Page 12 of Bonfire with the Mountain Man

I climb half into his lap on the old bench seat, knees bracketing his hips, and work his shirt open one button at a time while I kiss him deeper. The close quarters make every shift intimate. The steering wheel digs into my back for a second, and I laugh against his mouth, breathless. He laughs too, low and private, the sound swallowed by the fogging glass.

The heater ticks once—a soft metallic protest as it wakes up against the cold. Outside, the muffled roar of the fire and the crowd rolls on, voices rising and falling, someone laughing too loud, the copper-foil bottle with my name on it catching orange light through the fogged glass.

Boone’s thumb strokes the hinge of my jaw, slow, like we’ve got all night and no party to get back to.

I set the pace the way I always have with him. I push one of those rough hands under my sweater, over the soft skin of my stomach where nothing shows yet.

“Still careful with me,” I say. “Even now.”

“Always.” His voice drops. “Especially now.”

I guide his hand lower, and he unfastens my jeans and slides his hand inside. His fingers automatically find my clit. He knows exactly the pressure I like, the slow circles that make my hips roll without meaning to.

I brace one hand on the fogged window, breath stuttering, and ride the slow build he gives me until the pleasure tightens sharp and bright. I come within seconds, biting down on the sound against his shoulder, thighs trembling around his wrist while the party outside keeps laughing like nothing in the world has changed.

He holds me through it, mouth open against my neck, breathing my name like a promise.

When the last tremor eases, I slide down to the floorboards, knees on the worn mat, and open his jeans with deliberate care. He’s hard and heavy in my hand, already leaking for me.

I take him into my mouth slowly, tasting salt and the heat of him, and tease—shallow pulls, the light scrape of teeth, the wet slide of my tongue under the head—until his hips hitch and his fingers fist in my hair. The heater ticks again. The windows are nearly opaque now, our breath and the heat of the cab turning the glass into a private world.

“Maggie—” It’s half warning, half prayer.

I let him go with a last slow lick and wiggle my way out of his jeans while he helps. Once I’m naked from the waist down, I climb back into his lap. He pulls me astride him the same careful way he once lifted me onto that barrel, and I sink down onto him in one smooth, deliberate motion. The stretch is perfect and familiar, thick and deep enough that my breath catches, and the knowledge of the child growing inside me makes everything sharper—every inch of him, every pulse of heat where we’re joined.

I set the rhythm, rolling my hips the way I always have, taking him deep. His rough hands hold my waist, then slide up under my sweater. I catch the hem myself and peel the sweater off over my head, then the bra, tossing both into the passenger footwell.

Cold air kisses my bare skin for half a second before the cab’s warmth and the firelight take over. Boone’s eyes drop to my tits, nipples tight, and the look on his face is pure hunger.

“Christ, look at you,” he says, voice low and rough. “Bouncing on my cock like you own it. Those pretty tits—fuck, Maggie.” His hands come up to cup them, thumbs scraping over the peaks as I rise and drop again. “Ride me harder. Show me how much you want this. Want our baby. Want me filling you up while that little secret grows.”

I moan and lean into his touch, rolling my hips faster. “You feel so fucking good,” I tell him, the words coming out breathy and filthy. “Thick and deep and mine. I’ve been wet for this since you dragged me out of that crowd. Keep talking. Tell me how you’re going to fuck me when I’m big and round with your kid.”

He groans, hips lifting to meet me, the bench seat creaking under us. “Gonna take you just like this—slow at first, then hard, watching these tits bounce while I breed you all over again.” One hand stays on my breast, squeezing, the other slides down to where we’re joined so his rough thumb can circle my clit in time with every downward slide. “You’re dripping down my balls, baby. So tight and hot around me. Come on my cock. Let me feel you break.”

The firelight flickers orange across the fogged glass, painting us in shifting gold. Outside, the muffled party keeps going, oblivious. I ride him harder, chasing the second climb, the wet sound of us loud in the close cab.

The pleasure builds low and deep, coiling tighter with every thrust, every dirty word, every bounce of my bare tits under his hands. When it hits, it crashes through me in long, rolling waves—my cunt clenching hard around him, pulsing, flooding, the sensation so intense my vision whites out for a second and a broken cry tears out of my throat. It keeps going, cresting again as he locks up under me, burying himself to the root with a guttural sound against my neck, spilling hot and deep while I keep coming around him, milking every last drop.

We stay locked like that, shaking, the heater ticking softly, the windows fully opaque now, the whole world reduced to the heat of his body and the future already started inside me.

His hand is spread wide and warm and low on my stomach, over the place where the whole rest of our lives is currently the size of a plum. He hasn’t moved it since. I don’t think he can.

“Eight months,” he says against my hair.

“Give or take.”

“I’m building the crib myself.” His voice is thick. “Out of the oak off the old barrels. I’ve been saving the staves, but I didn’t know why.”

That undoes me a little, that he’s been keeping wood for years without a reason, the way he kept a name he wouldn’t say and a want he couldn’t speak. Boone Hudson, saving the good stuff for a future he didn’t dare ask for out loud.

“You’re going to be our child’s whole world,” I tell him. “You know that.”

“So are you.” He tips my chin up. “You already are mine. Have been since a flatbed came down the pass, making a sound I’d know anywhere.”

Outside, someone calls his name toward the fire, wondering where the man of the hour went. Neither of us moves. Let them wonder a minute. Let the brandy pour itself.

I spent my whole life being the one who stays. Then a man opened a door because of me, and kept opening it, every day, on purpose, until I believed it.

I lean into him in the warm dark cab with my name on a bottle by the fire and his hand over our whole future. For the first time in my life, I’m not braced for anything at all.

I’m just home.