Lumberjack (A Real Man, 1) by Jenika Snow Page B

what in the hell she could find funny right now.
    She smoothed her hands over my shirt. “You wearing flannel makes me think of Mountain Men.” Her smile faded as she drew her gaze from my red flannel button down shirt to my eyes. “But then again, that’s why I came back; I needed my lumberjack.”
    Fuck, I couldn’t even speak right now; I was so happy she was right here with me.
    “I have never felt anything remotely close to what I experienced with you, Jake.” She curled her nails against my chest. “And even though I felt that way while I was still tangled in the sheets with you, it wasn’t until I got back home that I realized how trapped I’d let myself get.” She closed her eyes and rested her forehead in the center of my chest.
    I cupped the back of her head and just held her. I saw people looking at us, the shock on their faces clear.
    I didn’t give a fuck. Hell, I’d bend Vivian over the hood of my truck and fuck her in front of everyone just to show them she was mine.
    “I took a leave of absence because I need to see what this is between us and where it might go.” She lifted her head and looked at me again. “If that’s what you want, too.” She didn’t give me a chance to say anything before she spoke again. “I’m hoping you holding me like this means you want it, too.”
    I didn’t say anything verbally; I just leaned down and kissed her until she was gasping for air, and her body was pressed hard against mine.
    I pulled away and looked at her now pink, swollen lips. “I hope that answers that.”
    She nodded slowly.
    “I’m not letting you go, Vivian.” I kissed her again and murmured against her mouth, “You’re mine.”

Epilogue

    Vivian
    O ne year later
    When I’d first come back to Jake it had been to see where things might go. Well, twelve months later, I was still here, with no intention of going back to the city. This was where I was happy, and Jake was the man that made my life whole.
    I lifted the cup of coffee to my mouth and leaned against the banister on the deck. I watched Jake and a few of the men he worked with cut and measure out the lumber for the addition on the cabin.
    My focus was trained on Jake as he leaned down and picked up a raw log and balanced it on one shoulder. Part of the interior of the new addition would have exposed beams and bark detailing. That had been something I’d wanted, and Jake had been more than happy to give it to me. With me having no intention of leaving, and Jake and I talking about marriage and even babies, this one-room cabin wasn’t really going to cut it. But neither of us wanted to move, so we were expanding on it and making a few more rooms.
    Despite four other men working on the cabin, I was just wearing one of Jake’s oversized shirts; I didn’t care if they saw me watch my man work. There a nothing more arousing than seeing Jake handle lumber.
    He dropped the log by the chopping block, pulled his ax free from the wood, and started working on cutting the timber. He had on a blue flannel shirt this time, the sleeves rolled up his forearms and sweat beading his hairline. It was only eight in the morning, and they’d all been hard at work for the last two hours.
    He looked up at me, his ax braced over his shoulder, and gave me a wink. My pussy clenched, got wet, and all I wanted to do was tell him to come inside and fuck me until I passed out. I had never seen myself as a fiend, but Jake brought a whole new meaning to the term.
    Maybe he saw the way I looked at him, or maybe the sight of me in his clothes—which I knew turned him on—had his control slipping.
    “Take twenty,” Jake yelled out to the other guys while still looking at me.
    I grinned and moved back from the banister.
    In no time at all, he stalked toward me, grabbed me around the waist, and hauled me up against his hard body. He was slightly sweaty, but it was that clean kind of perspiration, the kind I wanted to lick off of him.
    “ Only twenty