by Lily Cahill
He felt better already. That was why he'd chosen this life: the clarity with which he could see the world. This squirrel had given its life so that Liam and Ava could continue theirs. These trees had been around longer than any of them, and they would be around long after they were dead. Liam's problems, whether to give in to his fated future or not, were small in the grand scheme of things.
If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away.
Just as Thoreau had written, that is what Liam had done. He had found his own way in life. Just because he knew he had a mate, it did not mean that he had to tell her. Ava had no idea there were bear shifters in the world or that they had mates. Knowing she existed didn't have to change anything for him. The relative inconsequence of his decision relaxed his shoulders and let him breathe easier. He shifted again and slowly made his way back to the cabin, taking his time to enjoy the delights of his home.
#
When Liam got back to the cabin, Ava had dressed in her shirt and panties, but was fast asleep on his bed. She looked so right in his space, like she had been there all along. She lay on her side, her head resting on her arm and her golden hair a beautiful mess around her head. The curves of her body, rolling and inviting, made him forget dinner for the time being. He placed the squirrel and vegetables he'd gathered from his garden on the table by the door and joined Ava on the bed. Just because he had decided to ignore that they were meant to be together didn't mean he couldn't give in to his more carnal urges while he had her here.
He smoothed her messy hair back and kissed her gently on the lips, letting his mouth linger on hers, her plush lips feeling like a pillow made for resting his mouth on.
A small "mmm" escaped her, and as she responded to his touch--her mouth moving slowly against him, her tongue reaching out tentatively to touch his.
She opened her eyes sleepily to him and, impulsively, he kissed her nose. It was little and peaked upward at the tip, calling out to be pecked.
He moved his hands under her shirt, feeling the soft flesh of her side, and pulled her closer. He could feel her body awaken under his touch, becoming more alert as she escaped sleep. Desire flared within him, and he had to touch her more, feel her climax again. Liam moved his leg between hers, spreading her open and pressing his thigh against her sex. Her pussy was hot against his leg and he pushed harder, eliciting a groan as the pressure of his leg stimulated her clit.
She stopped kissing him and closed her eyes, breathing in deep and evidently letting the feel of him overtake her. She bit the side of her lower lip as her breasts heaved. Liam pulled her lip away from her teeth with his thumb, dragging it out of her mouth, and latched his teeth onto it.
"If you keep biting your lip like that, I'm going to have to fuck you before dinner."
Ava looked him in the eye and licked her lip before biting down on it again. This time, her teeth were centered and purposeful.
Liam growled and rolled over her, pinning her to the bed, her hands held above her head, trapped under his rough palms. He took her lip in his teeth and pulled, biting down playfully but a little forcefully. He had Ava's full attention now. Her chest was heaving, rising and falling beneath him, the swells of her tits bursting through her shirt. She hadn't bothered to put her bra back on and her nipples were pink peaks painfully visible through the sheer white cotton.
Ravenously, he lowered his head to her chest and sucked hard on her nipple through the thin fabric of her shirt. She ground her pelvis into him, and his already hard cock felt like it might break through the denim of his pants. His hands worked fast, unleashing his cock and pushing her panties to the side before ramming himself fully inside of her.
Liam felt his body connect to hers. Her pussy wrapped itself around his cock like they were one, like they were made for each other. Complicated puzzle pieces that laid together with easy perfection.
He took her exactly as he wanted, hard and rough with an urgency to bury himself as deeply inside of her as he could. Everything he did to satisfy his own urges made Ava cry out in a frenzied lust. Her orgasm mounted in time with his own until her nails bit into the skin of his hands that were still holding her and he felt her clamp around him as he released himself inside of her, pumping her full of his seed, still thrusting hard as she screamed his name.
#
Liam stretched out, content and peaceful, next to Ava on the bed, letting his senses come back to him. His body felt like he'd just gone through a ninety-minute massage. He couldn't remember a time when he felt so relaxed. His muscles didn't twitch with their familiar restlessness that drove him to shift and run until he was completely spent. His mind wasn't spooling through lists of things to do or thinking of people he'd left behind in his old life, wondering how they were doing and what they were up to. He was at rest. Maybe for the first time in his life.
Lazily, he trailed his hands up Ava's side. He couldn't get enough of the curve of her body, the dip from her ass to her waist fascinated him. He wanted to lay his face on the valley and enjoy the view of her incredible ass. Or lay his head in the opposite direction and watch her tits as they moved with the rhythm of her breathing. Either way, he just wanted to lose himself in the landscape of her body.
Ava squirmed under his touch and swatted his hand away, trying to suppress a giggle.
"Ava, are you ticklish?" Liam's lips quirked into a smile. This perfect body did have some weaknesses after all.
"No." She was lying. She tried to roll away from him, but he grabbed her around the waist and kept her facing him.
"You can't leave this bed. You're injured, remember?"
"I wasn't trying to leave." She was still lying.
"So you don't mind if I just ...," Liam let the sentence fall, but moved his hand back to her side, pinching her lightly below her ribs.
She pressed her lips together and shook her head no, her eyes bulging with the effort of not laughing.
"Good. Then you won't mind if I just ...," he let his fingers trail up her waist and to her underarms.
It was too much for her and she lost her composure--a burst of laughter escaping as she flailed wildly, her arms sweeping in erratic movement.
"Okay, okay! I'm a little ticklish."
Liam looked at her sideways, his hand moving to strike again.
"Okay. Very ticklish." She held out her hand, her palm firm and straight in a stop sign, her eyes wide with alert.
"That's good to know. I always have liked having the upper hand."
"My twisted ankle isn't upper hand enough for you?" She was still smiling and moving away from him, in measured movements, readying herself for his unwelcome hands.
"You'll still be ticklish when your ankle heals."
Ava's smile fell and her body stopped moving. Her eyes softened to his and reminded him of a doe in the wilderness. He shouldn't have said that. He didn't have any intention of knowing Ava once her ankle was healed. He hadn't mean to say that, and now she was looking at him with those eyes like she wanted something from this little escapade. She was Little Red Riding Hood and he was the wolf. He'd decided already. This was just sex. Incredible sex ... until she went back to her life and he to his. He moved off the bed quickly.
"I better start dinner."
Chapter Six
Ava
"What about up there?" Ava pointed up a steep hillside. Liam was carrying her around on his back as they looked for cell reception.
"This is pointless. I would not have chosen to become a recluse in a place that has cell phone service."
"Cell phones have come a long way in the last two years. It's worth a shot, right?"
Making love and being cooked dinner had been a welcome escape from reality, but when the sun arose the next day, Ava was itching to get back to the lab with her samples. She wanted to take a shower and let Emma, her sister, who was probably worried sick, know that she was okay. And she
needed to leave Liam before her heart and her lust started conspiring against her. She felt it happening already, a reluctance to leave Liam and his secluded forest cabin. She reiterated her sister's rules in her head.
1. He has a solid friend group.
2. He has a job.
3. He's not addicted to anything.
4. He treats you well (respects you, listens to your opinion, doesn't talk down to you)
A string of bad boyfriends had led to the list. Each boyfriend accounted for one of the rules. Emma said that the checklist should be easy and that any one of those items missing was a deal breaker. Ava couldn't argue, and she'd vowed to follow Emma's advice for the next man she got involved with. There is no reason that any datable man shouldn't be able to satisfy that list. She heard her sister's voice floating through her mind. Sleeping with Liam didn't count. She wasn't getting involved with him, but she felt a pull to him. She wanted to be with him even though she knew she shouldn't. It was so typical of her. She was determined to leave the woods with sweet memories of wild sex and her heart intact. Emma didn't even have to know that Liam had happened.
"That desperate to get back to civilization? What's so great about civilization anyway?" Liam hadn't agreed to take her up the hill, but he was walking that way. Ava held her cell phone high in the air, waving it from one side of her body to the other, looking for a signal.
"Oh, you know, central air, plumbing, recognizable food. It's the little things."
Liam bounced her up his back, jostling her for her sarcasm.
"I thought you said the squirrel was good."
The squirrel was good. She was surprised how delicious their meal from the night before had been. The meat and vegetables had been roasted in a cast iron pan above an open fire Liam had outback. He had all sorts of things behind his house. When he'd helped Ava hobble out there, she was taken aback at the land he'd taken up, making the cabin sustainable enough that he rarely had to go into town for anything. There was a wooden table with long benches, the legs thick and square. The thing would have cost a fortune at Pottery Barn, but Ava suspected he'd built it himself. There was a garden and a chicken coop. And the best part--the fire pit. Liam had dug out a fire pit so that you could sit on the ground and roast your food while warming your legs--no chairs needed.
It was then that he'd told her about leaving the city and moving out to the woods permanently more than two years ago. And she had told him all about her research and her life in the city. Liam hadn't maintained any relationships once he'd left. Despite the picture frames that cluttered his cabin, he hadn't spoken to anyone either. It was a clean break, he'd said.
That was a red flag. And he did not have a job. He lived off the land and spent minimally when needed, presumably off of a dwindling savings account that would eventually force him to at least find seasonal work, but Ava hadn't said that then. She didn't want to burst his bubble that living permanently in the woods wasn't exactly realistic.
"It was good," Ava admitted of the dinner from last night. "But that doesn't make it recognizable."
They crested the top of the hill and Ava waved her phone around again, looking for any semblance of a signal, but her phone was stubborn. The words "no service" shone from the upper left corner of her screen.
"Nothing," Ava conceded.
"Told you."
"Ugh, my sister is going to be worried sick."
"How'd you get all the way out here anyway? It's not exactly on the beaten path." Liam crouched slightly and let Ava move off his back, putting her weight on her good leg. He sat down on the ground, leaning back on his elbows and letting the fading spring sun wash over his skin, lighting him up and making him glow with a warmth that Ava craved to touch. She sat down beside him, careful to keep her distance. She didn't need the incredible sex they were having to cloud her mind anymore than it already was.
"I hitched a ride with some stoner guys who were headed out here to eat shrooms. They posted on the NYI ride board that they were headed out here and I decided to come out kind of last minute, so I didn't have a lot of options. I hiked a couple miles out to avoid possible contamination from the more populated area they went to. We were supposed to meet back up at the end of the day, but I assume they left without me when I didn't show. They weren't the most reliable guys to begin with."
"You were going to let some guys who were on drugs drive you down winding mountain roads?" Liam looked horrified, and Ava blushed like a little kid getting in trouble for jumping on the bed. She felt completely in control of the situation, but the way Liam was looking at her, she wished she hadn't mentioned it.
"I was planning on being the one to drive the car home," she added weakly.
"Sounds like your sister has good reason to worry about you--whether your phone is working or not."
They fell into silence. Ava didn't have to tell him that he was right, that Emma was the practical one that was always there as a rock to lean on when Ava's life inevitably fell apart. He didn't need to know that her bad judgement had caused her to give romantic control over to her sister. And he most certainly didn't need to know that he was the exact kind of man that she was trying to avoid.
Liam reached over to Ava, and she flinched away, avoiding his touch. Every time his fingertips had touched her, she had ended up with her panties off. She flushed, wanting to let it happen again, but Liam wasn't reaching for her this time. He was reaching for the backpack that they'd brought. He pulled out an apple and a knife and started cutting the fruit into wedges, handing pieces to Ava and popping alternate slices into his mouth. His jaw worked around the fruit, and even through his beard it turned Ava on.
When the apple was done, Ava laid back on the knapsack, using it as a pillow. Liam joined her, his arm pushed against hers, his knee bent outward, touching her leg. She couldn't move away now, but she was acutely aware of every inch of him that was against her. Now that the sun was setting, the air was turning cool and his body's warmth against hers felt comforting. They watched the sun go down and the stars start to wake up in the night sky.
"I can see why you chose this," she whispered, even though there was no one else around to hear her.
"It's something else, isn't it?"
Darkness had fallen quickly. There were no city lights to keep the twilight from fading into pitch blackness, and that stars came out in droves--more numerous than Ava thought possible. They were so pervasive, they looked like ice crystals sparkling in the snow.
"I can't believe we're under the same sky that I look at it in the city. It doesn't seem like they could be."
Liam lifted his hand and pointed at a cluster of three stars that shone brighter than the rest.
"Do you see those three stars in a row, there?"
"Mmmmm," Ava murmured.
"That's Orion's Belt. You can see those from the city."
"And those?" Ava pointed her hand to a cluster that seemed equally bright as Orion's Belt.
"That's the Big Dipper. It's part of the great bear, Ursa Major."
He moved her hand to point to a smaller constellation that matched the prior.
"And that's the Little Dipper. They're the birth marks of the sky that you can see from anywhere. Even in the city."
His hand was lingering on her arm, his fingers tender. She wanted him to fold her in his arms so badly that she didn't pull away even though she knew that she should.
She let her arm fall and his hand came down with hers, his skin in constant contact with hers.
"I find you irresistible," he said.
His words sent a shiver through her core and her mouth turned dry. He trailed his fingers up her arm and tilted her face toward his.
"I want you," he whispered into her ear, trailing his lips down her neck. Her body hummed for him, and when he moved to undress her, she let him.
He took her under the stars and she howled into the night like a wild animal.
Chapter Seven
Liam
Ava's ankle healed ove
r the next few days, and even though she wasn't one hundred percent better, she could put weight on it. They'd been in the woods together for three days and fucked like bunnies, barely coming up to breathe or eat. Liam argued to himself that he should get as much of Ava as he could now, because once she was gone, she was gone forever. He knew without a doubt that she was the best sex he would ever have, and he relished the days of carnal activity. Every time he approached her, she accepted him willingly, the sounds of her orgasm reverberating through his cabin with unadulterated bliss. He'd never met a woman with the kind of sexual appetite that Ava had, but then again, he'd never wanted sex as much or as often as he did with Ava.
His cock tingled, slightly sore, as blood rushed to it, just thinking about everything that had transpired between them over the past couple of days.
Ava was dressing and she turned her phone on, preparing for their hike out.
He felt something deep inside of him screaming to ask her to stay, but he ignored it. He wasn't going to listen to that instinct--it was one he was very deliberately ignoring.
"Ready?" he asked, pulling his backpack on. It was heavy with food, a tent, and plenty of water. Without a car, it would take them two days to get out of the woods.
"Ready." She nodded her head firmly at him.
They started walking, her hand folded into his, not saying anything as they departed the cabin, both knowing that their time together was almost over. Liam didn't want to think about how empty the cabin would feel with her gone, how lonely. This was the life he had chosen. Finding Ava was a bump in the road, but he would continue down his path as he intended.
For two days, they trekked overland, using streams for guidance and the sun to point them in the right direction. They hiked by day and fucked by night, and Liam tried not to notice the wistful look in Ava's eyes that grew both mornings when they packed up their little tent and continued. He tried not to notice the way his heart yearned to grab Ava, turn right around, and expand his life to accommodate one more.