Page 3 of My Wild Mountain Man

“What’s that saying Oli and Onyx are always yapping? The best way to get over someone is to get on top of someone else?” The guy was insufferable. Just the thought of touching someone else made my gut tighten and left a sour taste in my mouth.

I shook my head yet still agreed. “Sure.” Not that my general, like Austin had called my dick, would wake up for anyone but Raven.

Thankfully, that seemed to placate him enough to salute me and walk out. Left alone in the dark storage room, I shut my eyes, but that didn’t help. Not when all I could see behind my eyelids was Raven Trejo and her smooth tan skin with that dark chocolate-and-caramel-eyed gaze staring right back at me, withso much hope and feelings I felt it right through me like the best kind of whiskey.

I shook my head and ran my fingers through my hair.

What the fuck am I going to do about my best friend’s little sister?

raven

. . .

My ponytail swished backand forth behind me as I trudged through the forest. One I had taken more times than I could count. I hardly recognized the path because even though I knew better and had been told to pay closer attention, my nose was stuck in a book.

Again.

But who could blame me? It was hard to put a book down when you needed to know what was going to happen next! How the characters were going to end up together despite the countless things standing in their way. I sighed and looked around, hoping to find something that would give me a clue of where I was. I frowned when it seemed like I might have truly gone off the trail. The ground below me wasn’t even well worn.Shit!

It wasn’t the first time I’d done this. I chewed on my bottom lip and straightened my shoulders. The worst thing I could do was panic.

I had been born and raised in Moonlit Pines; even as introverted as I was, there wasn’t a trail I didn’t know.

My parents had made sure of it, even when I had whined and complained about going outdoors where bugs flew about and the sun was too bright, they had pushed for me to explore. I secretly loved it. It’s why I hit the trails every chance I got.

That and the fact it reminded me so much of Bash.

My older brother’s best friend and completely off limits. If only my heart could get the memo! I was a twenty-one-year-old never-kissed virgin because of my stupid little crush on my brother’s best friend! What could I say? I’d fallen madly, deeply in love with the guy from the very first day my brother had brought him home. My sisters teased me over my crush. There was no way I could have denied it. Not when I blushed any time he was close by.

But time went by, and life moved on like it tended to do.

He left for college and then the Marines. I’d thought somehow, distance and years would make those feelings go away. And maybe I had tricked myself to think that when I’d left to attend beauty school. But that first day, when I’d walked into the brewery and laid eyes on him, I knew it wasn’t so.

I shook away the thought as I brushed a strand of hair out of my face and tried to figure out where I was. That’s when I heard it. Water! I was close to the waterfall! Suddenly, the hot summer sun felt a tinge warmer. I could go to the waterfall, take a break, maybe swim, finish my book, then find my way back from there!

With a plan in mind, I headed towards it.

Just as it started to come into view, I stopped in my tracks. My mouth went bone dry at the sight of the man who I was always thinking about in the water. His bare chest was glistening from the water that was sluicing down his muscular, inked-up, hairy chest. My tongue felt too big for my mouth. He was what every wet dream was made of. He had always seemed bigger than life to me, but right then and there, he was incrediblymasculine. The epitome of the species. And all I wanted to do was climb him like a spider monkey.

My feet felt like they were nailed to the mountain ground while I stood rooted in place, accidentally hiding in the lush greenery, unable to look away while he swam around the river. Before I knew it, he was getting out of the water, and my eyes were going to jump out of their socket.

He wasn’t just swimming.Bash Ledesma was skinny dipping!

I knew he was big, I mean tall! But the thick appendage between his muscular thighs seemed almost fake.Men can be that big?!I had no idea. I would definitely be asking Olive. Out of the girls, she was the one who had the most experience. Maybe I wouldn’t! I knew Olive; she would ask why I wanted to know, and there was no way I would tell her it was because I’d seen Sebastian, Bash, the one man in the whole wide world who had ever called my interest naked!

Knowing my sister, she would want a peek!

Not that she knew just how deep my love ran for him. She didn’t. No one did. She just thought I found him pretty to look at. If she knew, she wouldn’t ever think of trying anything with him. Oli was a girl’s girl through and through.

All thoughts of my sister, or anything really, were wiped from my mind as my attention moved back to my very own Adonis. Bash sat on a rock, wiping away the excess water from his face as he stared out at the waterfall. The muscles of his back bunched and flexed, making me wish I had an ounce of artistic talent so I could go back to my place and sketch out how beautiful he was. Instead, I quietly stood there watching him while I battled to remind myself to breathe.

He looked like he was deep in thought. Like he was torn about something. Something I wanted to see if I could help out with. But I couldn’t. I hadn’t spoken to him since New Year’s.Not really. Not like I used to. Simple hellos and byes were all I limited myself to since that day. Just the reminder of watching him flirt with the drop-dead gorgeous photographer made me queasy.

It was stupid. Lame, really. Bash wasn’t mine. Not even close. But it had been a bruise to my ego. No matter how much I’d changed since being a dorky kid, I would never be the kind of woman Bash Ledesma would ever look at twice. I’d never be his type.

The sad reminder made my shoulders hunch over before I quickly stepped back, away from the waterfall and back towards the trail. I took a step but didn’t notice a rock, and I slipped.

“Shit!” I cried out a little too loudly as a searing pain vibrated through my knee. “Crap,” I mumbled, brushing off the dirt.

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