Her choice, not his.
But then she reached for the hem of her shirt and stripped it over her head.
Shep went light-headed. Breathe, dumbass, or you are going to pass out. That’s definitely not romantic or sexy.
If he tried, he could probably cover both her breasts with one hand. One pink-brown nipple would touch his palm and the other would rub against his middle finger. Even if he put his face against them, they wouldn’t smother him. They were nice. Joss washed her torso, and her nipples pointed out even farther.
Shep’s dick liked that. A lot.
If he’d thought his head was woozy when she took off her shirt, it was nothing compared to the vertigo he experienced when she pushed down her panties and stepped out of them. A tiny patch of dark hair triangled between her legs. “Your real hair color is brown,” he said.
She laughed and flipped turquoise-tinted strands behind her left shoulder. “Did you expect the rug to match the curtains?”
“What?”
Joss patted her head. “Curtains.” Then her pubic area. “Rug.”
“Oh.”
“I’ve done it in the past,” she said as she continued washing, bending this way and that, making Shep so short of breath that he was forced to lie back on the ground. His heart was freight-training in his chest and little spots—turquoise ones—were bursting in his peripheral vision. “I dyed it pink once.”
“Like cotton candy,” he murmured. He wasn’t a big fan of sweets, but something about spun sugar had always appealed to him. As a kid, he’d described it as sugar fur. Soft and sweet.
Would Joss taste like cotton candy?
Just as he’d never been much for having oral sex performed on him, he had never particularly enjoyed putting his mouth near that part of a woman’s body. It reminded him of a rain forest—sort of hot and humid. An entire tropical ecosystem.
“You’re thinking something funny,” she said as she swiped at her ecosystem.
“A woman’s vagina is… sort of a foreign environment.”
“Like say the moon?”
“I was thinking more along the lines of the Monteverde Cloud Forest.”
She snorted a laugh. “Who knew I had an entire jungle between my legs?” She finished with her washing and stood there with one hand on her hip, her other leg cocked just enough to give him a glimpse of what was behind her cotton candy. “You have the same dislikes when it comes to going down on girls?”
His face burned. Just lit up and flamed. Now he knew how other people felt when he said things that he thought were completely reasonable, but they thought were outrageous. “I think maybe I could learn to like it.” At least with Joss.
“What flavors do you like?”
“Isn’t there only one?”
“Oh, baby,” Joss’s tone was teasing. “I have worlds to open up to you.”
“What kind of worlds?”
“The kind where licking a woman’s pussy is like eating birthday cake.”
“I like birthday cake, especially with buttercream frosting.”
“It’s a deal.” Leaning toward him she held out her hand for… She grabbed his and gave it a hearty shake. “I’ll serve it up and you try it once. If you don’t like it, you never have to eat birthday cake again.”
Joss standing there naked, his hand in hers, and the talk of her tasting like birthday cake had given Shep the stiffest hard-on he’d ever sported. “You might have to hold my hand when we climb down to the falls,” he said.
“Why?”
“Because all the blood from my head has been rerouted to my penis.”
She smiled. It was wide and possibly a little shrewd. “Your turn.” She fanned out her shirt like a blanket and sat down, knees up and crossed. It was probably meant to be a modest pose, but Shep could still see her—
With a head shake, she said, “None of that until you show me yours.”
Taking off his clothes wasn’t that big of a deal to him. His body looked pretty much like all the other human bodies. Couple of legs, couple of arms, etc. He took off his boots and was careful to lay his socks over them to air out. Then he pulled his shirt over his head and smoothed it out on a rock. He followed Joss’s lead, washing the areas that felt stickiest.
“Do you have any idea what you look like?” she asked him.
“Like a guy without his shoes and shirt on?”
“No, like over six feet of a delectable buffet, but just the appetizers. I’m waiting to see the main course and dessert.”
Now, he was self-conscious. Once he took off his pants and underwear, there would be nothing between them. Full exposure. Just do it.
He hurriedly stood, unfastened his cargos, and shoved them off. He didn’t look at Joss, just concentrated on finishing his wipe down.
“You are seriously the most delicious man I think I’ve ever seen,” she said in a hushed tone Shep had heard in church a few times. One of awe and reverence, his dad had said. Although he wasn’t quite sure how to take Joss’s praise, his body was lapping it right up. “If I were a sculptor, I’d make a statue of your cock and call it The Perfect Penis.”
That made him laugh. “You’re teasing me.”
“If I were a painter, I’d be like Picasso and paint a man with three of your penises.” She tapped herself on the chin and looked up at the early evening sky. “I’d be rich because there would be a bidding war on that painting.”
“You’re already rich.”
She batted her eyelashes at him. “It really would be a waste not to suck on it. Think you might reconsider?”
His dick jerked against his stomach. It had none of Shep’s inhibitions. It might even lean more toward kinks than quirks.
“Not today,” she said, “but when we get back to civilization.”
“Maybe… I guess… Okay.”
“Excellent,” she said cheerfully and hopped to her feet. She grabbed his hand and dragged him toward the rock’s edge. “Then let’s get wet.”
* * *
Joss made the comment with a smart-ass grin, but truth was, she was already plenty wet. The man was seriously beautiful, and she’d seen her share of rock stars and Hollywood celebrity bodies. But Shep’s shoulders, chest, and killer abs were in another class. No glossy gym time for him. Those muscles had been sculpted through being outside and doing cool shit. And holy God, she’d never seen more beautiful inguinal creases than those carved to show off Shep’s gloriously stiff cock.
Somehow, she and Shep helped each other climb down to the gorgeous little pool below the waterfall without falling on their heads or bruising anything that she planned to make use of.
Joss slipped into the water—the Arctic cold water—and yipped. Like a Pomeranian. A spoiled one accustomed to wearing a cashmere sweater.
Goose bumps domino-ed up from her toes to her scalp and she immediately crossed every appendage that hadn’t frozen into immobility.
“Move around and it will help some,” Shep said as he slid in without so much as a hiss.
Before she could commit to any movement, Joss needed to satisfy her curiosity about what the water had done to Shep’s stupendous erection. Underwater, she skimmed her hand across him and found him still hard and pointing due north.
Now that was impressive.
And now she had to get warmed up. She started out treading water, but that didn’t do enough to fight off the chill seeping into her bones, so she struck out and swam a few laps back and forth across the pool.
Six million more and her temperature might be back to a normal 98.6. She was on lap number twenty when she plowed into a rock. She surfaced to find the “rock” was actually Shep’s ass. “Hey, you’re in my way.”
He swirled around in the water to face her and his grin took her breath more fiercely than the cold water had. When he did that, smiled like he really meant it, the world was simply a different place. A brighter, more bountiful place. “I know. I meant to. Do you want to see behind the waterfall?”
&nbs
p; She looked at him from the corner of her eye. “How do I know you’re not just trying to lure me back there to do something nefarious to me?”
“Is fucking nefarious?”
“Only if you do it right.”
He grabbed her around the waist and strode—strode! Who could do that in water?—toward the waterfall. Out of self-preservation, she gripped his shoulders and wrapped her legs around his waist. It was either that or be dragged through the water.
With each of Shep’s steps, his penis nudged her butt. Not entirely uncomfortable, but if the man was iffy about oral sex, he definitely wouldn’t be into backdoor action. Joss did a little monkey shimmy and pulled herself up his torso.
She was considering kissing him—or maybe biting that amazing muscle on his shoulder—when water rained down on her. Sluicing into her mouth, surging up her nose, and almost slicing through her hold on Shep. When she was free from the deluge, she sputtered and sneezed. Very sexy.
No doubt she looked like a rat clinging to a piece of driftwood. Granted, a very big, very solid piece of driftwood, but still.
Shep shook his head and his hair slicked back like he was a Calvin Klein model. She hated him—just a bit—right this second. “That wasn’t very nice.”
“What?”
“Almost drowning me.”
“I told you I was going to show you behind the waterfall.”
“Isn’t there a side entry?”
“Yeah, but the shortest—”
“—distance between two points is a straight line.”
“Exactly.”
Oh, fuck hating him. She could love a man like this.
Love? No. She didn’t deserve to feel that. Not with what she’d done to other men she cared for.
Joss put a chokehold around Shep’s neck and dug her knees into his sides like he was a prize racehorse. And then she kissed him.
It was a savage mashing of lips and teeth. Wide open mouths and hot breath. Violent, just a few notches down from vicious.
But she knew Shep could take it. Would like it. Suddenly overcome by the stress of the day, the uncertainty of her career, and the loss of her music, Joss wanted to claw at him.
Let physicality and ferocity bruise away all her fear. Because if she was steeped in her body’s pain, there was no room for hurt inside her heart.
Shep bracketed her hips and pushed her back, scooting her ass across a smooth shelf of rock. Still she clung and clawed.
But he was stronger and broke her hold on him. They stared at one another, their breaths coming in fast, mean gasps. “Jojo?”
She dropped her face into her hands, felt the hot leak of tears coat her palms and slip through her fingers.
“Jojo, are you okay?” Shep’s tone held confusion. She didn’t want to confuse him or tease him. “I didn’t mean to scare you or hurt you.”
She shuddered out a watery laugh. “You didn’t. I… I’m the one who jumped you. I don’t know what got into me. I’ve never kissed someone like that.” She peeked out of her hands and spotted a trickle of blood at the corner of Shep’s lips.
My God, what had she done?
In her desperate attempt to shove away her own pain, she had physically assaulted and wounded him.
Who was she?
No one she or anyone else wanted to idolize.
17
She was crying. Shep did not like tears. They always meant something, but he never knew what. Once, when he was seven, he’d given his mom a necklace he’d made from wild purslane, and she bawled. He’d immediately snatched up the gift and hidden it deep in his closet. He’d also hidden himself behind a collection of old coats.
The homemade present had made her unhappy and that had left an empty pit of anxiety where his stomach normally was.
It didn’t take her long to find him even though he’d hunkered down like a frightened hermit crab. His mom took his hand and gently withdrew him from the tight dark space.
“Honey,” she said, “it’s okay.”
“But you are crying!” She still wore tear tracks on her face, and that made him want to rock back and forth, bashing his head into the wall. “I hate Dad!”
“What?”
“He told me you would like it. The necklace. He was wrong.”
Even though he was almost as tall as her, she’d drawn him into her lap. “No, Shep. He was exactly right.”
“Then why are you crying?”
“Because I liked it so much that my happiness and love for you welled up inside me and spilled out. It was so much that I couldn’t hold it all.” She smoothed her hands over his head with a firm touch and he’d rocked in her embrace.
“I do not like tears. They make me feel…”
“Unsure?”
“Like Godzilla ripped my stomach out and ate it for breakfast.”
She laughed, a sweet sound that never failed to soothe him, and he rested his head on her shoulder. “Baby boy, I love you so much. I don’t think I can even tell you how much. You are special and smart and sensitive. Not everyone will understand that. And because of that, sometimes you will feel unsure. Scared even. But try not to run away. Running away makes you feel like you’re someone else’s prey. And Harris Sheppard Kingston, you will never be anyone’s victim.” That was when she’d given him a slim length of cord and suggested he see how many knots he could learn to tie within a week.
He’d been fashioning fifty different ones within two days.
But now, standing here watching Joss’s shoulders shake and tears streak down her face, Shep didn’t have his paracord. It was up on the rock inside his shorts. So beneath the cover of the water he was standing in, he manipulated his fingers and said to Joss, “You are not crying happy tears like my mom, are you?”
Hesitantly, she raised her hand and brushed her fingers across the corner of his mouth. When she drew back her hand, it was smeared with blood. “I hurt you.”
He automatically licked his lips and tasted the coppery flavor of blood. It wasn’t the first time in his life that he’d had a busted lip. “I am okay. I am not in pain. Please stop crying.”
His request only made her cry harder.
Shep released his grip on her upper arms and waded back and forth in front of her. “I don’t like this. It’s not fun. I wanted to have fun.”
He’d thought if he could show her that he was fun, that he could kiss her, and make her feel good, that she would like him. Really like him.
And he wanted that desperately.
“I thought I knew how to be with you,” she said. “But when I kissed you, I attacked you. I was using you to work off my fear.”
“I did not mind.”
“I do.”
“Then I guess we will not have sex.”
Her laugh was a watery snuffle. “You are such a guy.”
“Because I have a penis.”
“No, because you have a one-track mind.”
“Maybe we should climb back up and—”
She pressed her fingers to his mouth. “I’m sorry I messed this up. I love the pool and the waterfall. It’s very pretty. Very romantic.”
Okay, this was good. She actually liked something he’d suggested. Maybe she did like him even though he wasn’t fun.
“Maybe we could try this again?” she asked quietly.
Oh yeah, he was all for that. But if a wild kiss made her cry, she might not like sex with him. And if they got started and he couldn’t handle her touch, because it was too light or gentle, he would have to get away from her. She definitely wouldn’t understand that. His brothers always told him it was better to be up front and discuss issues before having sex with a woman. Saved your ass in the long run, they said.
He stared at the rock facing behind her. “I like to have sex a certain way.”
“Not gentle. No soft touches.”
“You won’t like this, but sometimes I don’t like women to touch me at all, while we are…”
“That’s kinda tough since by the very defin
ition of sex, two people are touching. Unless, of course, we’re talking about phone sex. But we don’t have a phone.”
“Do you have phone sex?” he asked, rolling that around in his mind. He liked the sound of it. Why hadn’t he ever tried that before? All the mental stimulation and none of the touching.
“Not regularly.” She laughed. “But I’d do it with you.”
“But not now because we don’t have a phone. And I really want to have regular sex with you.”
“Tell me what you need to make this a good experience for you.”
“Could you… uh… keep your hands to yourself?”
She immediately braced her palms on either side of her hips, placing them flat on the rock.
“And no kissing,” he said quickly before she decided he was too weird. Too much trouble.
“At all?”
“Not until I see how this goes.”
“Okay,” she agreed with a nod. “You can touch me, but I can’t touch you. Got it.”
“And you have to tell me if I’m too rough. I don’t always know.”
“Our safe word can be Zimbabwe.”
“Safe word?”
“If one of us says it, the other has to stop what he or she is doing immediately.”
Yeah, he liked that idea. “A safe word is good.”
* * *
In Joss’s opinion, a good hard screwing would be even better right now, but she had to let Shep approach this his own way. She might not be able to touch, but she could tease. He’d enjoyed that before they climbed down to the waterfall. Joss shifted her hands and arched her back.
And from the way his gaze tracked her movement, she knew she had him hooked. Might as well go for broke, so she spread her legs, let him get a good long look. “Anything look appealing?”
“Yes.”
“Then do whatever you want.”
When he surrounded her breast with his rough palm, took her nipple between two fingers, heat and need spiraled down and she squirmed against the rock. She had a feeling she’d be squirming a lot more before this was over. Shep didn’t seem to be a man who rushed.
He pinched, and her hips bucked. “Oh, God.”
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