Page 1 of My Wild Mountain Man (Summer in the Pines #15)

sebastian ‘bash’ ledesma

. . .

I walked into the backroom and rested my head against the wall.

“Fuck,” I growled, the sound of my voice deep as my eyes shut tightly. I tried to ignore the way my dick throbbed. The fucker had its own pulse behind my thick denim jeans, but I would be damned if he won.

Not today.

Not now.

I had all but thought the fucker had stopped working when I returned to Moonlit Pines after my time in the Marines.

With my head screwed up, I had resigned myself to a life of bachelorhood.

I didn’t mind. What kind of woman would want me, anyways?

Not only did my dick not work, I had a love for the extreme.

An adrenaline junkie through and through.

For some fun here and there, I’d probably be okay for some. It wasn’t like my hands and mouth didn’t work. But for the long term? I wasn’t that man.

No. I didn’t need love and all the messy complications it brought.

My life was full enough. I might have had to leave the Marines earlier than I wanted after getting injured, but I was alive. I had good friends and opened a brewery with two of the best friends a guy could have.

I was fine. Content. I had enough in my life to make me happy.

Brewing beer, running a business in the town where I grew up, where others came to have a good time, that was good enough.

I didn’t need hearts and flowers and a woman.

Hell no. I’d had front row tickets to my parents’ tumultuous marriage and the disaster it had turned into before they cut their losses and split up.

I didn’t want that. I didn’t need the headache or inconvenience.

I’d been fine with what my life was going to be like.

I was thirty and could see it all clearly.

But what’s the saying? Tell God your plans, and he’ll laugh? Well, fuck, he must have had a good time at my expense when little Raven Trejo walked into my life six months ago and knocked me on my ass.

I’d met her a couple of times in the past when I came back from college and stayed with the Trejos on college summer breaks here and there.

But back then, she had been nothing but a kid.

All I remembered was big glasses, braces, and frizzy hair.

The little squirt would sit at the end of the driveway when Austin, Onyx, and I would play basketball, her nose stuck in one book or another, blushing so hard she turned pink whenever I talked to her.

But when I came back, she’d been off to school, some beauty college in San Francisco.

Onyx would tell me things here and there about her.

Maybe because she was the youngest, he kept a closer eye on her, worried about her being so far from home.

Austin and he had even gone out to the Bay Area for her birthday, but I had chosen to stay behind.

Six months ago, I saw her again for the first time.

I had been covered in saw dust, shirtless and sweaty, in the middle of the renovation for the brewery.

She’d walked in, and when our eyes connected, it had felt like I had been sucker-punched.

I’d climbed off the ladder slowly, wondering if I was imagining things.

No one but the construction crew was allowed inside the building, yet this little, fairy-like creature was sauntering toward me with a knowing smile.

And she didn’t stop until she was right in front of me.

With the way the light filtered through, I remember thinking her eyes were the prettiest brown I had ever seen. Dark chocolate with swirls of caramel.

I hadn’t recognized her.

Who could have blamed me? She’d been about twelve the last time I’d seen her. The dark-haired beauty in front of me was all woman with soft curves and silky-smooth hair that made my hands ache to touch.

And just like that, my cock started to come alive for the first time in a year.

Everything around me stopped. The sounds of the construction crew faded away to nothing. The only hammering I heard was that of my heart beating against my ribcage trying to pounce out and land right in her delicate hands.

I felt like I had been struck by lightning.

Even more when she excitedly said, “Hi!” Her voice was sweeter than anything I’d ever heard in my life.

She wrapped her little curvy body around mine with a big hug, a hug I happily returned.

My head dipped down, and I breathed in her scent.

But before I could make out the notes, I pulled away.

Her smile was so bright and beautiful as she stared at me, her hands still touching my bare skin, I wondered if I’d died.

Is the angel in my arms the one who will walk me through the Pearly Gates of Heaven?

But it wasn’t to be so.

I was about to ask who she was when Onyx walked in with a scowl on his face, yelling at Raven to leave me alone and stop bugging.

Raven. My best friend’s baby sister.

The door to the storage room opened, and Austin stood there, looking at me, unknowingly snapping me out of the memory that haunted me daily.

“You okay, Bash?”

“Fine,” I gritted through my teeth.

“Yeah?” With his assessing gaze, I knew he didn’t miss shit, but he had yet to call me out on anything. “That why you’re hiding back here?” he asked, knowingly pressing my buttons.

“Yup,” I clipped, pushing off the wall.

“Man,” he sighed, stopping me from exiting and hiding in the small office we shared. “You gotta get a hold of this.”

“Hold of what?” I dared him to call me out on it. To tell me to stop crushing on our friend’s little sister like some perv. Jesus, our age difference alone was enough reason not to go there. To keep my hands to myself.

“You really think I don’t see what’s going on?”

“I don’t know what?—“

“That’s Onyx’ little sister, man.”

“Which one?” I pretended to act stupid, but by the way Austin stared back at me, I wasn’t fooling anyone. I sighed and swallowed. My Adam’s apple bobbed heavily as everything I felt for her stuck to me, clung tightly.

I tried to avoid her after that day, and it had hurt her feelings.

She had even skipped the New Year’s party we had thrown, claiming she was sick, but I had seen her that morning in the woods, in the spot where she liked to go sit and read.

She had been fine. She had skipped it because she had come by earlier that day to drop off something for her brother.

Raven was gorgeous, but subtle wasn’t one of her strong suits.

I saw the way she watched me. Looked at me with interest in her eyes.

Like I could be one of the men in the books she liked to read.

So, I’d stupidly flirted with the photographer right in front of her.

It was bad enough how much I wanted my tempting little morsel!

Knowing she wanted me back, I’d reacted stupidly.

Afraid that she would make some kind of move, one I’d known I wouldn’t be able to resist, I’d needed to do something, and I had.

But it backfired on me.

Now she hardly looked at me when she came in, and it made me feel like hell. I missed the way she would seek me out to talk here and there about shit she knew I liked.

I miss her.

“Earth to Bash,” Austin clipped. “Get your shit together and come back when that”—he pointed down at my crotch—“isn’t waving hello like a goddamn Walmart greeter.”

“Fuck you,” I clipped, shaking my head.

“Look, man.” He ran his fingers through his light hair. “I don’t want to come off like a dick?—“

“Then maybe you shouldn’t say whatever has you looking like that.”

“We’re all partners here.” He wasn’t going to take my advice, and I was stuck having to hear his. “If you go there and mess around with his sister? That could mess it up if it ends badly. You get what I’m saying?”

“Yeah, man,” I rasped, clearing my throat. “You don’t shit where you eat,” I clarified, and he nodded. It wasn’t something I hadn’t thought about.

“Yeah… exactly. Look, I’m glad the little general is up and working again, but don’t go there. Not unless you know it’s for real.”

“Unless I know it’s…” I chuckled and shook my head. “That shocks the shit out of me coming from you and spending how many years listening to you spew all that cursed in love shit.”

“I’m a Hart,” he reminded me, and I rolled my eyes.

“Curses aren’t real, Austin.” I groaned. I had no idea how many times I had to say that, but it felt like it would never get through his thick skull.

“I don’t know, man… You’ve seen the men in my family. All of them cursed as fuck.” I rolled my eyes because no matter how much I tried to tell him that shit didn’t exist, he wasn’t going to listen to me.

“Just get your shit together, man. Okay? Keep your hands off little sisters.” He pointed at me, and I made a face.

“Man,” I groaned, “don’t make it sound like that!” I grimaced, and the asshole laughed.

“I’m just saying?—“

“Say less. Just give me a minute. I’ll be right out there.”

“How about Wednesday, we go a couple towns over to Serendipity and find us some women we can have some fun with now that the general is up and saluting again? Which again, congrats.” He grinned. We were close, so they’d known about my situation after being discharged.

“Austin,” I warned, but the shit-eating grin on his face told me it wasn’t going to be that easy to make him drop it.

“What’s that saying Oli and Onyx are always yapping? The best way to get over someone is to get on top of someone else?” The guy was insufferable. Just the thought of touching someone else made my gut tighten and left a sour taste in my mouth.

I shook my head yet still agreed. “Sure.” Not that my general, like Austin had called my dick, would wake up for anyone but Raven.

Thankfully, that seemed to placate him enough to salute me and walk out.

Left alone in the dark storage room, I shut my eyes, but that didn’t help.

Not when all I could see behind my eyelids was Raven Trejo and her smooth tan skin with that dark chocolate-and-caramel-eyed gaze staring right back at me, with so much hope and feelings I felt it right through me like the best kind of whiskey.

I shook my head and ran my fingers through my hair.

What the fuck am I going to do about my best friend’s little sister?