Page 19 of Seduced By the Mountain Man

I nodded, grateful when the conversation finally shifted to Amber's adventures with Matt. As they chattered, I sipped my wine and tried to ignore the lingering sensation of Jace's hands on my skin, the echo of his words in my ear.

This isn't just sex for me, Dee. It never was.

But it had to be. Anything more would be too complicated, too messy, too fraught with potential for heartbreak—mine and others'.

No, this was just a fling. And I was going to enjoy every minute of it without letting my heart get involved.

At least, that was the plan.

***

I escaped to my room as soon as I could, locking the bathroom door behind me before stripping off my inside-out tank top and shorts. In the mirror, my reflection told the story my friends had read so easily—hair tousled beyond simple explanation, lips slightly swollen, and yes, a darkening mark just below my ear that would require strategic hairstyling tomorrow.

The woman in the mirror looked different somehow. Eyes brighter, skin flushed with a glow that went beyond embarrassment. She looked alive in a way I hadn't seen in months—maybe years.

I stepped into the shower, letting hot water cascade over me. As steam filled the small space, I closed my eyes and instantly regretted it—because there was Jace, his eyes dark with desire as he'd looked down at me in the boathouse, his voice rough as he'd groaned my name.

My hand drifted lower, tracing the path his fingers had taken earlier. I leaned against the cool tile wall, letting the fantasy build—Jace stepping into the shower behind me, his strong arms wrapping around my waist, his lips finding that sensitive spot where my neck met my shoulder.

It would be so easy to give in to this, to let myself fall into whatever this was between us. But the reality wasn't that simple.

As I lathered shampoo into my hair, my mind drifted back over our complicated history. Jace had been a fixture in my childhood summers at the family cabin at Flathead Lake, only about an hour’s drive from where we were now in Hope Peak. I remembered the first time he'd appeared—I must have been nine or ten, which would have made him thirteen or fourteen. My mother had hired a local maid service, and one of the cleaners had mentioned having a son Tyler's age who was bored at home.

Next thing I knew, this quiet, watchful boy with too-long dark hair was trailing after Tyler like a shadow. They'd spent that entire summer fishing, hiking, getting into the kind of mischief that seemed to follow boys of that age. When summer ended, I remembered my mother packing up bags of Tyler's outgrown clothes to send home with Jace, along with school supplies she'd purchased for both boys.

The next summer, Jace was back, no longer connected to the maid service but invited as Tyler's friend. And the summer after that. And after that. Until he was as much a part of our summers as sunburns and s'mores.

I never got to know him well back then. He and Tyler were four years older, firmly in the realm of "annoying big brother and his friend," always heading off on adventures I wasn't allowed to join. Not that I'd wanted to—I was busy with myown friends, my books, my secret experiments with my mother's makeup.

Until the summer I turned thirteen. Suddenly, I noticed how Jace's shoulders had broadened, how his voice had deepened, how his quiet focus seemed so different from Tyler's boisterous energy. I'd developed my first, pathetic crush, following them around until Tyler threatened to lock me in the boathouse if I didn't leave them alone.

Jace had always been kind, though. When Tyler rolled his eyes at my attempts to join their conversations, Jace would sometimes linger behind, answering my questions about whatever they were planning that day. Once, he'd even brought me back a peculiar rock he'd found on a hike, just because I'd mentioned collecting them.

My crush had persisted through high school, flaring each summer when he'd reappear, more handsome each time. But it had been innocent, the kind of safe infatuation you could indulge when you knew nothing would ever come of it.

Until Jackson Hole changed everything.

I rinsed the shampoo from my hair, my thoughts a tangled mess. What was happening between us now—was it just the forbidden thrill of crossing a line we'd observed for so long? The satisfaction of finally acting on an attraction that had simmered in the background for years?

Or was it something more?

No, I told myself firmly. It couldn't be more. We were too different, our lives too separate. I was a marketing director with an MBA, living in Denver, following the path my parents had always expected. Jace was... well, I didn't actually know what Jace did when he wasn't working at Hope Peak. Tyler rarelymentioned him in specific terms, just occasional references to adventures they'd had or plans they were making.

I didn't even know if he'd gone to college. Where he lived when he wasn't at the resort. What his dreams were beyond the next mountain to climb or lake to swim.

We were fundamentally mismatched—the ambitious city professional and the free-spirited outdoorsman. What we had was intense physical chemistry, nothing more. The kind of passion that burned hot and fast, then faded just as quickly.

Right?

Intense passion doesn't last. That's what everyone says. Especially not between people as different as we were.

I stepped out of the shower, wrapping a towel around myself as my mind continued its circular argument. This thing with Jace could only be temporary—a summer vacation fling, friends with benefits, a way to get him out of my system once and for all.

I could do casual. I could be carefree, spontaneous. I didn't have to be serious, responsible Delaney Shaw all the time.

But as I crawled into bed, setting my alarm for the next day's zip-lining activity, a small voice whispered that I was lying to myself. That I'd never been good at casual. That I'd never been the girl who could separate sex from emotion.

And worst of all, that what I felt for Jace had never been simple lust, not when I was thirteen, and certainly not now.

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