Page 7 of Harvest Moon Mountain Man

"You're doing something about me?"

"Working on it." Almost a smile — the real kind, the rare one, the one I haven't earned from him until tonight, until four hours in the frost proved something words alone hadn't quite managed to. "Slowly."

We walk back toward the farmhouse together, boots crunching through grass gone stiff and white, the whole orchard behind us finally quiet after a night that could have gone very differently. I don't ask him what he means by working on it. I think I already know, and I think some part of me has known since the second afternoon, standing under his trees, forgetting for the first time in years that I was supposed to be somewhere else entirely.

Inside, the kitchen's dark and warm, and Rourke doesn't turn on the lights. He just peels his jacket off and drops it over a chair, then reaches for the hem of my sweater.

"You're soaked through," he says.

"I'm fine."

"You said that four hours ago." He tugs the sweater up over my head before I can argue, and the cold air hits my damp skin and I shiver hard enough that my teeth click. "C'mon."

He leads me down the hall by the hand, past a bathroom with a claw-foot tub and a shower stall tiled in river stone, and turns the water on hot before either of us has gotten another stitch off. Steam starts curling up almost immediately. He strips down without any particular hurry — boots, socks, the flannel gone gray with dirt, everything landing in a pile by the door — and when he turns back to me I'm still fumbling with the button on my jeans, fingers too stiff from the cold to manage it.

"Let me." He does it for me, unhurried, hands warm against my hip bones as he works the denim down. He doesn't rush the moment even though steam's already fogging the mirror, even though we're both still half-frozen. He gets me out of the rest of it piece by piece, careful, like he's got nowhere else on earth to be.

The water's a shock when we step in — too hot at first, then exactly right, the kind of hot that goes straight into your bones and unlocks something you didn't know was clenched. I press my forehead to his chest and just stand there a second, letting it run down both of us, feeling my fingers come back to life in slow, aching pins and needles.

“Better?” His hands are already moving, working across my shoulders, thumbs pressing deep into muscle gone tight from four hours bent over a row. The water runs hot down both of us. I can feel the last of the cold finally leaving my bones under his hands.

“Better.” I tip my head back into the spray. “You didn’t have to do this.”

“Wasn’t a question of having to.” His mouth finds my throat, unhurried at first, then less so—open, warm, lingering just under my ear until my pulse jumps against his tongue. “Wanted to.”

I feel him get hard against my hip, thick and heavy. I reach for him under the water, wrap my hand around his cock, slick and warm, and the sound he makes against my collarbone is rougher than anything I’ve heard from him yet—like the whole night, the frost, the crop, all of it is finally allowed to let go now that the trees are safe. He rocks into my fist once, slow, then catches my wrist and pins it gently to the tile beside my head.

He backs me against the wall. One hand stays braced flat beside my head; the other slides down between us. He works me open with two fingers, unhurried despite how hard he is against my thigh, curling deep until I’m rocking into his hand and gasping his name against the water running down both our faces.

I’m already so wet the slide of his fingers feels effortless. He keeps the pace steady, deliberate, the heel of his palm pressing against me with every stroke until my thighs start to shake.

“Look at me,” he says, low, and I do. Gray eyes gone dark, water sluicing down the line of his jaw. “Tonight you don’t leave this house. Not for a hotel bed, not for anything. You hear me?”

“I hear you.”

He lifts me against the tile like I weigh nothing. I wrap my legs around his waist. When he pushes into me the sound I make echoes off the stone—half gasp, half broken plea. He’s thick and deep and perfect, stretching me open in one long, steady slide until he’s buried to the hilt and I can feel him everywhere. My body clenches around him on instinct; he groans low against my throat and holds still for a second, forehead pressed to mine, giving me time to take him.

He doesn’t go slow. Four hours of cold and fear and adrenaline finally have somewhere to go, and he gives it all to me—deep, hard, relentless. Every thrust drives me higher against the tile. One hand grips my thigh hard enough that I know I’ll feel the shape of his fingers tomorrow; the other fists in my wet hair, tilting my mouth up to his so he can take every sound I make. I can feel every inch of him sliding in and out, the stretch, the drag, the way he fills me completely each time he bottoms out.

“You stayed for me tonight,” he says against my lips, not quite a question. “Every damn tree, freezing, and you stayed.”

“I couldn’t leave you.” My nails drag down his back, leaving red lines the water immediately starts to rinse away. “Couldn’t imagine it.”

“Good.” He drives into me harder at that, like the words themselves are permission. “Because I’m not done needing you here.”

I come with my face pressed into his shoulder, water roaring in my ears, his name breaking apart in my throat. The orgasm hits so hard my vision whites out for a second; my whole body locks tight around him, pulsing hard and rhythmic, milking him with every wave.

Rourke follows right after, groaning low against my neck, buried deep, hips stuttering as he spills into me. Both of us are shaking under the spray, holding on like the tile might disappear if we let go.

He just keeps me there a minute, still inside me, foreheads together, water going lukewarm around us. His free hand traces slow circles at the small of my back like he can’t quite make himself let go.

“Told you I was working on it.”

“Slowly,” I say against his mouth. “You said slowly.”

“Changed my mind.” He kisses me once, soft and sure. “Turns out I’m done being patient about you.”

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