Page 15 of The Mountain Man's Virgin
“Let me help,” I offered.
He seemed to hesitate. “Ok. Why don’t you come and cut some veggies – and pick out some music,” he said, pointing to the record player.
I smiled and went to peruse his vinyl collection, I hadn’t heard of most of the bands, but I spotted some old Van Morrison. I set the black disk on the record player and realized I had no idea how to work it.
“How does this work?” I shouted.
Mick came up behind me and reached over my shoulder to lift the player’s arm, it seemed so delicate in his masculine fingers. The player activated, and he gently set the needle down on the LP, the crack and hiss of the record coming through the speakers.
“How old are you exactly?” he chuckled and returned to the kitchen, not waiting for my response.
We spent the next hour chopping and laughing. Mick was funny, warm, and knew his way around a kitchen.
I set the table and Mick lit some candles. I have seen a million chick flicks, and nothing in those films could compare to the romantic atmosphere that had just been created. I reminded myself that I was engaged. The candles were simply for illumination, the dinner was a necessity, but the music, well, the music was just plain romantic.
When Mick passed me the checkered cloth napkins, his rough finger touched my hand and I felt a jolt of what felt like electricity pass through my body. I gasped and pulled my hand back.
Mick cleared his throat. Wordlessly, he went to the record player and switched it to some old classic rock band I’d never heard before.
The warmth of our conversation and banter we had while cooking was gone. Mick didn’t look at me at all through dinner. The conversation was polite, I guess. Actually, ‘polite’ might have been a stretch. It was cordial bordering on awkward. He focused on his plate and grunted when I asked him questions.
After dinner, Mick stood up and scraped our leftovers into Chopper’s bowl.
“Let me help you with the dish--,” I offered.
“No,” Mick interrupted.
I was taken aback. Where was the kind man from a few hours ago? He was gone and had been replaced with a cold, rude, jerk.
Chapter 12 – Mick
My whole cabin smelled like her. Not in an overly perfumed high maintenance kind of way, but in a breath of fresh air kind of way.
I fired up the generator and primed the water pump so that she could have a shower. I warned her that the warm water wouldn’t last very long, and she managed to shower in less than five minutes.
I was impressed. The women I brought to my penthouse always lingered in the shower for what seemed like hours.
I had been a total jerk the night before, but after that touch with the napkins, I was afraid that I wouldn’t be able to control myself. I knew that she must have thought that I was a total asshole, but I’d rather she think that I’m a dick because I was a little cold, rather than taking her to bed and then never speaking to her again.
She opened the bathroom door a crack and I could see that she was hiding behind the slatted door.
“Mick, are my clothes dry?” she asked.
I went over to the drying rack beside the woodstove and felt her jeans. The fire had been piping hot all night as our defense against the blustery wind of the storm, and it had made short work of drying her clothes.
“They’re dry as a bone,” I said and walked over to the door with them clenched in my hand.
She reached her arm out the door and looked down at the ground shyly as I passed them to her, equally trying to avert my eyes and extend my arm as long as I could. As if keeping more than an arm’s distance away from her would stop me from, well, unleashing the wild man that was growling in my cock.
She came out of the bathroom in jeans, a white t-shirt and a coral colored hooded sweatshirt, toweling off her dark brown hair.
She looked radiant. I couldn’t tell that she had almost died of hypothermia the day before.
“How are your fingers feeling?” I asked.
She reached her arms out and spread her fingers wide as if examining each one of them. “They feel good. They’re not tingly today.”
“That’s great. It looks like you’ve come out unscathed.”
