by Anya Nowlan
The pain quickly subsided and nothing but pleasure remained. Thor’s strong hands were commanding and strong, holding her where he wanted her, but as if sensing exactly how to give her the most pleasure while doing so. She twisted in his grasp and moaned, every time he plowed into her bringing another jolt of satisfaction.
Her hands travelled down his back, slipping over his ass and letting her fingers dig into those tight, muscular globes, pulling him closer and closer to her. She bucked against him and Thor muttered something unintelligible as he pulled away from the kiss, to lick and bite at her tits.
“You’re… Thor… I can’t…” she wheezed, nails raking down his back and clinging to him as he sucked one of her nipples into his mouth and held onto it with his teeth, driving her completely wild.
The heat within her rose to a fever pitch and her core throbbed with need, screaming for release. He fucked her harder when the little shivers she couldn’t control became so common that she felt almost like a fish out of water, convulsing in his arms.
“Give into it, honey,” he said, his voice raspy. “Come on, cum for me.”
It was a request this time, not a command. And when he asked so nicely, she couldn’t possibly say no to him, could she?
Letting go completely, she allowed the orgasm to take her and to consume what little was left of her senses. She threw her head back against the hard stone floor and screamed so loud that she thought the whole jungle must have heard it. Thor seemed to think the same, because he covered her mouth with his, drinking in her squeals and moans while not letting up once with his pace, grinding and thrusting into her when she turned into mush in his hands.
The small, tight muscles of her pussy milked him needily, urging him to join her in her release. His body was slick with beads of perspiration and every muscle seemed to be on edge, shuddering as he held himself back. Still woozy from her orgasm, Nia rose her head and tore herself from his kiss, bringing her hands to his chin and making him look at her.
His eyes were that delicious color of gold again, almost as beautiful as they were in their human color, and Nia could just drink it in.
“Now you cum for me, soldier,” she purred, and between a half-smile and a growl, Thor’s eyes rolled back in his head again as she kissed his neck, leaving little bite-marks behind as she moved down.
His pace grew haggard and uncontrolled as she kissed and tormented him and a few thrusts later, she could feel his whole body ripple with suspense and then give into her request. He came with a roar, one to equally match her scream, and with a grin she caught his mouth in a kiss this time, both hands around his neck as he filled her with his seed, pumping into her.
She groaned, her nails digging into his rough skin and she tugged down, leaving red streaks on his neck and upper back. He collapsed on top of her, landing on his elbows so as to not crush her, but she could still feel his absolutely maddeningly safe weight on top of her, as if blanketing her from any harm that could come to her.
“That was…” he started, pausing as he frowned, looking for words.
“It was,” she laughed, wrapping her arms around his waist and hugging herself to him.
“Wanna do it again?” he asked with a sly grin, peering down at her with his green eyes.
“What? Right now? Aren’t you… aren’t you tired?” she stammered, sensing that her cheeks were flushing again at the proposition, and her pussy seemed to tingle with expectation.
“Not for this,” he said, enveloping her in another kiss that could not be argued with.
“I guess if you talk me into it,” she said through kisses, smiling and pushing herself against him.
Morning couldn’t come slow enough. But like all good things, it had to end eventually.
Eight
Thor
As far as Thor was concerned, the morning did not exist. There was no sunlight, there would be no dawn and there most certainly wasn’t going to be anything that needed to be done, unless they included lavishing Nia’s mouthwatering body with more kisses, nibbles and affection.
He wasn’t sure if he’d slept more than a wink that night. He had dozed off a time or two with Nia curled up in his arms, but soon enough either she or he would awaken and they’d be all over one another again. For the last hour or so, Thor had allowed Nia to rest blissfully in his embrace though, contenting himself with simply staring at her and taking in everything that made her as damn perfect as she was.
She had tiny little freckles on her nose and cheeks that he had not noticed in the torchlight of the evening before. Her jawline was soft but she had an adorable little pointed chin, perfecting her heart-shaped face. Her hair was kept natural and wild, with just a few occasional tiny braids with wooden beads at the ends carved in the shapes of animals and leaves. He could count at least four different hornbill figures in her braids though and he found himself absently thumbing one of them when the sun began peeking through the protective screen of water that hid them.
Thor sighed slightly, feeling the daunting and oh-so-unwelcome tug of duty somewhere deep within him.
I thought I got rid of that thing years ago, he mused grimly. This is just about the worst time for it to raise its ugly head.
Looking down at Nia, his expression twisted in worry. She was so damn brave and exquisite. The thought of putting her in the path of danger made his insides twist into knots and his throat seem to collapse on itself. It was unfathomable. Yet, he knew full well that she could not be reasoned with to make sure that she stayed back while he went to see whether or not there was anything he could do for the rest of Shifter Squad Nine, if they were still alive.
I’d probably get about ten minutes into the jungle before I fell for a goddamn trap or got my head blown off.
That thought was even less welcome. As much as he didn’t want to do anything that could harm even a hair on Nia’s perfect little head, he knew that it was a necessity that could not be avoided. He could no more keep her from it than she would agree to not go with him.
Stubborn, brave little jungle princess, he thought affectionately, planting a kiss on her forehead.
He was expecting to feel the hint of dread he had felt the previous evening, before he had lain eyes on her, to return as the first moments of lust passed. Yet, so far, it was nowhere to be seen. While there was a bit of him that still coiled and hissed in the back of his mind, making him occasionally bite down on his lower lip in some odd mixture of guilt and worry, it was so minute that he could easily control it.
He had expected that being with a woman other than Ashley, who he could see himself falling for head over heels, would make him feel like he was somehow dishonoring her memory. Yet that too was yet to rear its ugly head. Rationally, he could only assume that what he was feeling was bordering on the impossible – while fate sometimes granted a shifter another love when their mate passed, the stories were rare and far between.
Thor had always thought that stuff like that only happened to good people, shifters who were worthy of love and to be loved. Him? He wasn’t like one of those guys.
That was as sobering as a bucket of water in the face. He could feel a chill tremble over him and it had nothing to do with the temperature.
She deserves way better than me, he thought, exhaling slowly, feeling his panther curl up in muddled annoyance within him. I can’t hold her down with someone as… like… like me.
As always, good things came to an end far too fast and before Thor could finish his depressing train of thought, Nia stirred in his arms. She yawned, stretching like a cat, and Thor’s body reacted immediately as she ground her ass against his crotch for a moment, grinning wickedly as she did so.
“Good morning,” she murmured, blinking sleep out of her eyes and looking up at him.
Thor wiped the worry off his expression and conjured a quick smile instead. He pecked her on the lips and then uncurled from around her quickly, as if keeping her in his arms any longer would already poison her against happiness, as ridicu
lous as the thought was.
“Mornin’,” he muttered, already pulling on his underwear and pants and rummaging around for his shirt.
He found her clothes in the process and tossed them on the mattress while Nia gave him a long, confused and somewhat sleepy look.
“Is everything alright?” she asked
“Why wouldn’t it be?” he queried, avoiding her gaze. “We slept in. We gotta go see if we can find where they’re keepin’ my squad. I need to get my boys out and finish this mission. I don’t wanna waste light,” he said, lying through his teeth.
“Oh,” Nia muttered, slipping into her clothes as well, a slight blush on her cheeks. “Of course. I wasn’t thinking. Let me just grab some food for us to eat as we walk. I have a few ideas where they may be held.”
She was dressed in a couple of seconds and on her feet. Thor felt like a complete ass and almost said something to stop her and apologize to her before she disappeared from sight, but he wasn’t fast enough. When he looked up from putting on his gear belt, she had already squeezed through the narrow opening between rock and water that allowed for dry passage.
“Great goin’, Dremmons,” Thor said, shaking his head as he hauled his sniper rifle bag over his shoulder and then picked up his assault rifle. “Smooth talkin’ as usual. Make her think like she did somethin’ wrong, that’s the fuckin’ spirit.”
Before he could continue on, Thor clamped his mouth shut, slapping a hand over his face as if he needed a physical incentive to do so. Still shaking his head, he walked toward the exit as well. He was just passing by the mattress when he noticed something on the ground, right next to his boot.
Bending down and picking it up, he found it to be one of the little beads Nia kept in her hair. It was one of the hornbills, intricately carved and with its beak colored with gold and blood red. It was beautifully made for something so small. Deciding to give it back to her when he saw her, Thor dropped it in one of his pockets and promptly forgot about it, taking the same path out as Nia had.
His exit didn’t go quite as smoothly though, as marked by the string of expletives that followed when he didn’t manage to get the angle quite right and ended up with a brief, refreshing shower courtesy of the waterfall.
They had walked for more than three hours by the time they reached the third site that Nia suspected to be one of The Arctics’ hideouts. The first two had been disappointingly empty, yet Thor found some solace in the fact that he hadn’t been welcomed by the dead bodies of his squadmates either.
Why he cared was still beyond him, though. It was a mystery for another time though, because it at least provided ample distraction from obsessing about the previous night with Nia and trying to figure out why that had happened and why he’d felt so good sharing things with her.
Compared to the previous day, he was far more like himself now, tightlipped and a poor conversationalist. As they were moving closer to enemy grounds now, Nia didn’t prompt him with questions either, but even when they’d still been in safe space, she had been quieter than before.
“Shh, drop down,” she said, motioning to crouch behind a large tree trunk overlooking a small valley beyond the trees.
“I didn’t say a word,” he protested lightly, but did as he was told and huddled in next to her.
“Yeah, well, you move like there’s no one to fear in the jungle and you wouldn’t believe how loud that is,” she shot back, not a hint of malice in her tone, only worry.
Thor thought about that for a moment but shrugged then. She’d alluded to it a few times and it was an interesting notion, that even shifter commandos as rigorously trained as ex-SEALs and The Firm operatives were, they could be too loud for some intents and purposes.
If she told me what kind of shifter she is, it’d be a damn lot easier to figure out why she notices these things so easily.
Pushing the topic seemed foolish, however. He had his secrets and she was allowed hers, as many as she wanted. He had no right to ask anything of her, especially after how much she had given – or more like how much he had taken, really.
“What are we lookin’ for?” he asked after a moment of tense silence that seemed to linger between them heavily.
“That,” she said after another second, pointing a finger toward the valley.
Thor frowned, squinting slightly as he looked in the direction she had pointed in. The foliage was as dense as ever and it took a while for Thor to see anything, especially considering his current state where every now and then his vision still seemed to waver as if unsure that it wanted to stay as functional as it was. When he noticed what she was showing him though, he sat back on his haunches, nodding as he shrugged off his bag.
“Guess we got ‘em,” he said.
A thin, nearly unnoticeable spiral of smoke rose from amid the trees and bushes, belonging to a cigar being smoked by a man who was most definitely an Arctics operative, as made evident by his brilliantly blond hair and the sunburn he was sporting from being in the sun too much.
The cigar he was smoking was one of Ryker’s. There was no doubt about it in Thor’s mind.
Lock and fucking load.
“So here’s what we do…”
Nine
Nia
I’m going to get myself killed, Nia chanted to herself for the umpteenth time since leaving the cover of the brush she and Thor had been hiding in for most of the day. I’m going to get myself killed and my family won’t even get to bury me in the mountains because these fuckers are going to burn my body like some sort of a sacrifice. Why did I let him talk me into it?
But she didn’t need to try and answer that question. The solution was clear enough, hovering before her eyes. She just didn’t want to admit it. It was too ridiculous to be real. Too sudden and way too impossible.
The simple answer was, Thor could have probably asked her to jump off a cliff and she would have seriously considered it. Granted, she had some capabilities that would have turned that particular excursion into not quite as deadly as one could have imagined, but that didn’t change the melodramatics of it all.
You’re not that kind of girl, Nia, she told herself, trying real hard to believe it. You’re doing this because you want to help those guys. That’s all.
Excuses, excuses.
Regardless, it was the middle of the night now and somewhere above, hidden away in the treetops, was Thor, keeping her in his sights while she snuck closer and closer to the entrance of the underground lair of The Arctics, as Thor called them. Her hands were sweaty, holding onto the two canisters that Thor had entrusted to her after arduous disagreements in which he tried to make her understand that he could both create a distraction and gun down an unknown number of assailants all on his own.
Macho bullshit, she thought with a nervous smile, the first one she’d allowed herself since coming up with the cockamamie idea of being the one to cause the distraction.
She reached as close as she could to the door without being in the immediate view of what she perceived to be the entrance latch. During the day, Thor had settled into a high sniper position in the treetops and Nia had seen him shift a few times, taking on the form of his large, night-black panther. He was breathtaking as a man but completely mesmerizing as his animal and a little thrilled shudder ran down her spine when she thought about the mental image of his black, satiny body scrambling up the wide trees with such ease.
The perfect predator.
The perfect predator that will get you killed, she mused somewhat less amusedly.
Sighing, she shook her head and listened intently for a moment. She could hear the slightest hints of conversation coming from somewhere, but she couldn’t make out the words. It didn’t matter anyway. Moving the canisters into one hand, she cupped a hand around her lips and made a sound that was very reminiscent of one of the larger hornbills, whose calls were a common occurrence during the daytime but who were supposed to be asleep hours ago.
The Arctics wouldn’t know though, she bet.
The answer she got back was far more robust than and not quite as nuanced as her call, but it did the job. It was hard teaching a SEAL birdcalls even in normal situations and having to be as quiet as they could to avoid occasional patrols didn’t make it any easier.
This is it.
Closing her eyes, she pulled the pin off of the lighter canister and threw it straight at the latch, making a metallic clank as it landed against the door, hidden beneath leaves and sticks. Nia counted to five in her head and then tossed the second one after pulling out the pin, letting it land close to the door but not on top of it like the other one had.
Turning tail, she started running away from there as fast as she could, choosing a path that wouldn’t take her to Thor but would provide her some cover again so she could possibly circle back to him later.
The racket that went off behind her almost made her stumble and fall. The latch was thrown open and she could hear several voices and heavy boot steps as several men rushed out of the bunker. A wide sheath of a high-powered, handheld lantern whisked over her head, the same kind that the local guides used to look for animals during the night.
Shit.
If the light hit the scope of the sniper rifle Thor had set up, it would be all over. She could see the beam moving closer to the trees Nia knew Thor was in, even though the light was slightly muddled by the smoke bomb Nia had thrown at the entrance. She could hear coughing and shouts and in the last possible moment before the light could go too far, she jumped up from her crouched run and spread her hands, screaming.
“Hey, you big fucking idiots! I’m right fucking here!”
With her mind screaming at her to shut up and get down, she chanted once more and was promptly rewarded for it with a blaze of gunfire that cut right over her head and bit into the tree-line behind her. Nia gulped and dropped down on her hands and knees, getting under the cover of the high grass as she started crawling toward relative safety.