Striking Edge

by Kelsey Browning

  He immediately released her and started to back away, but she growled at him.

  “Don’t. That was a good ‘Oh, God.’ More.” Although she wanted to grab his hands and put them on her breasts, she restrained herself. Luckily for her, he seemed to understand. With both his big hands on her, her skin warmed and she felt surrounded and sheltered.

  It scorched her and softened her.

  He pinched and plucked her nipples with such focus, pushing Joss toward the brink of orgasm. One touch between her legs and she would go boom. “Ah… could you… would you… I need…” She shifted restlessly on the rock trying to give him the hint.

  But hints didn’t work well with Shep.

  “Could you move one hand between my legs and do the same thing there?”

  His delicious torture on her breasts stopped. “I don’t like the way that feels on my fingers.”

  “You’re not a fan of the clitoris?”

  “No. Inside.”

  “Why not?”

  “It… ah… feels like… um…”

  “Just say it.”

  “Pudding. It feels like pudding.”

  Pudding? She pinned her lip with her teeth because now was not the time to laugh. Still, she would never, ever look at those little snack packs again without thinking about this conversation. “And you don’t care for pudding.”

  “I like chocolate.”

  Yeah, she could work with that. Later. “Fine. Then I’ll take care of the rain forest. You can go back to the mountains.” Although she’d much prefer his rough hand between her legs, a girl had to do what a girl had to do. So Joss reached between her legs and played.

  Shep, however, did not return to the regularly scheduled program. Instead, he was staring like a man in a trance at where she was touching herself.

  “Never seen a girl masturbate?”

  “Amber didn’t do that.”

  “Poor Amber.”

  “Does it feel good?”

  “Does it feel good when you touch yourself?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then there’s your answer,” she said. “But it would feel even better if you returned to what you were doing.”

  “I like that.” He pointed between her legs.

  She couldn’t laugh. She could not. Or he would back away. But the man needed to make up his damn mind.

  Sounded like his ex-wife had done quite a number on him.

  “Would you like to trade? I’ll take the mountains.”

  “You mean your breasts, right?”

  “Yep.”

  “Okay.”

  Joss cupped her breasts and tried to replicate Shep’s movements. It felt good, but wasn’t quite the same. He, on the other hand, was staring between her legs like her vagina might be sporting teeth.

  “It won’t bite.”

  His wide-eyed gaze flew to hers. “Some of them do?”

  Joss bit her bottom lip until she had herself under control. “I was teasing you.”

  “Oh. Good.” Now, rather than reaching down with his hand, Shep lowered himself into the water until he was eye level with her. Then he pushed against her knees, opening her wide. Exposing her. He studied, tilting his head left and right, as if memorizing every fold.

  Only the tightest control kept Joss from grabbing his hair and pulling his mouth toward her.

  Finally, he touched her clit and she jolted. “It’s okay,” she gasped. “That was a good touch.”

  “I like this,” he said, half to himself. “It’s like a vagina nipple.”

  Dear God, please help me get through this without cracking up because I really need to come.

  “It really likes you, too.”

  Shep manipulated her clitoris with a single-mindedness she’d never experienced from another man. Usually, they thought it was some kind of starter button and that once they’d gotten the motor cranked, they never needed to touch it again. Shep, on the other hand, was getting a PhD in female anatomy down there.

  Eyes closed, she rocked against his touch and fingered her nipples. This would get her there, and then she’d get him off any way he wanted. Just a little more. Another circle and—

  “Ohmygod!” Her eyes flew open at the feel of Shep’s long fingers pushing inside her. “I thought you didn’t like that.”

  “I thought you might feel different.” His face was a study in concentration, making it clear he was seriously considering the texture of her vagina. He worked his fingers in and out, steadily and ruthlessly, until Joss couldn’t seem to catch her breath. Her heart was pumping out of control and her muscles were tightening.

  “I’m… Shep… I’m about to come.”

  “Okay.”

  “Do you want to take your fingers out?”

  “No.”

  That was the single first time the word no had ever sent a monstrous orgasm hurtling through Joss’s body. She clamped down on Shep’s fingers and lost her mind.

  * * *

  That was interesting. Joss’s vagina hadn’t made him think of pudding. It reminded Shep of something strong and powerful. A fist. A silky vise. He thought he liked it.

  And with the way her body was sagging against him, Joss herself reminded him of a floppy doll.

  Her eyes still closed, she said, “Do you have any idea what you just did?”

  Shep stiffened as he withdrew his fingers from her body. Questions like that normally meant he was about to hear something unkind. Possibly even cruel. He braced himself.

  “You just brought me to the most surprising orgasm of my life.”

  Sometimes surprises were good. Sometimes they weren’t.

  Joss’s mouth curved into a loopy-looking smile. Maybe this surprise was good. Her lids opened slowly to reveal glassy eyes. She’d either done drugs or she was happy.

  Since he hadn’t seen her take any pills in the past few minutes, he was going to go with happy.

  And that made him happy.

  “I had a good time,” he said.

  She laughed and lightly slapped him on the upper arm. Her eyes opened wide and she dropped her hand. “Oh. I’m sorry. In my post-orgasm haze, I forgot.”

  “It’s okay. I think I like it when you touch me.”

  “How about you stand up?” She scooted toward the edge of the rock she was sitting on. “This is the perfect height for… oh, shit.”

  “What?”

  “We’re in the water.”

  He glanced around. Had she just realized that? “Yes.”

  “Without a condom.”

  Oh. “Oh shit.”

  “Yeah,” she sighed. “And I didn’t exactly pack for a holiday fling.”

  “I have condoms in my backpack.”

  “Are you serious?”

  “My brothers told me to never leave home without them.”

  “I love your brothers.”

  Shep frowned. He didn’t like that. He didn’t want Joss to love Cash and Way.

  Why?

  Because… because he wanted her to love him?

  “You’ll have to give me a few minutes before my legs are steady enough to make that climb,” Joss said.

  No. If he gave her a few minutes, she might decide his brothers were better than him. “Stay here and I’ll be back.”

  Shep was an experienced climber, but today was the first time he’d ever scaled rocks naked with a hard dick. Wait. Had he double-checked for the condoms after The Shitheads stole from him and took off?

  He couldn’t remember, and that disoriented him as much as having no blood flow in his brain.

  Back at his and Joss’s small camp, Shep snatched up his pack. And in his frenzy to find protection, he tossed everything else out onto the ground.

  He’d packed three. The rule of three. He ripped open a side pocket and there they were. Three condoms.

  The Shitheads were partially forgiven.

  As he rushed back toward the rocks, Puck gave him a dude-you-are-crazy look. Shep said, “You would be crazy too if there was a pretty li
ttle retriever waiting on you.”

  When he ducked under the waterfall, Joss had leaned back against a rock wall and appeared to sleeping. “Jojo!”

  “Hmm?”

  “Are you asleep?”

  “Sort of.”

  “I have condoms. Three of them.”

  Her lips curved. “That’s not very many. But we’ll have to make it work.”

  She opened her eyes, and his heart bumped hard against his ribs. She looked soft and sweet and satisfied. Had he done that? Yeah, he had. “Can we make the first one work right now?”

  “Any time you’re ready, big boy.”

  Now, Shep felt awkward. Since they’d experienced a pause, should he make her come again or should he…

  “You’re overanalyzing something. And it’s okay to ask questions. This isn’t a test where you aren’t allowed to share answers. Can’t fail here.”

  He didn’t know whether to just dive back in or if they needed to start all over. “I’m just not sure what to do now.”

  She held her arms wide and wiggled her fingers. “How about you return to where you left off a few minutes ago?”

  “Are you still…”

  “Wet? Yep. Why don’t you put one of those on?” She nodded toward the packages he was fisting.

  Shep tossed two on the rock beside her and tore open the other. When he rolled it on, it was like a glove three sizes too small. But that suited him perfectly. If every part of sex could feel like that—pleasure laced with pain—he would never want to do anything else.

  “Right here.” Joss waved him in between her legs as if she was directing air traffic. “I think this is what you’re looking for.”

  Good to her word, Joss didn’t try to wrap her arms around him or touch him in any way. She just shifted forward and spread her legs wider, allowing him to line up with only the insides of her thighs touching his hips.

  “Are you sure… Is this okay?”

  Her breath warm on his collarbone, she said, “Don’t worry about hurting me. I’m fine. I promise.”

  He palmed her ass for leverage and drove inside her.

  His brain did a cartwheel inside his head. She was hot and tight all around him. Slick heat. Supple strength.

  He tried to catch his breath, but it was nowhere to be found.

  “This is great,” she whispered. “But it’s even better if you move.”

  And it was. Shep pushed into her with jerky movements of his hips. Harder, faster, closer. But he wanted more. He didn’t want to just plunge in her. He wanted her to surround him. “Put your arms and legs around me.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes.”

  When she wrapped around him, something happened inside Shep’s chest. A slow roll and surrender. He worked his hands under her ass to lift and tilt her.

  In. In. In.

  His hips pistoned against her. He could do this forever.

  Then her muscles began to ripple the way they had earlier, and he almost lost his rhythm. It felt like the most mind-bending massage ever, and by the way his balls drew up in response, Shep knew immediately that he would lose it long before forever. “Kiss me,” he told her roughly.

  “But—”

  “Now, Joss.”

  She bracketed his face between her hands, held him firmly, and pressed her lips against his. Not fiercely, like before. This was like the best bottle of maple syrup being poured over waffles crunchy on the outside and fluffy in the middle.

  Joss made urgent noises in the back of her throat and writhed against him. She went rigid and moaned against his mouth. The contraction of her muscles around him was incredible.

  Shep pushed in—as far as he could—and allowed himself to let go. His dick jerked inside Joss’s body, and he orgasmed with a power he hadn’t known was humanly possible.

  His heart jerked inside his chest, and he wondered if it was possible for him to love just as powerfully.

  18

  After she and Shep dried off with a piece of microfiber the size of a tissue, they climbed clumsily back up the rocks. Joss felt like a giddy teenager after her first all-night drinking party. She was also freezing. Not to mention starving. “I could eat a bear.”

  “We don’t have bear,” Shep said as he handed over her clothes. “We have wild carrot.”

  “That’s my favorite.” She shimmied into her clothes, then ducked into the trees for a quick pit stop. When she returned, Shep had already gathered some kindling and branches.

  Puck glanced back and forth between her and Shep with a look that said I know what you did down there. Joss rubbed his head and gave him a big hug. “Don’t worry, buddy, we both still love you.”

  “Do you?” Shep asked, wiping off a handful of Queen Anne’s lace root with one of the cloths and passing them to her. “Do you love Puck?”

  “Of course.” Joss studied the wild plant, smaller and skinnier than normal carrots. She sniffed it and took a cautious bite. Not bad. Not great, but her stomach wasn’t particularly picky right now.

  “But you haven’t known him very long.”

  “It didn’t take long. He’s very lovable.”

  “Do you love a lot of people? Earlier you said you loved my brothers, but you don’t even know them.”

  “It was an expression.”

  “So you don’t love them?”

  Her brain wasn’t tracking with what Shep was really asking. “You know how you’ve told me to ask you direct questions? I need you to do that right now.”

  “Have you ever left someone you said you loved?”

  Suddenly, Joss felt as if she’d stepped into a minefield. This was about something more than a casual expression or her affection for his dog. “Even though my family and I don’t really understand one another, I still love them. But I had to leave Omaha to have the career I wanted.”

  “Would you leave again to have the career you want?”

  Joss honestly didn’t know anymore. She wasn’t sure she had a career or a life she wanted. “Maybe.”

  Shep turned fully away from her to clear a space for a fire. With efficient movements, he used a stick and some sort of small bow he’d fashioned from another piece of wood and his beloved paracord to coax a flame to life. Incredibly, sparks started to lick through the kindling. He blew on it to nurture it to a flame and fed it twigs and dried grass. “It’s cold and your hair is wet. We probably shouldn’t have had sex.”

  Suddenly, her chest hurt and she took a step back even though he couldn’t see her. “Regrets already?”

  “Having sex is not a survival skill.”

  “According to evolutionary theory, it is.”

  “Evolution can hold its own for the few days we’re out here,” he said. “But the water reduced our body temperatures, and the sex used up energy that we can’t properly refuel.”

  “I would argue the sex raised our body temperatures.” She couldn’t refute the expenditure of energy, but she would do it again, no question. After all, they’d be off this mountain soon. She would buy herself the biggest cheeseburger ever cooked. Then she and Shep would have a talk about the energy needed for sex.

  He removed his cord from the fire bow thingie and tied it one-handed. If he could do something similar with his tongue…

  Cool it, Joss. The man is upset about something.

  “I don’t want to argue with you,” she said, “If you think having sex wasn’t smart, then I believe you.”

  “Come over to the fire so your hair will dry.” He added some bigger branches to the fire.

  “Okay.” She plopped down beside it, but she wasn’t sure it would thaw the sudden coldness inside her. Was Shep—a man she’d thought was the most honest she’d ever met—playing games with her? “How many more miles to Steele Ridge?”

  “About fifteen. We had to hike farther from town to pick up this trail. Why?”

  “Do you think we could hike them all tomorrow?”

  “I could,” he said. “But I don’t think you can.”r />
  “Have you heard me complain about how physically tough this trek has been?”

  “No. But you are five feet tall. The average stride for a person your height is 24.78 inches. I’m six foot two and men have slightly longer strides than women. If you do the math, then—”

  “I get it,” she said with a little sulk in her voice. “Then I better get some sleep so I can do my best tomorrow.”

  “Your hair is still damp.”

  “So?”

  “Being wet affects your body temperature. Your body will produce shivers to warm you, even in your sleep. And when you shiver, you are—”

  “Burning energy.”

  “Exactly.”

  If Joss had a pair of scissors right now, she’d chop off her hair and toss it in the fire. And whoa, that sounded very much like the old Joss.

  She turned so her back was toward the growing fire and held up her hair to dry the stands underneath.

  Shep settled beside her. “Let me help.”

  That surprised her since she assumed he wouldn’t enjoy the texture of her hair against his skin. But he gently took the mass from her and slowly pulled down pieces as they dried.

  “I like your curtains.”

  Dammit. She did not want to be charmed by him right now. Not in any way. But she couldn’t help herself. He’d already gotten to her, made her think about her life. Made her wonder if he could ever be a true part of it.

  “I also like the rug.”

  “You hurt my feelings when you said we shouldn’t have had sex.”

  “I am sorry. I didn’t really mean it. I just…”

  “Just what?”

  “I didn’t like talking about you leaving people you love.”

  Were they falling in love with one another? The idea left her feeling shaky and unsure and… strangely hopeful.

  Swish. He let more strands fall against her neck, and she shivered. “Are you cold?”

  “No.” But if he kept doing that, she might get hot. And that was not what needed to happen tonight, not when they were both feeling uncertain and off-balance. “Is it dry enough for me to go to sleep?”

  He released the rest of her hair and smoothed a hand down it. Sweetly, gently. “Not completely dry, but enough. You crawl in. I will make sure Puck takes a rest stop and put out the fire. I… um… thought we could both sleep in the tent, but—”