Trapped with the Woodsman

by M. S. Parker

  “It’s not wet. So the dumbass spit it out some time ago.”

  “Oh.” I hadn’t even thought of that. The only reason I’d recognized it as tobacco was because a friend of my dad had liked to chew. He’d always spit it into a can when he was around us, but I’d been around him enough to know what I was looking at.

  “Not sure if this means we’re on the right track or not,” Roman said, turning to face me. He rubbed the back of his neck as he lifted his eyes to study the sky. “But we don’t have time to keep on looking unless you plan on camping out again.”

  “No.” I shook my head. I wanted a hot meal and a shower. I loved being out in the mountains, but if I had actually planned on camping, I would have been better prepared.

  “Okay.” He went to turn.

  Without thinking about it, I reached out and caught his arm. “Roman…thank you.”

  “For what?” He gave me a perplexed look.

  “For being out here with me. For wanting to help.” It had been a long time since I’d even wanted to trust somebody to help me out. But I was beginning to trust Roman. Leaning in, I pressed my mouth to his.

  It was meant to be a sweet, easy kiss.

  But it changed – fast.

  He’d gone to stroke his tongue along my lower lip, and I opened, sucking him into my mouth. He stiffened, then I found myself being backed up until my pack came into contact with an immovable object. One of the big trees that that towered over us.

  He reached between us, and I was caught off balance when the weight of my pack suddenly shifted. He’d freed the chest strap, then the harness that held it secure at my hips. Before I had to do much more than shift my weight, he eased the pack off me and dropped it to the ground next to us.

  Then he was leaning into me.

  As he pushed his knee between mine, I groaned, stepping to spread my legs apart to accommodate the hard, heavy length of his thigh. He caught my hips and dragged me in closer. I whimpered and wiggled, arrows of heat already shooting through me and centering down in my pussy.

  “Roman,” I whispered. The need I had for him laid me low.

  He eased back and stared down at me, eyes hot and hungry. “I can’t get enough of you.”

  “Good.” I caught him around the neck and tugged his mouth back down to mine.

  One hungry, drugged kiss led to another. I’d never gotten so aroused from something as simple as kissing. But there was nothing simple about Roman’s kisses. They were deep, delicious and dark, a seduction in and of itself and I was probably already addicted.

  Something brushed against my belly. The muscles clenched, and I gasped as I realized it was his hand.

  He pulled back and stared down at me as he slid his hand down and cupped me through my sturdy khaki cargo pants. I gasped as he started to rub me, grinding the heel of his hand lightly against me.

  “If we had the time, I’d strip you naked and take you here,” he murmured, lowering his head to kiss my neck.

  I tried to ignore the punch of heat those words caused. It didn’t work. In an effort to cool my sudden desire to demand he do just that, I tried to think of reasons why that was a bad idea. “Mosquitoes.”

  He grinned at me. “Not this early in the year.”

  “Bears.”

  “They wouldn’t come around once I had you busy screaming as I filled you with my dick.”

  My knees wobbled.

  “Got any other excuses, Lexi?”

  I squeezed my eyes closed.

  He kissed my brow. “I’m not going to strip you naked out here, Lexi.”

  He continued to grind the heel of his hand against my clit, and I pressed my face against his chest, so he couldn’t see the disappointment. He increased the pressure, and I whimpered, already losing myself to the need. I was already wet. I could feel my panties sliding back and forth over sensitive tissues, and the sensation just made everything worse – or was it better?

  “Please,” I said, gasping.

  “But what about the bears?” he teased, his lips pressed to my ear.

  “Bears?” I asked, my foggy mind already forgetting what I’d said only a minute earlier.

  He lifted his head and stared down at me.

  Something flashed in his eyes, and he stepped back.

  I reached for him with a whimper.

  But all he did was strip out of his pack and put it on the ground next to mine. Then he pulled me against him once more, one arm banded around my waist.

  He popped open the zipper of my khakis.

  I gasped in response when I felt his fingers stroke over my belly, then lower, lower, lower.

  When he found my clit, my hips jerked involuntarily, pushing against him in a silent, instinctive plea for more.

  He gave it to me too. Strange, tight little noises escaped me as he pushed two fingers inside my cunt, curling and stroking. He let go of my waist, and I wobbled, reached for the trunk of the tree at my back. He nudged my pants down to just below my hips, then he slid his arm back around me, protecting the soft flesh of my bottom from scraping against the rough bark behind me.

  With his free hand, he started to stroke me again, faster, rougher. He kissed me, his tongue echoing the rhythm of his fingers.

  I completely forgot about everything but him – his mouth, his fingers as they so skillfully worked my body, the heat of his body as he caged me in, the strength of his arm around my waist.

  “Come for me, princess,” he said against my mouth.

  I whimpered. If I could have managed to speak, I would have told him there wasn’t much choice in the matter – my orgasm was already racing at me and trying to stop it would be like trying to stop a flood.

  My knees wobbled, and I felt the strength draining out of me. My body had gone all liquid and loose, except for a few specific points – my nipples were tight and aching as they stabbed in my bra. My pussy was wet, and the muscles down low inside were clenching as I started to work myself against him, chasing after the climax.

  It wasn’t much of a race.

  Roman twisted his wrist, then scissored his fingers inside me, and I tore my mouth away from his, a sharp, high scream escaping me.

  He smothered it against his mouth.

  My skin felt too tight, too small, to hold everything breaking apart inside me. Then I went flying…flying…flying.

  As I started to drift back down, my awareness returned.

  Roman’s chest was moving with his hard, ragged breaths. His body was locked and tight, and I wasn’t sure, but I thought he might be shaking.

  Then I realized there was no might about it.

  Roman was quivering. I slid my hand between us and cupped his cock through his jeans.

  He immediately caught my wrist. “No,” he said, voice raw. “It’s not a good idea for me to go getting that distracted in the open like this.”

  He pulled back. I saw a muscle clench in his jaw, then slowly relax.

  “What do you mean?” I asked as he reached down and tugged my pants back up, fumbling a bit with the button, then dealing with the zipper.

  He waited until he was done to answer.

  “I mean, for all we know, somebody heard us. What if it was one of the poachers?”

  We could easily claim we were just hiking, but I saw his point. My face flushed as I realized how stupid this had been.

  “Don’t,” he murmured, pressing his mouth to mine. “Don’t go regretting anything we did. I was…mostly keeping an eye on things.”

  I mustered up a smile. “Is that something you learned being a Ranger?”

  He shrugged, then dropped a kiss down on my forehead. “Come on. We need to get back before it’s too dark.”

  Twenty-Eight

  Lexi

  “I need to stop by the visitor’s center on the way out,” I said, looking over at Roman as he hefted up my pack and put it in the backseat of my Jeep. If I was honest, I’d admit that I didn’t really want to stop by the visitor’s center. I wanted to go home and soak
in a tub and drink a glass of wine, then sleep for a week. My muscles were killing me, and although my ankle had held up pretty well, it ached dully and let me know that I had definitely pushed things too hard.

  “Why?”

  “I’m probably hoping against hope, but I want to see if Hawthorne has made a decision about whether or not I can come back to work. Tomorrow is supposed to be my day to work.” A dull ache settled in my chest. Although for the most part of the day, I’d been otherwise occupied with either the search or the sex, I’d spent more time than I liked worrying about my job.

  I didn’t like worrying.

  It seemed to be a useless pursuit. Worrying didn’t change anything.

  But this one time, I couldn’t make myself stop.

  I was scared. I couldn’t stand the thought of losing my job. This was my dream job, what I’d wanted my whole life. When I’d been a kid, my dad would bring me out here, and I’d pretend to be a forest ranger who came to rescue him after he got hurt while out camping. A melancholy cloud settled around me, and I swallowed the knot in my throat.

  Something clued Roman into some of the shit tangled inside me, and he moved in close, pulling me up against him.

  He held me like that for a long moment, and I sighed, leaning into him and taking comfort in his solid presence.

  “It’s going to be okay,” Roman said.

  Instead of answering, I just snuggled in close and closed my eyes. I so wanted to believe that.

  But I wasn’t going to count on it either. I was just going to wait and see what happened.

  “I’ll follow you down,” he said. He hesitated, then brushed my hair back. “Maybe you’d let me buy you dinner once you’re done.”

  I looked down at my sweaty, wrinkled clothes then met his eyes. “Dressed like this?”

  “You look beautiful to me.”

  My face flushed at the unexpected compliment, and I bit my lip, hiding a shy smile. “I think I’d like dinner. I know a few places around here that won’t care if a couple of tired hikers drop in for a burger or something.”

  “Sounds good to me.” He kissed me again, then nudged me toward the car. “I’ll meet you at the welcome center.”

  The thought of sitting down with a burger and Roman had replaced my fantasy about lounging in a tub of hot water, although I just might still have that hot bath. It would just be a little later than planned.

  He followed along behind me as I took the winding mountain road that led back to the visitor’s center.

  Once we got there, we both parked in the corner. He was out of his truck before I’d managed to do much more than unbuckle my seat belt. My muscles felt like they’d been replaced with wet cotton batting and my bones had turned to lead. Before climbing from the Jeep, I dug out a bottle of ibuprofen and washed a couple down with some tepid water.

  He was waiting for me next to my vehicle and gave me a thorough, head-to-toe look as I carefully eased my feet down onto the pavement. Muscles in my thighs screamed at me, and I couldn’t keep from grimacing as they protested.

  “Sore?” he asked softly.

  “Very.” I braced a hand on the car and carefully rotated my left ankle. It was tight, but other than that persistent ache, it didn’t really hurt. I’d have to elevate and ice it for a little while, though. Just to be sure.

  Wearily, I shifted my attention to the visitor’s center, then scanned the parking lot. I didn’t see Hawthorne’s vehicle, but sometimes he rode with his wife. She worked in town and would pick him up on the way home. It was probably wishful thinking, but I really wanted to talk to him and see if they’d come to a decision about everything.

  Part of me also wanted to bring up the subject of poaching, but I wasn’t sure if I was ready to do that without proof. They’d already gone to look for the snare and hadn’t found anything. I think Hawthorne liked me, but that didn’t necessarily mean he was going to believe me about possible poachers. That idea rubbed me wrong too. There had been enough problems with poaching in the parks that it wasn’t a far-fetched idea.

  I could still hear Stilwell’s smug voice as he suggested I’d made up a story about a snare to try and get out of trouble.

  Asshole.

  Maybe that was his way of dealing with problems, but I didn’t lie my way out of things.

  “You looked pissed,” Roman said, voice neutral.

  We were halfway across the lot, just behind the front row of cars, and I stopped to look up at him. “Do I?”

  “Well, not so much now, but a few seconds ago…yeah. What’s wrong?”

  “I…” I almost told him nothing, but then, with a hard sigh, I said, “I’m brooding about whether my boss might believe Stilwell’s garbage.”

  “I’ll say something to him,” he offered again.

  If it came to it, rather than lose my job, I’d probably let him step up, but for now, I wanted to find the proof of the poachers and deal with it that way.

  “Thanks,” I said, taking his hand and squeezing. “But not yet. Let’s look around for a little longer. If Hawthorne does believe me, there’s going to be a big search for them, and who knows, maybe that will spook them. I don’t want them spooked. I want them caught.”

  “Okay.”

  We walked inside together, and I gestured toward the back. “I’m going to take care of a few things. Wait for me?”

  “You bet.”

  I left Roman behind, perusing the public area while I headed into the back. It wasn’t Hawthorne’s evening to supervise closing up, but I hoped maybe he was still here. Sometimes, he stayed later than scheduled to deal with all the responsibilities he had.

  But the door to his office was shut, and no light shone from under it.

  “Hey!”

  I looked up as Amy rounded the corner. She stopped rolling her chair and rested her hands on the armrests, looking at me with a bright smile. “I’ve been missing you around here,” she said.

  I went over and bent down, giving her a quick hug. “Miss you too. I was hoping to talk to Hawthorne. Have you seen him?”

  “He’s already gone for the day,” Amy said, shaking her head.

  Disappointment welled, but I pushed it down. “Are you closing tonight?”

  “Yeah.” She made a face at me. “With Stilwell.”

  “Oh, lucky you,” I said sympathetically.

  “Yeah, I got all the luck…mostly bad.”

  “We all have to take our turn dealing with that…person.”

  She smothered a laugh. “Nice cover there.”

  She signed something at me, and I grinned at her. Amy worked with a group of disabled kids in Estes Park, and a couple of them were deaf. She was teaching me some sign on the side, and she’d just called Stilwell an asshole.

  “So agree,” I told her.

  “I better get back out front before he comes looking for me,” she said glumly. “Hurry back, okay?”

  She wheeled off, and I tried to take comfort in the fact that she seemed to think I would be coming back.

  If I’d been fired, wouldn’t they have heard something?

  I had no idea.

  Suddenly, I wanted to be out of there, tucked away in a battered booth with Roman, a big, messy burger in front of me. “Check the schedule, then, and get on out of here,” I muttered.

  I headed into the kitchenette area. They kept a schedule posted on the bulletin board. If my name wasn’t marked out, I’d come in and hope for the best.

  I didn’t notice the scrap of paper until I’d almost stepped on it.

  Grumbling about people who couldn’t clean up after themselves, I stooped to pick it up. The tired muscles in my thighs and back screamed at the movement, and I decided the first order of the evening would be to take some ibuprofen.

  I closed my fingers around the small white note and groaned as I straightened. Yes, definitely ibuprofen. Maybe a hot bath once I got home.

  Absently, I glanced at the note.

  There was a series of numbers and letters s
crawled across it in a familiar hand. Stilwell had the worst habit of leaving me annoying notes telling me that I’d forgotten to do this, or did I remember to check that, so I could recognize his writing from a mile away. Feeling petty, I started toward the trash, ready to throw it away, but then I stopped and studied the script on it.

  I hadn’t noticed it right away, but I could see it now, clear as day.

  It was a series of coordinates, like what we’d use to locate a place using a map or GPS.

  On the margin, in small, cramped writing there were a few more numbers, but they were too short to be coordinates. Dates, maybe?

  “What is this?” I muttered.

  “Talking to yourself, Alex?”

  Without giving it any serious thought, I folded my hand around the note before I turned to face Stilwell. He was giving me a smug look. One of these days, I was going to risk it and knock that smug look right off his face.

  “Well, there’s nobody better around here I could talk to,” I said easily, lowering my hand. Casually, I slid it into my pocket, hiding the note. “Did you want something?”

  He gave me a cool, assessing glare. “I thought Hawthorne told you not to come into work until he talked to you.”

  “I’m not at work. I’m checking the schedule. I’m supposed to work tomorrow, and I was going to see if Hawthorne wanted me to come in.”

  Stilwell gave me a dismissive look. “If you’d ever answer your phone, you’d know. He called and left a message for you at your house. Yes, you’re working tomorrow.” A faint smile appeared on his face. “Not with me, though. Some other poor sucker has to do with you.”

  “My heart breaks,” I said, voice deadpan.

  Something that might have been irritation flickered in his eyes. “Hope you don’t go and fuck things up like you did this time, Alex. You might not have a job to come back to, you know.”

  I resisted the urge to flip him off.

  It wouldn’t serve any purpose but to let him know he’d gotten to me.

  “I appreciate the concern,” I said with mock sweetness.

  The lines around his mouth tightened. He moved farther into the room, walking around, eyes scanning the tables and floors.