Billionaire Mountain Man

by Claire Adams

  I was about to go over to the house, but I stopped at the stairs seeing him on the porch. The tarp was pulled off of his wood pile, and he was stacking newly split logs. It had grown since I had last seen it a few days ago; had he gone out to harvest lately? Impressive. Winter was the hardest time to do it. I looked down on the ground where he had his chopping block. The maul was stuck in the wood and stood up against the side of the porch were two sizeable logs. He must have found a tree today; I had caught him right in the middle of chopping it up. I started up the steps instead of saying anything. He heard me and looked up. The shock passed over his face quickly, then disappeared, replaced by a smile.

  "Natalie," he said, putting the couple logs he had in his hands down and dusting his hands off on his pants. He was in just a sweater, and even had the sleeves rolled up. It was possible to work up a sweat, even in the snow.

  "Caught you in the middle of something," I said as he walked over.

  "You're here," he said, almost incredulously. "Did you even make it back down before turning around?"

  "I don't know; you didn't call to check on me." He shrugged, looking a little guilty.

  "You're back. I don't have to now."

  "Just because you're out here alone doesn't mean you're allowed to forget how to act like a normal human being," I said, mock-scolding him.

  "You're right, where are my manners," he said, walking over to the door and opening it for me. "Welcome back." I smiled and walked inside. This fucking place; it had gotten so familiar over just the past week, and here I was again. The wooden interior, the familiar sound of the fire, the smells that always seemed to linger of wood and coffee. I heard him behind me and turned. He was standing in the doorway, just standing there, looking at me.

  "What?"

  "Nothing," he said after a pause. He walked up and hugged me. My clothes didn't let me feel the heat coming from him through his light sweater, but it didn't matter. I sighed deeply, returning his embrace. "I'm glad you came." He let go of me and walked over to the fireplace.

  Yeah, so was I.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Cameron

  "You took that tree down alone?" Natalie asked.

  "Yup. Cut the sucker down and threw the logs in the back of my truck," I told her. She was at the sink drying the plates we were going to use to have dinner on. I had been gone all day and hadn't been able to get to the dishes, and I hadn't been expecting company. I was happy she was here though. Surprised, but still.

  "I don't think you did that. Not alone. I know you have neighbors further down the road. Did you get help?"

  "Nope."

  "You can tell me if you did. I won't judge. Harvesting wood is a usually a group effort anyway." She was saying it the way you'd encourage a child who you thought was lying to tell you the truth. Letting them know you wouldn't hate them for being untruthful. I checked the cook on our steaks and flipped each one over.

  "There's nothing to tell," I said.

  "You bought it then? Bought seasoned wood from town when you picked all this stuff up?" she asked, taking the pan that had the braising spinach in it off the heat. I had taken a chance and bought it fresh since I had known I'd be eating it immediately. Shopping that weekend, I might have gone overboard a little. That or I had just taken a lesson from the snowstorm the week before. Another one of those could happen at any moment, literally. It would take nothing for me to be stranded up here with nothing, to actually starve to death. I had been lucky this past week, but who said Natalie would be there every time the weather got dicey to make sure I didn’t die?

  All the fresh stuff was just to treat myself. I had stocked up on dry food, granola bars, dried fruit and plenty of cans. Nat had shown up just on time. I had bought the steaks the day before and hadn't frozen them. I was exhausted. With the day I’d had, I probably would have ended up just scoffing a granola bar and calling it a night, but I wasn't complaining that I got to see her again. Even if she did think I had shopped for my wood and not harvested it myself.

  "I told you, Natalie," I said, turning the fire under the meat off and letting the steaks sit in the pan. "I was out all day today. I did it myself." She still wasn't convinced. I told her what had happened; how on the drive back from the town the day before, I had actually met one of my neighbors. I had stopped my truck and talked to him for a while instead of following my first instinct, which had been driving past and pretending I hadn't seen him.

  After talking a while, I had ended up telling the guy why I had come, how long I was staying, that it was my first time. He had had some pretty good advice as far as firewood went and had even offered to help me harvesting today. I had told him that I hadn't needed it though, but he had given me some tips: how to spot dead standing trees and the safest way to take them down in the snow. It had taken all day, but I had gotten two trees down.

  "Some of the logs are still out there if you don't believe me," I told her. She had shown up as I had been breaking them down. They were up on the porch now away from the snow since it would have to be a two-day job.

  "I don't know whether I'm impressed or upset with you," she said, serving the food up on our two plates. "Do you know how hard it is to get out of the way of a falling tree in two feet of snow?"

  I had told her that I'd get the food ready, but she had jumped in to help. I didn't mind it. She was pretty good in the kitchen herself, and shit, she was here; I would have let her do a lot more than that if she asked.

  She hadn't been gone long enough for me to miss her, but I had. Judging by my relationships in the past, she hadn't been around long enough for me to feel the way I did about her, but I did anyway. Why would I complain about that? I liked having her around, and for whatever reason, she kept coming around.

  "Nothing bad happened this time," I said lightly.

  "Yeah, this time," she said. She took our plates and took them over to the sofa. "Almost everyone runs out of firewood at one time or another. Why do you hate being safe so much?"

  "What?" I asked, from the kitchen.

  "You had to have known that you could have just bought the wood, spared yourself the trouble and the danger," she said as I came up. She gave me my plate. She was right; I had known that I could have done that instead of spending the whole day getting my own. I hadn't been trying to save money or anything; it had been the principle. This was what I had signed up for. I had come out here at the worst possible time of year, and that meant dealing with the consequences. If I had wanted it easy, I would have just booked a suite at a hotel somewhere and drowned myself in bottle after bottle of alcohol.

  "Where's the fun in that?"

  "Is that why you're out here? To have fun?" she asked.

  "Why are you out here? Forget something?"

  "No," she said, sighing a little. "Remember what you told me that day at lunch?"

  I remembered. That had been the first real conversation we had ever had. I remembered everything I had assumed about her before we had actually talked. That she wouldn't get it, that she was just there to twist my arm about the company. I was glad I had been wrong about her because that time at lunch could have ended up being the last time that we ever spoke.

  "What about it?"

  "It was Saturday, a day after I had gotten back. I got dinner with a friend of mine. She's a hair stylist and was telling me about a wedding she had been at earlier that day," she said. I listened to the story, wishing it wasn't real but knowing good and damn well that thinking the best about people was just a good way to make sure you were disappointed. The groom was a serial cheater apparently and had proposed to the bride to get her back after the last time she had caught him. They had a prenup, and in there were all these conditions and guarantees for her in case he cheated again. No, not in case he cheated again, because he was going to cheat again; in case she caught him again.

  "I wish I could say I was surprised," I said when she was done.

  "Do you know people who cut deals like that?"

 
; "You'd be surprised at how many people do," I said. It all made sense. They weren't getting married for love, so the material assets at stake in the marriage were what mattered the most. When they finally split up because she found him cheating again, she would walk out with a nice big settlement, and he would dust himself off and find someone else to lie to.

  "It reminded me of what you said about so many people just not having a line or standards anymore. I can't imagine anyone thinking that a diamond ring is a good enough replacement for a supportive, honest partner."

  "He thought so, and so did she. Match made in heaven," I said, shrugging. "I've seen people like that, marriages like that. Some people don't marry for love, and that would be fine as long as there was still something there. I mean, even just mutual respect, the lowest common denominator for interacting with other human beings."

  "I think I get it now, what you were trying to get away from," she said quietly. Yeah, it was one thing to know that it happened, it was another to see it so often that it felt like the only thing that happened. It made you paranoid, made you paint everyone with the same brush because you learned to expect the worst.

  It was tiring too. You could choose to mind your own business and direct your attention to the places it mattered, but it would find a way into your life somehow, like Natalie's friend just overhearing that story while she was at work. Not everyone had the option to retreat from public life, but I did, and after hearing that, I was glad that I had. It was childish to believe that the world was good and kind and everyone had a reason to be nice to you because it didn't. You just had to cope, and this was how I had chosen to.

  I asked her about her friend to change the subject. Her name was Kasey; I remembered her getting a couple phone calls from her while we had been here the week before. I wasn't really the kind to have a big group of friends around me, but neither was she. Besides Kasey, she only had a few more close friends that she spent her time with, and if she hadn't been cooking dinner and relaxing with me here, she would have been doing the same thing at her place.

  After dinner, I made us some coffee spiked with a little whiskey. I hadn't been that big a drinker in the past, but why not start now? Fuck it, right? I had picked up a bottle that weekend, and this counted as a special occasion. We hung out by the fire for longer than an hour, just talking. I asked about work, but she didn't really have anything to report since she had only been there today for a few hours.

  I had had my suspicions seeing her again; of course, I had. It was Monday, and she had missed an entire week of work already. The last time she had shown up, she had a reason: the storm. This time... did I even want to know, though? She was here; wasn't that enough? I liked having her here, so what did the reason matter anyway?

  "I'll take that," she said to me, holding her hand out to take my dirty dishes. The fire had begun to die down; it was around nine already. We had lost track of time.

  "Just toss them in the sink," I said to her.

  "No, I'll take care of them. I made half the mess anyway," she said, taking them into the kitchen. I went over to the fireplace and fed the flame some more logs to keep it going.

  I had missed this, having her around. It wasn't lost on me how domestic this whole scene was. What surprised me was how much I liked it. I had never lived with women I had dated in the past, but maybe I just hadn't found the one that I actually wanted to share my space with. Natalie and I weren't dating, but she and I had shared practically as much if not more than I had with women I had dated in the past anyway.

  I wanted to be with her when she wasn't. I thought about her when she was gone. She was here now, but she couldn't stay, and I hated that I'd have to watch her leave again. The space between here and her home felt like too far. I thought I liked being alone, but I liked being alone together. As long as she was here, it didn't matter that we weren't talking, and I didn't feel pressure to fill the silence when it happened.

  I had known that there was something between us watching her leave Friday. If I had to let her go again, I'd only be able to knowing it wouldn't be the last time that I saw her. I stood and walked over to her in the kitchen. Her sweater was off-white, her hair fell down over her shoulders. It was as silky as it looked. I touched her waist, wrapping her in my arms, burying my face in her hair. She smelled like vanilla. She froze feeling me behind her, turning the water off.

  She turned, looking up at me. I kissed her before she said it, started asking questions and talking herself out of what she wanted to do. She turned to putty in my arms. It didn't matter what she said; I knew what she wanted, and it was the same thing I did. Her hands were still wet from doing the dishes when I felt them on my stomach, under my sweater, fumbling to get my pants unlatched.

  As far as I was concerned, this was why she had come back. We weren't done with each other yet. A false start the week before didn't mean I wanted her any less, or anything had changed. I could have spent every night last week like this with her. Whatever had been holding her back then was gone now, and I was making it count.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Natalie

  His hand was in my hair, which he had gripped in his fist. We, well, he was on the couch. I was on the floor where his pants had ended up. I looked up at him, but he wasn't looking at me. His head was thrown back. His chest heaved, and the muscles in his legs felt tight under my hand. He groaned as I sucked one of his balls into my mouth, jerking him off with my hand. He shuddered, letting out a strangled breath.

  I turned my attention to the other one, and it happened again, another deep sexy sound from deep in his chest. This wasn't like the first night we had been together; for one thing, I could see him now. We were right in front of the fire. I could feel it behind me as I sucked Cameron off. He hadn't let me do this to him that night. We had been in more of a hurry, but now, I was in charge.

  His fist in my hair tightened, pulling it at the roots when I fed his length inch by inch into my throat. I looked up at him and caught his eyes, heavy-lidded and watching me.

  "That's right," he whispered. "Deeper." Any deeper, and I was scared I'd choke. His tool was as big as it felt. I used one of my hands to hold him at the root as I bobbed up and down. My hand didn't even get all the way around him. It didn't matter that he hadn't even done anything but kiss me yet; I was wet. Soaked. Aching so much it was almost all I could think about.

  He hissed as I swallowed and moved my attention to right at the head. He tugged my hair again.

  "Slow down," he said. His salty precum was already coating my tongue. He cursed as I sucked the head of his cock, teasing him. "Come here," he said, pulling me gently away from his cock so I was looking up at him.

  "You sure you don't want me to finish down here?" I asked, stroking him.

  "Don't worry, princess. We'll have plenty of time to fill that pretty mouth," he said, running his thumb over my lower lip. I felt a flood from my other lower lips, responding to his filthy words. It was clear by now that whatever had been there in the past was gone. I wasn't cowering from him, and he wasn't holding back. We were going for it. We were doing everything we could have been doing days ago, snowed in here together. I wasn't telling myself or him no again.

  I slowly rose and started stripping. He watched me, slowly running his hand up and down his shaft as I pulled my pants down my legs and stepped out of them. I did my panties next. His hazel gaze was sharp, watching my every move. I felt sexy, knowing how much he wanted me, having a good idea already what he was like when he got that way.

  I climbed onto the couch when I was naked and straddled him. We kissed, hungry and urgent as I tugged at the remainder of his clothes, wanting nothing between us this time. I touched him, running my fingers along the inked lines I hadn't seen before. His hands squeezed my ass as he ground our hips together. I reached a hand down and guided him to my lips. He thrust his way inside with a deep groan.

  "Yes," I sighed. He was perfect. My body was screaming for him. His hands on my hips controlled
my speed. He bit and sucked my nipples as we rocked together on the couch. I threaded my fingers through his light brown, wavy locks, lost myself in the electric connection between us. His hands kneaded my ass, leaving hot trails on my skin. This was reckless, but I didn't care. It was real, raw. I couldn't say what Cameron Porter did to me. All I knew was I wanted him, more than was safe and more than just this. When he fucked me, it was explosive, but the man he was was incredible.

  My emotions were reeling and my orgasm building at the same time. Above him where I was, he hit all those sensitive buttons just right. Gripping a fistful of Cameron's hair, I screamed, surrendering to it. His hands tightened around my waist holding me steady as it quaked through me. That was all the encouragement he needed to speed up his pace. He held my hips steady and thrust up into me from below, each push hitting me like a bullet. I braced my weight on the back of the couch.

  "I'm going to come," he said. "Where do you want it?"

  "Come inside me. Fill me up." His arm wrapped around me, and in a flash, I was on my back. He sunk into me, pounding me while his weight pinned me to the couch. A few powerful thrusts were all it took for him to explode. He swore, groaning as he pumped through his orgasm.

  He stopped me when I tried to get up.

  "Cameron, I need to go to the bathroom," I told him. He did too. We ended up in the shower, together after he offered to help me get cleaned off. Braced against the shower wall, he had fucked me again while the hot water rained down on us.

  "Come to bed," he said to me where he was between the sheets already. I was rifling through my bag, looking for my hairdryer.

  "I have to take care of my hair first," I said.

  "Don't,” he said, "I like it when you let it air dry." I looked over my shoulder at him.

  "What?"

  "It's wavy when you don't straighten it," he said.

  "It's messy."

  "I like messy," he insisted. I found my hairdryer finally and pulled it out of my bag.