OH MY GOD, HIS kiss.
His huge, hard length pulsed in my hand, and he grasped me tighter. Angling my head, taking my mouth, dominating every single breath between us, he didn’t kiss me, he took me.
Just like he said he would that first night we saw each other again.
He took my reason. He took my fear. He took my inhibition and he made me feel more loved than I had ever felt in my entire life. His arms caging me in, his body curled around me, he consumed everything. Musk and desire mingled with the scent of his soap, and I was surrounded by man and forest. But not just any man. Hero.
My Hero.
Gentle, coaxing my tongue to meet his, then thrusting to dominate as he pulled me harder into his kiss, only to ease back and suck my bottom lip, he made my head spin. Hard, soft, strong, subtle, he kissed me like every nuance was a moment etched in time I would never forget.
I wanted him in my hand, and I wanted to feel every pulse of his arousal, but I wanted my arms around his neck. I wanted to feel the soft buzz of his short hair under my fingers as I grasped on to him. I wanted to wrap my legs around his waist and feel him between my legs. I wanted more, so much more.
Moaning, my mouth open against his, I begged. “Please.”
One hand left my face, and a second later, a rough, calloused finger circled my aching nipple.
I sucked in a breath and arched into his touch, but he’d already moved to my other nipple.
Never imagining how sensitive that part of my body was, wanting more, but afraid of it, I’d barely had time to think the thought when his mouth left mine and hot lips closed over the first nipple.
“Oh God, yes.” I didn’t realize I’d let go of him until my arms were gripping the back of his head as he pulled my flesh between his teeth. Sharp, painful desire shot to my core. “Oh my God, Callan.”
He cupped me, hard, and his lips were instantly back against mine. “Hero,” he growled, stroking through my wetness.
Oh my God oh my God oh my God. “Yes,” I panted. “Hero.”
Slow, deliberate, his finger circled my most sensitive spot. “Always Hero when we are alone together.”
“Yes, okay.” I would have agreed to anything in that moment. Nothing had ever felt this good. “Please,” I pleaded. “More.”
“Tell me why,” he demanded, slowly, too slowly, stroking, but not with enough force.
I gripped his wrist and pressed his hand harder against me. I didn’t know the woman I’d become in his arms, and I didn’t care. Hard and rough, I just wanted his hands on me. I wanted all the bad memories of the past couple days to be gone, and I just wanted to feel good. “Because it’s you and because nothing has ever felt this good. Not like this.”
“Hands on your breasts.” His finger coasted lower, circling my entrance.
My mouth felt empty, my core felt empty, and I could feel desire dripping out of me. “Please,” I begged. “I need more.” I rocked into his touch.
His hand left my pussy, and he gripped my wrists. “I said touch your breasts.” He put my hands right over my aching nipples.
I instantly squeezed, feeding the need for more pressure.
“That’s it,” he urged.
I pinched my nipples, the sting shooting to my core.
His mouth captured mine and he devoured me, sinking a finger inside my core as his tongue drove into my mouth.
I saw stars.
Pleasure, pain, blinding rightness, my head spun. Being stretched how I’d never been stretched before, my legs shook, my core convulsed and it happened instantaneously.
I was coming.
Thrusting a second finger deep inside me, he swirled his thumb over my clit.
I came so hard, I didn’t notice him drop to his knees until his mouth took over for his thumb.
“Hero,” I cried.
Hot, firm, exquisite, he licked my inflamed clit through rolling aftershocks that made my whole body shake. Then, without warning, he brought the sensitive flesh between his teeth, curled his fingers deep inside me and bit down.
“Ahhhh!” My head fell back, my legs gave out, and I was coming again.
A strong arm caught me around the middle and lifted me to the bed. Laying me gently on my back, his mouth kissing and licking where no man had ever touched me, he pushed my legs wide.
Shaking, my fingers still gripping my tight nipples, I groaned. “Hero.” Oh my God. “Hero.”
Swirling his tongue through my folds, he slowly eased his fingers out and ran them down the length of my pulsing core until he lightly pushed against my tight opening.
I jumped.
Crystal clear blue eyes looked up at me as his hand went flat on my stomach. Stilling me, holding me captive, with his intense gaze, with his firm touch, he slowly, intentionally sucked my clit. His eyes locked on mine, he pressed against my tight bud again.
Desire and shame raced across my skin and heated my face. “What are you doing?”
He said nothing. His tongue, thick and long like his erection, darted out and swirled over my clit, then he sank inside my heat as his finger eased into my forbidden opening.
Holy fuck.
My hands left my breasts and my back arched. I grabbed two handfuls of bedding. “I can’t,” I panted, grinding my hips into his mouth, not even knowing what I was saying. “I can’t come again.”
He pushed his finger deep and took my clit between his teeth, licking and sucking on the swollen flesh.
I exploded.
Mind blowing, soul shattering, exploded.
Animalistic growls erupted from my chest as the orgasm ripped through me in wave after wave. Tears streamed down my face, and a rush of wetness dripped between my thighs. “Hero, Hero, Hero.” I chanted his name from my sore throat as I shook.
The pressure left my backside as he eased his finger out, then his lips pressed the softest kiss against my drenched sex. Crawling up my body like a predator, his lips lingered on my hips, my stomach, my ribs, my breasts, leaving traces of my desire with every soft kiss. His huge body hovering over me, he pushed my thighs wide with his knee, then settled between them.
An unfamiliar, desperately aching need filled my empty core as his arousal barely skimmed against me.
Sloppy, no muscle control left, I reached for him. “More,” I frantically begged, needing him like I had never needed anything in my life. The need to make the feeling last, the need to forget, the need for more—like an addict, I grabbed his thick length. “Now.” I jammed my hips up into his.
A tight vise grip of a hand clamped down over my grip. “No.”
It was instant.
Overwhelming shame and rage, at him, at myself, at being kidnapped, at going clubbing in the first place, at all of it—it ripped through my veins at heart-stopping speed, and I shoved at his chest. “Get off!”
“Angel,” he warned.
I lost it.
Seriously fucking lost it.
My chest bucked, my legs kicked and I struck him. Fury, impotent and repressed, broke a dam I didn’t know I’d been holding on to and I screamed. “NO.”
His arms flew around me in a vise-like grip. “You are safe.”
The floodgates opened. Crashing and breaking what was left of my dignity, I blindly lashed out.
I hit his chest, I kicked his thighs, I punched his arms. I screamed at him. “No, no, no!” I shoved down into the mattress then reared up with all the rage of having my old life ripped away from me, and I slammed my head into his solid chest.
Horrible, wrenching sobs filled the primitive cabin as huge, strong arms flipped my body like rag doll.
A solid wall hit my back and tight pressure wrapped around my chest as two massive arms locked in my storm. A huge, muscled thigh came down over my legs, and a steady heartbeat hit my ears as a traitorously calm breath washed over my neck and cheek.
“You are safe,” he repeated.
I dissolved into tears.
Every minute of fear in that cargo container came back, and I sobbed for the life I’d thought I’d lost. I cried for the young girls who’d been taken, and I wept at the blood I didn’t get to shed.
“I wanted to kill him,” I bawled.
“I know,” he answered, quiet, calm.
“You took that from me.” I threw down the repressed accusation I hadn’t thought I was holding on to.
“You did not need to carry the burden of taking another’s life.”
Every calm word out of his mouth belied the psychosis of my accusation. I stopped fighting against his hold, but words bled out. “It was my turn to touch you. You were supposed to come. I wanted to make that happen. I wanted you inside me. You were supposed to make me forget.”
“I am not releasing until I am inside you.” He kissed my temple. “You were not ready for that.”
“Yes I was.” Two stray tears slipped down my cheek. “You made me ready.”
He said nothing. He knew I was lying.
“You stopped,” I accused, laying blame he didn’t deserve.
He remained silent.
“Say something,” I demanded.
His chest rose and fell once. “I should not have taken you so soon.”
“Stop it.” I tried to shove against his hold.
He didn’t budge. “You were not ready.”
Shame, so deep it eclipsed my anger, robbed me of all sanity, and I bucked against him. “Let go.”
His hold tightened. “But I do not regret it.”
Panting, naked, sweat slicked, a wet mess between my legs, bruised everywhere, I stilled.
“I do not regret it,” he repeated.
A half sob, half cry of shame escaped from my tight chest and crawled up my throat.
“Stop being ashamed.” His huge hand came up and smoothed my hair from my face. “You needed to get the anger out.”
Winded and spent like I’d run a marathon, the last of my adrenaline released into his strong hold on me, and guilt, stronger than my shame, rose like bile. “I hit you.”
“You hurt nothing.”
Relieved, yet still embarrassed despite what he’d said, I wanted space, but I also wanted him closer. Feeling like I could crawl out of my own skin, but wanting to stay in his arms forever, I made a feeble attempt at an apology. “I’m sorry.”
“Do not apologize.”
I wanted to listen to his voice forever. And that scared me. He scared me. No dignity left, no decorum, my thoughts vomited out of my mouth. “You scare me.”
“How you feel should never scare you.”
I didn’t know if he meant my angry meltdown or my feelings for him, so I said nothing.
Locked in by his huge body, I stayed still as he kept holding me, but none of my muscles relaxed.
His breathing didn’t change, and he didn’t speak. Letting me be, being himself, nothing to say, I didn’t know why he was quiet, but I suddenly realized it didn’t matter.
He was here.
He was holding me.
And I was going to be okay.
The forest made night noises, time passed and a calm I didn’t think was possible finally descended over me.
As if sensing the tide shift, his tight hold eased only enough for one arm to release me. He stroked my hair, my shoulder, my hip, and he silently answered the question of if he would ever want to touch me again after my outburst.
Too many questions crossed my mind, but none of them were important in that moment. All that mattered was that he was here, and I was in his arms.
Three breaths later, he broke the comfortable silence between us.
“On the compound, if you claimed a woman, she became yours.”
His deep, quiet voice made the awareness between my legs pulse, but I said nothing.
“She then no longer belonged to anyone else,” he continued. “No other man could tend to her.” His hand rubbed over my stomach. “I do not know what that is called in your world.”
My heart stopped then sped up. “Marriage?”
“It is not the same.” His thumb dipped lower, but not low enough. “Marriage is impermanent.”
“Claiming was permanent?” Suddenly his celibacy after Decima disappeared made sense. “Is that why you were never with anyone else?”
“As long as both man and woman were alive, yes it was permanent.” He was quiet a moment. “But few made such claims. Most of the men preferred to tend to multiple women.”
I forgot about myself for a moment. “As a woman, that doesn’t sound ideal.” At all.
“I cannot speak to the women’s preferences on the compound. I was rarely around during the day.” His fingers grasped my hip and squeezed as his hard length pressed in to my lower back.
Aching to be closer to him, hating the thought of him with another woman, I couldn’t stop the question bleeding out of my mouth that I didn’t want the answer to. “You only knew Decima’s preference?”
His hand traveled up my side, lightly brushing over my ribs. “She was given to me to manage, but it was she who asked to be claimed.” He cupped my breast, taking my hard nipple between his thumb and first finger. “That is the extent of what you need to know about that part of my past.”
I didn’t say anything. My core was pulsing, my nipple was aching and I was trying to figure out if I was angry that he was closing off the subject, or if I even had a right to be upset about it. He was right though to keep it to himself. The more I knew, the less I liked it. Jealousy was a completely new and thoroughly sucky emotion to have.
He gently brushed his thumb over my nipple then moved to my other breast. “Your muscles tensed.”
I exhaled, wanting to know if he still had feelings for Decima, but also wanting him inside me so bad, it terrified me. I didn’t know what that would do to the already crushing emotional attachment I had for him.
“Ask,” he ordered.
“Did you want to claim her?” I blurted the question out, not knowing if I wanted the answer.
His breath fanned out over my shoulder. Cicadas sang their night song. Wind blew through the tall pines and time passed. I wasn’t sure he was going to answer, until he finally spoke.
“When a frightened young woman begs you for help because you are the lesser of two evils to her, you assume the responsibility of a man.”
Jealousy bloomed, but I also fell for him even more. “You’re a good person, Callan Anders.” I would not deny him the truth of who he was. He had rescued me when no one else had.
“I have taken men’s lives,” he countered.
“You’re still a good person, and I don’t know what I did to deserve to be here.” I didn’t want to say the next words, but my insecurities came out anyway. “I’m still not sure why you want to be with me. There are a lot of women who would kill to be in my place right now.” A lot of women who wouldn’t have breakdowns.
“I do not want a woman who kills.” His thumb brushed over my other nipple.
I loved having him touch me, but the ache between my legs was growing unbearable. “It’s just an expression.”
His hand moved back to my lower stomach. “Why are you insecure about this?” He gripped my hip and slowly rocked against me from behind.
His huge, hard length rubbed between my cheeks, and desire for something I’d never thought about made me wetter. Forcing myself to stare at the rough-hewn ceiling, at the knots in the wood, I tried to concentrate. How did you explain a world where larger hips meant you were fat, not that you could carry a child to term in good health. How did I tell him that a girl who’d forsaken school dances for romance books and would rather be barfed on by a four-year-old boy than go clubbing wasn’t a popular girl? How did I tell him I spent my whole life thinking I wasn’t good enough and that’s why my father never stuck around to even meet me? I couldn’t. I didn’t even want to. It felt selfish and stupid and petty compared to the life he’d lived.
I turned to face him. “Can I ask you something?”
Using his leg, he brought my legs in closer to him. “Yes.”
“Will you ever forgive Ted?”
His gaze locked on to mine, and he gave me his intense stare. “There is nothing to forgive. He is the man he is. I am the man I am. I do not see him as a father, nor as a man worthy of my time.”
My hands on his chest pressed against his impossibly hard muscles. I was beginning to wonder how I would ever be able to live without being on the receiving end of his total attention. I already craved the way he looked at me like he was the air I needed to breathe.
I had to remember what we were talking about. “So, that’s it? It’s like Ted is dead to you?”
“He is of no consequence to me.” He stroked my hair, my cheek.
Leaning into his caress, I did and I didn’t understand. Why would you give up a father who wanted to know you? “Don’t you want to have your family around?”
“I will make my own family.” He wrapped a thick lock of my hair around his fist.
I shivered at his touch, at the implication of a promise, and I gave him a truth I’d never told anyone. “I spent my whole life thinking I wasn’t good enough and that’s why my father left my mom before I was born.” I dropped my gaze to the words inked on his chest. “I felt abandoned.”
He released my hair and captured the back of my neck. “You get to choose how you feel.” His thick fingers massaged muscles I didn’t know were tense.
I wanted to live in this moment and his touch forever. My old life slipping further away, I thought of spending every night in his arms. “I’m not sure if you’re saying that because you think it’s okay I feel that way, or if you’re saying that because you think I’m being stupid.”
He gripped the back of my head, and his hand fisted around my hair. “I do not think you are stupid.” Just as smoothly as he’d put me in the dominant hold, he released my hair and caressed the back of my neck.
I tilted my head down to give him better access. “But you don’t think it’s worth the headspace to think about the father who abandoned me.”
He pulled my hair just enough to get me to look up. When my eyes met his, he spoke. “No, I do not, but I am not you.”
Staring into his eyes, breathing in the unwavering attention he gave me, feeling his desire against my thigh, I felt brave enough to ask what I needed to ask. “Can you understand how a woman who obsessed her whole life over a father who abandoned her would wonder why a beautiful man wants to claim her as his?” I swallowed past the lump in my throat and whispered, “Why he would want to make a family with her?”
“No.”
Embarrassed, taken aback, wishing I’d said nothing, I rolled over.
His arm caught me around the middle, and he immediately rolled me back. Hovering over me, brushing my hair from my face, he touched his lips to my forehead. “Can you understand that a man who was used his whole life for his ability to hunt and judged by his looks to be a suitable breeder, but was never engaged in conversation, would fall for an angel at a gas station who smiled at him? Not because she wanted food or seed, but because she wanted to help him?”
Tears welled and my heart both broke and soared. Embarrassed, relieved, a small laugh escaped. “I swear, I wasn’t trying to hit on you that day.” I should’ve known then it was meant to be. The universe had put us together at that exact location, at that exact time, in that exact moment. Fate was nothing if not coincidental.
The corner of his mouth twitched. “I know.”
“I just….” I laughed. “I thought you didn’t know how to use the gas pump.”
He smiled. “I knew how.”
“Oh my God.” He smiled. Tears of joy fell down my cheeks. “You’re beautiful when you smile.”
“You are beautiful all the time.”