by K Larsen
“I don’t want to lose you. Maybe you’ll think I’m nuts, but I’m pretty sure I’ve fallen in love with you. I want to slap you for leaving me alone and then kiss you for coming home. Most of all, I just want you to want me back.”
Tristan rose from the fire looking at her with caution. She knew what was running through his head—the doubt—equating her feelings to stimulus deprivation—trauma response—the situation they’d found themselves in. Ultimately, Meghan didn’t care if those reasons were true or not. She wanted Tristan, undeniably wanted him.
She started taking off her clothes. It would be a lengthy strip show with the layers she was wearing. But nothing compared to the layers of defense Tristan had built up around himself. She wouldn’t hurt him, in fact, she wanted to help him heal.
“Meghan, you don’t have to…” Tristan put his hands out as if to shield her or stop her from undressing.
“I’m taking everything off, so you can see my heart. I want you to know how much I want you—messed up or not. I’m not perfect either, I’ve got baggage too. I’ve only got nine toes.”
He stepped to her then and she let go when she felt his strong arms sustain her, wrap around her in a gesture of both love and protection. His mouth found hers and probed with a hunger that wasn’t gentle. A kiss that was worth his years of human deprivation. He kissed her starved, of both love and affection. And Meghan kissed him back, hungry but so full of joy and anticipation that she overflowed and wanted to fill up Tristan with the excess of fortuity she’d been given. Another chance. One that was meant to be. Together the two of them could conquer anything.
Twenty-Nine
Tristan
He tore his own clothing from her body, smiling at the idea that she’d rifled through his personal things. Her body was petite, pale, and soft, a woman who took care of herself, but hadn’t worked a day of hard labor in her life. He kissed her neck and found himself sucking and biting as she unfurled in his arms like a ribbon coming to life. She made noises in her throat that spurred him on and he gripped her hair hard to take control of her supple mouth.
He scraped his teeth along the cords of her neck and she quaked beneath his ragged hands, that were overworked and rough, a bit punishing with their touch. She let her head fall back and opened her neck to him. Tristan cupped her tender breast in his hand and ran his mouth first over the swell before pulling her nipple into his mouth. He sucked at her breast until the bud crested between his lips. He felt her body go tense like an animal in the wild. He tore down her snow-pants, ignoring the searing pain of his shoulder as he moved, while he switched to torture the other nipple, squeezing the first between his knuckles. Years of pent-up sexual energy came to a head and exploded in his fingertips, his mouth, and the swollen head of his cock. He tore the panties down her thighs and took her entire cunt in his mouth as he fell to one knee. She held onto his shoulders to maintain herself upright, head still tilted back at an angle that looked so delicate it nearly killed him. He grunted in pain. Her eyes flew open and immediately she looked sheepish and yanked her hand from his shoulder. He grabbed her fleeing wrist and yanked it back, placing it on the back of his head instead. He wanted her submissive, quiet and yielding.
When he finally tore his mouth from between her legs, he handled her coarsely, tossing her over his good shoulder and moving her to his bed. He felt like a lion returning to its lair with his catch—unwilling to share—remiss to move until he’d had his absolute fill—sated himself, not caring for the pack. He felt like Meghan was his. He’d saved her and now he’d devour her, take from her body his fill and not care about her pleasure.
But despite his brutish ideas, his chest bubbled with pleasure when she lost control in his mouth, when her stomach tensed so tightly that he could see the corded muscles that ran under her flesh. When he felt the warmth spill out of her like liquid gold, the sweetest nectar from a flower, a plucky roar resounded in his head.
At her peak she pulled his hair and cried out. He muffled her screams with his mouth.
When he entered her, engorged and dripping, he didn’t want to ask about protection or prevention. He wanted to impale her on his raging cock until she came apart again. So, he said nothing when he slid inside her to the hilt, invading until she was up against the headboard, her eyes wide open in surprise. He slowed just for a moment to take her swollen nipple in his teeth and when he heard her whimper in need, he struck forward with his hips, all his tenderness gone. He wasn’t usually so domineering, or at least from what he could remember. But Meghan’s sudden appearance in his life had unsettled what he’d long since put to sleep, and the need in him eclipsed his civility-the need was massive and uncontainable.
He drove forward relentlessly sliding his demanding hardness deep and dragging it out slow. He couldn’t stop pounding, savoring the feel of her silkiness, her muscles tightening around him. He took her home again without even trying and when she cried out in his ear, his cock bulged and his nutsack tightened, precum leaking forth uncontrollably.
“Meghan, can I come inside you?”
She nodded, reached up and grabbed the headboard effectively shoving her rosy nipples in his face. He feasted alternating between her breasts and her mouth until the beast he’d been restraining inside himself came forth in an ardent rush. Tristan took her body with an impassioned need so ferocious he was afraid he’d break the sturdy bed. He was fully conquered, a complete slave to her body and affection. When his seed finally gushed inside her, he calmed and laid his head on her chest.
For the first time in years, he felt a connection so fierce, so all-encompassing that it brought tears to his eyes. Meghan hadn’t just stumbled into his life, she’d seized his heart and let him out of his self-imposed cage.
“Holy fuck.” The words fell into the air on an exhale. Tristan chuckled at her proclamation. “Can it be like that every time?” she asked.
Rolling to his good side, they laid face to face, slick, bare and exposed to each other and it felt good. It felt right.
“I can promise to do my best?” he returned.
Her smile practically lit up the dark room around them, but it faded nearly as fast as it’d appeared.
“What is it?” he asked.
“You’re bleeding again.”
Tristan glanced at his shoulder, thin rivulets of ruddy red leaked from the tears in his flesh. He grunted and pushed himself out of bed.
“No! Wait, let me help.”
Meghan followed him from the room limping, naked as the day she was born and into the kitchen. Tristan fetched her crutch, so she could take weight off her foot. He pulled down the tin box that held the gauze and random collection of other bandages and set it on the kitchen table where Meghan immediately opened it and started rummaging around. He could barely tear his eyes away from her long enough to really inspect the damage to his shoulder. She was absolutely stunning and he’d just made passionate love to her.
“I need stitches. The skin will never pull back together and heal on its own. Best we can do right now is use those big butterfly band aids to pull and secure the skin in the right direction. You’ll need to, uh—” Meghan’s eyes were the size of dessert plates. He couldn't make her do this. He already wondered if her entire stay would end up a trauma in her life- affecting her negatively. He could think of so many things, nightmares of toes popping off, fear of hiking or nature. He needed to get her home and to a doctor. That was the cold hard truth of the matter.
“What?” She cocked her head at him as a fiery blaze lit in her eyes. “You know I’m a boy mom, right? This is not my first rodeo. I can do whatever you need me to.” Her voice shook him from his thoughts. She pushed back in the cafe style chair. Butt naked and steaming with irritation. Tristan curled his lips inward to stifle the laugh. She bit her lip.
“You know you look just as ridiculous as I do, right?” She gave a quick nod toward his cock.
“Okay, naked Nightingale, mother of boys, stitch me up.”
&nbs
p; Tristan swallowed hard against the hysterics that swelled inside his chest. “You’ll need to push the skin flaps at the front and back side into place. Then try and stick the band aids to whatever good skin you find to hold it there. After that just wrap it all in gauze and it should hold just fine for the time being.”
“There’s no more Ibuprofen.” Meghan’s voice sounded guilty as she got to work. His muscles clenched in pain as she moved skin flaps back to their rightful spots. He really wished he’d had more pain meds on hand. He stared down at his shins, deep purple bruises from his ski boots marring his skin. She must have been terrified at the site of him. He looked wild, but maybe Meghan liked a little wild in her men.
“There’s still Bourbon.” Through his pain, he curled the edges of his mouth until he was certain it resembled a smile. She worked swiftly and with gentle grace as she got the butterfly band aids in place and started on the gauze.
Meghan smirked as she finished wrapping his shoulder. “I could use a drink.”
Thirty
Meghan
He was, without a doubt, the sexiest man she’d ever seen. Cock at half mast, eyelids too, a kiss of Bourbon wetting his lips, shoulder ravaged by a wild animal; self-assured Tristan kept one hand on her hip the entire time she bandaged him up. She’d thrown his T-shirt on and wore it like a dress.
“I’d forgotten how much I like sex,” Tristan told her. The way he looked up at her from the chair had her heart completely ensnared. Part boy, part savage, part honorable man. She wanted to milk his body for more, keep him hard as long as he could stand.
She dabbed at the blood that trickled down his shoulder. He grimaced when she touched the wounds and lifted the Bourbon to his lips. The alcohol trickled too, onto his chin and neck. Meghan leaned down and captured a drop with her tongue. Tristan responded by pushing back in his chair and yanking her down on his lap. He kept his hands on the curve of her ass and rocked her hips into his.
“Careful, you’ll start bleeding again.”
“I don’t care,” he spit out before he took her mouth. Her lips were swollen and sensitive from their round in the bedroom. She wondered how long they could last up there in the snow, making love, stoking the fire, taking and giving until they were dizzy with desire.
She wrapped her fingers around his cock that grew to full size with just a few strokes. She pressed her chest into his and slid her ass back into his hands. When he lowered his mouth to hers, Tristan surprised her with a mouthful of fiery Bourbon. Some slid down her throat and some spilled over her lips adding a biting sting to their already scorching kiss.
Meghan tipped her hips back and forth while she stroked his engorged cock, the knuckle of her thumb grazed her clit every time she rocked forward. He guided her by holding on lightly at her ass. When Tristan tipped his head back over the chair, Meghan dragged her lips and tongue across his Adam’s apple. The stubble there burned her lips even more. Tristan hummed a contented sound that rumbled deep in his chest. She put her ear to his clavicle and he lifted her up and lowered her back down on his erection. Meghan was still wet from their dalliance in the bedroom and slid onto his manhood gracefully despite the size. Tristan was a large man and naturally well-endowed.
Tristan put Bruce to shame, in nearly every way possible. He was bigger and harder, kinder and softer, he knew his way around a woman’s body without reserve and wasn’t afraid to take Meghan to the edge. He was gorgeous, sexy, fit, and engaged. Bruce had made sex seem like a chore on a never-ending list of obligations that Meghan was supposed to meet.
She shuddered, and her spine tingled as all her nerve endings came to life. Tristan bit her nipples until she nearly screamed at the exquisitely painful, and simultaneously pleasurable torture. He tipped the bottle back again and when his lips met hers, he poured more Bourbon into her mouth. She was well past buzzed, nearly drunk on heady lust.
She rocked faster taking him as deep as she could. His cock pressed forward dragging along the inner nerves of her clit until all too soon, it pushed her over the top.
The aftermath was what she liked best. It was the gentleness with which he treated her. She went for a glass of water. Filled it to the brim and chugged it all. Tristan pulled something from the top corner of a shelf. She refilled the water and turned to offer him some. “What are you doing?” she asked.
“Making it a little cozier.” He cranked a small handle on the device before setting it on the counter and fiddling with the dials. Music, softly filled the air between them. “It’s a hand crank radio.”
He reached out and took the glass of water from her. She watched, took in his body. The sinew of his physique. His masculinity. He stood naked in the kitchen and anywhere else in the world it would seem prosperous to be there, bare for all the world to see, but not here. He set the glass down and extended an arm to her.
Tristan pulled her flush against him. Her arms reached up and around his neck, causing his T-shirt to rise, barely covering her rear end. Folk-rock, a song she was sure she recognized played. She closed her eyes and pressed her head into his chest. Heavenly Day, that was it. She’d loved it when it had released, what felt like a million years ago. Listening now, dancing in a rustic kitchen with a man, who by all accounts, she barely knew, it resonated ten times more than it ever had in the past with her
Maybe she didn’t know him well, but Meghan wasn’t anywhere near ready to let go of him.
Meghan’s eyes welled as she enjoyed the moment. Sometimes, a slow dance was more intimate than intercourse. Neither spoke while the song played. Tristan’s lips brushed the top of her head, his thumbs swept back and forth near the small of her back. He took her hand, led her away from him and spun her before pulling her in close again. The simple move made her chest swell and heat. She hadn’t felt taken care of or cared for in so long she forgot the heady feeling that came with being romanced.
The song ended but Tristan held her close for a while as the D.J. chattered on about current events and the weather. Meghan didn’t mind. She didn’t want the moment to end. Ever.
Thirty-One
Tristan
He woke long before Meghan did. It wasn’t unusual. He was normally up with the sun. Sunlight filtered through the window above his bed, highlighting her face, still peaceful with slumber. Tristan brushed an errant strand of hair from her cheek and memorized every feature. Every tiny wrinkle and smooth curve. Her scent and the way her body, heavy with sleep felt against his. His arm had lost feeling long ago, but he didn’t dare disturb her to move it. His chest was heavy with heartache.
At half past seven, he eked his way out of bed, snaking his arm out from under her. She let out a puff of air as she curled into the fetal position. Tristan tucked the blanket around her and left her soundly sleeping with a kiss against her temple. He dressed silently, skipped the third floorboard that squeaked on his way out to the shed.
The sky was clear. The sun beating on the snow created a blinding effect as he trudged back to the cabin with his tools. He laid them all out on the coffee table, next to his skis and bindings before getting the percolator going.
Meghan rolled out of bed, the telltale thump of feet hitting wood and the squeak of the bedframe giving her away. He clicked his boot into the binding and depressed the heel DIN down one last time to pop it lose. It was all in working order. She limped into the living room crutch-less, sunbeams creating shadows and highlights all over her body and he grinned. “Beautiful.”
“What?” she yawned and stretched.
“You’re beautiful.”
A shy grin took over her face as they met in the middle of the room. Her arms snaked around his waist and she peered up at him. Dipping down, he pressed his lips to hers.
“Coffee’s fresh,” he mumbled against her mouth.
“How long have you been up?” she asked. She finger-combed her hair away from her face.
“An hour or so.”
He watched as she poured herself a mug of coffee. Was there anything sexier t
han a woman in a man’s shirt? He didn’t think so. He snuck up on her and laced his arms around her waist. She hummed out a sigh of contentment and leaned her head back against his chest.
“What are we doing today?” she asked.
The question made his muscles coil and tense. She clutched her mug between her hands as he turned her to face him.
“I’m going to ski you into town today.” She shook her head. “The snow’s right. I repaired my binding this morning and we both need to be looked at by a doctor.”
Her face stayed neutral but it was impossible to miss the disappointment in her eyes. It weighed on him too, but it was the right thing to do. It was an inevitable truth, coming sooner than later.
“But your shoulder,” she protested weakly.
“Because of my shoulder.”
She hobbled, rather pathetically, to the couch and sat with a heavy thud. “I’m not ready.”
The words were quiet and hushed and he wondered if she was talking to herself or to him. He joined her on the couch and pulled her sideways into him. She put her mug on the table and buried her face in his shirt.
Tristan had never been good at knowing what to do when a woman cried. It made him feel uncomfortable and helpless. “It will be okay. Your kids are probably terrified right now. People are surely looking for you. Think of them.”
“I’ve thought about them my whole life.” She sniffled. “God, that sounded horrible. That was horrible. I’m going to hell for saying that.”
Tristan chuckled. “You’re not going to hell. You’re human. I’m sure every mother on the planet has secretly had that thought once in their life.”