Her Rock Hard Mountain Man: Rough & Rugged, Book Two Read online

  “Which cabin are you staying in?” he asks me, rocking back on his heels.

  “Skylark,” I say, still trying to obtain an upright sitting position. “It’s up at the top of the hill.”

  Elias stands, brushing his hands together as he looks down at me.

  Thank God, I think. Please let him leave so that I can hobble back to my cabin with a minimum of embarrassment.

  “Grab your shoes,” he orders me.

  I frown, looking up at him, but he just raises both eyebrows expectantly.

  So I grab my shoes, not sure what’s going on.

  In one quick, graceful movement, Elias bends down, puts his arms around me, and picks me up as though I’m light as a feather.

  I yelp, my arms flying around his neck, and one of my shoes bonks him in the head.

  “Ow,” he says, but he’s smiling.

  I’m glad it’s dark and he can’t see the shade of red I’ve just turned.

  “Sorry,” I say. “You don’t have to do this, I’m okay, really.”

  He just grins and doesn’t answer me, already walking toward my cabin with me in his arms. Even though every nerve in my body is jangling at his touch, I relax into his big, hard body.

  There’s something really safe about Elias, even though I only just met him.

  Safe and sexy. There’s also something very sexy about Elias, and I don’t mind that part either. I’m not crazy about him coming across me at a low, “drunk girl trips” moment, but I don’t mind all the physical contact.

  When we get to my cabin, I unlock it without getting out of his arms, and he carries me inside gallantly. It’s very nice but small — one queen bed, a chair, a TV mounted on a wall over a gas fireplace. It’s all very faux-rustic, complete with a fake bearskin rug in front of the fireplace.

  At least, I’m assuming it’s fake.

  Elias puts me down on the bed as gently as can be, my body sinking into the plushness. I fall back on my hands, and for a moment I’m tempted to just lie down and bat my eyelashes at him, like a temptress from a black-and-white movie.

  I control myself instead.

  “Thanks,” I say, but he’s already on his knees next to the bed, my foot back in his hands. In the better lighting of my cabin, I can see how swollen the joint is, though at least it’s not black and blue. Elias prods it gently, and I let him, trying my very best not to think salacious thoughts about my very own prince charming.

  It doesn’t work. Every touch sends an electric shiver over my whole body, and I can’t help but imagine what else his hands could be doing. Like skillfully skimming up my leg, under the hem of my bridesmaid’s dress, his mouth pressed against mine as he growls…

  Finally, he stands, running one hand through his hair, and I shove my dirty thoughts out of my mind, hoping they aren’t obvious on my face.

  “Am I gonna live?” I ask, looking up at him.

  I bat my eyelashes. I can’t help it.

  “I think so,” he says in his deep voice, one side of his mouth hitching up. “But you stay right there, I’m gonna get some ice.”

  With that he turns and leaves my cabin, no room for argument. I feel bad that he’s spending his night tending to some drunk girl, but since the drunk girl is me and besides the busted ankle, I’m quite enjoying his attentions, I’m not all that upset about it.

  In a few minutes, he’s back with a bag of ice. He ties it off and wraps a towel around it, then walks back to me, my feet still dangling over the bearskin rug, the bed too high for them to touch the floor.

  Elias kneels in front of me. My heart thumps harder, and I feel a little like Cinderella, finding out if her glass slipper fits. Only Elias is tending to my busted ankle instead, and I’m really, really glad these shoes weren’t made of glass because oh, my god, can you imagine how bad I would have hurt myself?

  I’d be in the ER right now, not watching Mr. Marine McHotStuff bandage me up.

  He puts the makeshift ice wrap around my ankle slowly and carefully, almost delicately, tucking the ends in firmly, making sure there’s no way it’s coming off unless I want it to. When he finishes, he’s still got my calf in his hands, and as he lets my leg go, his fingers trace along my skin in a way that makes me bite my lip despite myself.

  Stop it, I command myself.

  He’s nice and you’re drunk. That’s all. Sleep it off and you’ll be glad you behaved yourself in the morning.

  Elias is still kneeling. Looking up at me, his hands on the bed on either side of my knees. There’s an intensity in his green eyes that I’ve never seen before, and it takes my breath away.

  I almost lean down and kiss him.

  Almost.

  But just as I’m starting to make the move, I have a very sober moment where I think about how dumb I’ll feel tomorrow if I try to hook up with the hot groomsman, and I stop myself.

  He stands at the end of the bed, his back to the fireplace. There’s something strong and commanding just about the way he does it — sleeves rolled up, his hands in his pockets, his eyes traveling over my body like he owns it.

  Another involuntary shiver makes its way down my spine, and I can feel myself flush pink.

  He’s just being nice and helping you out, I remind myself.

  “That’ll help the swelling,” he says. “You should be halfway better by tomorrow.”

  “I’m never wearing heels again,” I say, sighing and wiggling my toes. My ankle is already going numb from the ice, not that I mind. It’s a welcome change from pain.

  “They weren’t the most practical choice of footwear,” Elias concedes.

  “Well, my Birkenstocks didn’t really match the bridesmaid dress that well.”

  A slight frown passes over his face, and he glances at my foot.

  Right, he’s a guy.

  “Birkenstocks are those ugly sandals with the cork soles,” I explain.

  “No, I guess they wouldn’t match,” he says, still giving me a long once-over, only by now it’s more like a thrice-over. He’s still standing about six inches away from me, so close that I can feel the heat radiating off his body, my head still tilted backward so I can see him.

  I want to reach out, pull him in, wrap my legs around him even though my ankle’s busted. I’m almost dizzy with lust — okay, and also with whiskey — and there’s a very wicked part of me whispering do it, do it.

  But I don’t.

  “Thanks for carrying me back,” I murmur, looking up at him through my eyelashes.

  “Don’t you need anything else?” he asks.

  I swear his voice lowers a few notes, and I swallow hard. I’m almost positive he isn’t asking if he can get me a glass of water.

  “What were you thinking?” I whisper.

  Elias leans down, and now he’s leaning on the bed, his hands on either side of my hips. His face is inches from mine, and my heart is practically tapdancing in my chest.

  “I just want you to tell me to stay a little longer”

  My pulse stutters, and suddenly I feel like all my skin is being electrified. His face is so close and so beautiful, his forest eyes and full lips, the five o’clock stubble already coming in.

  I swallow again, hard. I lick my lips because I don’t trust my voice, not right now, but I finally muster up the courage.

  “Stay,” I whisper.

  “Thanks,” he says, a smile curving up his lips as he leans in. “I will.”

  He kisses me. His mouth is warm and dry, soft and hard at the same time, and it takes my breath away. There’s something hungry and needy in the way he kisses me, in the way that his lips move against mine, and the way my mouth opens under his.

  Oh my God. What are you doing?!

  I slide my hand around the back of his head, lacing my fingers through his hair, pulling him into me so he can’t escape. A low groan sounds in his chest, my toes curling at the sound.

  We part for a moment, but he doesn’t move away. My hand is still in his hair, and I’m surprised to find that my knees
are on either side of his hips, my skirt hiked slightly over them. We’re both panting for breath, our faces an inch apart.

  I kiss him again. It’s fantastic, so why not? Everyone deserves a drunken wedding hook-up once in a while, and if I happen to swipe my v-card during one, who cares? It’s past time for me to get rid of the thing anyway.

  I open my mouth against Elias’s, his tongue swiping along my lower lip before finding my own. His hand is on my hip, then my lower back, and before I know it, he’s pushing me softly backward until I’m lying on the bed and he’s kneeling over me, between my legs.

  We don’t stop. I don’t think I can, even though my head is swirling, the whiskey still sloshing around in my brain and telling me that this is a good decision. I wrap my legs around his hips and pull him in, hard, and gasp in surprise when his erection presses up against my lower belly.

  It seems very big? Not that I know much on the topic.

  Elias bites my lower lip, tugging on it gently, and I moan quietly. He chuckles and grabs my hips, rocking against me. I gasp again as his fully-clothed length slides against my clit, and realize as he does that my skirt is all the way up, and the only thing I’m wearing there now is my panties.

  He kisses me again, our bodies in full contact. I snake my hands down his neck, to his back, grabbing at his strong shoulders, still trying to pull him toward me, squeezing his hips with my legs. Elias moves his mouth to my ear, his breath hot on me.

  He bites my earlobe and chuckles. I just swallow hard, completely unable to think of words.

  “Your ankle is freezing,” he teases me.

  It takes me way, way too long to realize what he’s talking about.

  “Oh!” I finally whisper when I remember. “Sorry.”

  I try to lift that foot off his back, but seconds later, a big, warm hand clamps around it.

  “I didn’t say I minded,” he goes on. “If it’s the price I’ve got to pay to have your legs wrapped around me, I’m fine with it.”

  I don’t know what to say to that, so I say nothing and pull him down to me again. I don’t know what I’m doing, but all on their own, my fingers are fumbling at the buttons on his shirt, tracing over the muscles there. I’m completely indecent right now — drunk and horny — and I don’t care. Not even a little.

  We keep making out, mouths and hands everywhere. I’m breathless, on my back, legs still around his hips as he kisses my jaw, my neck, his hands on my thighs under my dress. I’m dizzy with anticipation and a little bit of nervousness over what’s obviously going to happen next.

  But suddenly, Elias pauses, his lips hovering above mine, and he gives me a long, serious look. I bite my lip, hoping that I’m tempting him somehow, but it doesn’t work.

  “Mia,” he says, his voice suddenly perfectly serious. “You’re drunk.”

  No shit, Sherlock.

  “I know,” I say, and cup my hand around the hard bulge in his pants. “I want you anyway.”

  His jaw flexes. I try to kiss him again, but he avoids me, and then takes my wrist in his hand and guides my fingers away, putting my hand down gently on the bed.

  “What are you doing?” I whisper. The whole room still feels wobbly, but I squeeze my thighs around him again.

  He pushes me off abruptly, a flash of something I can’t name in his eyes.

  “I should go,” he says, and stands.

  I sit up on the bed, pulling the skirt of my dress down over my exposed legs.

  “What? Why?”

  He doesn’t answer me right away, but he does pause at the door and turn around.

  “Stay off your ankle for tonight if you can. You should feel a lot better tomorrow.”

  And with that, Elias walks out of my room, shutting the door behind him.

  Chapter Two

  Elias

  That was close.

  Way, way too close.

  I stop right outside the door to Mia’s tiny cabin and lean against one of the support columns on the rustic front porch, deeply inhaling the night air, trying to get control of my breathing and pulse.

  The girl is like a drug to me, intoxicating and heady. Since the second I saw her, earlier today, at my best friend’s wedding, I was entranced. Enthralled. I haven’t been able to stop staring at her all night, and the thought of never seeing her again after tomorrow is almost unbearable.

  I didn’t believe in love at first sight until today, but there you have it. As soon as I saw her, I started believing, and now I have to make her mine.

  Even though I just turned her down. Dear God, I don’t think I’ve ever done anything more difficult, and I’m still aching for the touch of her soft skin under my lips, the way her perfect curves felt as I caressed them.

  Her heat against me, our bodies pressed together, our tongues mingling. The soft sighs and moans of satisfaction she kept on making, even though I don’t think she knew she was doing it.

  But she’s drunk. Too drunk. Sure, she’s drunk and beautiful and willing and she’s the summation of all my dreams that I didn’t even know existed until today, but drunk is drunk and that’s not how I want her.

  No, when I make Mia mine, I want her to feel every touch, every lick, hear every filthy thing I whisper to her with perfect clarity. I want her to remember every second of it and to never forget how she begged me for more.

  A tiny trickle of sweat makes its way down the back of my neck, and I exhale hard. I didn’t even realize I was holding my breath, and slowly, I unclench my fists, shaking them out.

  Get a grip on yourself, soldier, I think.

  You’ve been drinking, too. Maybe this is all the whiskey talking and tomorrow morning you’ll be back to your normal self and you won’t give this girl another glance.

  I head down the path away from her cabin and toward my own, still shaken by my night. Somehow, I don’t think I’m going to forget her any time soon.

  * * *

  I see Jax the instant I enter the café, sitting in a huge booth way in the back. He’s hard to miss, being several inches taller than anyone else in here.

  I head back and slide in next to Veronica, the other bridesmaid. There’s no sign of Mia there, but maybe she’s running late — I’ve still got the habit of being five minutes early to everything, courtesy of the military.

  “How was your night?” he asks, raising a mug of coffee to his lips.

  I think again of Mia, her body on the bed underneath mine. The heat that was between us, the way that leaving her there felt like waxing my chest with duct tape.

  I should have stayed, it doesn’t matter if she was drunk. I could have had her at least that once.

  A funny ache runs through my body, and I blink and shake my head before giving Kellan a quick smile.

  “Good. Need some of that, though,” I say, nodding toward the coffee in his hand. “You?”

  Kellan just smirks. I know that smirk exactly. None of us who were unit-mates have ever had a problem getting girls, but Kellan is the undisputed champion. I swear, they come running and beg the man for a single night, and he doesn’t like repeating himself.

  I want to settle down someday, get married, have kids and own a house. I like the thought of that life.

  But Kellan? I don’t think he’ll ever give up bachelorhood.

  “I had a very good night,” he says, then takes another sip. “Getting too old for two hours of sleep, though.”

  The waitress stops by, and I ask for some coffee because Kellan’s looks amazing to my slight hangover right now.

  “Two hours? Must’ve been good,” I say, opening the menu.

  He glances quickly at Ruby to check that she’s not paying attention to him. She’s not, because she’s nestled against Jax’s arm, sleepily looking over the pancake section of the menu.

  “They were best friends,” Kellan says, and then winks at me. “Very close. I learned some new things.”

  I know he wants me to ask him what, exactly, he learned, but I’m too busy checking the front door of t
he café again, trying to see whether Mia is here yet.

  She’s coming. She said she was coming, she’s just running late this morning.

  Probably hung over.

  “Sounds fun,” I say, though I’m not really paying attention.

  Saving me, the waitress comes back with my coffee, and I take a long swallow, letting the caffeine flood through my system. Feels good.

  Five minutes pass, then ten. Fifteen. Now I’m checking the front door every thirty seconds, hoping that every time the bells chime it’ll be her, but it never is.

  She has to come. I didn’t even get her phone number.

  Finally, there’s a lull in the conversation. I lean over my bacon and eggs to ask Ruby the question I’ve had on my mind all morning, hoping I sound casual.

  “Mia’s not coming?” I ask, doing my best to sound like any answer she gives is fine with me, but in reality, my heart’s thumping and my palms are beginning to sweat.

  Ruby just shrugs.

  “She told me she was, but she must have gone home instead,” she says, taking another bite of pancake. “We’re on break from school right now but I know she’s doing this research project with a professor that she’s all worked up about, she might have left early so she could get back to the library before it closes.”

  My heart sinks, and suddenly even though I was wolfing down my bacon and eggs a minute ago, I can’t stomach another bite.

  She’s not going to show up, and I can’t shake the feeling that it’s my fault. I don’t know what I did, but I was the last one to see her, and now she’s skipping the post-wedding breakfast.

  Fuck.

  Everyone else is laughing and joking with each other, especially Ruby and Jax, snuggled together in the booth, taking occasional bites of pancake but mostly looking like they could feast on each other.

  It’s disgusting, it really is. And it’s extra-disgusting because I’m jealous of them. I can’t look their way without visions of Mia and I dancing through my head. We could be like that, snuggled together in a booth, laughing and giggling.