Callie
He pulls back from the kiss and his eyes are dark and a little wild, like he’s just done something he can’t undo and he’s not sure whether to be furious or grateful.
“Get in the truck,” he says.
“What?”
“I want to show you something.”
I should ask questions. Where are we going?
Why? What just happened? But my lips are still buzzing and his hand is on the small of my back, steering me toward a black F-250 parked against the hillside, and the part of my brain responsible for rational decision-making has apparently clocked out for the evening.
I get in the truck.
It smells like him. Motor oil, metal, coffee.
The bench seat is worn and the dashboard has a crack running across it and there’s a fire district maintenance log clipped to the visor.
The truck is clean but not fussy. Organized the same way his shop is organized.
Everything where it belongs because the man who owns it can’t function any other way.
He pulls out of the gravel lot and turns uphill.
“Are you going to tell me where we’re going?” I ask.
“Up.”
“Up is not a destination.”
“It is when you live in the mountains.”
We leave Prospect Street behind. The road narrows, switches from pavement to gravel, and starts climbing through dense pine.
The resort entrance passes on the left, but Beck doesn’t take it.
He turns onto a service road with a chain across it, gets out, unlocks it with a key from his ring, drives through, and locks it behind us.
“You have a key to the mountain,” I say.
“I maintain the grooming fleet. I’m up here every couple of weeks in the off-season.”
“So you just…have access to an entire mountain?”
“Somebody has to.”
The road switchbacks through the trees and the air changes as we climb. Cooler, thinner, smelling like pine and snowmelt even in July. The town falls away below us and the sky opens up, huge and pale blue, streaked with the kind of gold that only happens at altitude when the sun is getting low.
Beck doesn’t talk. He drives the way he does everything else. Steady, focused, no wasted motion. But his jaw is tight and his knuckles are white on the steering wheel, and I can tell he’s holding on to his composure with both hands. Literally.
“You okay?” I ask.
“No.”
“Want to talk about it?”
“No.”
“Okay.”
He glances at me. Just a flicker, eyes off the road for half a second.
“I haven’t done this in a long time,” he says.
“Driven up a mountain?”
“Been around someone I want to be around.”
The words land in my chest and stay there. No deflection, no qualifier. Just the blunt, graceless truth, delivered the same way he delivers everything. Like a wrench turning a bolt. No extra motion.
The road levels out and the trees thin and suddenly the whole valley is below us.
Copper Peak is a toy town, the Trading Post a cluster of tiny stone squares, Prospect Street a thread of light.
The peaks across the valley are still streaked with snow on the north-facing bowls, and the light is turning everything rose and gold.
Beck parks at the edge of a clearing. A maintenance shed sits off to the side, the big bay doors closed, grooming machines visible through the windows. But the view is the thing. The entire world is laid out below us, and the sky is enormous, and the air is so clean, it almost hurts to breathe.
“This is where you’ll teach,” he says.
I look at him.
“Those runs.” He points to a series of wide-open trails below the summit, groomed and smooth even in summer. “Those are the intermediate progression runs. That’s where the ski school puts Level Two candidates for their teaching practicum.”
My throat tightens. He didn’t bring me up here to show me a pretty view. He brought me up here to show me my future. The actual, physical place where the thing everyone dismisses is going to happen.
“Can I ask you something?” I ask.
“Sure.”
“Why did you do this?”
He turns off the engine. The silence is sudden and total, just wind and the distant sound of water running somewhere below the snowline.
He looks at me, and the gruffness is still there, the furrow between his brows, the set jaw.
But underneath all of it, for the first time, I can see what he’s actually feeling.
It’s all over him. In his eyes, in the tension in his shoulders, in the way his hands haven’t left the steering wheel.
“Because somebody should’ve done it a long time ago,” he says.
I unbuckle my seatbelt.
His eyes track the movement. His breathing changes, just enough that I can hear it in the quiet cab.
“Callie.”
“Yeah?”
“If you come over here, I’m not going to be able to stop at a kiss.”
“I know.”
“I need you to know that.”
“I know that too.”
I close the distance between us.
Our mouths crash together again, hotter this time, tongues sliding, teeth nipping.
His hands are everywhere—cupping my face, sliding down my neck, gripping my waist like he’s afraid I’ll disappear.
I climb across the bench seat and into his lap, straddling him, and the low groan that vibrates from his chest into mine makes heat pool low in my belly.
He pulls back just enough to rest his forehead against mine, breathing hard. “Give me a minute, Callie.”
Before I can protest, he lifts me off his lap and slides out of the truck. I watch, heart hammering, as he walks around to the back. The tailgate drops with a heavy metallic thunk. I hear the rustle of fabric—he’s spreading something out. A blanket.
He reappears at my door, opens it, and offers his hand.
His eyes are dark, lids heavy. When I take his hand, he pulls me down and immediately backs me against the side of the truck, kissing me again.
His palms roam under the hem of my shirt, rough and warm against my skin.
We stumble together toward the open tailgate, mouths never parting for long.
He tugs my shirt up and over my head in one swift motion.
Cool mountain air kisses my skin as he drops it somewhere behind us.
My fingers fumble with the button of his jeans while he unfastens my shorts.
I toe off my trail runners, kicking them aside, and he pushes my shorts down my legs.
His hands hook into the waistband of my underwear next, sliding them down slowly, reverently.
Once they’re off, he grips my waist and lifts me onto the tailgate like I weigh nothing.
Beck kneels between my spread thighs, eyes locked on mine. One thick finger traces my entrance, then slides inside me. I gasp at the sudden fullness.
“Fuck, Callie,” he groans, voice rough. “You’re so wet.”
I close my eyes, cheeks burning. I’ve never felt anything like this—the slow pump of his finger, the way my body clenches around him, the overwhelming rush of sensation. It feels impossibly good, but I know I haven’t seen anything yet.
He leans in. His breath ghosts over me first, then the wet heat of his tongue touches my clit.
I jerk, a sharp cry escaping me. He licks again, firmer, circling, sucking gently, and my back arches hard off the blanket.
My hands fly to his hair, holding on as pleasure coils tighter and tighter inside me.
It builds fast, almost too fast, until it snaps.
I come with a broken cry that echoes across the empty mountain, thighs trembling around his head. He doesn’t stop until the last shudder rolls through me.
When he stands, I’m still catching my breath. He kicks off his work boots, shoves his jeans and underwear down, and climbs up onto the truck bed with me. We scoot back together onto the blanket.
I help him peel off his T-shirt, then wrap my hand around his cock—hot, thick, velvet-smooth. I stroke him experimentally while pressing open-mouthed kisses across his chest.
He moans, hips twitching into my grip.
I slow my hand, suddenly nervous. “Beck…I have to tell you something. But I don’t want to stop.”
He stills, watching me.
“I’m a virgin.”
He freezes completely. For a terrible second, I think I’ve ruined everything. Then he exhales shakily.
“Callie…your first time shouldn’t be in the back of a truck. It should be special.”
I reach up and cup his face. “I can’t imagine anything more special than this. Under the stars. With you.”
He searches my eyes, then curses softly and kisses me again—deep, slow, full of something that feels a lot like surrender.
I nudge his shoulders until he rolls onto his back.
Straddling him, I keep stroking his cock, even though my movements feel clumsy and unsure.
The way his eyes flutter closed and his breath grows ragged tells me he doesn’t mind.
I rise up on my knees, position him at my entrance, and sink down slowly. It burns—sharp and stretching—but I breathe through it, pushing until he’s inside me. He groans my name, hands gripping my hips.
He reaches between us and finds my clit again, stroking in tight, steady circles.
The initial sting fades quickly into a deep, rolling pleasure that makes my breath hitch with every roll of my hips.
I’m so full of him, it feels overwhelming in the best way—every slide and drag hitting places I didn’t know existed.
Beck looks devastating beneath me. The last of the sunset traces the hard lines of his chest and shoulders, his muscles taut and gleaming with a light sheen of sweat.
His jaw is clenched, eyes heavy-lidded and locked on me like he’s memorizing every second.
The sight of him like this—strong, undone, completely mine in this moment—makes my heart stutter.
His gaze drops to my breasts, still cupped in my bra, dark hunger written all over his face. “Take it off. Let me see those pretty tits while you ride me.”
The rough command sends a fresh pulse of heat straight to my core. My hands tremble as I reach back, unhook the clasp, and toss the bra aside.
The mountain breeze hits my bare skin immediately, teasing and sharp, making my nipples tighten into aching peaks.
Goosebumps ripple across my chest, down my stomach, and along my sides.
The contrast between the warm mountain air and the scorching heat where Beck is buried deep inside me makes me shiver and clench around his thick length.
I cup my breasts in both hands, thumbs brushing over my sensitive nipples, and start moving again—rolling my hips in a slow, experimental rhythm that quickly turns desperate.
Every downward slide takes him impossibly deeper, the stretch and fullness so intense it borders on overwhelming.
I can feel every ridge and vein of him dragging against my inner walls, stroking places that make my toes curl and my breath catch.
Beck’s thumb keeps working my clit in tight, slick circles, never faltering. “That’s it, baby,” he growls, voice low and filthy. “Fuck, you feel so good squeezing me like that. So tight and wet…made for this cock, aren’t you?”
His words hit me like sparks on dry tinder.
I moan softly, riding him harder, the wet sounds of our bodies joining loud in the quiet mountain air.
The breeze keeps licking across my exposed skin with every rise and fall—on my stomach, the curve of my ass, the swell of my breasts—heightening every sensation until I feel like I’m burning and freezing at the same time.
“Look at you,” he groans, eyes devouring me. “Tits bouncing while you take every inch. So fucking beautiful, Callie. Don’t stop…ride me just like that.”
A deep, throbbing pressure builds with every thrust, winding tighter with nowhere to go. The friction inside me, the relentless stroke of his thumb on my swollen clit, the filthy praise falling from his lips—it’s all too much. My thighs start to shake.
“Beck—” I gasp, voice breaking.
“That’s my girl,” he rasps, voice strained. “Come on, baby. Come all over my cock. Let me feel you.”
I come hard, clenching around him as the orgasm crashes through me. “Yes…yes, Beck—”
The words slip out in a breathless whisper, the rest lost to the night sky. He thrusts up into me with a deep, guttural groan, spilling hot inside me as his hips stutter and his hands grip me tight.
I collapse onto his chest, trembling, as the cool breeze drifts soothingly over my back.
A twig snaps somewhere in the trees nearby. We both tense.
“Shit,” he mutters.
We scramble up, laughing breathlessly as we grab clothes and boots. Half-dressed, we tumble back into the cab with the blanket and the rest of our things, and he pulls the door shut behind us.
The laughter fades into something quieter. Softer. He drapes his jacket over my shoulders without asking, and I settle against his side like I’ve been doing it for years.
The valley is dark below us now.
The last light has slipped behind the western peaks and the sky is that deep mountain blue that only happens at altitude—not quite night, not quite day. Stars are starting to appear, faint at first, then everywhere.
I’m curled against Beck’s side in the cab of his truck, his jacket over my shoulders, my cheek against his chest. His heartbeat is slow and steady under my ear. His hand is in my hair, not doing anything, just resting there. Like he’s making sure I’m real.
“That was better than the view,” I say.
His chest moves under my cheek. Not quite a laugh. Closer than he usually gets.
“I’m serious. And the view is really good.”
His arm tightens around me. Just a fraction. Just enough.
“Yeah,” he says. “It is.”
We sit there in the dark with the whole mountain around us and the town glowing below, and I don’t think about the outfitter or the coupons or the people who’ve never taken me seriously.
I think about the way he said “somebody should’ve done it a long time ago,” like it made him angry that nobody had, and the way his hands shook when he touched me, and the way this grumpy, impossible, socket-set-reorganizing man drove me up a mountain to show me where my life was going to start.
I don’t say any of that. I just press closer and breathe him in and let the silence hold us.
He doesn’t fill it either.
We don’t need to.