Page 9 of Fearless Mountain Man

“Wine,” Ana said. “Maybe I should go get my wine.”

“Hang on.” I eyed the boat. “I’ll get it.”

She reached over, putting her hand on my forearm. That froze me. Not because her grip had any power to hold me in place, but because her touch was doing things to me. It was like when I’d taken her hand in mine. It wasn’t just that it sent heat straight to my groin. It also felt right. It felt like her hand belonged to me. She belonged in my arms.

It all just felt…right.

“I don’t want it,” she said.

I settled back into place as she removed her arm, disappointment filling me. She didn’t want…wine? Oh yeah. The wine. It wasn’t a rejection of me. It was a rejection of my offer to get up. Maybe it even meant she wanted me to stay close to her.

“I’d probably go for a swim,” she said.

I looked over at her. I’d missed part of the conversation. Instead of drinking wine, she’d go for a swim? Maybe she thought drinking would make it unsafe to swim.

“You asked earlier what I’d do if we were stranded here all night,” she said, looking over at me. “I’d go for a swim.”

Oh. That question. I’d been thinking of something else, but having her strip down and jump into the water was at least closer to what I’d been thinking about. I’d definitely rather see that than hear her life story.

Not that I didn’t want to hear her life story. I was all ears. But my mind kept straying to thoughts that had my dick twitching, so by now I had the makings of a raging hard-on, and what she’d just said had only made it worse.

“We don’t have swimsuits,” I said.

“I’ll swim in my underwear.”

Ana pushed herself to her feet and began unbuttoning her blouse. Holy hell. This was happening.

“It’s no different than a bathing suit,” she said, probably taking my silence for panic or excitement or no telling what else. “I usually wear a one-piece, but we’ll pretend this is a two-piece.”

We could pretend whatever she wanted. Hell, I’d pretend she was fully dressed if it worked for her. I was just beyond happy to see the clothes coming off.

She removed her shirt, revealing a white bra. She next worked the button of her pants, and I knew they’d drop down any second. I expected her to stop at some point—to wait and see what I was going to do—but she didn’t.

The pants dropped, revealing a matching pair of white underwear. Ana stepped, barefoot, toward the water, her shoes no doubt under the little puddle her fallen pants had made.

It was dark out here, but the moonlight cast just enough of a glow on the area that I could make out her form as she waded into the water. I stood, hands on hips, watching her. She swam around the same way I had just hours earlier when she’d watched me. The tables had turned, and I was enjoying the view.

Once my jeans were on the ground, I removed my shirt and looked down at my navy-blue briefs. Why couldn’t this be the day I’d worn my old boxers—the ones I wore just hanging around the house? But maybe these would hold up better in the water. Who knew? I’d never swam in my underwear before.

By the time I reached the edge of the water, she was watching me. She was standing, and it was shallow enough that the water only came up to just below her chest. That meant I had to force myself not to stare at the dramatic curve of her cleavage highlighted by the moonlight above.

The water was chilly, but that would change once my body temperature adjusted. It wasn’t quite as warm as my pool water—especially at night when I liked to flip on the heater.

I didn’t show any signs of discomfort, though. Part of my stupid macho man act. I wasn’t proud of it, but it was what a guy did when trying to impress a woman. Don’t look like a wimp in front of the girl you’re trying to impress. That was rule number one.

She wasn’t a girl, though. She was all woman. It had been so long since I’d been this invested in a woman, I wasn’t sure how to verbalize what I was thinking. I couldn’t make sense of it.

Yes, the last time I felt this way, I’d been a teenager and the females around me had indeed been girls. This was different. This wasn’t just some crush. It wasn’t puppy love, either.

No, this time, when I was thinking about a future with a woman, I knew exactly what that meant. It meant babies and bills and supporting each other through thick and thin, for better or worse, in sickness and in health. It meant sitting by her side while she gave birth to our baby and making big decisions about where we’d live.

This woman had me thinking things I never in a million years would have imagined. Not at this point in my life. Not after I’d made the decision to move up here and live alone.

“It’s not very deep,” she said. “I guess you know that since you live on this pond.”

I shook my head as I continued into the water. I should just dive in, but as she’d said, it wasn’t deep. I could tell that as my feet sank into the soft ground, mud slipping between my toes.

“I’ve never tried swimming in this before.”

---