by Ann Collins
It was the first time since they had met that they spent a night together without having sex. They were both too exhausted to even consider the work it might take to get amorous. Kara chuckled in the moonlight as they were drifting off to sleep.
“We can sleep in the same bed and not have sex,” she mused.
Anders caught her amusement immediately. “I guess that means we’re a real couple now, huh?”
She laughed weakly and a moment after that, they were both dead to the world.
***
The sound of a cry awoke her. It was coming from far up the mountain, something she had never heard before, but she instinctively knew it was an animal. A big one, at that. The sound came again and a finger of fear tickled her spine.
“A mountain lion,” Anders murmured, already awake beside her.
“It sounds so…”
“Untamed?”
That was the perfect word. Kara sat up in bed, listening. There it came again, a long wail that sounded both plaintive and frightening. She looked down at Anders, who smiled up at her with a serenity that said he felt right at home, even with a big cat howling at his door.
“Good morning,” he whispered, and pulled her down for a kiss that began as a sweet and innocent peck. But soon his hand was wandering south. Kara lay back and spread her legs, her eyes closed, enjoying the feeling of his hand on her and his lips playing at her ear. He dipped a finger into her, then slowly pulled it out, gliding it across her.
“You’re already so wet,” he murmured into her ear.
“You can make me wetter,” she said.
He kept moving his finger in and out, just one, and after a moment that wasn’t enough. She lifted her hips and tried to get more, asking him silently with her body to use two fingers, or even three. He simply grinned and kissed her shoulder. He sucked there, gently at first and then harder, and when he was done she was sure he had left a mark behind.
He loved putting marks on her. It was his stamp of possession. She loved looking at them in the mirror.
“I want more,” she whispered.
“You don’t want us to take our sweet time?” he teased.
Kara began to beg. Then she began to plead. Pretty soon she was getting a little annoyed, crossing that line between sweet teasing and undeniable urgency. But just when she opened her mouth to say what she was thinking, Anders rose up on his knees. With his free hand, he pulled the pillow out from under her head. She gave him a lusty smile, aware of exactly what he was going to do.
He straddled her. Slowly, carefully. She watched as his hips moved, as his strong legs settled on either side of her face. She watched as the heavy hardness of him, already full with desire, swayed right above her. When he was settled right where he wanted to be, he gave her what she craved – two fingers this time, deep enough to make her lift her hips off the bed again and moan loudly at the invasion.
“Like that?” he asked, his voice muffled as he sank his mouth between her legs.
The swell of pleasure broke over her like a wave, the first of what she knew would be many before the final tide swept over her. She lay there for a moment, enjoying what he was doing, and then opened her eyes to look at him, pulsing right there in front of her.
She started with the tease, just like he had – kissing and licking around where he wanted her to touch, but never actually going there. She nuzzled against him, and let her tongue trail close to his most intimate parts, but she waited to give him what he wanted. Soon he was moving his hips around, trying to capture her elusive tongue. She giggled and nibbled at the inside of his thighs as he let out a frustrated sigh.
Two can play at that game , she thought.
But before she could take her game much further, Anders chose some reverse psychology. Instead of teasing, he dove in deeper and began to give her a tongue-lashing that soon had her clinging to his thighs and begging him to never stop. He held her thighs hard in his hands, spreading her apart for his tongue, and even when it became a little too sensitive, he didn’t stop. Within minutes she was hollering his name at the top of her lungs, trembling all over as the final wave of pleasure spilled over her, taking her breath with it.
He moved away from her, and she took big gulps of air. When she was finally able to think somewhat clearly again, she gave him an exhausted smile. “That was an ambush!”
“That’s what you get for teasing me like that.”
“It was a fun tease!”
“And it paid off, didn’t it?” He nuzzled her neck and she giggled against his ear.
When the tingles of pleasure had worn down enough for her to move, she gave him a wicked grin and pushed him onto his back. “Your turn,” she said.
In the six months they had been together, she had learned many things about him, and one of those was just how much he loved it when she went down on him. It was something he would never ask for her to do, because he wasn’t the kind of man who would lightly receive anything without giving something in return – but it was something that always sent him to the moon and back, and she loved watching every moment as he slowly lost control.
She crawled between his legs and sat back, looking at him. He was hard as a rock and throbbing gently with every heartbeat. She leaned down and blew a stream of warm air over him, and watched as that throbbing sped up.
“You are so easy,” she said, teasing him through a smile.
“Easy?”
“I just blow on you and it revs you up.”
He laughed. “There mere sight of you revs me up. Don’t you know that by now?”
Indeed, she did. She leaned forward and ran her tongue all the way up the length of him. He held his breath when she did it, and let out his breath in a rush when she was through. She did it again, and then again, and finally he threw his head back and moaned.
“God, you’re so good at this,” he whispered. “Just knowing what you’re going to do to me is almost enough to make me come.”
“Hold back as long as you can,” she said as she sucked him into her mouth. He let out a groan that surely the mountain lion could have heard, and this made her even more intent on bringing him to the edge over and over, so many times that when he did come, the force of it would render him useless for the next hour. She smiled inwardly at the thought, and took him as deep as she could.
Kara moved up and down on him, slowly moving her tongue in all the ways she knew he liked, then switching it up and trying something different – a little nibble with her teeth for instance. He let out a groan of surprise, but then it quickly changed to a sound of appreciation as he decided that he did like that, after all. So she did it again, and again, and soon he was reaching down to touch her hair. His hands were trembling.
And Kara knew what would happen next – one of her favorite things. When she had teased him to the edge and back, he curled his fingers into her hair and pulled on her head, insistent that she go faster. She loved the feeling of his hands holding her as his hips began to move, demanding more from her mouth. She moved eagerly, keeping pace with exactly what he wanted, until he was on the edge and throbbing with clear intent.
That’s when she fought his hand, slowed down, and made him wait for it.
Just when Anders was on that edge of frustration, the same place he had brought her, she gave in. This time she went full-steam ahead, moving up and down on him her lips tight and her tongue swirling. She watched his face as he got closer and closer, as his breath caught and then came in a rush. And finally, she kept her eyes on him as he threw his head back and howled with pleasure, shooting everything he had into her mouth. She swallowed it down, still watching him.
When he finally collapsed back on the bed, she pulled back, wiped the corner of her mouth with one finger, and lay down beside him with a smile of satisfaction.
“That was insanely good,” he told her when he could breathe again.
“It always is!”
Not a minute later, she was up out of bed, reaching for her clothes. Ande
rs laughed at her eagerness, but they both knew how much she had been looking forward to the events of today – not just the sex, but what would come after it.
“Come on, stud,” she teased, throwing his shirt at him. “Let’s go climb a mountain.”
***
Four hours later they were both hot and sweaty in a very different way. They had been on the trail for most of that time, stopping only a few times to admire a view or to take a sip of water. Now they were almost at the finish line, and it was a good thing – neither one of them was out of shape, but they weren’t accustomed to this kind of physical exertion, either. Their muscles ached in a way that told them they would both pay for this in the morning.
But right now, there were more pressing issues. Kara sat on the wide, flat rock, looking at her knees. They had each taken a tumble during their hike, but this one was a doozy, one that left Kara with a scraped knee. She studied it intently as Anders opened up the small first aid kit he kept in the day pack. He opened a water bottle and gently poured the clean liquid over her knee. She let out a hiss of pain and watched as the debris washed away from the cuts.
“This is familiar,” he chuckled.
Kara instantly remembered, and she gave him a radiant smile. “The first time I hurt my knees, you put an ice pack on them.”
“And then I kissed you.”
“We did more than kiss!”
“And you had to be careful not to put pressure on your knees…kinda like you’ll have to be careful tonight.”
She reached out and tousled his hair as if he were a little boy. “You make big assumptions.”
He just grinned as he ripped open an alcohol swab.
Anders could feel Kara studying him as he tended to her wounds. He didn’t look up, but instead let her drink her fill. How many times had he looked at her that way, just watched her walk through a room or cook dinner or read a book? He loved seeing all the sides of her, and he could imagine that was what she was doing now – imprinting this moment of him into her memory.
When he was done, he finally looked up. She was still studying him with an intensity that was a little unnerving. He put his hands on her thighs and looked right back, delving deep into her eyes with his own. They sat like that for a very long time, until the sun changed just the slightest bit, just enough to tell them that it was time to get moving if they wanted to get back before dark.
“I’m ready,” she said.
A thrill shot through Anders. Her words sounded like so much more than a woman who was simply ready to stand up and continue the hike to the top of the mountain. She sounded like someone who was sure of everything in her life, including the man in front of her. But rather than ask her what she meant, he stood up and took her hand.
Kara winced as she put weight on her knee, but after a few moments of walking around she declared herself patched up and ready to climb. “It’s going to get a lot harder from here,” she predicted.
And she was right. They spent the next hour climbing, sometimes straight up, finding careful footing on the rocks that jutted out at the top of the mountain. The summit was just ahead. The glimpse of wide open sky through the thinning trees was all the inspiration they needed to keep going.
Then, suddenly – it was there.
Kara and Anders stepped onto the highest rock, the one that topped the mountain. The trees were thin here, and so was the air. But the sky was in abundance, so blue that it hurt to look at it. A pair of hawks wheeled and called to each other on the breeze. There was a patch of clouds nearby, actually a bit below them, because they were at the uppermost point of the mountain. Kara stared at the cloud for a long time.
“We are actually above the clouds,” she said, her voice filled with wonder. “How is that even possible?”
Anders watched her as she turned in a circle, taking in the majesty of where she was. He had been up here before, the first time as a boy, but watching her take it all in for the first time made it feel new all over again. She finally turned to him with wide eyes.
“I’ve never seen anything so beautiful,” she breathed.
Anders smiled, looking right at her. “Neither have I.”
It wasn’t the view that was on his mind, and she knew it. Her smile matched his, her eyes filled with it, her whole body radiating happiness.
“I love you,” she said.
Those words rang out into the blue sky, seeming to light up everything around them in brighter colors. Anders blinked hard at the tears that appeared out of nowhere. He wasn’t the type of man who cried, but those words had more of an effect on him than he had imagined they would. He took a deep breath, still staring at the woman who had made it possible to feel so much.
“I love you too,” he said.
Kara looked at him for another moment, then turned to the sky and lifted her arms out wide. The sound of joy came from deep within her, bubbling up from some place inside that was finally breaking free.
“I love this man!” she called, shouting her joy from the mountaintop.
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Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Epilogue
Newsletter
A Note from Ann