Page 5 of Don’t Make Me Fall (Mountain Men of Cinnamon Creek #1)

Chapter Five

Alanna

My brother was right. Cinnamon Creek is a beautiful place.

I can’t stop taking pictures along the trail.

Autumn colors paint the sides of the mountains in yellows, oranges, and reds.

The shades pop against the dark green evergreens and wisps of woven white clouds.

The river below reflects the partly cloudy sky.

This place is like the setting for a Hallmark movie.

I steal a glance at Hudson.

A spicy Hallmark movie perhaps?

A wave of warmth rushes through me as I hide a smile behind my phone and focus on just how damn peaceful it is out here. So the man is hot enough to melt panties on the spot. Big deal.

“You about done?” Hudson calls back to me.

Well, peaceful except for the unfairly sexy man who’s apparently annoyed with my constant stopping to capture the view.

“Just one more picture,” I insist, snapping three before I hurry up the steep trail after him.

“Your battery isn’t dead yet?”

“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”

“Doesn’t matter what I’d like,” he says, turning his back to me so I can’t see his expression. But there’s something in his tone that hints at…more.

I’d be a fool to deny the electrical current that seems tethered between us.

If he wasn’t my brother’s best friend, I might entertain seducing him for a fun vacation fling.

Or maybe all I’d have to do is give in. Hudson definitely seems like a man who’d take charge in that department.

If he were just some stranger I’d never see again, I’d totally let him push me up against a tree and have his very dirty way with me.

Have I ever been fucked in the woods before?

“What now?” Hudson asks, stopping again and looking as annoyed as he sounds.

Heat warms my cheeks, and I turn away. “Thought I saw something.”

“Mountain lions rarely come out in broad daylight if that’s what you’re worried about.”

“Probably just a squirrel then.”

We hike up the rest of the trail in companionable silence, and for once in my life, I don’t feel the need to fill it. It’s oddly refreshing.

Around Tyler, silence makes me jittery. Probably why that man knows my entire life story without ever having asked.

Pathetic, I know. But damn him for listening and pretending to care.

And for leading me to believe that we would eventually go to HR and declare our intentions to date.

Never mind that the man has only ever kissed me—once!

I’m so infuriated at the whole situation that I stumble forward right before the clearing. I let out a quick scream, catching my palm on the hardpacked dirt trail. My phone goes flying into a pile of dead leaves.

“You okay?”

“I’m fine.”

Hudson’s at my side instantly, his hand cupping my cheek.

He studies my face, as though searching for injury, gently turning it back and forth.

I dare to peer into those chocolate brown eyes as he does, mesmerized by the gold flecks dancing near his irises.

Yeah, I’d totally let him fuck me against the side of the tree, if only he’d let me stare into those gorgeous eyes while he plunged into me.

“Alanna?”

“Hmm?”

“You done undressing me with your eyes?”

I shove at his shoulder, using my aggravation to get me back on my feet and start searching for my lost phone.

“I wasn’t undressing you with my eyes.” But now I am. Dammit.

“Keep telling yourself that, sweetheart,” he chuckles, following behind me.

“Shut up.”

“Looking for this?” Hudson holds out my phone in offering.

I swipe for it, but he pulls my phone away just before I can grab it.

“What are we ten?”

“Definitely not ten,” he says, holding the phone above his head where I can’t reach it.

I grip his bicep, using it as leverage as I jump. But my fingers barely graze his wrist.

“You can have this back once the hike is over and we get back to the truck,” he says.

“No way I’m waiting that long.” I attempt a second jump, but I miss his arm entirely because the jerk moves it out of reach again.

“Why do you need it?”

“To capture the sunset, you dummy.”

“Are you afraid if you don’t take a picture and post it for all your friends to see that it’ll be like it never happened?”

I don’t justify his pompous question with a response.

Instead, I take a couple of steps back. His expression morphs into confusion two seconds before I lunge at him. I jump, wrapping myself around him like a spider monkey.

“What are you—”

“I’m climbing you.” The words come out rough and rugged as I shimmy up his body, reaching for the phone in his outstretched arm. Damn the man is all warmth and hard muscle. And why does he smell so fucking good? Like pine needles, campfire, and a hint of cinnamon.

“Alanna,” he says, his word a plea.

“Give. Me. My. Phone.”

He relents so quickly I nearly fall. But strong arms catch me before I go tumbling backward down the mountain, holding me tight against his chest. And then I feel what else is hard about him.

Wetness pools between my legs as I slide down his body.

I have the overwhelming urge to throw my arms around his neck and kiss him.

I fist his shirt as my feet hit solid ground, daring to peer into those dark chocolate eyes. There’s something primal in the way he’s looking at me. Like he’s a starving man, and I might be his last meal.

“Alanna.” He whispers my name, but this time it’s not a plea. It’s a petition for permission.

I nod.

And then his mouth is on mine.

The kiss is both sensual and savage. His hand slides up the back of my neck, pulling my ponytail holder free before he tangles his fingers in my loose hair.

I arch into him, touching him everywhere I can reach.

The feel of his beard against my palm has me wondering if it’d feel this soft and delicious between my thighs.

I let out a moan.

He tugs the bottom hem of my shirt free, and his calloused hand slides up from my hip. A few inches more, and he’s going to hit boob. I really want him to hit boob.

A rumbling in the distance causes us both pause, and the frantic kissing halts. We look around us, and then at each other.

“Thunder?” I guess. Which is a reasonable guess considering how dark the clouds are in the distance. But we haven’t noticed any lightning since the hike started, and the sun is still shining through the patchy clouds where we stand.

“No,” he answers, a flash of panic in his eyes as he untangles himself from me, removing that warm hand from the bare skin beneath my shirt. So close.

“Then what is it?”

“A rockslide.”

“That sounds…inconvenient.”

He peels me the rest of the way off of him, and I can’t help the stupid sting of rejection that follows.

I knew better than to throw myself at the man.

Even a weekend fling with my brother’s best friend would be a terrible idea, and probably a really shitty way to thank Reid for the last minute accommodations he offered the bridal party. Well, ex bridal party.

Hudson pulls out his phone and holds it up, as though searching for signal.

“Is this serious?” I ask as he squints his eyes, likely reading something on his phone. “Should we head back—”

“We can’t head back,” he says, dropping the hand clasped around his phone in what appears to be frustration. “The rockslide has blocked the road, and no one can clear it until tomorrow morning.”

“What does that mean?”

He pins me in place with a gaze so intense I shiver. “It means, sweetheart, that the two of us are stuck out here tonight.”