I chuckle. “Yep… here you are.”
She’s silent. The hell is going on here?
I try something else. “I’m Holt?” I tell her.
“Is that a question or—”
Her irritated expression and her confusing presence on my doorstep are really throwing me off my game. “I’m Holt,” I try again. “Why are you at my house?”
She gestures at herself. “Why do you think? My father said I had to come here to marry you. Did you literally order a wife and then forget? Like impulse ordering something off Amazon?” She’s shaking her head, and her red curls are whooshing around. “Are you going to invite me in or do I have a kennel outside?”
“Jeez,” I manage.
No wonder she’s so damn furious.
She thinks I… ordered her? Like, online? And then suddenly it dawns on me. This is what the guy down by the trail was saying — that he could get me a wife.
The dude sent me his own daughter? That’s messed up.
“I mean, come in, let’s figure this…” I trail off when a crowd of men wearing suits step out from behind her carrying bags and push past me, inside my house, to set them down. “Okay. This is actually happening.”
They’re in my cabin now. Moving my stuff around. One of the men knocks a painting off the wall with his broad shoulders. Another scuffs my hardwood floor dragging a suitcase around.
“Good luck, princess,” one of them says, and I see a smile on his face that rubs me the wrong way. “We gotta leave her in your hands.” This is addressed to me, and I just stare at the guy blankly. I still haven’t quite settled on what the fuck is going on here.
“No,” the beautiful woman is saying, following them out the door. “No, you can’t just leave me here with a stranger. I’m—”
“Sorry,” the man says, raising his hands. “You know we can’t go against orders. We have to get back.” They shuffle out, leaving trails of destruction behind them. The doors close, and suddenly the cabin is silent.
Filled with bags, and a fuming, cross-armed woman, but silent. I have no idea what to say for a moment, but when I finally decide to speak, she gets there first.
“I want to know what kind of a man actually buys a woman,” she snaps. “I’m not afraid of you,” she adds. “Just answer me. What kind of a man are you?”
I’m a little stunned by the accusation, but really, how can I blame her for coming to that conclusion? “What’s your name?”
“Hattie.”
“Hattie,” I repeat. It’s a cute name… for a cute woman. But that’s not what I should be thinking about right now. “I didn’t.”
“Didn’t what?”
I shrug. “I didn’t buy you. Didn’t even ask for you. Your father offered me a wife. I thought he was joking. I definitely didn’t think he meant his own daughter.”
She shakes her head, red hair bouncing. “Liar. He’s an asshole but he wouldn’t send me to just anyone. What did you give him in return?”
“Nothing,” I say. “I just happened to be there when he fell and I—”
“I don’t buy it. None of this.”
“I don’t get why your father would just send you off to a stranger,” I say. “It doesn’t sound like something a father would do.”
She scoffs. “I agree with you there. Dad doesn’t care about me. He probably never did. I don’t think he really has the capacity to care about anything other than money and power.”
“Just let me get this straight for a second, okay? Because this happened so fast.” I take in a breath, blow it out, and Hattie eyes me carefully. “I saved your father’s life out on the trail, and in return he sent me his daughter. Is that it so far?”
“I don’t know,” she shoots back. “Is it?” Then her shoulders droop and she looks around. Probably at my modest cabin. At my flannel shirt. At my absolutely bemused face. “It is, isn’t it?”
“What a guy,” I say sarcastically. Despite herself, she laughs.
“He’s a user. He uses people. I guess he’s been trying to think of a use for me for a while, and now he finally has it.” She raises her arms, then lets them fall and slap her sides. For a moment, I can’t tear my eyes away from her perfect, petite figure. “I’m a thank you gift.”
“Hattie, obviously this isn’t what I wanted. You can take off whenever you’re ready.” I lick my lips, secretly hoping she might want to stay and have a drink, or some dinner, but this situation is so crazy I wouldn’t blame her if she ran for the hills.
She looks me up and down — and am I imagining it, or is there something there in her eyes too? I can’t stop staring at her, wishing she could stick around for a while. Nobody so fascinating, so fiery, so goddamn sexy has ever pounded on my door before. I want to know everything about her, from where she grew up all the way to how her lips taste.
Jimbo has finally come over to inspect her, having forgiven her and the group of strange men for making him bark so much. Hattie cracks a big smile and scratches his face, and finally my old lab’s tail starts to beat on the wood wall.
“What’s his name?” she asks.
“That’s Jimbo,” I say. “He’s seen better days, but you couldn’t ask for a better dog.”
She squats, and throws her arms around his neck, letting out a sigh. “I love dogs,” she mumbles, and then gets up again, looking a little embarrassed. It makes me warm to her all the more. “Was never allowed a pet, growing up.”
I stare at her for a while, wondering what the hell had to happen to ensure this woman walked into my life like this. A lot had to happen exactly right. And that sounds like fate to me.
“You’ve had a pretty weird day, huh?” I ask. She laughs. “You want a drink?”
A pause. It’s warmer than the silences before. I can sense that, naturally, she’s a very warm person. I’m seeing her on her worst day, and I’m still drawn to her like crazy. That’s got to mean something. Her lips twitch.
“Yes, Holt. I want a damn drink.”
Four
Hattie
Honestly, I don’t know what’s worse — my father shipping me off to a stranger without so much as a warning, or the fact that I find said stranger achingly attractive.
Holt is the kind of man you forget actually exists when you live in a penthouse in LA. He’s the salt of the earth. Calm, strong, at ease in himself. He isn’t pacing around yelling into a Bluetooth headset like the men I’ve grown used to being around. He’s either actually a pretty good guy, or he’s one of the best liars I’ve ever met.
I can’t just dismiss the fact that he might be seriously dangerous. But… first, I’ll let this play out. I’m exhausted, it’s been an awful day, and maybe it’d be nice for a guy to wait on me a little.
Then I’ll see if he’s telling the truth about whether or not I can up and leave.
“You hungry?”
I look around at the kitchen, decorated with rustic wood and polished granite countertops. There are actual wood beams. Rafters. Whatever.
This is such a far cry from anything I’m used to, I’m already feeling like a fish out of water. My eyes are welling up, and I sit on one of his bar stools in the cute little breakfast nook and bury my face in my hands.
If I had seen this house under different circumstances, I’m sure I’d kind of love the aesthetic. But now, it’s just the place I’ve been sent away to. It might be the place I’m trapped. Sure, there’s a different view from these windows, and a different color scheme, but I might be in exactly the same situation I’ve always been in.
I feel, to my surprise, the gentle weight of a hand on my shoulder. When I look up, Holt looks down at me with a sad, almost guilty expression on his face. “Sorry,” I sniffle.
“This whole thing is making me feel like shit,” he said. “If I’d known, I would have…” He trails off, and I shake my head.
“It’s fine. My dad would have found some way to hand me off to someone eventually, regardless.”
“This must really suck
. I’m sorry,” Holt says, and it really seems like he means it. He opens up his arms, and I eye him with half suspicion, half temptation. Then I get to my feet and step closer, allowing myself to be enfolded by his big arms. He smells delicious. Like cedar and soap. And whatever he has cooking on the stove also smells fantastic.
For a second, everything else falls away. It’s just me in the arms of a big, strong man. I let him hold me. I feel his nose lightly brush the top of my head, and for some reason, my entire body reacts.
I’ve never had a man hold me like this. For the first time, I realize, I feel protected. I feel like he might actually be looking out for me. Like he might be on my side.
I break away briefly and look up into his eyes, wishing mine weren’t swimming with tears. “What is it you want with me?” I ask him.
He sets his jaw, and I see something behind his eyes that I don’t think I can identify. Then he breaks his gaze. “I’m going to call your dad,” he says after a moment, stepping back toward the food bubbling on the stove. “He can send that jet back here. Pick you up. In the meantime, we can just sit and eat something. How’s that sound?”
I’m surprised by my own visceral reaction to what he’s saying. My stomach flips upside down in horror at the thought of returning home.
At least here, it’s just us. There’s no legion of men obeying my father’s every command. In fact, my father is actually nowhere nearby. He has no control over me.
Nobody, right now, has any control over me.
If I go back, who’s to say what he’ll do to me, where he’ll send me next? He’s giving me away to strange men on a whim, and if Holt isn’t as bad as my dad is, didn’t I kind of just get… lucky?
Could this strange turn of events be what I’ve been hoping for all along, in disguise?
Five
Holt
Hattie’s demeanor shifts as soon as I say that. Now she’s looking away, thoughtful, and then smiling up at me. There’s a spark in her eyes that I haven’t seen before, and it’s like she has suddenly come to life. Before this, I was very definitely witnessing one of the worst days of her life, and she still has fire in her. She’s still drawing me in more than anyone ever has before.
“What is it?” I have to ask. What happened to snap her out of her bad mood? Was it something I said or did, or was it a thought she had?
“I just realized something is all,” she says, and wipes her eyes, shaking her head with a small smile. “I can do whatever I want. For once, my father isn’t here to control me. And, if you’re at all telling the truth, none of his cronies are here to control me, either. For the first time in my life, I might be able to have one night off from this. From being the daughter of a mob boss.”
A mob boss. The thought raises my eyebrows, but of course that’s what’s going on here. I accidentally had a run-in with an incredibly powerful and dangerous man, and I didn’t have any idea what I was getting myself into.
“Tomorrow I can call him and get out of your hair,” she continues. “But tonight, maybe… maybe I can just do what I want for a change.”
“Yeah?” I feel that same tug toward her that I’ve felt since she was at my doorstep, but now I listen to it, and step closer to her.
She reaches out for me when I’m close enough and I grab her outstretched hand, unable to stop myself. I wonder if she can feel my heart pounding through my wrist, or if she can tell how fucking hard she’s making me just by looking at me like that.
“I know what I want,” she says, and it’s like she’s undergone a complete transformation from the woman in my kitchen just minutes ago. “I want you, Holt.”
I swallow, trying to stifle the urge to pick her up, swipe everything off the countertops, and pound her just like she needs. “Are you sure?” I want to ask if she knows what she’s saying, what she’s doing to me.
“I’m sure.” She pauses, biting her lip, but her eyes never leave mine. “I’ve been locked away, figuratively but also kind of literally, for so long. I knew I’d know it when I saw it, and you’re it. I want you — tonight. What do you think?”
“You’re really saying what I think you’re saying?” I ask her. It seems too good to be true.
She nods slowly, and then blushes. “Have you ever just been certain about something?”
There’s no reason I shouldn’t be honest with her right now. “Yes, I have. I’m certain that I want to know if you’re serious.”
She laughs, seeing the look on my face. “You want me to spell it out, Holt?”
“Yes…”
“I’m a virgin. On top of being given little to no freedom all my life, I’ve been waiting for a man like you. And now that I’ve found him, I don’t see the need to wait around. I’m the kind of girl who knows what she wants and asks for it. The one thing I have in common with my dad, maybe.”
“Wow,” I say. My cock is aching, straining against my jeans. This perfect, sweet young woman has been waiting for me all her life. And I wonder if I’ve been waiting for her, too. “I don’t sleep around either, Hattie. I’m serious about this stuff. When I’m with a woman, I go all in.”
She seems to like that, gripping my arms tight and grinning up at me. “Is that some kind of threat?” she asks.
“No. It’s the truth. When I fall, I fall hard. When I love, I love deep. Don’t ask me for something if you don’t want to see it the whole way through because that’s not my style. It’s not a threat, but it is a warning.”
I wrap my arms around her, and her form just about melts into mine. I am in disbelief over the fact that a woman who fits me like a missing puzzle piece just turned up today on my doorstep, but I’m not about to turn any of this away. Not if I have the chance for something real here.
“Are you prepared for that?” I ask.
She stares up at me, as if she has no idea what exactly to say, and I get it. This is a big decision for her. Just yesterday she was probably holed up somewhere with a bunch of mafia dudes ordered to keep an eye on her. And every single day before that. She still hasn’t answered me, but I continue.
“You might just be the sexiest woman I’ve ever laid eyes on,” I say, and she blushes harder. For all her powerful words and blunt speech, she is still inexperienced with the world — with men like me. Men who don’t lie or cheat to get their way. Men who know exactly what they want. “And I’m sorry that you’ve been treated like shit by everyone who should have looked out for you until now.”
“I’m just so tired of being treated like I don’t have wants, or needs, or opinions. Like I’m not a person but a commodity to be traded back and forth. I think in the back of my mind I always knew something like this would happen, but it still sucks to know how I’ve been seen for my entire life, you know? I just want someone to see me as…”
“A person,” I finish for her when she searches for the word. “I understand.”
“That, yes, but more than that. As a woman. I’ve been waiting for someone to ask me how I want to live, and I know I can’t wait around for that any longer. I have to finally stand up and take it.”
“Life isn’t like that here. Not in Thickwood, and definitely not in my cabin. Here, Hattie, everyone has a voice. Here, you can speak up whenever you want about whatever you want.”
“In that case,” she says, her voice breathy in a way that makes me want to forget about everything in the world but her, “I want you to make love to me. Right now.”
I wrap her small, sexy body in my arms and press my lips to hers, unable to wait a second longer. A perfect woman walked into my life and asked me for everything I wanted to give. How can I possibly say no?
Six
Hattie
His tongue is in my mouth, demanding and tasting just how I imagined he would. I want to taste more. I want to feel more.
Holt, even in this short time, has been everything I’ve ever wanted in a man. I’ve never been more sure about anything or anyone in my life. Just the fact that he told me I have a voice, that he ask
ed what I truly wanted, that he was willing to work to get it for me… that’s more than anyone has ever been willing to do for me before.
I know what I want, even if I’ve never been able to fight for it. And what I want is him. What I want, more than anything, is this. Here and now.
Forget anything that might happen tomorrow. I want a memory that’s mine. My choice. No one else’s.
“You are unbelievably sexy,” he mumbles against my neck, and then kisses down to my collarbone. Holt is so much taller than me that he has to stoop down. “I wanted you since the second I saw you.”
His words make me tingle. Make me feel wanted. And I’m glad to know it wasn’t just me. Maybe my father is some kind of a genius matchmaker after all and doesn’t even know it.
“Take me, then,” I say with a laugh. He grins and picks me up like I weigh nothing. He carries me up the stairs and kicks open the door to his bedroom. It’s neatly kept and minimalist, with a big bed and a soft-looking bedspread.
When he throws me onto it, I gently bounce, and he climbs on top of me, kissing my cheeks, ears, neck, and yanking on my shirt to kiss any more flesh he can find. My whole body is buzzing, alive, and all I can think about is when he’ll rip my clothes off and finish what we’ve started already. Claim me as his.
Holt lets out a growl from deep in his throat as he unbuttons my jeans, tugs them off, leaving me exposed in just a pair of panties. In just a couple of seconds, I experience a range of emotions — regret that I didn’t wear something more expensive, and then relief that I didn’t wear anything more expensive as he tears my panties away.
Now he’s taking me in, an expression on his face like he’s looking at the most amazing thing he’s ever seen. I squirm, wondering if I should feel vulnerable, but secretly I just feel exhilarated. Thrilled. Something is finally going my way, on my terms, and it feels even more incredible than I dreamed.
Promised to the Mountain Man: Thickwood, CO Page 2
