Page 6 of Auctioned to the Mountain Man

Tearing my eyes away from the photographic soft expression, I turn my attention back to his hardened one.

“So, where am I sleeping?” Figuring it’ll be best just to hurry this along, I push to free my hands of my belongings.

If he lets me take a nap, I won’t lie, I’ll second-guess my plan to make him suffer.

He passes by me, silently beckoning to follow behind. His stride is long, so I’m fighting to keep up.

For a cabin that doesn’t seem to have much life inside, it’s quite large. I point that out, too. Curious about why a guy like him would want to take up this much space, he doesn’t humor me with an answer.

With one glance over his shoulder, and a non-committed grunt later, I’m left more curious about him than ever.

“Let me guess, you grew up with a big family and wanted something similar.” Pursing my lips, I squint at his back. “A wife and a bunch of kids. At least two. No, three.”

He suddenly stops, and I run right into him. He still smells like sweat from all the work we’d done earlier, but with it intertwining with his usual scent, it’s not a bad combo.

“You’ll sleep here.” Pushing open the nearest door, he motions me to enter a room that smells of dust and a lack of life. “Settle for now. I’ll find you when I’m ready. The bathroom is on the left.”

His eyes narrow on me, and I’m sure his frown is sharper than earlier.

I must’ve hit a sensitive spot. Well, is it my fault he probably scares every woman who gets near him? No wonder he was at that auction in the first place.

Deciding how I want to thank him, I don’t get the chance to ponder long. Not when he’s turning away and leaving me all to my lonesome.

Good. It’s better this way. If he regrets offering to host me, I have a better chance of getting a boot out of here.

While he simmers, I take the chance to plop down on the bed.

The bed creaks as I collapse onto it, the firm mattress barely yielding under my weight. I roll onto my side, pressing my faceinto the pillow. It smells faintly of detergent, like it’s recently been changed.

Did he rush home and quickly prepare the room?

My body doesn’t care to ponder for too long.

Eyelids heavy as lead, I barely register the scratch of wool blankets against my skin or the distant sound of floorboards creaking elsewhere in the cabin. I could be lying on concrete, and it wouldn’t make a difference.

Somewhere between one breath and the next, sleep drags me under. I’m snoring before I can even think about setting some kind of alarm.

* * *

Silas doesn’t wake me up. Or, maybe he tried, and I was too gone. Who knows? Either way, when I wake up, I’m disoriented as can be.

The foreign surroundings don’t help much, but all I have to do is remind myself what happened to snap back into it.

My phone tells me it’s four in the morning. The bed tells me I should try to slip in a few more hours of sleep.

Instead, I get up. Feeling gross from sleeping in my day clothes, I grab my outfit for the day and hunt down the bathroom to shower.

The shower spray hits my shoulders like a thousand tiny pinpricks, hot enough to turn my skin pink. It feels good against my sore muscles, and I’m happy to say his shower head has lovely pressure.

Moving to wash my hair, I look between two completely different bottles. One is mine, promising a coconut butter scent. His is right next to it, looking daunting and bulky.

Remembering how good he smelled, even in the midst of work, I hesitate, as if I have the choice to pick and choose what I want to wash up with.

It would be rude to use something of his without asking.

What better reason to use it?

Pumping an entire white puddle in the middle of my hand, I breathe in and groan.

---