Mr. Mountain

I was struggling with the lack of privacy in the cabin. It clearly wasn’t designed for guests. There wasn’t even a door on the bathroom. The entire cabin was open with a bar separating the kitchen from the dining room and a wall separating the bedroom from the living room. It was perfect for one person, or a couple that didn’t mind if someone watched them pee.

The bathroom was just a box against one of the walls. It had the necessities, but I wasn’t sure I could spend very long in such a strange environment. I walked to the kitchen and poured coffee into a mug that was waiting. I wasn’t sure what kind of caveman monstrosity he had cooked, but I was so hungry that I didn’t care—I just hoped he didn’t turn an animal I liked into breakfast sausage.

Please don’t be Bambi.

I bit into the end of the sausage link and realized it wasn’t bought at a store. I recognized the wild taste from when my grandfather used to cook us things he brought home from his hunts. It had so much butter soaked into it that I thought I was going to be on medication for high cholesterol by the time I was done, but it tasted amazing.

&nb

sp; Shane showered while I was eating, making no effort to hide his half naked body as he headed towards the bathroom. I had been a little taken aback the night before, but I was starting to mind it less and less.

Damn he’s hot. I guess turnabout is fair play.

I walked towards the edge of the kitchen and peeked around the corner. There was something extremely desirable about Shane, even if he didn’t have a chiseled celebrity frame. He was the very definition of a real man. Every muscle in his body was built with purpose and hardened from actual labor. He didn’t have the inflated frame from lifting weights at the right angle to work muscles nobody ever used in the real world.

His shoulders were broad and his chest was thick, like a bulging mountain of muscles on his frame. I hadn’t gotten a chance to see him very well in the darkened room the night before and I was more caught up in shock than anything else. I had to catch my breath when he peeled off his towel and reached for a pair of clean boxers. He had a butt that was round on each side, tight with muscles, and resting comfortably on top of some very well-defined thighs. They were even more muscular than the rest of his body. I had never seen a man built like that in real life—he was straight out of a magazine or a movie.

That’s now the first card in my scrolling list of sexy men ready to pillage me.

When he went for a shirt and slipped it on, I retreated to the kitchen as quietly as I could. A couple of minutes later he walked around the corner, fully dressed except for his boots. I grabbed the pot of coffee and aimlessly refilled my cup.

“It looks like the worst of the storm is over.” I tried to make small talk, hoping he didn’t know I was literally gawking at him moments before.

“The first wave is over, yeah. We’ll get hit again tonight.” He picked up his coffee cup and sipped it.

“Seriously? How do you know?” I asked.

“Come with me.” He walked to the window and pointed up into the sky. “You see those clouds over there?”

“Yeah?” I replied with a half-question, half-statement.

“Those are moving away from Wolf Creek. That’s what hit us last night. Now look over there.” He pointed to the left. “Those are headed our way.”

“My friends said it was supposed to be over by this morning…” I sighed.

“Yeah, they got their news from the weatherman. You can’t always trust what the radar says when you’re dealing with a storm in Wolf Creek. My grandfather used to say the atmosphere here was just different. I didn’t know what he meant back then, but after living here for a while, I can smell it in the air.” He walked back to the kitchen counter and sat down on one of the stools.

A hero and a weatherman; how delightfully delicious.

“So, what’s your story anyway, Mr. Shane Black?” I asked. “Why do you live in a log cabin?”

“What kind of question is that?” He asked.

“I mean, do you have a job? Do you live here part-time? Are you just having some kind of mid-life crisis?” I sat down on the stool next to him.

Well, he’s not that old, but I guess it fits.

“You ask a lot of questions, Heather. No, I don’t have a job. I don’t need a job. I have everything I need right here. This is my home, not somewhere I go on vacation. As for a mid-life crisis? Who doesn’t have one from time to time?” He sipped his coffee and shrugged.

Well that revealed…nothing.

“I see…” I nodded, taking in the information.

“How about you? Do you have a job? Do you live in a red sedan buried in the snow or do you just vacation there? Are you just having some sort of mid-life crisis?” He mocked me in a tone that was a cartoon version of my own.

“Fine, I get it. I do ask a lot of questions.” I sighed. “I’m a student. Some of my friends rented a cabin for winter break and I was headed there for a party. Obviously, I’m having a very bad mid-life crisis.”

“You left out the part where you’re also very bad with directions.” He raised his eyebrows.