Girl PLEASE do not adopt a mountain man and his trauma. You go feed people and fix them and then you cry. ONE month. Fun only. Say it back to me.
I texted back a single thumbs up and turned my phone face down, because she's right, which is the annoying thing about Renata. I spent six years pouring myself into a kitchen that chewed me up and called it loyalty. Gave a man my whole self once because he told me he needed me, and need turned out to be the cheapest word he owned. Empty bowl by the end of it. Scraped clean.
So I came up this mountain to remember what I want when nobody's asking me for anything. Four weeks. No projects. Nofixing. A confident woman gets to want a man purely because he looks good and knows what to do, and then she gets to leave.
This one looks very good.
"You don't waste words," I tell him. "I like that. Saves time."
"Negotiation," he says. Low, even. "Before anything."
"Mm. A man with manners." I shift on the stool so my thigh presses into his palm. "Hard limits, I don't do pain for its own sake and I don't do degradation. Bratting, I do enjoy. Color system, I use it. Green, yellow, red, and red means stop everything, no questions, no sulking after."
"No sulking," he says. Something flickers at the corner of his mouth. "Heard I'm bad about that."
"I heard your friend say it. Loudly." I lean in. "Your turn."
"You stay where I put you. You tell me the truth, all of it, every time." His thumb moves once across my knee, slow. "Lie to me about a limit, we're done. That's the one."
There's weight under it. Old weight. Whatever happened to this man, somebody handed him a lie dressed up as a boundary and he hasn't put it down since. I file that away and forget it.
"I don't lie about what I want," I say. "Bad habit of mine. Honesty."
He stands. Drops cash on the bar without counting it, then takes my hand off my own drink and folds it into his.
"Come here."
He leads me past the main floor, past a couple wrapped up in rope under blue light, to an alcove at the back half hidden by a velvet curtain. One chair. A small bench. Privacy enough to be private, open enough that the music still finds us.
"Dress stays on," he says, and turns me by the hip so my back's to his chest. His mouth comes to my ear. "For now."
Big hands settle on my waist and slide up slow, learning me through the fabric, thumbs grazing the underside of my breastsuntil my nipples go tight and obvious through the red. He notices. Of course he notices.
"You walked in here looking for trouble," he says against my throat.
"I walked in here bored."
"Liar."
His hand wraps my jaw, gentle, tipping my head back onto his shoulder, and his other hand drags down the front of my body to press flat and warm between my legs through the dress. Heat floods through me. My hips chase it before I decide to let them.
"There she is," he murmurs.
He gathers the hem of my dress in one fist and pulls it up to my waist, baring me to the cool air and his palm, no underwear to slow him down because I made that choice in the cabin mirror two hours ago. His fingers find me already slick. A rough sound leaves him, satisfied, and he draws one slow circle around my clit that buckles my knees.
"Easy." His arm bands across my hips and holds me up. "I've got you. You're not going anywhere I don't put you."
Two fingers slide into me and curl, and the heel of his hand grinds against my clit in the same motion, and the noise I make is not dignified. I grab his forearm, the one holding me, and his muscle flexes under my fingers like he could hold me up all night and not strain.
"Look at you," he says, low and dark in my ear. "Soaking my hand in the back of my brother's club. So much for bored."
"Shut up and earn it."
He laughs, a real one, warm against my neck, then pushes a third finger in and stops talking. His mouth works the side of my throat. The drag of his fingers gets deeper, the pressure on my clit steady and merciless, and he reads every gasp out of me, adjusting, pressing harder where I jerk, never once losingthe rhythm. Whatever this man does up his mountain, he does this with the same patience. He's not chasing my orgasm. He's building it, brick by brick, and he wants me to feel every layer go down.
The coil pulls tight at the base of my spine. My thighs start to shake.
"Right there," I manage. "Don't you dare stop."
