Page 18 of The Mountain Man's Virgin
His bear hug was the most comforting, cozy, and blissful place I had ever been. My tears paused temporarily only to return again even stronger. This time, I wasn’t crying about Lawrence’s disappearing act, I realized that I was devastated that I had never had a moment like this with Lawrence, ever. I wanted to stop time and live right there in that mountain man’s arms.
I felt Mick nuzzle his face into my neck and breathe in deeply.
I don’t know how long we stayed in our embrace, it could’ve been one minute or three hours – time seemed to stand still.
Mick pulled back and brushed my hair from my face.
“Let’s get out of here,” he said.
“And go where?” I looked out the window and saw that the snow was still falling heavily, curtains of cotton balls descending from the sky.
“Anywhere. Anywhere but here,” Mick said pushing me away by my hips. “I can see that you’re getting a bit of cabin fever.”
“Ok, let’s get out of here,” I smiled at him, sure that my eyes were puffy from crying. When I looked back to him I thought I saw him nonchalantly wipe a tear from his eye. He turned and started rustling through the sea of Gore-Tex and fur-trimmed coats hanging by the door and held out a red coat and some orange snow pants for me.
It didn’t seem wise to be going anywhere in the weather, but with Mick, I felt safe – safe in a way that I’d never felt with another man.
I would follow him anywhere.
Chapter 14 - Mick
A curtain of dark brown hair hid Lucy’s face from mine, but I’m not an idiot. It was clear that she needed comforting, but I had no idea what to say. Thankfully, I was saved by the smell of burnt toast.
“Shit!” I spun around and jogged over to the toaster, tendrils of smoke curling from its slots.
I could feel Lucy getting close to losing it. I never thought that I would be saved by the smell of burnt toast, and I breathed a huge sigh of relief. I popped the bread out of the toaster, juggled it between my hands and tossed it onto a plate. Only the edges were blackened, we might be able to salvage it with some strategic scraping.
When I turned back to her, it looked like she was choking and then I realized that she was hyperventilating.
Fuck.
I ran her through a deep breathing technique that I had learned from my therapist. When she breathed into my hand, the feel of her body under my hand almost stopped my own breath and I had to remind myself to keep breathing. I was primarily focused on getting her relaxed so she wouldn’t pass out on my floor, but with each rise and fall of her belly underneath my hand, I felt a warmth, an energy emanating from her that grew from my fingertips and traveled down my arms like a stream’s tributaries, before it surged into my torso, coming together in the centre of my body like a mad river.
When she finally calmed down, she melted into me, exhausted from her panic attack. I shouldn’t have, but I let her relax in my arms. The weight of her body felt good and right; heavy, yet warm against me.
I reached my arm around her back and held her neck in my other hand. It was slender, yet strong. I couldn’t help it, something in her made me feel like a protector, not a predator. I pressed my head into her shoulder and neck and inhaled deeply.
The wind whistled through the windows and the door shuddered on its hinges, but it was all background noise as I took in her scent, how could she smell like oranges when there weren’t any in the cabin?
Oh, no. What the hell, I felt tears pricking my eyes. The last time I cried was when my mom died. I was fourteen and I held her in my arms when she took her last breath. She had refused chemotherapy and had avoided the hospital, choosing to put food on our table in place of the cost of prescriptions. I hated her for it. I didn’t understand why she didn’t want to try to fight, to stay alive, to be with me.
It was then that I realized why Lucy felt so familiar to me. That smell, that same citrus smell. I hadn’t smelled it for twenty years.
I pushed her away gently and tried to mask the fact that my emotions were getting the best of me. I looked to the ceiling of the cabin as if examining the floorboards of the upstairs loft, willing the tears to go back to where they came from - back to where they belonged – to twenty years ago.
I had to get out of the cabin. I wasn’t seeing things that weren’t there, but I sure was smelling them.
I tossed her some snow pants and a warm jacket and told her we were getting the hell out of Dodge. I clicked an avalanche beacon on her before she put on her coat and explained how to use it.
Her leather gloves weren’t going to cut it. I found a pair of my smallest gloves, they would have to do, “Give me your hands.”
“It’s ok. Mine should be dry,” she said and crossed her arms in front of her.
“Are you trying to get hypothermia again?” I held my hand out and she reluctantly placed hers in mine.
I outfitted her with not one, but two pairs of gloves, knowing that it wasn’t the best, but it would be better than what she had.
“If we hike up to the ridge, you should be able to get cell service, so bring your phone,” I said as I put on my own thick gloves.
