by Whitley Cox
It was starting to spit rain again, and I asked him if he wanted my poncho, worried that he might catch a chill and suddenly face-plant in the mud, and I’d be left trying to perform CPR in a monsoon.
He spun around on the rock to look at me. “I’m okay, Piper, believe me. I don’t need a poncho. I don’t need help down. I’m okay.”
I swallowed and nodded, still not entirely convinced. He hits me with the news while he’s lying on a gurney that he was recovering from brain surgery. Fucking brain surgery. And then twenty minutes ago he’d been curled up in the fetal position on an ancient Incan rock, complaining of stomach pain. And not forty-eight hours ago, he’d been “donating” blood involuntarily to a pack of hungry Peruvian vampires in peach scrubs. I had every right and reason to doubt his reassurance and deflections. I’d thought more than once on this trip that he was going to die; my fears were not unfounded.
Suddenly, as they had on our way up the mountain, the skies opened up, and it started to rain. Heavy, unrelenting rain. We were drenched in seconds, and it was still almost forty minutes to the bottom of the mountain.
Derrick’s eyes caught mine as I blinked the water off my lashes, licking my lips while brushing my hair from my face. His shirt clung to him, defining each pec and ab, while the skin on his arms and neck glistened like polished bronze.
“Okay?” he asked. “I’m not going anywhere. I’m not going to die.”
My lip trembled, while tears stung the back of my eyes. I couldn’t lose him. He reached for me, pulling me hard against his chest. Absorbing my fear. His hands drove into my hair, holding my face inches from him. “I’m not going anywhere, okay? You believe me?”
I nodded again, a sudden shiver racing down my spine.
His eyes shifted across my face, studying me as the rain continued to hammer down and around us. And then his mouth smashed against mine, obliterating any thought besides yes from my mind. Devouring me, savoring me, possessing me. He wasn’t going anywhere, because I wouldn’t let him.
I returned the kiss in kind and grappled at him, leaping up onto his hips as he ploughed us off the path and through the woods a few yards. He tossed my pack to the ground and then my back was slammed up against a tree, his hands roaming my body and caressing my breasts, pushing into me, showing me with his body how he felt.
I was hot for him. This needed to happen. I needed him now like I needed to breathe. I started to work his belt, and then the zipper on his shorts. His bags fell to the ground as he let his hands slide up my tank top, like he was desperate to have skin to skin. Everything was wet and slippery, and the way his hands skimmed across my body and up under my bra made me quiver with longing.
His teeth grazed my jaw. “Yes,” I panted, letting my head fall back against the tree, my eyes and mouth opening up and welcoming the falling sky.
My shorts were next, and within seconds they were off and dangled by an ankle, his cock poised at my entrance and ready to thrust. Moving my thong to the side, he drew his hand up between my folds, making sure I was good and wet for him, ready. And I was, I was so ready.
“Please...” I begged. Knowing he loved it when I begged, but also truly feeling the need to plead with him for my life. “Please.”
Pure masculine triumph smiled back at me, and then he bit my lip, lifted my hips and drove home.
I grunted from the impact. “Oh, God.” My back slammed into the tree, rough bark damp against my skin. “More… harder.”
He bared his teeth and started to pick up speed, slamming into me. Dominating me, taking me, captivating me. My whole body was trembling from the savagery of his passion, the brutality of his need. I wanted bruises, I wanted bite marks, and I wanted them to be from Derrick. I raked my teeth down his neck, followed by my tongue. Feeling the pulsing vein that ran beneath his salty skin.
I felt alive. On fire and so damned good. Every draw of his cock left me greedy for more, while my whole body sighed and submitted each time he filled me, welcoming him home, pulling him in. Derrick brought his hand between us again and started rubbing rough and erratic circles around my clit. His digits slipped easily through my slick folds, feeling them swell as my need for release grew. I felt the warmth of the orgasm begin to bloom deep in my belly, threatening to unleash and overthrow my entire being.
“Derrick,” I mewled, not sure I’d be able to hold on much longer, and not sure if I wanted to. It was all becoming too much to handle. I needed to let go.
“Piper…” he said. “Come for me.” And then once again, maybe because he loved it, or perhaps because he knew I did, either way the vampire re-emerged, and he clamped down on my shoulder, snarling as he came.
I broke with a sharp cry as the climax blossomed and unfurled inside of me, spearing through me and rocking my very soul. I panted and sighed as the sensation washed over me, feeling him pulse as I contracted around him, milking him, claiming him, taking everything he had to give me.
A slippery wet forehead fell to mine while his body started to shake. I opened my eyes, rain blurring my vision. He was laughing.
I wasn’t even sure what was funny, but I started to laugh, too. “What’s so funny?” Our bodies were still connected.
He continued to chuckle, rubbing his nose against mine while our lips softly slid across one another. “Just how maniacal you make me. Since first seeing you in the airport, a flurry of gypsy skirts and mermaid hair, I’ve been consumed with this need to take you, hard and often. And hell, if I’m not trying my damnedest to do that.” He shook his head. “You’re driving me crazy.”
I blinked up at him. I’d felt the same way. I’d wanted him the moment I saw him, too. Thought about his body covering mine. His tongue between my legs, his hands on my breasts. And since that first day in Miraflores, I hadn’t been able to get enough. The man was a drug.
I flicked my tongue out and grazed it against his bottom lip. “Crazy’s just fine when the sex is as hot as this.”
He growled low and feral in his throat. “You’re going to ruin me, Piper.”
“Ruin you, or reinvent you?” I snagged his lip between my teeth and pulled.
Another growl rumbled, this time deep in his chest, and I felt him begin to grow again inside of me. The man was absolutely insatiable.
“Oh, little Piper…” He bucked up into me while a wily grin caught on his mouth as he took in my sudden wide eyes from how hard he already was again. “I think the word we’re looking for here is resurrect.” He started to slam into me again. “Because, baby, before I met you… I was damn near dead.”
14
By the time we got back down to Aguas Calientes, it was dark and still raining. Most of the tourists were heading to the hot springs, as it was the thing to do. After all, Aguas Calientes directly translated to “Hot Water,” so they had to have hot water somewhere. I’d asked Derrick if he wanted to join the throngs, but the look he’d given me was pure animal, and instead he said, and I quote, “I’m going to spend the rest of the night with my head between your legs. Fuck the hot springs.” He grabbed me by the soggy arm and whisked me upstairs to our hotel room.
We shared a long and sexy shower reminiscent of our steamy shower back at Travesura in Lima, where he’d sunk to his knees and plastered me against the wall, eating me out with constant and helpless fascination, unable to get his fill. I thought for sure we’d get dressed and head out to find some food, that his promise of a night of endless orgasms had been a slight exaggeration, and that we’d have sex later on again that night. But no. The man had not been lying. He said he wasn’t hungry…for food, and that we were not leaving our hotel room again until checkout the next day. And he tossed me onto the bed and practically dove face first into my pussy.
I lost track of how many orgasms I had.
I think I may have dozed off, or he’d tongue-fucked me to the point of blacking out, but either way, a slight dip in the mattress had me groggily blinking my eyes open, only to see a sexy blur angling up on to his elbow, smiling
at me.
“Is it morning?” I yawned, shifting slightly to face him. Wincing as my inner thighs brushed against one another. He hadn’t shaved since Lima, and I was a little chafed. At the time it’d felt incredible, but now it was a tad raw.
He chuckled. “No. Just shy of midnight.”
“Oh.”
His hand came up and started drawing little erotic circles on my bare hip, I moaned and scooted closer to him. “Can I ask you something?” I pressed my body against his.
“Mhmm.”
“What was…” I swallowed, unsure how to finish my question without offending him. “Um… what was all that up on the mountain about? Up against the tree… twice.” His mouth turned up into a wolfish grin, while a thick and eager erection prodded my hip. But I needed to ask my question; I couldn’t be distracted. “And then tonight… I don’t remember the last time I’ve had this many orgasms. A-and… and I’m not complaining… it just seems—” I lifted one shoulder, then averted my gaze. “It just seems like you’re thanking me. Are you thanking me?”
“Yes.”
My eyes flashed open, and I pulled away. But he tugged me close; a deep and manly chuckle shaking his bare chest. “Just listen, okay?”
I nodded. “Okay…”
“I told you in the hospital that I’m recovering from recent brain surgery.”
“Yeah…”
“Well, I’m also recently divorced. Like the ink is barely dry, recently divorced.”
My wide eyes much have betrayed me, because a knowing smirk twisted at the corner of his mouth. “She was sleeping with her boss.”
I gasped. “I’m so sorry.”
“Yeah, well, in the end, it was a blessing in disguise. Apparently, she’d already been sleeping with him before I was diagnosed, and then all throughout my treatment and recovery.”
“H-how did you find out?”
He rolled his eyes. “She finally told me.”
“And… did she want to get back together?”
He shook his head. “No, she asked for a divorce.”
“I’m so sorry.”
“When you told me you were a lawyer, I nearly hit the bricks,” he said, managing a hangdog expression.
My mouth opened, but nothing besides air came out.
“Mariah was a lawyer, too,” he continued. “But unlike you, she was cold and reserved. Life was about facts and statistics. The woman left very little room for fun… or, so I thought. When I’d been diagnosed with a brain tumor, she hadn’t even shed a tear. She’d immediately started pumping the doctor for information on treatment and procedures and what my chances were. She read up on similar cases, did research and sought out second opinions. And even though I knew that it was her way of showing she cared, because I don’t doubt that she did...” He made a rueful face. “Or maybe it was the guilt of shtupping her boss, who knows? But she was an emotionless robot about it all, and that’s not what I wanted, what I needed.”
I cupped his cheek. “You wanted to process it with the person you loved. Talk things through. Talk about the two of you and your relationship, not the tumor.”
He nodded. “See, you get it. Sure, I needed a day or so to just think on it myself, kind of like I did after the robbery, going quiet and introspective. But then, I wanted to talk things through with my wife and discuss how it would affect us. But she’d just jumped right into fixing things and hadn’t even given me a moment to come to terms with the fact that a tennis ball was currently growing in my head.”
“I still don’t understand what that has to do with me, though,” I said, shaking my head.
He smiled and leaned into my touch. I loved the feeling of his stubbly cheeks, and I couldn’t help but stroke his scruff with my thumb. “Even in our five years together, Mariah never looked at me the way you looked at me the night in the hospital or today up on the mountain. There was never the fear of losing me in her eyes, never the concern, never the worry. Probably because she already had someone else, so the thought of losing me wasn’t that big of a deal to her.” I made a horrified face, but he just shrugged. “Who knows? But I never really knew where I stood with my wife, whether she loved me as much as I loved her, or… whether she loved me at all.”
I inched my face forward and brushed my lips against his, not sure what else to say. This was just a weeklong fling, right?
“You’re so sweet and kind and full of emotion, Piper, and having lived with a robot for so many years, I find your raw feelings and enthusiasm about the smallest things so refreshing.”
I chuckled softly. “I’m just finally starting to feel normal again and be happy about things again… it’s been a tough eighteen months.”
His hand fell on top of mine. “Who?”
I swallowed. “My husband.”
“I’m sorry.”
I swallowed again and nodded. “He was a biologist and on a field assignment up in the Arctic Circle. A storm hit, and their boat capsized. We’d been married for just over six months. This trip to Machu Picchu was supposed to be for our second anniversary, seeing as we never went on a honeymoon. He was too busy finishing up his master’s.”
“That’s why you kept saying, ‘I can’t lose you, too’?”
I nodded as a sob caught in my throat. A warm, stray tear wended its way down my cheek, and he wiped it away with his thumb.
“Thank you for sharing with me. I know it couldn’t have been easy.”
I managed a small smile. “Thank you for telling me about your wife. And I’m sorry she cheated on you. Some women are serious bitches.”
He sighed. “Some women can be. Just like some men can be assholes. We’re all human.”
“Well, if it helps at all, I kind of lied back at the hostel anyway. I worked at a very prestigious law firm back home, it’s where I did my articling, and then I was called to the bar, wrote it, passed and then immediately quit. I’ve never really worked a day in my life as a lawyer. Ray died the day before I was set to start my articling job. They gave me six months of leave to sort out my life. I worked for them for a year, wrote my exam and quit. I realized even before I took the job that it wasn’t for me. Ray knew before I even started law school that it wasn’t for me. He thought I should have been a teacher.” I snorted. “So, I never really was a lawyer. I mean I am one. But not really.”
He gave me a poignant smile. “Lawyer or not, you’re still one of the kindest, warmest, sweetest people I’ve ever met. I didn’t know they still made people like you, so genuine and down-to-earth.”
“I had no idea about your wife or your tumor…” I whispered, not sure what else to say.
He shrugged. “It’s not exactly something I go around advertising. It’s not how I define myself.”
I nodded shyly, still unsure what else to say.
“I mean you don’t want to be defined as a widow. And I don’t want to be defined as brain tumor-divorced guy. These are parts of who we are, and they’ve helped shape the kind of people we are today, but they don’t define us. They’re simply one small part of who we are as a whole.”
I swallowed and nodded again, overcome with another wave of emotion from how deep and methodical he was being. And he was completely right. I didn’t want people labeling me as a widow. I was a widow, but there’s still so much more to me than that. But some people are unable to see past such things. Just like I’m sure some people have a hard time seeing past the fact that Derrick is barely thirty-one and already divorced, or that he had a brain tumor.
“I see more of you than just those small parts,” I said softly.
“And I see more of you as well.”
I took a deep breath and pushed the threatening tears away. “Your ex-wife, she doesn’t deserve you anyway. You’re too good for her.”
His laugh was thick and husky in his throat as he rolled me onto my back. “And what about you? Are you too good for me?”
A sigh escaped me as I lifted my hips up to meet his, wrapping my legs around his waist and lettin
g my heel fall into the crevice of his butt cheeks. “I think we’re good for each other. We’re licking each other’s wounds.”
A wicked laugh in his chest had my core quivering. “Well, I’d much rather lick something else… but first…” He reached beneath his pillow and pulled out the two silk scarves I’d bought at the market last night. Oh goody!
I gave him a mock look of surprise. “And what exactly do you have planned for those?”
He lifted my wrists while kneeling up over me, straddling my torso. “I think you know exactly what I have planned, Ms. Valentine. I think you bought these scarves with this exact little scene in mind.” He’d caught me; I totally had. We didn’t have any toys or trinkets to play with, not even a decent paddle, but a little bit of inventive bondage certainly wasn’t out of the question, was it?
His hands slid up and down my arm, bringing with them the slippery silk. He wrapped one around both my wrists, binding them together, and then securing them both to the headboard. And with one swift, but dirty little kiss, he slipped the second scarf over my eyes.
“Can you see?”
“No.”
“Good. I want to thank you, Piper. Thank you for helping me realize that there are still good, decent, kind women out there. Women with hearts and passions, women who feel. Before you, I’d honestly thought I’d just go through the rest of my life fucking for the sake of an orgasm, but that I’d never be able to trust or let myself open up to anyone again, allow myself to be vulnerable.”
My chest tightened from his words, while I felt more tears prick behind my eyes. All I could do was swallow, and even that was a challenge.
His hands started roaming my body, kneading and massaging, warming my skin, though it was already an inferno.
“I thought Mariah had ruined me. But apparently, she hadn’t. It just took the right kind of woman to show me what real compassion is.”