Page 3 of Relentless Mountain Man

But one look inside that dark red sedan told me there was nothing to fear. A hot pink stainless-steel tumbler sat in the cupholder and a pair of women’s sunglasses was clipped to the visor. That had me intrigued.

Still, I entered my cabin in stealth mode, relying heavily on my senses. I didn’t call out, but I was all ears. I cleared the front bedroom, which was empty, aside from a bunch of boxes I still had stacked in there, and continued back out to the living room.

I couldn’t help but notice the master bedroom door was only partly open. I wouldn’t have left it like that. I kept that door wide open. That was when I knew something was up.

But what I hadn’t expected was the beautiful woman I found sleeping there. When I pulled back the sheets, I got the view of my life. She was sleeping on her side, but as she rolled over, I saw the most gorgeous pair of tits I’d ever seen. My body betrayed me, my dick getting hard in a moment when I should’ve been thinking about anything but sex.

Rachel. That was her name. She’d mentioned her friend Joely last night. Not in detail. Just a quick word or two. But hearing her name was enough to have me asking Joely’s boyfriend, my logging crew buddy Hunter, if he knew anything about Joely’s friend, leaving out the part where I found her in my bed naked. I would’ve gotten the ribbing of a lifetime if the other guys got wind of that.

I glanced at her cabin as I climbed out of my truck and walked to my front door. Hunter had given me the lowdown. Rachel lived with Joely in Nashville, but she was originally from Chattanooga. Her parents were super wealthy and had been pressuring her to move back home. Guilt-tripping was more what it sounded like to me. And that was why Joely found her a place to stay for a couple of weeks.

I shut my front door and looked around. Rachel had said something about my cabin looking like a rental last night. At the time, I hadn’t thought much about it, but now it hit especially hard. I kept things pretty simple with my cabin décor. I wasdefinitely no interior decorator, but it was very obvious this place lacked a woman’s touch. Or the touch of anyone with a soul.

I headed to the fridge, grabbing a beer from the top shelf. I didn’t have a lick of food in my refrigerator. She’d probably be alarmed by that too. I’d assumed she hadn’t opened my fridge, but maybe she had. Maybe she’d taken a good look around before climbing beneath the sheets, naked.

My dick twitched at that thought. Yeah, the memory would probably never go away. It might fade over time, but right now, it was taking over my life.

I slammed the fridge door shut, stalked back over to the living room, and plopped down on the couch. She was next door right now, probably fully clothed but looking every bit as sexy as she had last night. Okay, so the lighting in the room had been low, but it was enough to see not just her curves, but her long, dark hair and the contours of her face. Damn, I wanted to run my hands over her curves and kiss those lips…

I shifted as I pressed the power button on the remote. I was already getting a hard-on. I might have to do something about that.

It had been a while since a woman had gotten me this worked up. Or worked up at all. I’d taken a break for the past couple of years, just hanging out with my buddies and working on the crew. No time for women. I didn’t want the drama.

But Rachel just might be worth it.

Three loud knocks jolted me from my thoughts. I was still flipping through the guide, looking for something to watch, but now I hit the power button to shut things off. Setting my beer on the end table, I stood and walked over to the door.

Please let it be her.

The thought flashed through my mind, as loud as a bomb going off. It froze me in my tracks. Of course, it was her. Whoelse would be knocking on my door at seven o’clock at night? But what was alarming was the way my heart was racing. I definitely couldn’t remember the last time that had happened. Maybe not since I was a teenager.

But I was a man, not a wuss, so I ignored my racing heart and headed straight for the front door, not even looking out the window before opening it. Sure enough, my beautiful neighbor was standing on my porch. She held an aluminum pan with an aluminum covering.

She was delivering food to me?

“I’m your neighbor,” she said. “We met last night.”

That was an interesting way to put it. We met last night. She was naked in my bed last night.

She lifted the pan, holding it toward me like an offering. “I made peach cobbler.”

I wanted to check out the contents of the pan, but I couldn’t take my eyes off her. She was beautiful. Far more beautiful than I’d even imagined after making out some of her features in the dim lighting last night. She had big brown eyes, rimmed with long thick lashes, and a cute button nose and plump lips that I longed to kiss.

“You made an entire peach cobbler for me?” I asked.

She nodded, her smile faltering slightly. Damn, I didn’t want to put a frown on her face. That was the last thing I wanted to do.

“You don’t like peach cobbler?” she asked.

Did I say that? Not at all. But I’d somehow managed to hurt her feelings.

“No, I just mean you shouldn’t have gone to all that trouble. I appreciate it. But I feel bad that you?—”

“It’s a pretty easy recipe,” she interrupted. “But it was the least I could do after barging in on you last night.”

“Thank you.”

I reached out and took the pan. As I did so, it hit me that she’d probably have no reason to stick around. She’d go back to her cabin, and I’d be left kicking myself for not finding a way to keep her on my front porch—or in my house or in mylife—just a little longer.

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