Chapter 7
Leah
Have you ever been fucked by a mountain man? They’re not like normal men, as I soon discovered.
Jameson drove into me with a relentless rhythm that left no room for thought, no space for doubt or second-guessing.
Each thrust pushed me deeper into the straw mattress, the old wooden frame groaning in protest beneath us while the storm raged outside.
His hands gripped my hips hard enough to bruise, angling me up to meet him, and the new position let him nudge a spot deep inside me that made stars burst behind my eyes.
Lightning split the sky outside the window, illuminating his face above me for a brief, brilliant moment. His jaw was clenched tight, his blue eyes dark with desire, and the cords of muscle in his neck stood out as he fucked me with single-minded intensity.
Thunder cracked so loud the walls shook, but I barely noticed because Jameson chose that exact moment to shift his angle and drive even deeper.
“Fuck,” I gasped, my nails raking down his back. “Don’t stop, Jameson, don’t stop.”
“Wasn’t planning on it,” he growled.
His voice was rough gravel against my ear as he picked up the pace, his hips driving against mine hard enough that the headboard knocked against the cabin wall with each thrust.
A gust of wind howled through the open windows, bringing a spray of cold rain with it that spattered across the floor and misted over our heated skin.
Neither of us cared. I was too lost in the feel of him inside me. The weight of his body pressed me into the mattress, and his chest hair rasped against my sensitive nipples every time he moved, driving me insane.
Jameson shifted onto his knees, pulling my hips up off the bed and into his lap without ever breaking his rhythm. The new angle was devastating. He was so deep I could feel him everywhere, and when he reached down to circle my clit with his thumb, I nearly came on the spot.
“That’s it,” he growled, watching my face as he worked me higher. “Let go for me.”
The pleasure built like the storm outside, pressure mounting with every stroke of his cock and every brush of his calloused thumb against my swollen clit.
My thighs trembled where they were wrapped around his waist, and my hands fisted in the bear pelt beneath me, searching for something to anchor myself as the sensation of him threatened to sweep me away entirely.
What we were doing might not be love, but that didn’t make it any less precious.
Lightning flashed again, followed immediately by a boom of thunder that rattled the walls.
Something about the primal chaos of the storm combined with the way Jameson was fucking me pushed me right over the edge.
My orgasm crashed through me in waves, my inner walls clenching tight around his cock as I cried out his name.
My back arched off the bed, and my vision went white at the edges, pleasure radiating out from my core all the way to the tips of my fingers and toes.
Jameson groaned at the feeling of me coming around him, his thrusts growing harder and more erratic as he chased his own release.
The bed frame was shaking now, the old wood creaking ominously with every powerful snap of his hips.
“Leah,” he gritted out, his fingers digging into my hips. “Fuck, I’m gonna…”
He slammed into me one final time, so hard the whole bed lurched, and then there was a tremendous crack as the ancient log frame gave way beneath us.
We crashed to the floor in a tangle of limbs and wool blankets, but Jameson was already coming, his cock pulsing inside me as he groaned louder than the thunder rolling across the sky.
For a long moment we just lay there in the wreckage of the bed, breathing hard, our hearts pounding as one.
Then Jameson lifted his head and looked around in bewilderment at the collapsed frame.
We both started laughing. We couldn’t help it.
When we finally got control of ourselves again he asked, “Are you okay?”, concern cutting through the post-orgasm haze in his voice.
Here I was, naked and thoroughly fucked on the floor of a historical cabin in the middle of a thunderstorm, surrounded by the remains of what was probably a two-hundred-year-old bed.
“I’m perfect,” I managed between giggles. “But I think we broke history.”
He laughed too, a low rumble in his chest that I could feel deep inside my soul.
“Tucker’s going to be pissed. This bed is supposed to be a historical display. I’m going to have to sneak back out here and fix it before anyone notices.”
“What are you going to tell him if he asks what happened?”
“Aggressive raccoons.” He grinned down at me, and something about the expression transformed his rugged face into something almost boyish. “Very aggressive raccoons.”
We eventually untangled ourselves and rebuilt a nest of sorts from the bear pelts and blankets, curling up together in front of the dying fire.
The storm had settled into a steady rain, the thunder growing more distant as it moved across the mountains, and in the quiet aftermath we talked for hours. About everything and nothing.
He told me about growing up on Red Oak Mountain and about starting the guide business with his best friend, Boone. He even told me a terrifying tale about the time a mountain lion had attacked one of his clients, and he’d jumped between them, fighting the big cat off.
I traced the scar on his shoulder while he told that story, feeling the raised skin beneath my fingertips and marveling at the kind of man who would put himself in harm’s way for a stranger.
I told him about Boston and my job that paid well but left me feeling hollow. And about Colin and the slow realization that I’d been nothing more than a convenient Friday night arrangement for two years.
Jameson’s jaw tightened at that, pulling me closer against his side.
“This has been the best vacation of my life,” I announced somewhere around three in the morning, my head using his chest as a pillow. I could feel his heartbeat beneath my cheek, steady and strong. “I feel more relaxed right now than I have in years. Maybe ever.”
It was true. There was a looseness in my muscles, and a quietness in my mind that I’d forgotten was possible.
“Good,” Jameson’s voice was a satisfied rumble. “That was the goal.”
“I’ve decided something,” I said, tracing idle patterns through the hair that led down to his happy trail.
“Yeah?”
“I’m quitting my job. And I’m getting a cat.”
He chuckled. “Big decisions. Hopefully, it’s going to be a normal house cat and not a mountain lion. What else have you decided?”
I thought about it, and about all the possibilities that suddenly seemed open to me in a way they hadn’t been before tonight.
About Red Oak Mountain and rustic cabins and blue-eyed mountain men who made me feel alive for the first time in years.
“I don’t know yet,” I admitted shyly.
He pressed a kiss to the top of my head and didn’t push for more, and I loved him a little more for that.
As the fire crackled low and Jameson’s breathing deepened toward sleep, I lay awake wondering what he thought about what we’d just done. Had it meant something to him, or was I just another tourist passing through?
He’d said he avoided relationships, and that it was easier not to let people in. Was tonight an exception or just a pleasant diversion from his solitary life?
I almost couldn’t believe it had happened at all.
This morning I’d been a burned-out data analyst on a solo vacation, trying to throw away a ring from a man who’d never really wanted me.
Now I was naked in the arms of a stranger who didn’t feel like a stranger at all, in a cabin in the middle of nowhere, with a broken historical bed as evidence of exactly how thoroughly I’d been welcomed to Red Oak Mountain.
My friends back home weren’t going to believe it when I told them about my little Ozark getaway. But part of me wished this wasn’t just a diversion from real life. I wanted tonight to be my new reality.
Something inside me clenched with fear as it dawned on me that I liked this man.
I liked him in a way I’d never managed to feel about Colin, even after two years together.
And now that I knew Jameson existed, I didn’t want to let him go again.
That’s when I realized this little vacation of mine was going to end in heartbreak.
Would one night with him be enough? Could I hold the memories of this man close to my chest through all of my remaining days?
Because something told me I’d never feel this way about any other man again.