4. Kendall
KENDALL
We’ve been hiking for almost three hours when I take the turn I wasn’t planning to take.
The spur trail is barely visible. A narrow gap in the scrub brush where the main path curves east along the ridge.
Most people walk right past it. I’ve never shown anyone this route.
It’s not on the map I gave him, and it’s not in any guidebook, because it doesn’t lead anywhere the forest service considers a destination.
“Where are we going?” Drew asks behind me.
“Somewhere most people don’t know about.”
The trail drops through a stand of aspens and then levels out along a shelf cut into the hillside. The trees thin and the stone changes—darker, older—and then the structure comes into view.
It’s a prospector’s cabin from the mining days.
Not much left. Three stone walls and half a roof, timber beams that have somehow held for a hundred and forty years.
The fourth wall collapsed a long time ago, leaving the whole thing open to the valley.
Wildflowers grow in the gaps between the stones.
The floor is packed earth and flat rock, dry and sheltered from the wind.
I found it my second summer in Copper Peak.
I was nineteen, hiking alone on a day off, and I took a wrong turn that ended up being the right one.
I’ve been coming back ever since. When the store gets to be too much, when corporate sends another email that makes me want to throw my phone off the ridge, when I need to remember why I’m here and not somewhere easier. This is the place.
I’ve never brought anyone here.
Drew steps through the gap where the fourth wall used to be and stops. He looks at the stone walls, the timber beams, the view of the valley spread wide and gold in the morning light. He doesn’t say anything for a long time.
“You don’t bring people here,” he says finally.
Not “this is cool” or “how’d you find this?” He says it like he understands what it means that I brought him here. Like he knows this isn’t part of the terrain consultation.
“Nobody comes up here,” I say. “The spur trail isn’t maintained. It’s not on any app.”
“Good.”
He’s standing close. The cabin is small enough that close is the only option, but he’s not crowding me.
He’s just there. Big, solid, taking up space the way he takes up every space he walks into, except right now, it doesn’t feel like he’s filling the room.
It feels like the room was built for exactly this.
The wind moves through the open wall and pushes loose strands of hair across my face. I reach up to tuck them back behind my ear, and his hand gets there first.
His fingers brush my temple. Rough, careful, slow. He tucks the strand behind my ear and then his hand stays. His palm is warm against the side of my face and his thumb rests just below my cheekbone, and I stop breathing.
“Kendall.”
The way he says my name undoes something I didn’t know I was holding together. Not the professional distance. That’s been slipping since he walked into my store. Something deeper. The part of me that decided a long time ago that wanting things for myself was a risk I couldn’t afford.
I look up at him. His eyes are steady, patient, certain. He’s been certain since the first day. I didn’t understand it then. I do now.
“I haven’t stopped thinking about you,” he says. “Since the store. Since you told that guy he was wrong and didn’t blink. I walked out of there and I knew.”
“Knew what?”
“That I was coming back. And it wasn’t going to be for gear.”
My heart is pounding so hard I can feel it in my throat. I should say something smart. Something careful. Something that keeps this professional and manageable and within the lines I drew for myself.
“I know,” I say instead.
He exhales, and the last inch of distance between us disappears.
His mouth meets mine like something breaking loose—sudden, inevitable, and overwhelming. The first brush of his lips is soft, almost testing, but the heat behind it flares instantly.
I gasp into him and he takes the sound, deepening the kiss with a low rumble in his chest that vibrates through me.
His hand slides from my cheek into my hair, gripping just tight enough to tilt my head as his tongue traces the seam of my lips.
I open for him without thinking, and then there’s nothing careful left between us.
We kiss like we’ve been starving for it. Slow at first—long, drugging pulls where his tongue strokes mine in lazy, thorough sweeps that make my knees weak. Then hungrier.
I rise onto my toes, fisting the front of his T-shirt, and he backs me gently against the cool stone wall.
The contrast of rough rock at my back and the solid warmth of his body pressing into me lights up every nerve ending I have.
He angles his head and kisses me harder, tasting like salt and sun.
Every slide of his lips, every teasing nip, every time he pulls back just enough to let me catch a breath before claiming me again leaves me dizzy, aching, utterly lost in the electric pull between us.
When he finally breaks away, we’re both breathing hard. He pulls back far enough to look down at me. His eyes are dark, pupils dilated, and the raw want in them makes my stomach flip.
“Drew,” I whisper, my voice unsteady. “I…I’ve never done this before. I’m a virgin.”
His body goes still, but his gaze doesn’t waver. “Kendall—”
“I know what I want,” I say quickly. Heat floods my cheeks, but I don’t look away. “I’ve always fantasized about getting naked out here. With someone who makes me feel like this.”
He exhales sharply, clearly fighting some internal battle, but I’m already moving.
My fingers find the flannel tied around his waist and tug it free.
I push his T-shirt up, palms sliding over the warm, firm planes of his abdomen.
His muscles jump under my touch. He reaches back and drags the shirt over his head, tossing it aside.
When I peel off my hiking top, letting it drop to the packed earth, his jaw tightens. My fingers work the button of my trail pants next. The sound of the zipper seems impossibly loud in the quiet cabin.
“Fuck,” he breathes. “Kendall, you’re killing me.”
I know the second he surrenders. I toe off my boots, shove the pants down my legs, and step out of them. Then I stand there in nothing but my plain nude bra and matching cotton underwear, heart hammering, completely exposed to the open air and his hungry stare.
Drew groans, deep and rough. “You sure?”
I nod without hesitation.
He spreads his flannel out over the flattest section of the floor, then guides me down onto it with gentle hands.
I lie back, watching as he strips off his trail pants, leaving him in only dark boxer briefs that do nothing to hide how hard he is.
He drops to his knees in front of me, eyes locked on mine as he hooks his fingers into the waistband of my panties and slowly draws them down my legs.
Then his hands slide up my ribs, and he unclasps my bra with a quick, sure motion, pulling it free and tossing it aside.
He settles between my thighs, broad shoulders spreading me open.
The first slow lick of his tongue against my center tears a shocked moan from my throat.
He takes his time—long, deliberate strokes, circling my clit, then dipping lower—learning exactly what makes my hips jerk and my fingers fist in his hair.
The wet sounds of his mouth on me mix with my ragged breathing and soft whimpers. When he slides two thick fingers inside me and curls them just right while sucking gently on my clit, pleasure coils tight and snaps. I come hard, crying out his name as waves of heat crash through me.
He stays with me through every pulse, licking me gently until I tremble and soften. Only then does he rise up over me.
I reach for him immediately, fingers slipping under the elastic of his underwear and pushing it down.
His cock springs free—thick, flushed, and heavy.
I wrap my hand around him, stroking slowly from base to tip, never breaking eye contact.
He groans, hips twitching into my grip, the sound low and desperate.
“Guide me,” he urges, voice rough with restraint.
I do. My fingers tremble slightly as I wrap them around his thick length and position him at my entrance. He nudges forward, and I squeeze my eyes shut at the intense stretch—hot, burning pressure that steals my breath. For a moment, it borders on too much—a sharp ache that makes me whimper.
He stops instantly, holding himself perfectly still above me, arms locked and trembling with the effort. “Easy, baby,” he murmurs, voice low and soothing against my ear. “Breathe for me. Rub your clit, just like that…good girl. That’s it. I’ve got you. I don’t want to hurt you.”
I circle the swollen bundle of nerves. The pleasure sparks back to life almost immediately, warm and liquid, slowly melting the discomfort. My legs wrap tighter around his waist, heels digging into his back as I pull him closer.
“That’s my girl,” he groans softly, the sound deep and ragged. “You feel so fucking good…so tight and warm around me. Just relax and let me in, Kendall.”
Gradually, the burn transforms. The pain fades into a deep, aching fullness that makes my toes curl. Every tiny shift of his hips sends pleasure rippling through me. My lips part on a shaky, needy moan as the sensation blooms, hot and intense, spreading through my belly and thighs.
He feels the exact moment I open for him. “Fuck… there you go,” he breathes, voice strained. With a guttural groan, he sinks the rest of the way in, burying himself completely in one slow, relentless push.
A broken cry escapes my throat at the overwhelming sensation of being so perfectly full. He’s so deep, stretching me in ways I’ve never felt before, and it feels impossibly good. My inner walls flutter and clench around his thick cock, drawing another low, filthy groan from his chest.
He starts to move—slow, careful thrusts that drag against every sensitive spot inside me. The wet, intimate sounds of our bodies meeting fill the cabin, mixed with my soft, desperate whimpers and his rough, panting grunts. Every time he rolls his hips, pleasure licks through me like wildfire.
“God, you’re squeezing me so tight,” he rasps against my neck, voice hoarse. “You feel incredible…so wet and hot. That’s it, baby, take all of me.”
I moan louder, the sound raw and uninhibited as each thrust pushes me closer to the edge.
The tension inside me tightens unbearably, winding higher and higher with every deep stroke.
I watch him above me—sweat glistening on his chest and shoulders, arms flexed and straining as he holds himself over me, eyes half-lidded and burning into mine like I’m the only thing that exists.
The pleasure crests suddenly, flooding through me in a rush that whites out everything else. I come hard with a sharp, keening cry, my whole body tightening and pulsing around him as intense bliss floods every nerve. My nails dig into his shoulders, and my legs shake around his waist.
“Kendall—fuck,” he groans, the sound broken and desperate. His rhythm falters as my orgasm pulls him under. He buries his face in my neck, hips stuttering deep inside me as he comes with a long, ragged moan, spilling hot and deep.
We stay locked together, panting and trembling, the sounds of our heavy breathing slowly filling the quiet cabin.
I’m lying against his chest on the packed earth floor with his flannel spread under us and his arm heavy across my waist. His heartbeat is slow under my ear. Steady. Like everything about him.
I don’t want to move. I don’t want to check the time or think about my shift or calculate how long it will take to get back to the trailhead. I want to stay in this stone cabin on my mountain with this man’s arm around me and nothing in my head except the sound of his breathing.
“For the record,” he says, his voice low and rough against my hair, “this is the best terrain orientation I’ve ever had.”
I laugh. It comes out easy and unguarded, and the sound surprises me. I press my face against his chest and feel him smile.
His hand moves up my back, slow, tracing a line from the base to my shoulders. “You okay?”
“Yeah,” I say. “I’m okay.”
He pulls me closer and presses his mouth against my forehead. We lie there while the light changes, and I let myself have this.