Quinn
My mountain man and I walked side-by-side to the elevator in the apartment building. Dang, that man was going to make my task of getting rid of him difficult.
I thought he’d been attractive with that crazy hair and scraggly beard, so when I’d seen him asleep in the waiting area, his hair recently-cut and perfectly-styled and his face smooth and clean, I’d just about had a heart attack. He was the sexiest man I’d ever seen, and I’d seen a lot of attractive men who were worth a lot more money than he was.
Something about my mountain man made him just about irresistible to me, and it frustrated me to no avail.
I’d gotten some information about his family in the car. He was close with them, really close, and if I needed to, I could use that to get rid of him. I didn’t want his family to get hurt on my mission to get rid of my soulmate though, so that would have to be one of my last resorts.
“What time are we leaving for the party?” he checked.
“About an hour.” I’d given up on trying to prevent him from going. The more time we spent together, the more time I’d have to show him exactly why he didn’t want to be my soulmate.
We walked into the apartment, and it was noticeably silent. We were alone. Beth was at her gym and Garrett was probably off at yet another baseball practice, and neither of them would be back for hours.
That didn’t bode well for me fighting off my attraction to the mountain man.
The mountain man whose name I still didn’t know.
But I wasn’t about to ask him and somehow end up with his big, warm hands on my body again, so I was just going to have to stick with calling him my mountain man until someone else said his name.
Without another word, I strolled toward the bathroom to plug in my curling iron. I’d redo my makeup before I did my hair, but the curling iron needed to heat up so it was ready.
“Stay out of my way, mountain man.” I called out over my shoulder.
His whisper of,
“Feel free to get in mine.” Was so quiet that I almost doubted it was real.
And even though I doubted it was real, the words still sent a rush of heat through me. I cursed at my reaction and forced myself to continue toward the bathroom.
After I turned on the curling iron, I headed for my room and pulled my dress out of the closet. It was in a dark pink garment bag, protected, like the rest of my fancy dresses. I only ever wore each one once, but I liked to keep them just for fun. I definitely didn’t need the money, so there was no point in selling them.
I hung the dress from the top of the door and unzipped the bag, pulling the fabric out so gravity had a little time to smooth it out. The fabric was soft and delicate, a light grayish lavender color that I knew looked stunning on me.
I bit back a smile when I remembered what my mountain man had said about the dress, though he hadn’t seen this one in particular—that I didn’t own anything overly-modest. It was the truth.
My entire life, my parents had told me that my body was one of my greatest assets, and as far as I’d experienced, that was the truth.
I swapped my black pencil skirt and green top for the adhesive bra I’d be wearing to the party and a white silk slip. The slip was just to stop me from doing something insane like jumping my mountain man.
I felt his gaze on me as I headed into the bathroom, and forced myself not to look at him. He sat on the couch, still sexier in that t-shirt and jeans than any man I’d ever met looked in a tux. I’d always been a fan of a good tux, but my mountain man… he was converting me to jeans.
Turning on some music to distract me from his attention, I started with my makeup. It took a few extra minutes to do a full-faced look for a black-tie event like the gala we’d be going to, but it was so worth the time.
I curled my hair loosely, so it would hang down my back, and then headed into my room to put the dress on. I was a pro at getting ready quickly so I still had about twenty minutes until it was time to go when I was done, but I had never been a fashionably-late kind of girl.
When I stepped into the bedroom, I came to a halt in the doorway. My mountain man was buttoning a pair of slacks. He was barefooted and shirtless, and he was facing me.
My immediate reaction would’ve been to run my hands up and down the muscles on his chest and abs, to watch his body tense in response to my touch, to let my hands wander…
I forced the thought out of my mind and instead, folded my arms. His eyes landed on my chest as I did, and I felt my face begin to warm.
Luckily, I was wearing a lot of makeup, so he had no idea I was blushing.
“This is my room, remember?” I glared at him.
I was trying to force myself to be furious with him so I wouldn’t walk over there and unbutton the pants he’d just barely buttoned.
My mountain man grabbed his white dress shirt off of the bed and pulled on one sleeve at a time.
“Soulmates live together.” Was his only response.
“Well I’m not doing that, so get out.” I gestured over my shoulder and stepped further into the room.
He started buttoning the dress shirt, and I had to force myself to look away.
No man had ever made me feel so out of control before. Part of me hated that, but part of me loved it.
“Why would you be afraid to share a bed, Quinn? We both know you’ve slept with a lot of men. Why would this be any different to you?”
Why would it be any different? Was he serious?
That part of me that wanted kiss him vanished in an instant, replaced with real anger this time.
“This is my life, mountain man. My life. You can’t just walk in and insist that we’re supposed to be together and expect me to be okay with it. I like my life, I like having freedom. I like sleeping around and doing whatever I want. I’m not sharing a bed with you because I’m not in a relationship with you, nor do I want to be. I’m not attracted to you, and I never will be.”
Was everything I said true? No.
Not even close.
But I had to say something, and I was pissed enough to sell it as the truth. Or at least, I thought I was until my mountain man said,
“Are you done?”
My entire body flushed.
“Excuse me?” I was shaking with fury.
“We both know that everything you just said was a lie, Quinn. There’s something in your life so painful that you’re trying to dull it with alcohol and sex, and it’s not working. I’ve seen the look in your eyes when I say something about respecting you, and the way your body reacts to mine. You might not want to be attracted to me, but you are, and you do want to be with me even if you don’t understand it.”
His words scared me because they were true. I’d known everything he said before he said it, but the fact that he knew it? That was terrifying.
I clenched my hands into fists so he wouldn’t see them shaking, and then I swore at him.
“You don’t know anything about me.” There was no way to hide the quiver in my voice.
“I don’t.” he agreed. “But I do know that we’re soulmates. Two halves of one soul, two people who are meant to complete each other. I know that I’ve felt like I was missing something since I was a twelve-year-old kid, and that standing here in front of you, even though you’re cussing at me and telling me to leave, I feel complete for the first time in my life.”
I didn’t know what it was about his words that felt so true to me, but they did. They felt true. My mountain man being my missing piece, it felt real. But I still felt scared, and I didn’t want to feel that way.
Something inside me told me that if I was touching him, if I was in his arms, I wouldn’t feel so much like I was falling apart.
So I did the unthinkable.
I crossed the room and grabbed his mostly-unbuttoned dress shirt and yanked his body and mouth to mine.
When our lips met, he groaned, and we were so close with so little clothing separating us that I felt his chest rumble. His hands gripped my waist tightly, holding my body against his, and when I pushed my tongue into his mouth, he didn’t hesitate to let me in.
Our mouths moved as one and fireworks exploded inside me, lighting me up from the inside out. As we kissed, I felt myself come to life more than I had ever dreamed was possible. Until that moment, I may as well have been a corpse.
In my mountain man’s arms, with his hands gripping my body and warming me through my slip while our tongues tangled together, I felt like a different person than I’d ever been.
I felt like me. A me I’d never known before, one that I longed to get to know.
One that I longed to be.
His hand left my side and lifted to my neck. When his skin touched the marking underneath my ear, the one I only had because of him, I shuddered and closed my eyes. Emotions flooded through me, ones that didn’t belong to me but mirrored my own, with more intensity than I could’ve ever imagined.
I knew instantly what I was feeling, and that I was feeling exactly what Cody was feeling.
He wanted me almost more than he could take, and he cared about me. Not because of what I could do for him, but because of what I was to him. I was his world; the woman that made the earth spin for him. We’d only just met, but I already meant more to him than I could fathom.
I’d never cared about someone the way I felt that he cared about me, but I wanted to. I yearned to feel the way he did, to love someone so completely and so effortlessly and intensely. I wanted him to mean the way to me that I did to him.
And that was the most terrifying thing in the world.
But somehow, in his arms, I didn’t feel scared. I just felt cherished.
He moved his hand back down to my side, and I arched my body into his. He groaned again and pulled his mouth from mine.
When he met my gaze, the same intensity I’d felt from his emotions was thick in his eyes.
“I can’t be another one night stand to you, Quinn. We have to stop.”
I could tell how hard it was for him to say it.
“Alright.” I closed my eyes and stepped back, and then bit my swollen lip.
He closed the distance between us and crushed his lips to mine again. When I bit his lip, a growl vibrated through his chest.
I pulled away and stepped back again, and he let me go.
There it was—my chance to plant a seed of doubt in my mountain man. It was going to be so insanely difficult to convince him that he didn’t want to be with me. After that kiss, I had realized what an impossible feat I’d be trying to accomplish.
We were soulmates. My mountain man wasn’t just some guy, he was my guy. One that God had created just for me. One who could make me feel alive and real and loved in a way I hadn’t even known was possible.
How was I ever going to be able to get him to walk away?
More importantly, did I even want to?
My heart sank in my chest as I realized the truth. No, I didn’t want him to walk away. I wanted him to stay and to be with me. I wanted to know what about us was so perfect for each other that we were two halves of one whole.
But it wasn’t up to me to choose that. If I didn’t do whatever it took to get rid of him, the way I’d promised my father I would, my entire family would suffer the consequences. It wasn’t up to me to decide whether I wanted to be with my mountain man.
It was my responsibility to make him stop caring about me, and I would do whatever it took.
Even if it meant breaking my own heart.