Total pages in book: 20
Estimated words: 18302 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 92(@200wpm)___ 73(@250wpm)___ 61(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 18302 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 92(@200wpm)___ 73(@250wpm)___ 61(@300wpm)
Read Online Books/Novels: | The Mountain Man's Obsession (Thickwood CO #1) |
|---|---|
Author/Writer of Book/Novel: | Jenika Snow |
| Language: | English |
| Book Information: | |
Mateo I kept my distance from people, living alone, being celibate. And that made me content, happy. I was known as the Bogeyman in Thickwood, Colorado, and I was fine with that title if it meant I wasn’t bothered. But then I saw her. And in that moment, I knew I had to have her. Curvy and thick, young and innocent, Charlotte was everything I didn’t know I wanted in life. I was instantly obsessed. Something changed in me in that moment, this need, possession, territorial desire that claimed me until I knew it wouldn’t go away until she was mine. So that’s what I’d do. I’d make her mine. I’d show Charlotte that she was meant to be claimed by me. And if I had to throw her over my shoulder like a caveman and take her back to my isolated cabin to prove that, I’d do it without shame or guilt. I’d do it with pleasure. And by the time I’m done with her, Charlotte would know the lengths I’d go to keep her, not only in my life as my woman, but also in my bed… sated. | |
| Books by Author: | Jenika Snow |
Chapter One
Charlotte
“He’s big. Like, everything about him is giant-size.”
I laughed when Ashley said that, the crackling campfire in front of us roaring from the “starter” our friend Riley doused it with.
“What, you’ve heard this story?” Riley asked sarcastically. Ashley faux-flipped him off. “Will you let me tell the story or what?” She shrugged and motioned him to continue. “David, Jax, you hear the story that goes around town, the one about the man who lives on top of the mountain?”
I rolled my eyes as I listened to Riley tell an old legend I knew parents told their kids to keep them in line. But I didn’t say anything. I let them tell his buddies this “ghost story” as we sat around the campfire and drank beers.
“Dude, are you seriously going to try to scare us about some old-ass man who lives alone in the woods?” one of his friends asked, and the other two laughed.
I looked over at Ashley, both of us having lived in Thickwood, Colorado our entire lives. We rolled our eyes, knowing the story was bullshit, but if Riley wanted to tell his out-of-town buddies a town legend, so be it. If they were stupid enough to buy it, then I’d go along with it and get a good laugh.
“Yeah, he’s this barbaric guy who owns like a shitload of land in Thickwood. Rarely comes down the mountain, and when he does, people say it’s to snag a woman he keeps in the basement.”
I was middrink when Riley said that and spewed my beer all over the fire in front of me. Riley snapped his head in my direction and winked for me to play along.
“They call him the Bogeyman,” Riley said in this ominous tone, and Ashley snorted.
“Riley, you’re really pushing it now,” she said, and he gave her an exasperated look.
“What?” he prompted. “It’s true. They do call him the Bogeyman.”
I rolled my eyes and took another drink of my beer before setting the empty bottle beside me. “Yeah, but everybody in town knows that’s bullshit, and they only tell kids that so they’ll stay away from his cabin.” I didn’t know why I was sticking up for Mateo Braxton—said mountain man. It wasn’t like I knew who he was aside from what I heard through the rumor mill.
Everyone in Thickwood, Colorado heard about the man who lived high in the mountains, who was antisocial, even frightening, some would say. I didn’t know if any of that was true. But I mean, didn’t rumors come from some truth?
Or maybe they thought those things about him, because he kept to himself. When people wanted to be left alone, others started assuming things.
Riley looked over at me. “I saw him once,” he said. “And he scared the shit out of me without even saying one word or looking in my direction.” His voice was genuine, and that surprised me.
“I didn’t know you’ve actually seen him before,” I muttered, leaning forward, because now I was interested. I’d known Riley and Ashley my entire life, all of us born and bred in Thickwood. And although we were good friends, did everything together, I was surprised he’d never mentioned this before, given the fact that he liked to gossip just as hard as anyone else who lived here. Well, except for me. I didn’t give two shits about rumors and kept my nose down and my business to myself.
But right then, as Riley started talking about Mateo Braxton, I found myself intrigued.
“It was several months ago,” Riley said and brought his beer bottle up to his mouth, taking a long pull from it. He finished it off and tossed it in the trash bag we had set off to the side. We might be camping and drinking, but we didn’t litter and we did recycle. We were responsible young adults and all that shit. “He came down for some supplies. I saw him coming out of Holt’s Supply and head into the grocery store. I swear, those couple minutes as I saw him walking across the street, his big fucking Hulk-size body like a predator stalking his prey, I knew there had to be some truth to the rumors.”
I shook my head. “That’s what rumors are, Riley. Rumors. And especially in this town, where nobody has anything else to do but talk shit about others; of course they’re going to pick on the one man who keeps to himself.” I loved my town, but I also hated parts of it. And the major part I hated was the fact that everybody was up everyone’s business twenty-four hours a day. There was no secret that was safe in Thickwood, and although I got used to it because it’s all I’d ever known, the older I got, the more ridiculous it all was.