To Claim the Mountain Man

Chapter 38

HEATH

There was something at once forbidden and tantalizingly erotic about following Isla to her childhood bedroom.

It felt like high school again. My first time sneaking into a girlfriend's bedroom while her parents slept just down the hall. Or, in this case, her parents were walking down the street to go get ice cream. Somehow, though we were both adults and alone in the house, this was infinitely more dangerous. More wrong.

Because I knew, as Isla looked over her shoulder with a shy, excited smile, climbing hand in hand up the familiar stairway, that this would only end one way. Entangled. Frenzied. Completely at the mercy of this bewitching woman. Thoroughly fucked.

And I wasn't strong enough to stop it. I didn't want to stop it.

We reached the top of the stairs, and Isla's grip on my hand tightened. She tugged me along, spearing toward the set of doors on the far side of the upstairs hallway. Throughout my youth, I always turned left toward Garrett's bedroom. I never once stopped to consider what might wait behind the door on the right.

As if she could read my mind, Isla glanced back at me again. "My parents haven't changed my room much since I left for college. I think they're holding onto the hope that I'll want to move back in, so most of my stuff is still here."

The door clicked when Isla turned the handle, creaking as it swung on its hinges and opened to a dark interior. She led me into the unknown, releasing my hand only long enough to turn on a lamp on the bedside table. In an instant, the light illuminated powder blue walls, a tasseled white quilt with matching white and blue pillows, and several half-filled bookshelves.

My eyes snagged on the books' worn spines.

"These books didn't make the journey with you to the new place?" I lifted a brow, walking to then nearest shelf and plucking the first book off. The title read The Fault in Our Stars, and I vaguely recognized the name. "This is a romance, isn't it?"

"I've been meaning to bring them over now that I have a fancy new bookshelf getting installed." Isla wiggled her brows at the word fancy. She sidled up to me and wrapped both her arms around one of mine. "Yeah. It was one of my favorites in high school. Never failed to make me ugly cry, even after my third re-read."

I cocked my head, placing the book back in its spot. "If it's a romance, why were you ugly crying?"

"One of the characters dies at the end."

My brows shot up, an incredulous laugh escaping my mouth. "Jesus. That sounds...awful. Not very romantic, either."

She grinned up at me, resting her chin on my bicep. "It is pretty tragic, but that's part of what makes it so good."

"Does a character die at the end of all of your favorite books?"

"No," she giggled. "Most of the time, I prefer a happily ever after."

Happily ever after.

Those words, however innocent, felt like a shiv to my gut.

One look at Isla Holmes and it was obvious that this girl believed, with her whole damn heart, in happily ever after's. How could she not? She grew up in a stable home with an intact family, surrounded by people who loved her and one another. People like her had happily ever after written in their bones, like it was her destiny to find the love of her life, get married, have lots of babies and live out her days in absolute bliss.

But me...

I'd learned to face reality a long time ago. Life would fuck you over six ways to Sunday. People lied and cheated. Even the people you should've been able to trust. Relationships crumbled, turned volatile. It was all I'd known. It was the reason I avoided serious relationships in the first place.