Page 9 of The Mountain Man’s Heat (Blue Mountain Burn: The Firefighters of Hartley Ridge #1)

Chapter Nine

Iris

Something wet and warm slides over my cheek as something warm and bright washes my face.

Archie.

Sun.

Scrunching up my face, I wave my arm in languid flaps. “S’okay, Arch,” I mumble.

Behind my ear, someone lets out a low snoring grunt at the exact moment my brain registers the warm, rugged, naked body spooning me from behind.

The perfect spoon…

My heart smashes up into my throat, and I open my eyes to squint up at Archie. He’s standing on the floor at my head and gives me a doggy grin, tail wagging.

You had wild monkey sex with Hudson last night. Oh boy.

Behind me, Hudson makes a soft, sleepy sound—part breath, part mumble—and rolls over. His butt rubs against mine, as if to remind me how incredible it is.

Liquid lust pours through me, a carnal, base response to the highly intimate contact, and a whimper of need falls from me. No louder than a breath.

Archie tilts his head, watching me.

Okay, time to move.

If I stay here, I’ll roll over and turn myself into the big spoon. And if I do that, I may as well open my chest and give Hudson McKinney my heart. Surviving the one-night stand is already going to be tricky. Cuddling after? I’d have no hope.

Ha. You fell in love with him the second he did the Batman dance. Admit it.

I did. And I don’t know what to do about it.

Tell him?

No. That’s lunacy. He’d laugh. Or think I was crazy.

Inching away from him, I try to coax Archie backward with a wave. He takes it as a sign to let out a playful woof and licks my face.

Throwing caution to the wind, I flatten myself to the rug, complete the most woeful push-up in existence, and scramble to my feet, bare boobs bouncing.

Archie lets out a single, playful bark.

“Shh,” I admonish, cupping my hands over my breasts. Why am I embarrassed about a dog seeing my boobs?

On the floor, Hudson lets out another one of those sleepy mumbling groans.

I allow myself a heartbeat to look at him, to admire the sheer masculine perfection of his form, the sexy tousle of his hair, the wicked shadow of his stubble, and then I tiptoe from the room, heading for the bathroom.

Archie follows, running into Hudson’s bedroom as I pass the door.

Damn it. I don’t want to go in there. I might just curl up in his bed and declare I’m there to stay.

After last night, maybe he’d like that?

No. Last night was amazing and surreal, but we were both caught up in the power of the moment, the force of the storm, the adrenaline of the situation. That’s all.

What if…

I snatch my clothes—now kind of dry—from the towel rail and yank them on. After cleaning my teeth with my finger and some stolen toothpaste from Hudson’s tube, I attempt to curtail the chaos of my hair, give up, and hurry out of the bathroom.

What-ifs don’t happen in real life.

They might. If you gave them a chance.

The thought licks through me, and I pull in a deep breath. Could I?

Maybe? What’s the worst that could happen?

Heart thumping, I stop at Hudson’s bedroom door. “Archie?”

Archie’s on the bed again, bum up, tail wagging.

“Archie,” I whisper, crossing to him. “You have to stop trashing Hudson’s bed.”

I bend down at the foot of it and scoop up the patchwork quilt Hudson gave me last night from the floor. “Look what you did,” I scold softly, shaking it out. “I hope it’s not a special…”

Trailing off, I frown at what I didn’t see last night.

A woman’s face in the quilt. Made up of tiny little squares.

Hudson has a quilt with a woman’s face on it.

A tight lump thickens my throat, and I study it. Who is she? A celebrity? Or his…

Wife? Girlfriend? Surely not?

Mouth dry, I scan the room.

There. On the bedside table. A small frame.

Ignoring Archie, I walk around the bed and pick it up. My stomach is in knots.

In the photo, Hudson’s giving a piggyback ride to the woman on the quilt.

He’s laughing up at her, the love in his eyes palpable.

She’s stunning. Slim, long-limbed, long blonde hair, sun-kissed skin.

Perhaps only a few years younger than him.

Exactly the type of woman someone like Hudson would be with.

Not like me. Short-arsed, big-hipped, untamable hair, barely in my twenties, studying for a career that probably won’t exist soon thanks to AI.

The knot in my stomach lurches, and I return the frame to the bedside table, eyes burning.

Whoever she is, they look genuinely happy together.

I refuse to believe he’s just cheated on her with me.

Everything in my heart tells me he wouldn’t do that…

but when it comes down to it, we’re still just two strangers who shared a powerful connection during a moment of forced proximity.

That powerful connection isn’t love. It isn’t game-over-we’re-together-for-ever-now.

It isn’t Mr. and Mrs. Hudson and Iris McKinney.

It was— past tense—two people have amazing, soul-shaking sex.

If I don’t leave now, I will probably do something stupid like convince myself it is more, that Hudson and I are the definition of love at first sight, regardless of who the woman in the photo and on the blanket is.

And I can’t let myself do that.

“C’mon, Arch,” I whisper, turning to my aunt’s dog. “We have to go.”

As if sensing my apprehension, Archie jumps off the bed, liquid-amber eyes locked on me. He trots out of the room, nails clicking on the floorboards.

I hope to hell the noise doesn’t wake Hudson up.