by Nicki Elson
She spun around, touching her fingertips to the side of his face. His stormy gaze met hers. “I don’t want to be imaginary,” she told him.
A rumble of thunder trembled from behind the mountains. “I shouldn’t have brought you here,” he said, and she saw the same fear that had raced through his eyes when they’d been about to kiss for the first time.
She slid her fingers slid over his mouth, stopping any more words from him. Heavy drops thumped onto the wooden plank above them and all around, blotting the outside world. Her other hand crawled up his spine, digging into the muscles of his back as she pulled her body flush against his. “Tomorrow everything goes back to normal, but tonight…tonight you’re mine.” Dropping her fingers from his face, she pushed her mouth against his.
He let out a groan. At last, both of his hands left the rail to thread through her hair and press into the small of her back. She didn’t let up on the pressure of her body against his, wouldn’t give him a chance to push her away and slip back into his drowning depths. She’d surround him with the light he saw in her, replacing whatever dark memories lurked inside of him with brilliant new ones.
The rain around them intensified, becoming an impenetrable curtain. They were truly alone in the treehouse, safe from anything on the outside that might want to break them apart. His mouth left hers to bite a trail across her jaw and down the side of her throat.
She let out a yelp when his arm hooked around the back of her knees, lifting her. He broke suction with her neck, his face rising to be level with hers. His eyes were half-dazed, half-animalistic. If she hadn’t already been determined to lose her revirginity, that look alone would’ve decided it.
They stayed locked in each other’s eyes as he carried her to the bedroom. The only sounds were the pounding rain and their hot, heaving breath. He set her gently onto her knees on the bed and stood on the floor before her. She busied her hands at the button and zipper at her waist. He watched her strip, so she gave him a show. Rising to her feet on the bed, she let the shorts fall around her ankles, then lifted them with one pointed toe, flicking them to the floor.
A corner of his mouth lifted in a sultry smirk while his eyes drank in the curves of her newly exposed flesh. She sauntered across the cushy mattress to him, taking his hands and bringing them to the buttons of her sleeveless blouse. He started unbuttoning from the bottom. When he’d undone a few, he slid the fabric out of his way and glided his tongue over the flat muscles of her stomach. She twisted her fingers into his hair while every inch of her purred.
With his hands at the small of her back, he guided her down to the bed. Abandoning his work on her shirt, he slipped off her panties. The blanket felt cool against the increasing heat of her skin. He lifted one of her feet to nip at her ankles. Trailing his dexterous fingers along the inside of her thighs, he stirred her purrs into moans.
He kissed one of her calves, the back of a knee, down her thigh. Then his feverish mouth came fully upon her. She stiffened at the sound of her own pleasure-filled shriek, but remembered where they were—halfway up a mountain with no one close enough to hear—and let her sensuous howls loose.
The noise seemed to spur Adam on. His lips and tongue kept steadily at it, exploring and pulsing and driving her mad. She tightened her muscles around him, wanting to commune with him, to move together as a solitary unit. He groaned, lifting his mouth away from her enough to be heard. “Trish…”
“Adam…” Her voice was a whispered plea.
He scrambled onto his knees, fumbling with his belt and pulling a condom out of his pocket. Trish rose onto her elbows. Before she could muster a coherent thought, he was on top of her, fiercely plunging inside the folds he’d just so tenderly caressed. Their voices rang out in grunts and gasps as they frantically pumped against each other, their bodies reacting to the initial connection in a frenzied spasm. Adam was the first to find a steady rhythm. With a slow, reassuring kiss, he calmed Trish enough to join him.
Keeping his mouth on hers, he pressed her head to lay all the way back on the pillow. She tasted herself on his tongue and lapped at it, relishing the flavor of their love. At their more controlled pace, Trish became irritated by their remaining clothing. She wanted it gone, wanted every cell of her flesh in contact with his. Skimming her hands down over the smooth roundness of his ass, she touched the waist of his pants and boxers. She pushed them as far as she could, then used her legs and feet to work them to his ankles.
He kicked his bottoms off and rolled sideways, onto his back, pulling Trish along so that she now straddled him. Together they finished unbuttoning her shirt and slid it off. Her bra soon followed. He cupped his hands over her fleshy mounds, rising to lick at them, all while continuing to rhythmically thrust into her. Trish interrupted his suckling to pull off his shirt. She took a brief moment to admire the smooth, lean muscles of his straining chest before pressing her bare flesh against his.
They again turned, with Adam now falling and rising from on top of her. She sensed vulnerability in his unsteady panting, in the soft kisses he randomly touched upon her face. He wasn’t simply fulfilling urges. He was giving himself to her. She surrounded him, and he was letting her have him. All of him.
“Are we dead?” Trish asked in huffing breaths, her arms thrown above her head. She and Adam lay side-by-side, coated in the sweaty sheen of their passion.
“If we are, this is definitely heaven.”
She tilted her head to the side, examining his elegant profile. “Now look who’s laying on the cheesy lines.”
He rolled over, hooking a leg over both of hers. He wrapped an arm around her waist, nuzzling his face into the warm flesh at the base of her throat. “What else can I do? You’ve captured me body—” he touched a kiss to her collarbone “—mind—” he flicked his tongue over the stiff bud of her breast “—and soul.” He pressed his warm lips to her belly. “Apparently this means you’ve also taken away my ability to speak in anything but cliché.”
He bared his teeth, tickling them over the soft tissues of her abdomen. Trish giggled, clawing her fingers playfully through his mussed hair. She’d never seen anything sexier than Adam Helms with bedhead.
A ripple of light flashed across the high bedroom windows. Several moments later, thunder cracked. “Ooh! Let’s go onto the porch and watch,” Trish said, already rising from the bed.
“Love to. But wait.” He rolled off the mattress and lifted its soft, cream-colored blanket.
Trish smiled, stepping close to give him a light kiss and let him wrap the blanket around both of them. Together, they rounded the corner into the living area. Trish spotted the food and said, “Detour.” She wrapped an arm around his waist, nudging him toward the counter where she picked up a bag of almonds. “Proceed to porch.”
As a bulky unit, they made their way outside. The forest had been transformed since they’d last seen it. Rain fell in slick, black sheets. Only the murkiest glimmer of moonlight soaked through the cloud cover, leaving the world in muted shadow. Two faraway streaks sliced through the black, casting a glare and igniting the magical realm surrounding them. Emerald occupants of the jungle stood with their heads forced down by the relentless pelting, bowing to the slate giants in the distance—majestic kings crowned in amethyst. The vision only lasted a few short seconds but stayed imprinted on Trish’s brain.
“Wow,” was her lame attempt to describe the scene. Adam’s awed silence did a much better job of it. The boom of thunder that followed made Trish jump and press against him. “Wanna get cozy in that hammock?”
After many awkward attempts—accompanied by earnest persistence on Adam’s part and riotous guffaws on hers—they found themselves snuggled together skin-on-skin under the blanket. They were in perfect balance with one of Trish’s legs thrown casually over him and her head tucked into the flat plane of muscle between his shoulder and chest. He curved his arm around her, rubbing small circles at the base of her spine.
With one arm comfortably secure under h
is back, Trish’s other hand was free to trace imaginary lines over his smooth chest. They lay silently together, watching the night. She’d deposited the bag of almonds onto his abs, and after a while fished around for one. The moment her teeth gnashed down, emitting an inelegant crunch, she regretted the move. But the inevitable stomach gurgling that would ensue if she didn’t eat something soon would be far less attractive. “Here, you have some, too, so I don’t feel like such a cow,” she said.
“I’ve never heard a cow make that much noise.”
She lifted her head and narrowed a teasing glare at his adorable smirk. “I see you’re done speaking in platitudes.” Pulling out three nuts, she shoved them into his mouth. He bit down, and the two of them chomped away, snickering at their racket and giving each other small pecks in between.
She resisted an urge to tell Adam she loved him. She’d suspected that was where her heart was headed ever since it had been so difficult to say goodbye at the airport. After their magnificent bout of lovemaking, there was no point in denying it. The question was—given the circumstances, should she say it out loud? She mutely tossed her quandary into the night and was answered by a low grumble from the restless sky. You don’t need to say it, Thunder told her. He already knows.
Pressing a kiss to his chest, she inhaled his natural, musky scent. He brought his fingertips to her jaw, guiding her to him, and they kissed, long and luxuriously. Dread of their impending final kiss invaded Trish’s thoughts, causing her throat to tighten. Pulling away, she dropped her cheek to rest against his chest, intentionally putting her face out of his view. She wouldn’t taint their precious remaining time together with angst.
Long moments passed as she stared into the night that was passing much too quickly. The rain didn’t seem like a force of nature, anymore. It was more like infinite tears.
“Thanks for getting me another stamp on my passport,” she said with forced lightness, happy to hear her voice hold steady.
“I felt sorry for the poor thing collecting all that dust,” Adam teased.
Lifting her head and settling her chin on his chest, she made a proclamation: “I’m going to start traveling more. I’ve let enough sands slip through the hour glass. Maybe it’s even time for me to start looking for a new job. One more challenging that’ll force me out into the world.”
“One passport stamp inspired all of that?”
After taking a moment to process his question, she said, “One passport stamp plus an amazing man who makes me want so much more in my life than I’ve allowed myself to have.”
She shifted her weight, upsetting their balance for a moment before swiftly centering herself on top of him, a bent leg planted on either side of his hips. What she’d said was true, though she hadn’t realized any of it so distinctly until that moment.
During the repositioning, Adam had grasped onto her thighs, holding her steady. His grip tightened as the intensity of their gazes locked together. His eyes stayed evenly on hers, deviating not so much as a flicker, when he said, “Be my girl in every port.”
“What?”
His eyes began to move, darting over her face and beyond. “I…I’m not sure exactly how it would work, but I know it can work. It has to. It’s too cruel to think you could be brought into my life, that I could come to feel all that I do for you, only to have to let you go.”
“What are you saying?” Her heart tapped an ecstatic drumbeat against her ribcage.
“I’m saying you’re an exceptional woman, and I’m tired of traveling this world alone. I want you with me everywhere I go. You and I could be a team. No—you and I should be a team.”
“Business partners?”
“More.” He wrapped a hand around the back of her head, lifting his mouth to hers in a heady, passionate kiss that felt something like a pact.
She leaned into it, and this time there was no way to recover their balance. They crashed sideways onto the decking. Bruises, splinters, and mosquito bites be damned—he took her right there. Roughly, possessively. She met his force with fervor. Lighting and stray drops of rain illuminated and licked their twisting, mutating, fused silhouette. Yes, she said to Thunder. I know he loves me, too.
Chapter 18
“IT’S LIKE WITH YOU AND HAYDEN,” Trish said to Lyssa. She’d called her friend from a sunny park bench in Grant Park on a crisp fall day. “Right when you stopped looking for love, poof, there he was.”
“You’re quitting your job for him?” Lyssa asked. As usual, she was too pragmatic for fairy tales.
“Says the unemployed girl who left her sweet position to shack up with Wonder Boy.”
“I left my job to attend graduate school at a respected university.”
“That so happens to be in Wonder Boy’s city.”
“I waited until a full year after Hayden and I started dating. Do you even know what this job he’s supposedly going to give you is?”
“Don’t worry, I’m not quitting anything yet. He said to hold tight until he works some things out.”
“What things?”
“I don’t know. Business things. It doesn’t even matter to me if the job falls through. I’m happy he wants to keep things between us going.”
“Yeah, what’s up with that? You said he had reasons for not wanting to let the relationship extend beyond your stipulated three dates. What happened to those reasons? Did they go poof, too?”
“Love makes what seemed impossible possible. He leads a busy, complicated life, and travels almost all the time, so he thought it was impossible to have any kind of serious relationship. Then he got a load of me and rewrote his self-imposed rules.” She kicked at a thick tuft of grass with her closed-toe Mary Jane shoe. “I thought you’d be more excited for me. Isn’t parade-raining more JoAnne’s territory?”
“I am excited for you. But don’t you think things are moving a little too fast? You hardly know anything about him or his business.”
“Not all of us need to analyze the crap out of everything before making a big move.”
“Ha ha.”
“I’m serious. You almost let Hayden walk out of your life because you two didn’t have all the i’s dotted and t’s crossed. I’m not willing to do that with Adam.”
“I’m not saying you need to dot all of his i’s…but don’t you think you should know at least some of his t’s?”
“Trust me—that man is no tease.”
“Yeah, I sorta got that when you said your jaw wasn’t the only thing that was sore this time.”
Trish smiled. “I know why you’re having trouble with all of this—you haven’t met him yet. Once you do, you’ll see how great he is and you won’t worry.”
“It’d be nice to look the guy straight in the eyeballs.”
“They’re such pretty eyeballs.”
“So you’ve said.”
“He lives on the East Coast. Maybe he and I can meet up in Boston one weekend soon.”
“That’d be great.”
“I’ll see him briefly next Tuesday when he’s at O’Hare for a long layover. I’ll ask about it then.”
Two days later, Cliff swung by Trish’s desk wearing a long, black topcoat. “I’m heading out to grab sandwiches to-go. Want anything?”
“If you can wait a couple of minutes I’ll go with you. I’m about to be relieved for my lunch break.” She’d told Cliff earlier that she and Adam had decided to continue seeing each other but hadn’t elaborated on details.
He waited, and they soon stepped out onto the sidewalk. After exchanging compulsory commentary on the sudden briskness in the air, Trish launched into the topic that had shanghaied her brain. “Are you feeling better about Adam now that he hasn’t abducted me?”
“I’m not so sure he hasn’t,” Cliff said. “Your body’s here, but your mind’s still off with him.”
Trish studied his dark brown eyes and saw warmth rather than anything accusatory. “It’s that obvious?”
His wide mouth stretched into a grin. “To
tally.”
Trish’s smile matched his. She definitely preferred his approval to Lyssa’s skepticism. Of course, Cliff didn’t know everything yet. “What would you think if I told you I’m considering putting my body with him, too. Full time.”
“Marriage?”
“No. Not yet. We’ve still got a lot to learn about each other before making a commitment like that. But, Cliffy…he’s the first guy I’ve been with who, when I think about forever, I want to go running full speed toward him instead of away. Occasional weekends together aren’t enough for us anymore, so he’s offered me a job traveling with him. Specifics still need to be figured out, but unless it looks like a terrible deal, I think I’m going to do it. Am I moving too fast? Am I being stupid?”
Cliff stopped walking and turned toward her, putting his hands on her shoulders for emphasis. The crisp temperature brought pinkness to his pale, rounded cheekbones. “Sugarplum, the look on your face whenever you talk about him or think about him—which seems to be all the time—is a look we all hope to wear one day. You can’t move too fast when you’ve got something like that in your sights. The only stupid thing would be to let it get away.”
She lunged forward, circling her arms around his ribcage like a vise. Her face pressed into his coat so tightly, she felt the trembling of his chest as he chuckled. She hadn’t realized until that moment how much she’d needed his reassurance.
On Monday, Trish received a text from Lyssa.
Call me when you get a chance.
Trish made the call after work, sitting on her plum-colored sofa with her yoga-panted legs curled under her. “I get to hear your pretty voice twice in less than a week. What’s the occasion?”
“Don’t be mad.”
Trish’s stomach instinctively clenched at the unease in Lyssa’s tone. “What did you do?”
“Hayden and I were out with Len the other night, and I let it slip that you and Adam were getting more serious. He got a strange look on his face, and when I pressed him about his reaction, all he said was something like, ‘Maybe things have changed for him.’”