Chapter Two

I shudder and pull my sweater a little tighter around myself. It's chilly, but it’s not the cold that is sending goosebumps crawling along my skin. It's the dream I'd had last night. It's still lingering in my mind, hanging on, playing over and over again in my head like a broken record. I shake my head and suppress another shudder. It felt so real.

Even now, I can almost smell the woman's fear. Can almost taste her blood. Can still feel the way it had slid down my throat, so warm and thick. In my dream, the taste of her blood, feeding on her, satisfied a hunger I'm still at a loss to explain.

A wave of nausea roils through me and I have to fight it back to keep from throwing up all over the place. Along with the increasing frequency and intensity of my dreams, I've been getting sick on top of it all. It all eventually passes, but for a little while, it feels like all I can do is curl up in a ball, cry, and wait it out.

Closing my eyes, I take a deep breath and try to focus on something other than the nausea and the memory of a nightmare that doesn't seem to want to let me go. I try to banish the nightmare by playing the little game I like to play when I'm out here. I listen close and try to identify the sounds. It sounds pretty lame, but it usually helps me to clear my head and turn the volume down on all of the thoughts that sometimes go rampaging through my mind and overwhelm me.

I'm still amazed at the way sound carries in the woods. And it always seems louder when it's cold out for some reason. But because of it, I hear a crackling sound I quickly identify as the thin layer of ice that covers the pond snapping and popping during the warmer part of the afternoon. Not that it's all that warm, but at least it's not cold enough to snow at the moment.

I listen closely again and hear an animal walking through the woods, about a football field's distance away. Its foot steps are loud against the almost frozen ground, snapping brittle twigs and leaves underfoot. I think it's too big to be a rabbit or squirrel, too small for a bear. Which means that it's probably a deer.

My eyes pop open and I look around, searching for the deer that's walking around out there. I grinned to myself and felt a little silly. Even after all this time living out here, in a place as close to nature as Black Salmon Falls, I'm still charmed by things like the wildlife. I get excited to see a deer or even something as small as a skunk.

As I think about it though, I realize that the reason I'm so charmed by wildlife – and maybe even the world around me – is because I sometimes think this is my second chance at life. When I went through – what I did while being held prisoner – I truly thought I was going to die. I never thought I'd see the outside world again.

Which is why, maybe I'm taking a little more time to stop and smell the roses. To enjoy and truly experience the world around me. To enjoy the simplest things in this world. I think I do it because I know, better than many, how quickly it can all be taken away from you. So, I make a point of appreciating the world around me now.

I look hard, but I can't see the deer, or whatever it may be, from where I'm sitting. It's out there though, somewhere in the distance. The trees in the woods are thick and densely packed. They're obscuring my view, but I can still hear the footsteps of the animal out there.

As I listen closer, I can tell that whatever's out there is moving away from me. And it sounds like it's moving at a pretty quick pace. Not that I blamed it, really. For all it knew, I could have been a hunter or a predator.

Although the thought of me as a predator was pretty laughable. I was all of five-foot-three and one hundred and twenty pounds soaking wet. Although I had that famed Bowden temper, I was hardly all that fearsome. I'd always been the smallest girl in my class until high school.

Unlike my older sister Olivia, who'd been a knockout from early on, it was like my sophomore year before I finally blossomed, grew some boobs and filled out through the hips a little more. I remember being so thankful that I finally looked more like a woman and less like a twelve-year-old boy.

I sat back and took another deep breath, savoring the musky, earthy aroma of the forest around me. My mind drifted back to the things that sent a chill through me. Because, of course it did. I tried to think about the deer, but the memory of that damn dream kept intruding.

What did the dream mean? Why had it been so vivid and why is it still lingering in my mind?

Frustrated, I pick up a rock that was sitting on the ground next to me. I cock my arm back and then send it flying. And when I say it went flying, the thing really went flying. It sails all the way across the pond and deep into the woods on the other side. I lose sight of it, but hear it hit something large and sturdy – probably a tree. The crack when it hits is loud and echoes throughout the woods around me.

I stare after it for a long time, not believing what I'd just done. It wasn't an enormous rock. Probably about the size of a softball. But it was dense, and it was fairly heavy. I'd figured, given the fact that I had never been able to throw a ball all that far back in school, that it would splash harmlessly into the pond. Or at least go skipping across the thin layer of ice.

But, I found the fact that I'd hurled it so far – and so effortlessly – more than a little disconcerting. I'm not an athlete. Never have been. And yet, I'd just thrown a decently heavy, softball sized rock farther than I've thrown anything in my life.

“Maybe, it wasn't as heavy as I thought,” I told myself. “Maybe, I just got lucky.”

I didn't have an explanation for it and every reason I came up with rang hollowly in my ears. That seemed to be happening a lot lately. I can't explain it, but over the last couple of months, I've just started to feel – different. It's not something I can really quantify, but it feels like something inside of me has changed.

It scares me a little to say, but I honestly don't know what it is. All I know is that my senses seem sharper. I have more strength and stamina. And my appetites for anything from food to sex are far greater than they've ever been in my life. The downside though, is that I sometimes have such dark thoughts and even darker dreams. And they all seem so vivid and so real that they can sometimes drive me to absolute despair.

I'm not saying it's all terrible. On the whole, I feel better than I've felt in my entire life. I feel more energetic. The world around me seems more vibrant and alive. I feel strong. I feel healthy. I feel – well – truly alive.

Part of me is afraid that when I was being held prisoner and they were running all of those experiments, they did something to me. Changed something within me. My biggest fear is that they've made me something other than who and what I am.

I have nothing to base that fear on. And part of me knows it’s irrational. Feeling healthy and strong shouldn't be something that strikes fear into my heart. But, after that whole experience, it just feels like something about me is – different.

That's the reason I don't tell anybody about it though. Why it's my most closely guarded secret. The last thing I want is to be thrown back into a box and be subject to more experiments. Not that Luca, Asher, and the rest of the bears would actually do that to me. But, I have no doubt they'd try to figure out what was done to me – and what I am becoming.

If I'm becoming something else at all. A fact that is still not in evidence just yet. I keep telling myself – promising myself, really – that if a time comes when I know I'm no longer human and that I pose a genuine danger or threat, that I'll tell them myself and accept whatever consequences may come. But, that day isn't here. And I hope it never arrives.

Until then though, it's my secret.

Taking another long, deep breath of the cool, clean forest air, I let it out slowly and am pleased to find that my mind starts to clear. The fragments of my nightmare start to lift like a dissipating fog and my mood begins to improve immediately.

And perhaps, that's because I know he's coming. Before he even says a word, I hear his footsteps in the woods behind me. They're soft and barely discernable among the noise of the forest around me. But then, he's always light on his feet.

I get to my feet, quickly dust off my jeans, and run my hands through my hair. The last thing I want to look like is some half-crazed wilderness woman. I turn in the direction he's coming from and watch as Jasper appears from behind a screen of trees only a few feet away from me.

Wearing jeans and a long-sleeved shirt that hugs his firm, thick chest, he looks to me like a man who's truly one with the cold. He's not even wearing a jacket or a hat to cover that raven black hair of his and keep his head warm. He's a beautiful man and one I never tire of looking at.

He adjusts the straps of the backpack on his shoulders and when he sees me staring at him, he smiles. And when he does, my breath catches in my throat and my pulse begins to race. When he looks at me in that special way of his, it makes my insides tingle with a sensation nobody but him has ever brought me before.

“You're going to freeze to death, Jasper,” I called out to him.

“Nah, it feels nice out here,” he said, quickening his pace and closing the distance between us.

Once he reaches me, Jasper pulls me into his strong arms and hugs me tight to his chest. I breathe in his scent and feel myself start to swoon. His body feels warm and safe and being in his arms feels like heaven to me.

Nuzzling my neck, he whispers, “Besides, I figured you would keep me warm.”

“I needed this,” I mutter, my face pressed into his chest.

I inhale his familiar, musky scent again and closed my eyes, resting my head against his firm, toned body. As Luca's cousin, he's always been around the house a lot. He and Luca are more like best friends or brothers, than cousins, really. We were introduced after Luca and my sister saved me. After they took me in.

And aside from my sister, Jasper has been the one constant in my life ever since they rescued me from that lab. He's been there throughout my recovery and has never let me give up – even when I desperately wanted to. If not for Jasper, it's entirely possible, if not likely, that I wouldn't even be here today.

A connection was forged between us that's only continued to grow and blossom in new and unexpected ways. A connection I cherish deeply. Probably deeper than I've cherished a connection with anybody in the history of my life. My sister aside, obviously. But Jasper is – special.

He takes a step back, and tilts my face upward, forcing me to look into his deep, blue eyes – eyes I've spent countless hours getting myself lost in. But, they're also eyes that can pierce all of my defenses and see all the way down into my soul. And as he looks at me, like clouds flitting across the moon, a shadow of concern passes over Jasper's face.

“What's going on, Emily?” he asks, “Everything okay?”

I start to speak and then bite back my words, deciding to hold my tongue instead. As much as I want to tell Jasper everything, I also don't want to sound crazy. And even I know how crazy that dream sounds.

“Spill it,” he says. “I can see those wheels turning in your head. And I can see you trying to hide it all.”

I smile and laugh. “So what, you're a psychic now?”

He shrugs. “Sometimes,” he says. “But, in this case, I don't need to be. I just know you. I know how your brain works.”

“Oh?” I ask, arching an eyebrow at him. “And how does it work, exactly?”

“Well, I know that when you try to avoid something you don't want to talk about, you deflect and try to divert the conversation in another direction,” he says, a grin on his face. “So, out with it already.”

“You're like a dog with a bone, you know,” I say. “When you get your mouth around something, you just won't let it go.”

“Only when it's something or somebody I care about,” he says and plants a soft kiss on the tip of my nose.

I sigh and pull him close again, leaning my forehead against his shoulder. As always, Jasper waits patiently for me to speak. To pour my heart out to him. He's always so good about listening to me. Without judgment. Without anything but love and care.

Taking a deep breath, I let it out slowly and start with the dream. I tell him everything that happened, how I felt, and what I experienced. And I told him, how freaked out I feel because of it.

“No matter what I do, I just can't get it out of my head completely,” I say and sigh. “It'll go away for a little while, but it keeps coming back. I keep seeing the fear on that woman's face. I can even taste the blood in my mouth, Jasper. It's totally freaking me out, even though I know it's just a dream.”

I know that a lot of men out there would scoff at my nightmare. Tell me to suck it up or disregard it as “just a dream.” They'd tell me that, no matter how it's still making me feel, that it's only a dream and can't possibly hurt me. They'd downplay and minimize it.

But, Jasper holds me close, his strong arms tight around me, pulling me tight against his body. He tells me that it's okay and that he's here for me. Tells me that we'll get through this together. And he doesn't downplay or minimize the dream – or its impact on me.

He just holds me. And eventually, the feelings of dread slowly loosens its grip and I feel like I can breathe again. I turn my face up to his and smile.

“You're pretty great, you know that?” I ask.

Jasper shrugs, a slow grin spreading across his face. “I've heard that a time or two.”

I stand on my tip toes and plant a soft, chaste kiss on his lips. Even that, the briefest and most innocent of touches, ignites the fire inside of me. Jasper has the most incredible and profound effect on me. It's so unlike anything I've experienced with anybody before.

My feelings for him are so powerful, it can feel a little overwhelming at times. Sometimes it even scares me. But, underneath it all, it feels so pure. So right. And I absolutely revel in it.

“Why don't we see if I can help you forget about it,” he says.

Never breaking eye contact with me, Jasper gently pushes my crimson hair behind my ear. Then, he lowers his face and presses his lips to mine, setting off an explosion of sensation through my body. Jasper's tongue pushes past my lips and my entire body tingles with electricity.

No one has ever made me feel the way he does. With his hands in my hair, he moves me backward until my back is against a tree and his body, hard and firm is pressed against mine. A small shudder ripples through me as I feel his erection through his jeans. He pushes it against my stomach and I can't resist sliding my hand down to stroke him through his jeans.

Jasper groans when I touch him, his mouth moving lower to my neck. Kissing me, sliding the tip of his tongue down to my collarbone, he draws a small groan of pleasure from me.

He dots soft kisses along my neck, making me shiver. “God, I need you, Emily,” he says, his voice thick with desire. “I need you so badly.”

“Did you remember to bring a blanket this time?” I ask, staring up into his baby blue eyes.

“Believe it or not, I did,” he replies.

Jasper gives me a cheeky grin and nods. This little clearing in the woods has been our secret meeting place ever since our relationship – evolved. It's our special space. Once we started to see each other and get a little more serious, we knew that we weren't ready to announce it to the world.

Actually, I'm not ready to announce it to the world.

Jasper is fine with it. At least, for now. He's proud of what we were building together and wants to shout it from the rooftops. But, I wasn't ready. Not yet. There are still cracks in my psyche that I'm working on repairing. I'm a lot better than I was a year ago, but some days, I still feel a long way from where I want to be. And I'm lucky enough to be with a man who not only understands that, but is willing to take things at my pace and never push me to do something I'm not ready or willing to do.

It's just one of the many reasons my feelings for him run so deep and so strong.

Sliding the backpack off his shoulders, he drops it to the ground at his feet, unzips it, and pulls out a large fleece blanket. He shakes the blanket out and then lays it down flat on the ground. Though it's cold and some parts of the forest floor are a little bit frozen over, our special spot rests within a small copse of trees that's sheltered from the elements. The ground is still soft with all of the leaves and grass beneath us.

Jasper drops the backpack onto the corner of the blanket, sits down, and pats the spot next to him. I happily oblige and sit down beside him. But I'm only sitting there for a moment because Jasper reaches over and grabs me around the waist, pulling me down on top of him. I squeal and laugh as he rolls over onto his back, so I'm sitting astride him.

From my perch straddling his waist, I stare down at his chiseled, handsome face. He's so beautiful that it makes my heart hurt and makes me wonder all over again, how a man like him could have fallen for a plain, ordinary girl like me.

Framed against the backdrop of the light blue blanket, his eyes locked on mine, Jasper could have passed for a model or a Hollywood leading man. His dark hair stands in stark contrast to his light, blue eyes. His skin holds just a hint of a fading summer tan, and it speaks of his love for the outdoors.

And his lips are so plump and soft that I can't help but kiss him every chance I get. I lean down and press my mouth to his, savoring the feeling of being this close to him. I feel him so long and stiff beneath me and I grind myself against him, which sends small waves of pleasure rippling through my body.

Jasper fumbles with the zipper on my jeans, but I hardly notice. I'm far more focused on feeling those soft lips of his pressed to mine, not to mention the way his tongue swirls and dances in my mouth. But once his hand slips down into my pants, a different surge of feeling rushes through me.

Almost involuntarily, my body reacts to his touch. The fires of passion and need explode deep in the center of me. I grind myself hard against the long, thick cock I'm straddling, every fiber of my being crying out for more. Crying out to have him inside of me.

His pants are still on though, and all I can do is keep rubbing myself against him, dry humping him even though I'm growing so warm and wet as his fingers tease my opening.

Half-crazed with desire and need, I reach down and unzip his pants, my breath coming out in short, ragged gasps. With his pants finally undone, Jasper helps me slide them down his hips, exposing that beautiful, long cock of his. Wrapping my hand around it, I stroke his member, watching his eyes flutter shut as he presses his head hard into the ground beneath him.

“Yes, Emily,” he groans. “Oh yes...”

With a salacious little grin on my face, I move down the length of his body, my hand still wrapped around his stiff rod. I wait until his eyes are open and on me again, and then open my mouth wide. I take the tip of him inside my mouth, sucking on just the head of his prick. Jasper's body tightens up and he thrusts himself upward involuntarily.

I can't take all of him into my mouth at once, but I take as much of him in as I can. My hand makes up the difference and I stroke him as I suck him, moving my mouth and my hand up and down on his shaft in a perfect, sensuous rhythm. I love tasting him, feeling him in my mouth, feeling him growing harder as I suck and jerk him.

Jasper grabs hold of me, pulling me back up his body and kisses me as he slides my pants down at the same time. Straddling him once again, I rub myself against his cock, stroking him with my body, letting his thick shaft slip between my wet, swollen lips. Jasper reaches down and takes his cock in his hand, pressing it against my opening and thrusts himself upwards.

As he plunges his hard rod into me, stretching me open, it feels like a bomb went off inside of me. I throw my head back and cry out in pleasure. I push myself down onto Jasper, taking all of him inside of me. He grabs hold of my hips, his fingers pressing into my flesh as he starts to move within me.

My head falls to his chest and I grind my body against his. He moves his hips, driving his thick cock deep into me, my moans echoing around our little forest hideaway. Jasper reaches around and pulls the extra blanket over me, covering us up. Not that I needed it to keep me warm with his body pressed so firmly to mine. But, it gave us semblance of privacy just in case someone walked up on us.

Though, what we were doing under the blanket couldn't be mistaken by anybody. Thankfully, our little hideaway wasn't near a well-traveled path or anything. Even still, Jasper could be a little modest at times. A trait I found entirely adorable.

Rocking back and forth on top of him, his cock moving within me, I rode his body hard. I thrust myself up and down on his stiff prick, sending waves of sensation rolling through me. Jasper takes my face in his hands and kisses me, his tongue moving in and out of my mouth with the same vigor as his cock moved in and out of my dripping wet pussy.

He gives me a hard upward thrust and hits that magic spot inside of me – the one that makes my toes curl and drives all rational thought from my mind. I feel like I'm gripped by some sort of a seizure as my body twitches and spasms hard, my orgasm hitting me harder than a freight train. As the pleasure Jasper induces in me rolls through my body, I feel like my skin is on fire and I have electricity shooting through my every nerve ending.

I cry out through my ragged breaths. “Jasper. Oh God, yes.”

I lay my head down on the hard planes of his chest, listening to his heart thundering in his chest as he pumps his cock in and out of me. His body is tense, and his breathing is growing more ragged. His once-steady rhythm grows more erratic. He's pumping himself into me almost frantically, as if the need for release is so great, he's half-crazed with it.

Jasper is holding onto my hips, driving himself into me again and again, hard and fast. As he pumps his cock into me, he keeps hitting that magic spot over and over again, sending shockwaves of ecstasy through me. I bite down hard on his chest without realizing it, and Jasper sucks in a hard breath. I roughly grind myself down on him, taking every last inch of his glorious rod inside me, until he's hitting my cervix.

I spasm around his cock, feeling myself involuntarily clenching and unclenching as my body writhes in pleasure with him so deep inside of me.

Jasper holds onto me, keeping our bodies connected as I thrash wildly on top of him. Even as his own body tenses, he turns my head, looking deep into my eyes as the last throes of my climax pass.

He wears an expression of pure pleasure on his face. His smile is wide, and his eyes are almost clenched entirely shut. The muscles in his arms are taut and his jaw is clenched tight as he tries to hold off the inevitable.

“Come for me, Jasper,” I moan, my voice low and sultry. “Come inside of me, baby. I want to feel you fill me up.”

“Emily, I – God, I –” he sputters through gritted teeth.

An animalistic growl echoes through the woods as Jasper comes, shooting his hot, sticky seed deep inside of me. I revel in the feeling of having his cock pulsing and throbbing within me as he fills me up.

Eventually, his cock begins to grow flaccid and he slips out of me, and I feel a rush of his fluids spill from my opening. I collapse next to him on the blanket, curling myself around him and lay my head on his chest as we bask in the afterglow of our lovemaking.

With his arm around me, pulling me tightly to him, he only reaffirms just how safe I feel with him. We remain silent as we wait for our pulses to slow, simply enjoying the feelings and sensations between us. I place a soft kiss on his chest and he runs his hands through my hair.

I smile as we share a loving quiet moment between us. Jasper was right, he'd made me forget all about the dream.

At least, for the time being.