At All Cost: A Mountain Man Romance

by Katerina Winters

  Grabbing her by the curve of her hips, Jax lifted her up. Knowing what he expected, Alessia parted her legs. Lowering her easily down, Jax groaned at the soft feel of her ass sitting on his chest as he looked directly at her flowering folds just underneath his chin.

  “This is embarrassing,” Alessia whined, but Jax knew she was excited. The tightening of her dark nipples along with the shifting of her hips told him she was excited just as much as he was. “What if I smother you?”

  "Mmm, then I will die with my dick hard and my face deep in your cunt, I call that a warrior's death," he grinned before giving her ass a hard smack. "Now, grab the headboard."

  Leaning forward, she did as she was told, bringing her directly over his face. Reaching over and around her thighs, Jax parted her lips. Leaning up, he let his tongue traced her from her opening to the top of her hooded clit. Her legs shook around his head but he continued. Licking every inch of her, he let his teeth drag across her swollen little clit. Alessia let out a loud moan as her hips bucked forward. Bringing one hand down and leaving one at her waist, Jax urged her to ride his face as he slipped two fingers in her tight entrance.

  "Oh God," she breathed. Looking up, he nearly came as he watched her toss her head back as she found the rhythm against him.

  Hooking his fingers inside of her, he increased their pressure as he suckled the swollen clit between his teeth, batting it with his tongue. When she finally did go tense and cried out, nearly falling limp from on top of him, Jax knew then that they were going to need at least two more hours in bed.

  ~*~

  “I hope Hersh won’t be too upset I’m late,” Alessia chided Jax from the passenger seat. He could feel her glare on the side of his face.

  "I have no regrets," he threw her a smug smirk over his shoulder as he turned the truck across the intersection towards the library. Shifting the truck's gear and parked, he leaned heavily on the steering wheel on his folded arms. "And I can say for certain neither did you."

  Her smile that was once so pure and innocent grew to a coy teasing smile within the past week. Teasing and provoking him each time they made love until now, her smile had an absolutely devastating power over him.

  Leaning across the middle seat, she lowered her lashes, looking up at him with hooded eyes. "But can you really, though?"

  Shaking his head, Jax looked away with an even wider grin. “You’re playing with fire, but that’s fine.” Unbuckling his seatbelt, he stepped out of the car along with her. “Just know that I accept your challenge.”

  She was going to say something when the doors to the library opened and Mr. Hershenhorn stepped out and waved at them while cradling his dog Tina in his arms.

  “See? Look at that, the old bastard doesn’t mind at all that you’re late,” he murmured under his breath as he gave a nod back at the old man while Alessia waved next to him. “Though I want you to promise to kill me if I get that lonely and crazy, okay?”

  Nudging him hard in the ribs with her elbow, Alessia shot him a warning look over her frozen overly-friendly smile to Hershenhorn.

  Seeing that she was inside, he silently signaled to her he would be back. While she was talking to Hershenhorn about the possibility of her writer's retreat idea, Jax needed to stop by the post office and the gas station. Leaving his truck parked in front of the library, he walked to Edmond's gas station first.

  Pocketing the new box of condoms, Jax stepped through the jingle of bells and back out onto the street. Mental note, never buy condoms in the small town ever again. Edmund’s shock went beyond ridiculous, it was insulting. Jax was really going to have to sit down and reevaluate his public image in this damn town.

  The post office in Gaulding was next to the grocery store and caddy-corner to the bar. Walking down the icy sidewalks, Jax kept the collar to his coat pulled up high around his mouth to block the whipping winds. Glancing towards the bar, he was not too surprised to see Steve standing outside smoking and talking to another local he recognized. Although it wasn’t Steve that really captured his attention. It was the man that resembled Steve wearing an embroidered studded leather jacket standing outside the bar.

  A thousand-plus thoughts went through Jax's head at once. Calmly, he kept walking, keeping a furtive eye on the man glaring up and down the street. Out of a thousand, three viable scenarios played out in his mind. Scrapping two of them after a few more seconds, Jax made his decision and changed course.

  "Hey there, Jax," Steve called out with a lazy smile and slightly glassy eyes. The other local, Jax recognized from the pharmacy, went back inside, leaving Steve on his own.

  Steve was a loose-lipped, gossiping drunk. His life consisted of financial highs and lows and spreading himself thin between four divorces. Jax knew he could count on Steve.

  “Hey,” he replied back, focusing on the other man in his peripheral hovering around an old Lincoln parked in front of the bar.

  Keeping his head up above the rim of his jacket, Jax endured the biting wind as the stranger got a good look at his face.

  “How’s your girl, Alice… no, Alyssa, that’s it,” Steve took a long drag from his cigarette as he looked up at Jax with squinted eyes as he inhaled.

  “Alessia,” Jax corrected, speaking just loud enough for Steve’s and the stranger to hear. “She’s perfect.”

  Laughing, Steve leaned back with both hands in his pockets for a moment before reluctantly pulling one back out into the cold to hold his cigarette. “Man, oh man, I tell ya’ how did a guy like you find a girl like that?”

  What in the fuck? A guy like him? Seriously, when he wrapped this up, Jax really was going to have to do some serious damage control around here.

  “How about you buy me a beer one day and I may just tell you all about it.” Jax could feel the weight of the stranger’s stare.

  "Well, hell, man," opening the door to the bar with one hand, Steve threw down his finished cigarette onto the snowy sidewalk. "Come on in."

  Hearing the shouts from inside the bar to shut the door, Jax chuckled and shook his head. “Not today, I’m about to pick her up and go back home, but hey, how about tomorrow around this time.”

  Nodding, Steve gave him an eager smile, excited for the prospect of some rare gossip from the Moby Dick of townspeople. Waving, Jax walked away back towards the library. He could hear the Lincoln’s door open and close swiftly just before the engine started.

  *

  "So, then I told him we should just start small with one-weekend retreat, but really go all out because what does it hurt to try?" Alessia chatted excitedly next to him about the meeting with Hershenhorn.

  Glancing up to the rearview, Jax confirmed the Lincoln’s far-off position following him. Satisfaction coiled in Jax’s stomach as his plan fell into place.

  That night instead of taking his shower after Alessia's, he made her some tea, all the while keeping his eyes on the darkness out the cabin's windows. Thankfully the asshole wasn't dumb enough to drive down Jax's private drive; none of his motion sensors had been activated. But the man did know he lived down here, Jax had seen the man's car slow down as he passed the turn in.

  Not questioning his sudden offering of tea, Alessia accepted the laced liquid with a beautiful smile. Within the hour, she was fast asleep. Carrying her to bed, Jax passed on the shower and reclined back on the couch with his shotgun next to him. Although he was pretty positive just what kind of man he was dealing with, Jax wasn't going to take any chances. Showering meant five to ten minutes of vulnerability for him and Alessia. He wouldn't risk it. Tonight, he would sleep light, like he had been trained to do and tomorrow he would finally take out some long-overdue trash.

  ~*~

  “Are you sure you don’t want to just come with me?” Alessia gave him a worried look from the driver’s seat of his truck.

  “I’m positive, my love. You are beginning your empire and I,” he pointed to the house, “have chores to do.”

  “Okay,” she conceded forlornly. “But why do I
have to take your coat? You’re going to get cold.”

  "I won't, and I have another one," stepping up to her, he zipped up the coat until the collar was practically covering everything but her eyes. "Besides, if I'm not there, I want you wearing my coat. So the people of Gaulding will know I might not physically be there, but you are still mine."

  "Well, I hope the spirit of your jacket isn't too strong," she shot him a smirk over the collar. “Or people will think I’m you and run away from me.”

  Though it was partially what he wanted, it annoyed him to know yet again his image in town was akin to the yeti.

  “Don’t forget Whiskers,” he smirked, holding up the small carrying case. The kitten mewed at both of them as Alessia took the crate.

  “Mr. Hershenhorn really wanted to meet him when I told him the story of how I found him,” pausing, she looked at him with a frightened look. “God, don’t let me get old and desperate for company.”

  Jax laughed, shaking his head. “Jesus, I know.”

  Kissing her goodbye and instructing her to drive slowly, he watched her disappear in his truck down the drive. Noting the time on his watch, Jax went inside—and waited.

  Twenty-three minutes later, the sound of gravel and crunching snow echoed down the driveway as the vehicle slowly pulled down. Opening the door carefully to his car a thin wiry man dressed in faded, dirty jeans and a leather jacket stepped out. Leaving his car door wide open as if anticipating his visit to be quick—or expecting the ease of an open door to shove someone inside, the man walked quietly up the porch.

  The front door was unlocked and the bathroom door was cracked with the radio on inside. Slowly, the man crept along the wooden floorboards in his ridiculous worn black studded boots towards the bathroom.

  Making no sound, Jax stepped from behind the front door where he had been standing and easily crept up behind the man. Pulling back the butt of his shotgun, Jax hit the man hard in the back of his head, sending the man to the ground in a crumple.

  *

  Opening his eyes, Gary blinked a few times with a painful moan. The right side of his face felt like it was on fire. As he slowly started to wake up, he felt more and more pain coming from different places. With his arms stretched painfully over his head, Gary looked up to see them bound together with the zip-ties with a long metal hook between them. Tiredly, he tried to open his mouth to yell. The tight unmistakable feeling of tape covering his mouth finally activated his panic. Twisting and turning, Gary spun freely on the hook connected to the ceiling rafters as the toes of his boots barely drug across the floor.

  “Good, you’re awake,” the sudden voice to his right jolted him as he turned awkwardly on the hook to see who it was.

  It was the man on the TV. The man that kissed Alessia on the news. He had found that guy in town yesterday just by luck. Gary had heard the man bragging about her as Gary made a show of searching for his keys in his pocket. Why was he here? He watched the man leave just a few moments ago, to go meet up with that guy at the bar.

  “I don’t have too much time,” the man said. Though Gary was hanging on his tiptoes, he still had to look up to see the bastard as he checked his watch. “So, let’s get this moving, shall we?”

  Pulling out a long black steel knife, the man gave him an empty bored look, Gary felt his stomach go cold and his bowels shift suddenly. Shaking his head, Gary began to yell through the tape on his mouth. It wasn't what he thought, he tried to yell, he just wanted to see that little bitch and make her tell him where his car was.

  The black-eyed man simply gave him an annoyed frown at his frantic yelling. Shaking his head, the man tapped Gary’s cheek with a knife.

  “Hey, calm down and listen I just need answers and once I get them, I will pack all of this up,” he gestured to the hook and the plastic on the ground beneath him, a detail Gary just now noticed. “And then we will be done.”

  With no choice, Gary nodded.

  “First question, whose car is that?” The man jerked his thumb over his shoulder towards the direction of the car that was parked out front.

  Snatching the tape from his mouth, Gary yelled at the pain of his mustache being ripped.

  "Look, man, just let me…" Searing pain shot through him as a knife cut across his thigh. Gary screamed.

  "That's a warning," the man's face was frighteningly blank, almost uninterested as he looked at him with bored eyes. "Come on Gary, just tell me what I want to know, and we will be done as I said."

  Somehow knowing this man knew his name scared him even more. “It belongs to this old man three rows down from my trailer,” Gary yelled.

  Nodding, the man exhaled tiredly and tilted his head to the side. His black eyes felt as if they were boring into his soul. “Any of your motorcycle cronies know you’re here?”

  Like hell, Gary couldn’t tell them his old lady’s cunt of a daughter stole his shit. But he wasn’t going to tell this psycho that. Lifting his head, Gary gave him his best “fuck you” face. “Yeah, some do.”

  A slow grin spread across the bastard’s face. The man knew he was lying. Just as Gary started to yell, the man put the tape back over his mouth.

  “Okie dokie then,” his creepy grin was still large as he reached for Gary’s hands on the hook. “We’re done here, time to wrap it up.”

  For the briefest second, as Gary felt his full weight shift back to his feet, he felt a moment of relief. It really was over.

  The sudden burning hot, tearing feeling of pain slicing through his body did the job of dispelling that tiny flare of hope.

  Looking down at his stomach, Gary recognized his gold hunting knife from his toolshed protruding through his stomach. Feeling himself fall with no way to stop it, Gary landed hard against the plastic on the wood floor.

  Opening his eyes, Gary looked up to the sky and realized he must’ve passed out for a moment.

  "What was it, huh? Was it the blog, the kiss on the news, or that stupid car she ditched?" The sky passed by over his head as Gary felt himself being drug on a makeshift plastic sled across the snow. Above him, the man chatted casually to him, not expecting a reply. "You know for a while she really thought you would come after her. I swear, I had the devil of a time convincing her you weren't dumb enough to do that. And now look what you did," the man paused, and Gary could faintly hear noises of things being moved around. "Do you know what my life would be like if she ever found out, she was right?!" The dragging continued and Gary let out a long moan when he felt the blade in his gut shift and more of his blood gushing out around him only to pool at his back on the plastic sled. "Well fuck you very much Gary, because hell no am I going to endure that I-told-you-so song and dance. I am far too prideful for that."

  Finally, the moving stopped. Coming to stand next to him, the psychotic bastard stared at him as if he was regarding a piece of gum on his shoe.

  “Tell me, Gary, besides sticking your disgusting fingers in her sweet cunt,” Gary’s eyes went wide and he stilled in fear. The man just scoffed. “Oh yeah, don’t worry about that, I know already. I just want to know if you did anything else?" Shaking his head, Gary tried to scream that he didn't. Twisting his lips in a dubious frown, the man's black eyes somehow went colder. "For some reason, I don't believe you. Well, that's okay," looking up, the man stared at the sunny sky with the smile. "Me and Alessia will get through it regardless. Fuck, I wish I had more time with you, though." Looking back down at him, Gary felt his bowels shift again at the sight of the man's sudden cold fury in his black eyes. "I just can't take that chance, you understand don't you Gary, the rapist?"

  Tears streamed down Gary's face as he watched the man bend and pick up something. When he did see the item, Gary's bowels involuntarily released themselves in his pants.

  Holding up a sledgehammer, the man grinned maniacally. "Now, let's get rid of those teeth, shall we?"

  ~*~

  The front door opened just as Jax was stepping out of the bathroom with a towel around his neck. Coming thr
ough the door, Alessia had the cat carrier in one hand and a cardboard box under the other arm. Already talking to him without looking up, she managed to close the door with her foot.

  "I'm sorry I am so late," she said, turning and placing the box on the counter. "I was…"

  Looking up to him, her words died on her tongue as she gave him a wide-eyed goofy smile. Satisfaction coiled through him as her eyes drank in every inch of his bare chest. Jax would never get enough of her stunned reaction to his body. He always took sheer discipline not to let his ego inflate when she ran her hands across his muscles with obvious delight.

  Stepping over to her, Jax leaned down and placed a kiss on her lips, enjoying how she leaned in closer. Taking the cat carrier from her hand, he unzipped the opening and picked up the warm ball of heat.

  “You actually got home at the perfect time; I was just finishing up some things.”