Page 8 of Eco-Activist’s Mountain Men (Mountain Men Reverse Harem #4)

Eric

I t's a fine night, warm and clear, with hardly a breeze. No moon tonight, making the stars shine extra bright. Up here in the mountains, the sky at night can be breathtaking, given the right conditions—like we have tonight.

I love the stars. The Milky Way is a band of light, twining and twisting across the sky as if some clumsy sky god knocked over a glass of liquid light, its contents spilling in a sinewy stream over the velvety darkness of the night.

High in the eastern sky is the so-called Summer Triangle, formed by Vega, Altair, and Deneb.

Low to the south is the distinctive hook shape of the constellation Scorpius.

Venus isn’t visible right now, but I’m fairly sure I can make out Mars on the western horizon.

An occasional meteor scoots past, flaring up in the atmosphere like a match being struck, and immediately dying again, so fast you almost question whether you really saw it.

I’m so absorbed by the night sky that I don’t realize someone’s right behind me until they speak.

“Beautiful, isn’t it?”

“What?” I’m startled, confused for a moment, until I realize it’s that girl… the one who fell out of one of the walkways in yesterday’s storm, and had to be rescued by Luke.

I’d seen her at the kitchen table during dinner earlier.

She’d been quiet—subdued, even—and she looked like she was angry, maybe even like she’d been crying.

Poor girl. Must be hard, coming all the way out here and getting badly hurt like that, and with no friends around to help.

She must be brave… or maybe just unwise.

Some might even say “foolish,” but it’s not for me to judge. How can I? I don’t know all the facts.

I’d said Hello, of course, when we’d been introduced at the table, and I’d smiled at her once when our eyes happened to meet. She’d smiled back, but only politely. Anyone could see she didn’t want to be there. She’d excused herself as soon as we finished eating and hobbled off to her room.

But here she is now. Wrapped up in a gray toweling bathrobe that looks about ten sizes too big for her.

“Do you like the stars?” I ask.

“Oh yes,” she replies. “I’ve loved looking at the stars since I was a little girl. When I was a teenager, Mommy and Daddy and I used to go on skiing vacations each year. I loved the skiing too, but it was always the beautiful, star-filled night skies that I loved best. What about you?”

“Same,” I say. I’ve always loved stargazing.

My parents bought me a telescope when I was twelve—nothing expensive, just a cheap one.

They didn’t have much money. Then, when I was old enough to earn pocket money, I saved up and bought my first Newtonian reflector telescope—a Celestron with a twenty-four-inch optical length, and an attachment for your phone, so you could take photos and use GPS to track objects in the sky and position your telescope onto them. ”

“Wow, that sounds really cool.”

“It was. I got really into it, at one stage.”

“Sounds like you stopped. What happened?”

“Oh… nothing really. Just life. I went away to college, and my telescope stayed at home, gathering dust. I expect it’s still there.

Mom and Dad still live in the same house, and they insist on keeping my bedroom just the same for me, in case I ever want to come back, they say.

I’m twenty-seven, for crying out loud, but they still see me as their little boy. ”

I smile at her, not really sure why I’m telling her so much. Except… except maybe it’s the long pink hair, the petite frame, and just the femininity of her, after all this time out in the forest with this bunch of hard-living, rugged-featured mountain men.

I’ve always been drawn to women, always been a sucker for an attractive girl, truth be told. I’m shy, though. Terribly shy. I was an only child, so I never had that rough-and-tumble upbringing with siblings that might have toughened me up a little more.

“So, you know all their names, then?”

“What?” Her question startles me out of my reverie.

“The stars, I mean.”

“Oh… oh, the stars, yes. I mean, no, not all of them. Loads of them don’t even have names, just a number and a reference to the constellation they’re in. Like 61 Cygni, or 80 Ursae Majoris, for example. That one refers to the star Alcor, which actually does have a name. But many don’t.”

“Oh, I see. You must be very clever.”

I feel myself flushing. “Well, no, I?—”

“What’s that star?” she interrupts me, pointing up into the night sky.

“Which one?”

“That one. The red one, down low over there.” She leans in toward me to help me see where she’s pointing. As she does, I catch the scent of her hair, and her breath tickles in my ear. I feel my cock swelling, straining against my pants. Oh God. This isn’t good…

“That one? Er… that’s Antares. It’s the brightest star in the constellation Scorpius,” I manage to stumble out, shifting my stance to try to get comfortable.

“That’s so amazing that you know its name. Can we sit?” She indicates a makeshift bench a few feet away.

“Yes, sure.”

We make our way over, her leaning against me with her bad foot off the ground, using me as a prop as she hops to the bench. It’s nothing fancy—just two planks nailed to a pair of logs—but she sits with a gasp of relief.

“Oh God, that feels better. Here…” she pats the spot next to her. “Come and sit down.”

I squeeze myself onto the bench beside her, very aware of the warmth and softness of her thigh pressing against mine on this only-just-wide-enough-for-two seat.

“So…” she says with a smile. “What’s a nice guy like you doing in a place like this?”

I laugh nervously. "Long story. I guess I just… needed to get away. From college. From expectations. From myself, maybe."

She turns her face toward me, and even in the starlight, I can see the glint in her eyes. "From yourself?"

I nod, eyes fixed ahead. "Yeah. I’m writing a thesis for my doctorate: Sustainability and Biodiversity Best Practices in Northwestern American Mixed Forests.

A bit of a mouthful, I know. I got bored, to be honest. Tired of campus life.

I wasn’t exactly thriving. Thought maybe a bit of manual labor, a bit of solitude, would do me good, so I applied to come out here as a volunteer. Counting and tagging trees."

There’s a pause. Not awkward. Just quiet. Peaceful. Then, I feel her hand on my thigh.

I glance down. Small fingers, resting lightly, almost absently—except nothing about the way my heart slams into my ribs feels accidental.

"I’m glad you’re here," she says softly. "You’re the only one who doesn’t see me as the enemy."

"I never thought that," I whisper.

She turns fully now, facing me. "You’re gentle. Thoughtful. That’s rare, you know." Her hand moves slightly, fingertips brushing the fabric of my pants, and I feel my entire body tense—not in fear, but in white-hot awareness.

"You remind me so much of someone," she whispers, her eyes gazing into mine, unblinking for a moment, until she looks away. "Someone I used to know."

"Good or bad?" I ask, half jesting, wanting to lighten the mood.

"What?" For a moment, she doesn't understand. In fact, I'm not sure if she even heard me; she seems wrapped up in previous times and distant memories. "Oh… good. He was my boyfriend."

"Oh, I see." I brighten at hearing this news. I would never have put myself or someone else like me down as potential boyfriend material for Luna, surely she'd be well out of my league?"

"Yes. For a time. He was an academic, like you. A bit of a genius. His thing was math."

I nod to show I'm listening, but I don’t want to interrupt her flow.

"He got given a scholarship to Harvard. He was only seventeen, and I was just fifteen. He was my first, you know." His voice drifts off into past remembrances, a distant look on her face.

"What happened? To the two of you, I mean?"

"What? Oh… the usual. You know. We kept in touch for a while, but we each had our own lives to live, and gradually we made fewer calls, wrote fewer texts, and after a time we just kinda stopped talking to each other.

I was in California, and he was in Massachusetts.

It's hard to have a relationship with someone who's three thousand miles away. Besides, we were very young."

Luna sighs deeply, still half in the past, remembering he boyfriend and times now long gone. For a few minutes, there's a comfortable silence between us. A coziness that goes beyond words.

Then I feel the brush of her hand on my pants leg again, but this time her fingers do not move away, they stay. Warm, stroking, promising… what?

"I need…" she starts, then falters, then continues.

"This is ridiculous… I know we've only just met, but I need to feel connected, and you seem so like Hugo that I almost see you as him.

He was quiet like you and not very confident with girls.

But he had a heart of gold. He'd have done anything for me.

I sometimes wonder what would have happened if he hadn't gone away.

Whether we'd still be together." She sighs, then looks up at me again, those big eyes staring straight up at me, stripped naked, vulnerable.

"Can we… I mean… I want to do it with you. Here. Now."

"You don’t have to," I murmur, half-standing already, heart hammering, unsure what to do with myself. Not really knowing what I am saying. "I mean, I don’t want you to think I?—"

"Shh." She pulls me back down, her lips finding mine with surprising confidence. Just like that, I melt. Her mouth is soft and urgent and warm, and I’m drowning in the scent of her, the heat of her, the dizzying realization that she wants me.