was ready to move to the other window when I saw him.
Noah.
He was bringing the logs in, and even in a jacket, his muscles bulged. He looked too serious, angry with the world, and instead of being annoyed, I felt sad.
He was carrying a lot on his shoulders. I just didn’t know what.
At that moment, he chose to look up at me, our gazes meeting. He put all his hatred into a look, a huge frown furrowing his thick eyebrows. Even with that, I felt slick, stupidly wet, like I needed a hate fuck.
Groaning, I stepped away from the window and ran downstairs, meeting him just as he got inside.
“Can we talk?” I called out before he could ignore me completely.
“I have nothing to say.”
“Look.” I brushed the hair out of my face. “I’m so sorry I’m intruding. I won’t be in your way. I’ll be out before you even notice.”
He laughed sarcastically and came closer, so close that I had to crank my neck up to keep eye contact. “You have no idea what is going on here, little girl.”
Little girl? I could tell they were all older than me but calling me a little girl was a bit much. I opened my mouth to complain, but he stepped up once again.
I swallowed a lump in my throat, my lips parting at the heat irradiating off his skin.
“If I were you, I’d run,” he whispered between my lips.
And before I could react, he was gone.
I tried my best not to think about Noah when I returned to my room. Turns out, I had a small view of the mountain from the bathroom window. It wasn’t ideal, but I didn’t care. It was the closest I’ve ever been. Without an ounce of shame, I set up everything in the bathroom, sat on the toilet lid, opened my notebook, and started to draw.
When I was little, I wanted to be a painter like my parents. It was when I went to a showing with them around my thirteenth birthday that I saw my first real sculpture.
Of course, I saw plenty before, but I never connected with a piece like I connected with that one. My world stopped, my eyes feasted, and my mind raced with possibilities.
I never looked back.
It wasn’t until my parents died that I felt this deep need to be more. To do more. It was like a cord that snapped; they left me, and the hole of my existence became bigger and bigger until, like them, I was moving around the globe, trying to find purpose.
I saw this mountain by accident. A friend of mine visited Switzerland and came to this village for a day trip. I saw the pictures on her social media, and I couldn’t think about anything else but the mountain.
It called to me—I couldn’t explain it any other way.
I looked at pictures and watched videos, but nothing was enough. I spent days locked in my studio trying to create something, but nothing came.
Its call was so strong, I packed my bags.
It was so strong, being in that the B now that I was so close, the view wasn’t as spectacular. Still, I was in the mountain, and suddenly, that was all that mattered.
I was dressed in shorts and a large T-shirt when I looked at the clock and saw it had just passed three in the morning. I put my hair up in a ponytail and blew a raspberry.
It wasn’t enough.
My sketches weren’t better than before, even as I breathed in the mountain and saw its colors so closely.
Defeated, I left the room to a dark and silent house. I needed a glass of water and a rest. Maybe in the morning, things would be different.
I dragged my feet down the corridor, and my eyes found the only small source of light coming from the gap of an opened door.
The room was beside mine, and I couldn’t resist. Something was tugging me to it. I tiptoed until my hands reached the door and, with a fortifying breath, I opened it.
The gasp flew off my mouth. Just beside my room was the most beautiful place I’d ever seen.
Wall-to-wall windows displayed the mountain in the most perfect view. My feet led me to it, and I slid the glass open to a balcony in beautiful dark wood, illuminated by perfectly positioned fairy lights.
Hissing when my bare feet hit the icy ground, I pushed forward as I took it all in.
It was perfect, like the entrance to a magical place.
I knew they barely wanted me here, but I couldn’t understand why, knowing I wanted to see the mountain, they were keeping this to themselves.
This room was an artist’s paradise. It was everything I’d ever wanted, even when I didn’t know what I wanted. It was breathtaking.
“Noah is going to kill you if he sees you here.”
I gasped and turned, finding Wylder watching me as he leaned against the glass double doors.
“I’m sorry. I—”
I shook my head because I had no excuse. I was snooping. I shouldn’t be here without permission, and yet, I wasn’t really sorry.
“It’s so …. I…” Words failed me.
“Did it call to you?” he asked, tipping his head to the side.
He was making fun of me, the silly girl who moves mountains for… well, for a mountain.
I knew I was odd. I wasn’t afraid to be, though.
“It’s beautiful,” I said instead.
He just nodded, taking in the view. Pushing off the door, he walked to me, his eyes everywhere and nowhere.
“Noah usually leaves it locked. It’s a miracle you found it open…”
He let his words hang, but still, I said nothing. I was glad that Noah, in his anger at my presence, had forgotten to lock it. Even as the cold bit my toes, I didn’t want to leave. I didn’t want to go for a glass of water or go back to the room for a rest. I wanted to swallow the mountain whole. I never wanted to leave it.
“How’s the drawing going?”
I sighed, showing my disappointment. “I keep moving closer and closer, thinking an idea will strike, that something will make sense to my eye and I’ll start to create, but now I’m here, and still…”
“Seeing it’s not enough. Maybe you need to be part of it.”
I chuckled at his joke, but when I looked at him, his eyes were dead serious.
“Part of the mountain?” I asked, arching a brow.
I was silly, but not that much.
“Do you wanna race?”
I’d laugh again, but his eyes sparkled, and I wanted to say yes. He was gorgeous in the moonlight, his blonde hair collecting little snowflakes in the wind. He was wearing dark blue pajama pants with a thin, white long-sleeve shit and no shoes like me.
We were supposed to be shivering, but I was trembling with warmth.
“Come on, race me,” he pushed, nodding to the side of the balcony.
I followed his eyes and found a small gate leading straight into the woods, a path winding through the frosted trees. I bit down on my bottom lip and thought about a million reasons why I should say no.
Instead, I screamed, “Now!”
I ran before he could have a chance—I was little, and his legs were double mine. If I wanted to win, I needed to cheat.
I heard him laughing as I raced down the path, my feet feeling the cold, but only for a second. I ran so fast, it was like flying.
Wylder was closing on me. I heard his breathing, his laugh, felt his warmth and breathed in his woody scent.
I was drunk on a high I had never felt before. The path was only illuminated until a certain point, and soon, we were running into the cold, dark woods, my bare feet leaving tracks in the snow.
Instead of cursing in pain, I laughed with freedom. Instead of asking myself what was happening, I let myself do what felt right.
I breathed in the cold air, letting my legs take me into the dark. Just when I thought I was the freest, I felt his arms closing around my waist, lifting me from the ground. I yelped and tipped my head back on his shoulders, and his shaved beard tickled the delicate skin of my neck—I never felt better.
Wylder twisted me in his arms as I let him move me like a little doll. Front to front, he held my legs up and around his waist, his nose just a breath from mine.
“You never answered me,” he whispered, as if the souls in the woods could hear us.
“What?” I breathed out hot air.
“If you heard a call to the mountain.”
It was too dark. I couldn’t see him, but I felt him everywhere—his strong hands digging into my thighs, his shoulders under my fingertips.
“I thought you were making fun of me.”
“Never.”
I swallowed, not ready to think about how inappropriate this was.
“I hear it calling me. From the second I landed here, I knew I needed to be in your house. I couldn’t sleep thinking about it, and that bedroom, Wylder…” I refused to continue talking, because I was starting to sound crazy.
That bedroom felt like mine. It belonged to me in a way I couldn’t rationally explain. The word home kept thumping in my chest, and I did my best to ignore it. I never had a home. I wasn’t made for roots, so why now?
Why here?
Wylder’s forehead brushed against mine as he breathed me in and let me do the same quietly in the woods.
“It was calling to you,” he whispered.
“You don’t think I’m crazy?”
“I think you’re perfect.”
The words made his lips brush against mine, and a zip of electricity ran down my spine until, suddenly, I was too aware I had him between my legs. I closed them around his waist, bringing us even closer as Wylder let out a low groan.
“Noah definitely doesn’t think I’m perfect,” I joked.
That was all that was needed to destroy the mood. Wylder’s hands loosened on my body as he put space between our mouths.
“It’s getting too cold,” he rasped.
I wanted to say it was always cold, but instead, I found myself nodding. I slid down his body, trying to ignore the erection I felt on the way down.
He was ignoring it, so so should I.
Feeling a little humiliated, I turned around, looked down at my feet, and headed back home.
It was over before it even began.
It was just a crush, a crush on him and his carefree way. A crush on Theo and the way he took control today.
Even stupid, perfect face Noah. They were gorgeous older men, and I was just a silly girl who was always ignored.
I should concentrate on the mountain, on my task.
Two weeks, I told myself as I raced upstairs and locked myself in my room.
Two weeks.