CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Will
Fuck. I’m not okay. I’m eight million miles from okay.
When I came over the incline and saw Teresa being carried by the current, I left my heart on the goddamn ground. It has only just reentered my chest and begun to beat again. Was I worried about Southpaw? Yes. But his entire upper half was above the water line, while Teresa was rapidly sinking and—
Jesus Christ. I can’t think about it.
She’s crawling onto my lap, wrapping her legs around my waist, and she looks so beautiful, so fragile and brave and determined and everything in between, I drop the niggling certainty that she’s keeping something from me…and I let the hunger that has been building for days take over. It takes over without mercy, too, turning my cock to wrought fucking iron in my wet jeans, just in time for Teresa to settle her cunt over it and work, work, work her hips like temptation in the flesh.
She goes in for my mouth, but I fist her hair in my grip, stopping her. Not sure why, since my balls are so high and tight, I can feel them in my throat. Maybe it’s a last-ditch effort to get inside her head before lust makes me its servant and I can’t think anymore. Maybe I’m still shaky from seeing her flying down the rapid, knowing I only had a limited time to reach her before the beach ran out. Whatever the reason, I want to hear some of her husky voice. I’m craving it. “I put us up in the presidential suite at our hotel…” I twist my fist in her hair and she bucks in my lap, mouth falling open on a whimper. “Could’ve taken you the first time in a bed, a couch…a whirlpool. But no. You want my dick in the forest.”
“Not want. Need.” Her wet T-shirt is showing me everything. Those peaked nipples. Hell, the exact tint of dusky pink is obvious because this little temptation isn’t even wearing a bra. Not a damn thing in this world can stop me from leaning down and sucking on her through the sodden cotton, gently tugging on the bud with my teeth. “Will, please.”
I give her other tit the same thorough attention. “We could get in trouble.”
“You love trouble.” Teresa pulls the T-shirt over her head and drops it with a glop, knocking my hands free of her hair in the process. “Asking me to dance for you in the backseat of your car. The way you look at men, daring them to check me out. You want trouble, Will. Come and get it.”
Christ. Does Teresa see me, or what? A lot of our association has felt like a game of chess, but the game board is made of solid stone. The way she’s looking at me, half naked and mind-blowingly gorgeous in the fractured forest light…it makes me feel new. Who the hell cares which life path I’m supposed to be on, so long as it led me to this day, this moment, with this woman.
“You said it yourself last night,” she purrs in my ear, rubbing her tits against my chest. “You might take me to fancy hotels, but you fuck me nasty on the floor. That’s you, isn’t it? Best of both worlds?”
Blood roars in my ears as I stand, Teresa’s legs wrapped around my hips, her naked breasts bouncing around with every step I take. To where? I don’t give a damn. She’s getting it fast and rough against the first solid surface I find. Southpaw has taken a hint and gone off into the trees, away from the water. Thank God I don’t have to worry about him, because my head is full to bursting with Teresa.
Her fresh water and female scent is a drop kick to my senses, curling in my nose and throat like an airborne love potion, stroking my cock with an invisible hand. Getting inside a woman has never been about more than release, but it’s like I’m already worried I won’t get close enough to her. Won’t absorb as much of her as I need to live. Jesus, when her mouth meets mine and our tongues flick together, I really wonder if needing her to live isn’t so crazy. My pulse is slamming up against the sides of my veins, like it wants to join with hers.
The kiss ends and her neck goes loose, head falling back. “Will.”
In my periphery, I see an upright boulder with a broad, flat front and change direction to get us there. “Go on, baby.” I flatten her between me and the rock, baring my teeth against her mouth. “Whine my name again. Whine to me about the achy little pussy inside your shorts.”
“Oh God.” Her tits lift and shudder between us. “Make it better, Will.”
There’s a thread of vulnerability in those words, compelling me to press our foreheads together, search her eyes. “Tell me you’re really okay, Teresa.”
“Yes,” she whispers. “But I was scared.”
Fuck. Based on the way my heart free falls into my stomach, it does not like hearing that. “Is that why you want this?” I frame her face in my hands, keeping it tipped up when she tries to look away. “Because you were scared?”
“Only a little. Like I need somewhere to put the fear. But mostly it’s you.” Disbelief dances across her face. “It’s…this. Us.”
Hearing her use the word us knocks over a bucket of warm wax inside my chest. “You’re not afraid of me tying you down. You couldn’t even look at me when you said it.”
“Arrogant man.” A ghost of a smile passes her mouth before vanishing. “It’s not fair. Nothing is fair.”
I press my lower body tighter to the notch of her thighs and she gasps, digging her heels into my ass. “Like what, baby?”
“I-I don’t know. Just circumstances. Timing. Responsibilities.” In the distance, there’s a happy bark, but it sends even more distress cutting through her needy expression. “You…having to lose Southpaw. I couldn’t let it happen earlier than it’s supposed to, Will. I just couldn’t. But you’ll still lose him and it’s not fair—”
“Shh.” I quiet her with a kiss, while my heart breaks out in a riot. For the rest of my life, if anyone doubts out loud in my presence that a man can fall for a woman overnight, I’ll be the first to tell them they’re dead wrong. Because I’ve damn well fallen for this woman who just saved my dog’s life and goes from sex bombshell to honest and afraid in mere seconds. She’s a mystery, she’s truth, she’s black, white and gray. She’s mine. “Here’s the thing, Teresa,” I murmur against her lips. “We’re not dying, you and me. We get to live. This isn’t an end for us.” It’s just the start, I add silently, not wanting to overwhelm her. “You want to feel alive right now, baby?”
“Yes.”
*
Teresa
My adrenaline is still firing from my impromptu swim meet, but it’s quickly being overtaken by lust. Hot, sticky, undeniable lust. Will asked me if I want to feel alive, but I already do. I’ve felt more alive around him in the past couple days than I have in years. Maybe my entire life. And with his hips pumping between my open, eager thighs, I refuse to think of this—of Will—being taken from me. Just for now, for today, we’re two people who collided, and upon standing, maybe found a better version of themselves when the dust settled.
It hasn’t settled yet, though. No, settled is definitely the wrong word for being dry humped against a boulder in a national forest. Topless. Soon to be pantless, too, because the way Will is kissing me means one thing: it’s going down. No turning back. I don’t want to, either. My shorts are still saturated from the river, but they grow wetter the old-fashioned way every time Will leans back and looks down to watch his erection grind between my legs.
“By everything holy,” I say, my voice shaking. “Please take off our pants. M-mine and yours. Both.”
He snags my mouth in a blatant kiss, teasing my tongue with his until I don’t know whether to slap him or beg for more. “Woman, how am I supposed to do that when your thighs are wrapped around me like a boa constrictor?”
I nip at his bottom lip. “Figure it out.”
There’s only a split second to savor his heated amusement, before my legs are pushed down Will’s powerful hips, my feet meeting the ground with a crunch of foliage. Not an inch of space is put between us, though, as Will continues to abuse my mouth with growling, provocative kisses, his big fingers busy on my zipper. When he lowers it with a metallic zing, I expect him to shove my panties off and get down to business. But he lowers them slowly, his fingertips trailing lightly down my hips. A slow, slow, never-ending drag of flesh on flesh raising goosebumps on my skin, head to toe. I’m panting by the time the material slips down to my ankles, my vagina singing falsetto.
I make quicker, clumsier work of his fly and lower the front of his briefs, groaning like a damn lady when his thickness bobs free, slapping off his stomach and loitering there. Just like the night when I knelt for him on the motel balcony, I have a strong urge to fall to my knees and serve. To please. So I don’t fight it. But as soon as my knees dip, his grip closes around my throat and I’m positioned back against the boulder, pinned by the single hand.
“None of that pretty mouth for me this time.” His free hand separates my thighs, his knuckles rubbing against my sensitive skin. “I’m saving all my misery for this.” His middle finger surges up into my entrance hard, his hand tightening on my throat at the same time—and in the space of two seconds, I’m trembling, my loins constricting around his one long finger. “Remember that, baby. Remember that your man’s pleasure is tied up in pain. Every little bounce of your cunt is going to feel like heaven and hell. Like medicine and murder.” He adds a second finger, pressing deep until I scream through clenched teeth. “I love the way we’ve been getting each other off, but the hunger for fucking you only builds every time. So if it seems like I’m angry with you, try and remember I’m just trying to get through pain to pleasure.”
“Okay.” I wobble around on my toes, sucking in a breath every time the heel of his hand grazes my clit. “O-okay, I’ll remember.”
“Good news is, it’s going to be all pleasure for you.” Will steps close and yanks up my left knee to waist level. He doesn’t take his eyes off mine as he dips down, positions his blunt-headed erection between my thighs…then drives home, lifting me off the ground. “Yeah!” he roars. “Fuck.”
My scream is trapped in my throat, eyes watering from the intrusion. But he’s right. Oh God, he’s so right. Despite his size, there’s nothing but blinding, impossible pleasure, probably because I’m a human lubricating device and Will could turn a nun into a sinner. “Move, please.” I open my thighs wide, my backside propped on the boulder, writhing, writhing. “Move. Please.”
“I got you, baby.” His hot breath pelts my neck, hips dropping and punching upwards again, making me see stars. “Christ, Teresa. You’re like threading a fucking needle.”
“Thread it harder,” I whimper.
His groan is ragged. “You planning on making me feel guilty later, telling me your pussy is sore?” He starts to thrust in tight, even pumps. “It’ll work like a charm, you know. My girl pouts and can’t get comfortable in her seat because I fucked her too hard? I’ll sit you on my lap, apologize, rub your clit through your panties until you’re smiling again.” He gives me a savage drive that rattles my wisdom teeth. “Yeah, I’ll massage the ache until you forget my dick is the bad guy and you want him to fill you up again.”
The words fill you up make my eyes fly open. “Oh. We didn’t…condom.”
“Shit.” He tilts his open mouth against mine, our gazes locked. “Shit.”
I can’t manage a swallow. “Huh.”
“I’ll pull out.”
With a wince, he starts to ease his hips back, but denial clamors through my blood, my legs locking around him involuntarily. “No.”
He slams back into me with a vengeance, roaring into my shoulder. “Remember what I said about the pain, Teresa,” he grates at my mouth. “It’s going to get worse. I have to wrap it up now, or stopping to leave you is going to kill me. It’s so hot and tight…” Another series of desperate thrusts. “Jesus, I thought I knew how good you’d be, but I had no idea.”
“I do have an idea,” I whisper brokenly, working my hips, my bare backside scraping on the boulder, but barely a hint of pain registers next to the epic, increasing pressure between my thighs, all centered around Will’s smooth, swollen flesh. “Feels so good.”
“Goddammit.” He slants our lips together, kissing me long and wet until I’m lost in a fog of impending climax, no idea where to focus. His mouth or his pumping erection that seems to grow larger with each drive. “Can you get pregnant, baby?”
“No. I’m taken care of.” Thank God he’s asking. That must mean this isn’t about to end, even for a second. I’ve been on the pill since I can remember and it seemed like a waste during my long stretch without sex, but I’m so grateful I stayed on it now I could cry. “Don’t stop. Don’t stop.”
“Can’t. I can’t.”
I don’t realize until this moment that he’s been holding back. Compared to how he claims my body now—raw, deep, hard and fast, fast, fast—before was only a muted preview. One muscular arm bands behind my backside, the other braced at my back, so my bare skin is no longer rubbing the huge rock. The intimacy of being pressed to Will so tightly, his arms wrapped around me to possess, protect…it makes it hard to breathe. His eyes bore into mine like he’s trying to read my mind, all while he pounds into me like a man with little control.
“Feel me, Teresa. You can’t walk away from this and neither can I.” He angles his hips and rolls into me, dragging his hard flesh over my clit. Like our bodies were molded with the specific intent to please each other. “There’s no end date on this. Every time you try to put one on us, it’s going to end with you moaning and telling me I don’t need a rubber.”
The buildup to my climax is too intense to stand. I’m looking right at Will, but I’m seeing gold plumes at the edges of my vision, my thighs beginning to shake violently. “Don’t move. I’m coming. I’m…please.”
His growl and the stuttered pace of his hips tell me he’s close, too. “No end date. Say it.” He crushes me closer, our wet mouths raking up and down together. “Say it.”
Even though my common sense is firing warning shots, I would say anything in the world he needed to hear right now. I’m an animal desperate to be pleased and to please her mate. “No end date,” I wheeze.
“Good girl.” He dips his head, bathes the side of my neck with his hot tongue. “Now tell me you can’t walk away from this cock, either. Tell me it services your dick-tease body just the way you need it.”
My climax begins to pump through me in dark, radiant waves, choking off my air supply, so I can only gasp the words. “Can’t walk away.” I throw my head back and moan, grinding the back of my skull against the boulder. “Need it. Need it.”
“Get used to having soaked panties,” he rasps against my ear, giving me crude upward drives, bouncing me and holding there, exploiting the elevated peak I’m living in. “I’m going to keep them that way. When I’m not fucking you, I’ll make damn sure you’re thinking about when and how it’s going to happen.”
I’m limp by the time he finishes speaking, head lolling, barely capable of keeping my thighs wrapped around his waist. It’s sheer pride keeping them in position at this point. Pride and that still-fierce need to give him the same bliss he’s given me. My hands lift and cup my breasts, my teeth sinking into my lower lip, and I watch in satisfaction as his nostrils flare, a curse scraping out between his teeth. “You like the way I feel, Will?”
“I fucking love it.”
“Filthy man,” I whisper, not sure of the woman I am in this moment, but so comfortable and confident with her, I think she’s been waiting in the wings. Waiting for Will to free her. “You big, filthy man. You need to come so bad, don’t you?”
“Yes.” A tremor moves through him, his pumps turning violent. “Jesus. Yes.”
With his breath growing more and more labored at my forehead, I clamp down around him with my inner walls—and his answering groan is the hottest thing I’ve ever heard. It’s a masculine battle cry that fades into surrender, cracking at the end as he comes. “Goddammit. Teresa. Shit.” His mouth opens wide over mine, his eyes squeezing closed. And I’ve never been more satisfied in my life than I am for the next few seconds, his heat flooding me, my intimate muscles flexing around his flesh—tighten, release, tighten, release—milking him dry. A stream of dirty speech comes out of Will, slurred and incoherent. Words I would slap any other man across the face for saying out loud, but this man who accepts my fantasies without flinching makes them…right. Praise spoken in the heat of passion, singular to us, whether it’s truth or fiction meant to heighten the moment. “Fuck. That’s a greedy pussy you’ve got, woman. Stealing the come right out of me.” Will bares his teeth as more liquid warmth releases. “Little liar. Want my baby, don’t you? God. This body tells me the truth. Take it.”
“Yes,” I moan, licking salty sweat off his face. “Give it to me.”
One final thrust and Will collapses against me, his face finding a home in the curve of my neck. My legs lose their battle and drop, Will’s embrace keeping me upright, pressed between heavy male muscle and stone. We stay like that for long minutes, catching our breath, until we hear the jingle of Southpaw’s collar approaching. We glance over to find Southpaw watching us, head tilted, a moss-covered stick in his mouth.
A laugh climbs my throat, Will’s low timbre joining me a second later.
“All right, buddy.” Will presses a slow kiss to each of my cheeks, humor dancing in his eyes. “My stick has been looked after, now we’ll worry about yours.”
“I knew that was coming.” I shove Will off me with a laugh, but he comes right back, whipping his shirt off over his head and carefully pressing it between my thighs, his earlier humor fading away. It’s such an unexpected move that I suck in a breath, unable to move as he cups me through the fabric, dragging it up and back, then moving lower to collect the stickiness on the insides of my thighs.
While he completes the task, his eyes never leave mine, the intensity in their depths holding me in thrall. “Mine now.”
I nod like I’ve been hypnotized. Or Will-notized.
“Can you stand to put those wet clothes back on for a few minutes?” He kisses me slowly, thoroughly. “I’m going to jog back to the visitor center to get you something dry to wear.” His lips twitch. “Pretty sure I saw a tie-dye dress in there that says Nature Girl across the front.”
“It won’t match my shoes, but I think I’ll live.”
His thumbs brush my cheeks, a shadow crossing his face. “Too soon after I pulled you out of the river to go making jokes about living and dying, woman.”
Stepping back with a low sound of reluctance, he tucks the T-shirt in his back pocket, zips up and leaves me to dress.
And I know that no matter what happens, whether he wants me or not when the dust settles, I am his. The question is whether or not he’ll still want to be mine.