Page 41 of Naughty With The Mountain Man
“Yeah,” I say. It’s not a word I’ve used much. It fits.
“You still like people?” she teases.
“Just one,” I admit. “Maybe two if you count the dog.”
She laughs, soft and full. After a while, she goes quiet, and I feel her finger tracing the scar on my forearm through the sleeve. “Thank you,” she says into my collar. “For staying.”
I turn my head and kiss her hair. “Thank you for making ‘staying’ mean something.”
We sit there a long time, the world outside our windows wrapped in winter, our little room bright enough to hold its own. I think about the man I was—ghost walking edges, sleeping on floors because it felt safer, convinced silence was the only thing that wouldn’t leave.
Then Ellie showed up in red wool and trouble and decided my life could be louder. Warmer. Worth the noise.
She was right.
“Next year,” she murmurs, half-asleep. “Real tree. Lights on the porch. Invite the kids from the center for cocoa and terrible carols. Greta can judge us. Nate can pretend he doesn’t know the words.”
“Deal,” I say, and mean it.
Her hand finds mine under the blanket. Our fingers fit the way they always do now, like a promise learned by heart.
Outside, the snow keeps falling.
Inside, we are home.
Bonus Epilogue
ELLIE
The cabin is quiet in that soft, winter way—fire low, wind curled against the eaves, the kind of hush that makes every small sound feel important. Micah’s just finished doing the dishes (yes, the grumpy mountain man does dishes), and I’m on the rug with a mug of tea that I stopped drinking ten minutes ago because watching him is better.
He catches me staring. He always does.
“You’re thinking loud,” he says, drying his hands on a dish towel.
“I’m admiring,” I correct, and crook a finger. “C’mere.”
He comes—slow, deliberate, each step like a promise. The firelight turns his edges gold. When he sinks down behind me, his legs bracket my hips, his chest warm to my back, and my pulse lurches to meet him. He smells like pine and man and something that’s only him. I relax without thinking. My body learned this man and decided he’s home.
“What are we celebrating?” he murmurs into my hair.
“Us,” I say. “And the fact that dinner didn’t involve a single can.”
“High bar.”
His mouth brushes my temple. Lazy. Teasing. I tip my head back until my crown rests on his shoulder, offering him my throat. His breath catches before his lips find skin. A slow press. A second. The third one drags heat down my spine.
“Micah,” I whisper, just to feel his name roll through him.
He answers without words. His hands slide over my ribs, thumbs drawing soft circles that make my breath stumble. He never rushes. That’s the joke of us: he’s all restraint until he’s not, and then I forget where I end and he begins.
“Turn around,” he says.
I do, knees folding to face him. The world shrinks: his eyes, the steady thrum at his throat, the tiny scar near his mouth that I kiss when he can’t sleep. I palm his jaw, and he leans into it like he’s been waiting. When I pull him down, the first kiss is slow enough to slay me. The second is deeper. By the third, we’re both breathing like we ran here.
“Tell me if you want to stop,” he says against my mouth. He always makes it a choice. He always means it.
“I want everything,” I breathe.
