Page 2 of Ferocious Mountain Man (Seduction Summit Trails #6)

RAFE

H ad a trespasser ever been so freaking beautiful?

No. The answer to that was no. There wasn’t a woman alive who was this beautiful. Not that I’d seen, anyway.

Her long, thick auburn hair stood out in the moonlight as she walked. Those enormous tits bounced with each step. She probably wore a bra. I was pretty sure she did, despite the bouncing. There was no containing a chest that big.

I took a sip of beer, trying to look cool, calm, and collected. Maybe the cold liquid could help with what was going on inside my body. Things were heating up in a very inconvenient way right now.

“Did you see it?” she asked. “You had to have seen something. Someone stole all my stuff.”

I lowered the bottle, swallowing the gulp I’d just taken.

She thought some stranger had come in and stolen all her stuff?

That was a weird way to go, but maybe she had no idea how safe it was.

Since she obviously wasn’t from here, that was highly likely.

In fact, she had “city girl” written all over her.

She stopped in front of me, and her expression changed. Her gaze swept my entire body before it returned to my face. Her jaw dropped. She liked what she saw.

Right now, I was exhausted with being treated like a piece of meat. But her appraisal was different. Her opinion of me mattered.

“Someone didn’t take your stuff, darling. Not a thief, anyway.”

I second-guessed my words as soon as they were out of my mouth. Calling her darling…well, that sounded a little condescending, didn’t it? I definitely didn’t mean it that way. It was a term of endearment. And I definitely felt endeared to her, whatever the hell that word meant.

But my cute little pet name was the least of her worries right now. That was clear in the way she narrowed her eyes at me and asked, “What do you mean, by ‘not a thief.’ Someone else took my stuff?” Silence. Then she tilted her head. “Did you take my stuff?”

“You’re on my property. I’m not sure what the laws are on it, but I’d say I have a pretty good argument that if it’s on my property, I have the right to dispose of it.”

Now her eyes widened. Her jaw dropped again, those gorgeous lips of hers parting. They looked soft and smooth, and what I wouldn’t give to kiss them right now. Or maybe feel them wrapped around a certain part of my anatomy.

No. I couldn’t go there. I had to keep my testosterone in check.

I’d already been falsely accused of being a horn dog.

It had gotten me in serious trouble when I was younger.

I’d been raised to go after what I wanted, and as a teenager, I learned the hard way that doing that could get me in trouble—even if I was just trying to convince a girl to go out with me, and not even in a way I considered to be harassment. Apparently, the girl disagreed.

I’d moved past all that, though. I’d gone into the military and atoned for any bad I might have done. After discharge, I’d come back to North Carolina but steered clear of my hometown near Raleigh, instead settling into the mountains.

No one here knew me. No one whispered about me when I walked into a restaurant or rushed to cross the street when they saw me coming. In this town, I was a vet who worked as a logger. That was respected.

“I didn’t throw anything away,” I said, putting her out of her misery. “It’s all in my kitchen. I’ll give it back on one condition.”

She looked far less combative now, probably because she was depending on me to get her tent and clothes and toiletries back. I was kind of an ass for holding it all hostage, but in my situation, most people wouldn’t blame me.

“What’s that?” she asked after a long silence in which she probably weighed all her options.

“You get the heck off my property.”

Heck? Hell was what I meant to say, but heck popped out. I couldn’t bring myself to cuss at this woman. She deserved better.

She probably deserved better than me kicking her off my property too, but these women were getting annoying. I’d luckily managed to misdirect them to a campground near a cabin that sat empty right now, but somehow, this particular woman had made her way onto my property.

Was she so determined to meet me that she’d tracked down my true location? No, I had a feeling this woman was not here to meet me—not because she was a fan, anyway. That was clear in the way she was looking at me right now. She was far from intimidated or in awe of me.

This woman was some sort of journalist. Or maybe a social media influencer with great research skills. Either way, she was up to no good, and I was putting an end to it here and now.

“I totally understand kicking someone off your property,” she said with a nod. “That’s legit.”

My frown deepened. This was too easy. She’d agreed I was in the right for taking her stuff, so she’d just leave it with me? No, that wouldn’t happen.

“There’s just one problem with that,” she said. “That isn’t your land, and you have no right to hold my stuff. So if you’ll just return my belongings to me, I won’t make you put everything back like you found it. Or we could call the police and let them sort it out.”

Police? Ha. This town didn’t have a police force, and the sheriff of the next town over wasn’t coming all the way up here over a civil dispute.

But that wasn’t the point. Especially since I was in the right.

“This is my land,” I said. “I bought all of it so I’d have privacy.”

“You might want to check the property deed,” she said. “That patch over there belongs to someone named Rourke Donovan. He even got a permit to build a cabin there. Sounds like you’re going to have a neighbor in a few months.”

She crossed her arms over her chest and smiled, clearly proud of herself. What the fuck was this bombshell of a woman talking about? She was just making stuff up at this point.

But wait. She knew the name of the supposed landowner. A guy who was the closest thing to an enemy I’d ever had. A guy who competed with me for a beautiful tourist at the ski lodge bar when I first came to town—and lost. He’d never gotten over it, even though the tourist left town the next day.

I thought the two-year grudge was ridiculous. But the dude was on my logging crew, so I had to deal with it every day of my life.

And now he’d be my neighbor? That just made no sense.

“So what’s it going to be?” she asked, cutting into my thoughts.

The question reminded me that we were in the middle of another issue. I’d have to iron out the Rourke stuff later.

“It’s inside,” I said, gesturing toward the house. “I’ll go get it.”

“I’ll go with you,” she said.

That froze me, mid-turn. She was going with me?

Oh yeah, it was a lot. I’d gone back and forth four times—first pulling everything out, then breaking down her tent. It would be quicker if both of us carried everything. It would be quicker if I helped her set it all back up too—plus it would be the right thing to do.

It would also allow me to spend more time in her company. That was something I found I wanted all too much, whether I liked it or not.

“Come on in,” I said. “I’ll grab you something to drink, and we’ll get started.”