Page 8 of Mountain Man Claimed (Hard Timber Mountain Men #4)

ROWAN

Saturday night at The Knotty Tap meant a full house.

Raffle buckets lined the bar, pitchers of beer sweated onto cardboard coasters, and a quilt already had half a roll of tickets stuffed into its jar.

Music from the stage rolled through the rafters, too loud for easy conversation but not loud enough to hide the undercurrent of laughter, gossip, and applause.

I told myself I’d stay ten minutes. Buy tickets, be seen, and leave.

The rules of civic participation were simple.

But then I spotted Dane carrying a keg through the side door like it weighed less than a sack of flour, his smile easy under the string lights, and ten minutes didn’t seem like nearly long enough.

He wasn’t showing off. He tapped the keg, clapped a man on the back, then squatted to say something to a little girl clutching a raffle ticket like treasure. He was alive in a way I didn’t know how to handle.

“Rowan!” Sabrina swooped in, radiant in an apron dusted with flour. “Bless you for coming. Twenty tickets?”

“Thirty,” I said before I could stop myself. She beamed, tore strips, and was off again, already charming the next table.

I edged along the wall, content to observe. My job brain catalogued occupancy load and exit width. My other brain—the one I wasn’t sure I wanted to acknowledge—tracked Dane as he moved through the room like sunlight spilling across the floor.

Near the dartboard , Gillian stood with a colorful scarf looped in her hair, chatting animatedly with a cluster of shop owners.

Her laugh carried over the music, bright and effortless.

I wished I could be more like her, but I had stopped trusting people with my feelings a long time ago.

First, when my parents blew our house apart in a messy divorce, then later when a man built me up and let me fall.

Planning beat promises. Every single time .

Dane found me by the wall.

“You look like you’re checking fire code,” he said, leaning close enough for his voice to slip through the music.

“I’m timing the raffle,” I said. “Different metric, same principle.”

“Help me with a metric.” His grin tugged sideways. “How many steps from here to the dance floor?”

“Fourteen.” I could tell just by looking.

“Perfect. That’s how far you’re coming with me.”

“I can’t.” My voice was flat.

“Two minutes,” he coaxed. “For the Founders’ Festival.”

Before I could answer, Harvey shuffled up, his cane tapping in rhythm to the music. “Box step, Ms. March. I promised myself one practice tonight. Don’t let me down.”

They were conspiring against me. Dane’s hand closed warm around mine and pulled me into the current of the crowd.

The band shifted into a slow three-count, the same steady rhythm I’d felt in the studio the other night.

My feet resisted, but my body remembered.

Forward one, collect two, side three. Back one, collect two, side three.

Dane’s palm at the small of my back steadied me, and when I dared to glance up, he wasn’t smiling wide for the crowd. He was watching me. Only me.

“You’re better than you think.” His voice was soft and low.

“I’m not here to be graded.”

“I know,” he said. “You’re here to win.”

Something loosened in my chest, dangerous and sweet. He spun me into a turn. I stumbled, caught myself against his shoulder, and felt the solid warmth of him through his flannel. His arm tightened just enough to hold me steady.

“You think too loud,” he murmured.

“I always think loud.”

“I like it.”

Heat climbed my face. I looked up, intending to tell him to stop, but the music caught me mid-breath. For three full counts, I forgot to argue. For three full counts, I let him lead.

The song ended to easy applause, and my pulse refused to settle.

“Want to go outside?” he asked.

The sensible answer was no. But I followed him through the back door out into the cooler air, anyway.

The patio held two picnic tables. String lights sagged overhead, and the noise from inside dulled. Dane stopped just shy of touching me.

“Rowan.” My name left his mouth like a question.

I closed the distance. The first brush of our lips was tentative, the second sure, the third undoing.

He kissed with a mixture of patience and promise.

When I opened for him, heat poured through me so fast my knees softened.

His hand cupped my jaw, his thumb stroking along my jawline and erasing all of my defenses.

“This isn’t a good idea,” I whispered when my lungs demanded we break our kiss.

“No,” he agreed, resting his forehead to mine. “But it’s real.”

And then, because I’d lost my grip on silence, I said the one thing I’d never intended to tell a single soul. “I haven’t… um, I haven’t been with anyone in a long time.”

I braced myself for his pity, but found steadiness instead.

His breath caught, but his eyes softened. “That’s okay. You don’t owe me anything, Rowan. We can go back in, buy too many raffle tickets, complain about the band.”

“I don’t want to stop.” The words left me raw. “Not with you.”

He bent and kissed me again with a reverence so sharp it ached. A moment later, he was tugging me gently toward the lot.

“Let me drive you home,” he said. “Please.”

I nodded, not sure why I couldn’t seem to resist him anymore.

The ride through town was quiet. Main Street gave way to dark stretches of pavement lined with pines, the headlights sweeping shadows across familiar curves.

My hands folded in my lap, disciplined, while my pulse drummed wild and out of control.

His hand brushed mine once on the console. I didn’t pull away.

He parked in front of my house and killed the engine. Neither one of us moved. The air felt fragile, balanced on a choice.

“Rowan.” My name came out just above a whisper. “Tell me to leave, and I will.”

I opened the door. “Come inside.”

My house looked like me: neat, organized, and intentional. Coasters squared to the edge of the table. Books stacked in alphabetical order. It should have made me feel safe. Instead it felt stark with him standing in the center, larger than the space, carrying heat in with him.

“So, this is you.” He scanned my space without judgement. “Everything’s in its place.”

“Sometimes I wonder what it would feel like to mess it all up,” I admitted before I could stop myself.

“You want to give up a little control?” His hand came to my cheek, his thumb skimming the line of my jaw.

“Sometimes,” I said. His closeness stole my breath.

He kissed me slowly and deeply, like every moment mattered. The cardigan slipped from my shoulders. His jacket landed on a chair. His mouth found the hollow of my throat and pulled a sound from me I didn’t recognize as my own. He froze instantly, searching my face.

“I’m fine,” I whispered. “Better than fine.”

He groaned softly and kissed me again, slower this time. His hands stayed careful, asking, waiting, never assuming.

When I reached for him, he met my gaze. “Are you sure?”

“Yes.” The word came out strong and steady, anchored in the heat flooding through my system.

He kissed me harder then, pouring everything he’d been holding back into it. His hand swept along my waist, grabbing onto my curves with an intensity that made my knees buckle. He caught me, holding me like I was precious, not fragile. His breath stuttered against mine, but he didn’t push.

When his mouth found mine again, the kiss was hungry, open, and all-consuming. My pulse hammered against his touch. My body, so disciplined, so careful, betrayed me by arching closer, chasing the heat, surrendering to it.

We stumbled down the hall together, laughing once when I bumped into the edge of a table. He kissed it off my lips before I could second-guess it.

In my bedroom, the air felt charged, every careful corner of my orderly space now foreign with him in it. The bedspread I’d smoothed that morning looked too neat. Before I could think, Dane reached down and rumpled it with one sweep of his hand, a grin tugging at his mouth.

“That’s better,” he murmured.

I laughed again. Then his lips met mine, and the world narrowed to heat and breath and the soft thud of us tumbling onto the bed.

His hands were everywhere and nowhere, never rushing, never taking more than I offered.

He traced the slope of my shoulders, the curve of my waist, the length of my arm until I shivered with goosebumps.

When I tugged at his shirt, he pulled it over his head in one easy motion, his muscles flexing in the light from my bedside lamp.

I ran my fingers across warm skin and felt him shudder beneath my touch.

“You drive me crazy,” he said, his voice gruff.

“I know the feeling,” I whispered.

He kissed me again—slower this time, more deliberate—like he wanted to taste every second of this moment and memorize it before it slipped away. His mouth lingered on mine until I felt dizzy from the softness of it, from the way his lips coaxed mine to respond instead of just taking what he wanted.

Then he guided me back, his hands bracing my hips, easing me down until my shoulders met the mattress and my head hit the pillow. His gaze swept over me, and for once, I didn’t feel studied, I felt seen.

The world narrowed to the sensation of his weight settling over me, solid and warm, grounding me in a way nothing else ever had.

I arched into him, needing more, wanting everything.

He gave me what I asked for, his lips charting a trail across my jaw, down my neck, along the dip between my collarbones.

The rasp of his beard scraped lightly across my skin, a teasing contrast to the gentle drag of his mouth. Every place he kissed felt marked, maybe even claimed.

When he found a spot just beneath my ribcage that made me gasp, he murmured my name against it. “Rowan.”

Just that. My name, low and rough and shaking slightly like it had cost him something to say it out loud.

“Tell me to stop,” he said, his voice thick with restraint. “If you want me to stop, you need to say it now.”

“Don’t stop.” I dug my fingers into his shoulders, desperate and trembling. “Please don’t ever stop.”

That undid him.

I felt it in the way his breath stuttered, the way his control teetered on the edge. But somehow, he held on. His body rocked gently against mine, an exquisite kind of torment, every movement a study in patience I never would’ve expected from a man like him.

He kissed me with reverence, as if he wasn’t just touching my skin but learning all the pieces of me I kept hidden.

And he waited. Waited for me to tell him it was okay to keep going. Waited until I pulled him closer, my hips rising to meet his in a rhythm that felt like a plea. Every time my nerves threatened to spike, he paused—let me breathe—then gave me space to lead.

He let me choose him. Again and again and again.

He kissed me slower, like he wanted to burn it into memory. His lips lingered on mine, coaxing rather than taking.

Then he eased me back, bracing one hand behind my shoulders and the other at my hip, guiding me down until my head hit the pillow. His gaze swept over me like I was something rare, and I didn’t feel like a problem to be solved. I felt wanted.

“Rowan.” Just that—low and ragged, like he wasn’t sure he deserved to say it.

He sucked in a breath and pressed his forehead to mine, trying to hold on. But somehow, he did. He moved like a man who knew how to go slow, who understood how to touch without taking.

He kissed me like I mattered. Like this wasn’t just about release—it was about trust.

And when I tugged him closer, when I rolled my hips in invitation, he paused.

“You sure?” he asked, voice rough, breath shallow.

I nodded, too breathless to speak. He reached for his wallet, fished out a condom, and handled it with quiet efficiency that only made me want him more.

And then, finally, he was there. Solid, real, and mine.

Every thrust was patient. Every touch, deliberate. He let me set the pace, let me shift and adjust until it felt right. Until I stopped thinking and just felt.

When my release crested, it stole the breath from my lungs and left me gasping his name, my fingers digging into his back, nails catching on sweat-damp skin. I came undone beneath him, shaking and crying and smiling all at once.

He held me through it, his arms strong and grounding, his lips pressing soft kisses to my temple. Then he whispered my name over and over like it meant something.

After, when we tangled in the rumpled sheets I usually kept tucked tight, his arm curved around me, and his thumb traced slow, lazy circles on my hip.

My body felt weightless. I wasn’t used to feeling safe. Not like this. Not without the walls. For the first time in years, I didn’t want to think. I didn’t want to second-guess. I just wanted to stay inside this bubble of warmth and trust we’d built between kisses.

Eventually, his breathing evened, and sleep claimed him. That’s when the voice crept in. The one I thought I’d buried. He’ll get bored. He’ll leave. You’ll be just another mistake he doesn’t make twice.

I stared at the ceiling, trying to push it down. Trying not to listen. Dane Thorne had built something solid in this town. Something permanent. I wasn’t sure I knew how to open up enough to be part of it.

Tomorrow, I promised myself. Tomorrow I’d put the armor back on. Tomorrow I’d be smart again.

But tonight? Just this once...

I let myself believe.