“Take off your shirt,” the words are gruff, harsh and at first I think I must be having a daydream because Jett would never say that to me.
I look up quickly to make sure my assumption is correct and find him staring pointedly at me, not a flicker of a smile on his face, and there’s no denying he said it.
I open my mouth and air whistles out, I try again and shake my head to clear it and get a logical thought together. “What did you say?” I squeak.
He brings the ax down again on the wood, cleaves it in half. The decapitated side falls away obediently.
Jett grins but there is no warmth in his face, only a focus that’s dead serious and fixed on me. He picks up another piece of log and sets it square in the center of the chopping block. Overhead a nightingale begins to whisper its plaintive beautiful melody. Tingles race down my spine, I close my eyes and for a moment peace comes through.
Then Jett slams home the ax into the wood, breaking the spell. He grunts and scrubs a hand across his forehead. He quirks a challenging brow at me, and a slow smile creeps across his hard mouth which does little to soften the harsh line. “You heard me, take your blouse off real slow.”
Cornered, I can’t pretend to misunderstand him any longer and from the stubborn set of his wide lips, I wouldn’t get far if I tried. The thought flashes across my mind that I can just walk away. This doesn’t have to happen. But then … I don’t want to. A thrill of awakened nerves plump up across my body, sending impulses racing through my body. And I react, the cool night feels colder against my heated cheeks, my breasts plump up with a rush of sudden need.
I break eye contact with him to hide even just a little of what I’m feeling, though now I’m not so sure that I can thwart him. I lift a trembling hand to the top button on my shirt and start to peel them open, one by one, I tilt back my head and I’m careful to keep my fingers away from the throbbing underside of my full breasts. I push the shirt open down to my navel as the last button slides open.
Twack, twack, the discordant notes of the ax soaring through the air falls abruptly silent.
Shivering I peek one eye open and he’s watching me, his mouth pressed into a rigid line. His forehead is furrowed and his hands on the ax handle flex and bunch with tension.
A thrill goes through me, washing away some nervousness. I close my eyes again and start to peel the shirt off my shoulders. I pause as an embarrassing thought crosses my mind.
“Why did you stop?” he grates out the words instantly.
Not so in control is he? But the thought does little to soothe my anxiety because I’ve got bigger problems.
I keep my eyes closed, not wanting to see his disgust, then mumble, “I’m wearing a nursing bra … they’re not exactly hot,” I chew my bottom lip in embarrassment.
His hoarse groan makes my eyes fly open. He’s still frozen in place, the ax is stuck in the stump and he looks like a bull that wants to charge but can’t decide how great the danger is.
A vein throbs in his temple, his eyes devour my modest, white nursing bra which to my utter shame has two small, wet circles around the nipples. Mortified I bite my lip and turn away.
“Stop,” he commands, “do you know how beautiful you’ve always been to me? Sometimes seeing your smile hurts like looking at the sun,” he growls.
Shocked, I can only stare at him openmouthed. I’d never known. We’d talked about sports, finals but never that he’d thought I was that beautiful. I’d been afraid that he’d liked me mostly because we could laugh together.
I hug myself, unable to look away from the burning sincerity in his eyes. “You’ve never said that to me before.”
He laughs, a desperate sound, “I’m not the same man who sent you away.”
Old hurt stabs through me, I sternly remind myself not to cry, I give a jerky nod, “I know.”
He nods solemnly, eyes on me and doesn’t speak.
I lick dry lips to moisten my parched throat and he groans again as if I was the one that requested this form of torture.
I watch him standing tense and poised, waiting. And I realize that he doesn’t want to take the first step.
I reach for him and at the same time retreat into myself, embrace the needs coiling inside my body as they take over. I look up and silver stars fill my eyes. I rub myself against his heated chest and cup my hands beneath my full, aching breasts. Shudders ripple through me, they arch my back in a rictus of painful pleasure. Gasping I start to unhook my bra. His iron grip stops me.
I blink my eyes open.
“Sorry,” he mutters, he loosens his grip just a fraction but doesn’t let me go. Instead he pins my hands to the small of my back and with his blazing hot breath on my face, he takes over the job of undoing the hooks. The bra falls to our feet. He leans close and my nipples are engorged with need as they brush against his chest.
It’s like tendrils of fire down my spine at the first brush of the warm, prickly hair on his wide chest swipes across me.
He’s bending down to the side of my neck, his mouth already open in hunger for my taste, he flicks a surprised glance at me, “does that hurt?”
I watch him staring at my neck, his mouth open, his tongue already tasting me through the air between us.
“No,” I gasp, then tip my nose up to his, suck in a gulp of his scent. It’s mysterious and wild, there’s nothing at all sedate or easy about him any longer.
He shudders as I draw back, his eyes narrow then his attention flicks back to my neck and he’s had enough waiting. He dips down, I cry out as the searing tip of his tongue flickers from the base of my neck up to the delicate region behind my ear. He grips my hair impatiently and pushes it back. Gasping from the onslaught I grab at his chest, my fingers slip on the slick muscles and I claw higher, wind my arms around his neck.
My eyes roll back in my head as his curious tongue rakes over the shell of my ear, then sucks the tip of my lobe into the wet heat of his mouth.
“Jett!” I gasp convulsing with pleasure
He ignores me. Switches to the next ear. I grip fistfuls of his hair to anchor myself and surrender myself to it. Slowly he pulls back and I watch him through eyes heavy with desire.
He reaches down and two hard, callused hands cradle my aching, full breasts.
I flinch, muffle a low scream as exquisite sensations knife through my nipples down to my core.
He chuckles huskily, his eyes gleam. “Do you know how long I’ve waited to hear those sounds from your lips?”
I blush and catch my lip and bite down into it. Shuddering, I nod.
“Forever,” he muses quietly. “I can’t stop imagining you in my arms.”
He picks me up and takes me not to his tent but to the cabin. He places me tenderly on the bed, pulls off my boots, my jeans but leaves on my panties. He does the same. Then he gets in beside me.
Spoons himself at my back. My butt rests up against the rigid bulk of him behind me. The friction sends a rush of moisture to warm my clit. Stiffening, I strangle a groan and press back onto him, offering.
He groans, nips my ear with just enough pressure to make me yelp.
“No,” he says softly, then sighs with regret. “Right now I just want to hold you. Okay?”
Stunned, I bury my face into the softness of the pillows. I don’t know whether to cry or jump from the bed. He’d always been tender but I don’t feel like I deserve this delicate care that he insists on wrapping me in.
He apparently thinks otherwise because his strong, warm hands go around my middle. At my back his heart beats a steady, strong rhythm.
I’m awed that even for just this moment, he simply wants us to hold each other.
To be together.
As sleep draw closer to me, I know with my last spark of lucidity that this is where I belong.
Teag’s kittenish cry makes it through my cloud of sleep. I turn and for a moment, panic races through me at the heavy weight draped across my shoulder.
I turn, open my eyes. Pitch black
darkness floods in. I can’t see a thing. I bolt up. Memories from Jett putting me to bed earlier flood my mind.
Teag whimpers again. Not a cry of pain but hunger. I stumble from the bed, stub my toe on a piece of wood at the foot of the bed. Cursing I stick out a hand and walk blindly towards Teag’s cry.
A light flashes on, “Ah!” I stifle a cry and turn to look at Jett who’s sitting on the bed, a tiny flashlight aimed at the ceiling above Teag’s bed.
I smile weakly and go over to the bunk bed. A half hour later, Teag’s sound asleep again.
And as I turn around to go back to the bed, I realize too late that the beam of Jett’s flashlight has crawled down from the ceiling above the rocking chair where it had rested while I nursed to my face, then lower to my breasts. It inches back up past my face to the ceiling.
Skin prickles at the back of my neck as my legs make contact with the soft, cotton sheets. The flashlight goes off as I slide up beside him.
Boldly, swallowing the pile of doubts choking me, I burrow back into his arms. He opens them for me.
I wait.
Breath trapped in my throat. Heartbeat climbing with every breath I take. The pitch black darkness of the cabin coats us, thick and velvety.
In the warmth of his arms, I’m both lost and acutely so alive that the sound of air in my lungs is swift and harsh between us.
Without warning I’m being lifted up as Jett rises with me in his arms.
Soft heat comes to my eyelids, cheeks, then the tip of my nose. He’s kissing me gently, slowly as though time is trapped here between us and he can take as much as he wants.
My palms burn to grab his face and kiss him the way I’m suddenly dying to with my lips and tongue and even the soul that’s within me, but I crush it. He wants me to be still, he’s renewing what had been and now would be again between us and I stay still hypnotized, knowing that our future together lies in his hands, his fingertips and what he feels through my skin as his touch circles leisurely down from my face to the column of my throat.
He grunts with need. “Your skin feels like a silken waterfall,” he breaths into my ear, catches the lobe between the gentle pressure of his teeth.
I gasp, my eyes open wide in the darkness. I fight the urge taking hold of my body making me tremble, not to reach for him. To make myself wait for his touch.
His mouth lifts away, then he bends to my neck and a cry escapes me before I can stuff a fist into my mouth as the firm swipe of his tongue travels the length of my throat, from base to tip and back again.
Shaking I slump back into the barricade of his arms.
His shadow looms over me and even in the darkness I can trace the shape of his head and broad shoulders looming above me. It comes closer and the prickly scratch of his chest hair across my swollen nipples makes me groan in torment.
He swallows it, captures my lips in a kiss that’s the opposite from the delicate touch of his lips moments before. It’s hard and brutal. A hunger that drives into my mouth and ravishes the softest recesses of my tongue.
He groans as he pulls away from me, our lips unlock with a decadent plopping sound. He flips me onto my stomach. The soft flesh of my ass rams into the muscles of his carved thighs, he bends and dips a finger into me.
“You’re ready,” he grinds out behind me. . He bends and whispers in my ear, “I’ve wanted to fuck you like this since the first moment we met in Anatomy class.”
I gasp, reliving the shy, innocent smile he’d sent me as he’d reached across my table and introduced himself.
Lost in these first moments, a hiss of air escapes my mouth as he rams into me. I brace expecting him to surge deeper but he holds back.
Gripping my ass he anchors me as he pummels me with slow, shallow strokes that tease and cajole me. Greedily I strain back against him.
“Stop!” he snaps low at me, “I want this to last, I won’t be able to stop myself when I’m all the way inside you,” his finishes raggedly.
“No,” I insist and grind my ass back against him, “I won’t wait!”
He laughs, a wonderful deep sound of male dominance and contentment. I whimper and he finally appeases me and slips a little bit deeper, spreading the sharp, growing burst of pleasure in a wider circle that starts to push outwards from the slap of his body into mine. The heat spreads and keeps spreading and all protests die on my lips. I disappear into a place where nothing matters but how good Jett is fucking me. Each rapid, hard thrust is all I want.
I start to scream, my face buried in the mattress, I clutch frantically at the sheets, needing something to hold onto to as I start to come apart. I burst around him, my heart hammering and I can’t feel my legs as I slump forward. Jett doesn’t miss a beat, he hikes up my pliant body and unleashes the rest of his strength, he sends me hurtling back onto him for unstoppable heartbeats until his own grunts start to grow. He throws his head back and a low growl fills the moist air all around me. Moments later he collapses beside me and instinctively we spoon
Time passes with no words, then he speaks so low I have to strain to hear it.
“Dammit,” he bites out behind me in the darkness.
My heart seizes. Sorrow dries in my mouth, his arms around my middle is still warm and slick with sweat from our lovemaking. I wait for him to say something else. Anything.
He doesn’t.
Minutes pass and his breathing deepens to sleep. I disentangle myself and turn in his arms. The night is still thick in the room but this close the lines of his face are clear shadows. I reach out tentatively and trace the line of his jaw. The rasp of his stubble graze my fingertips, I brush the strong, square expanse of his forehead.
“Oh Jett,” I cry, my throat tightens with sorrow. There is no doubt that he regrets what just happened between us.
I pull myself together with a supreme effort. I will not cry. If this is all there is between us I will be content. Leaning forward with all the gentleness inside me I brush his stubborn lips with mine, “I love you,” I whisper.
Chapter sixteen
I’m back in the moonlit meadow. And I know I’m dreaming because Colt is standing in front of me. A bouquet of wildflowers clutched awkwardly in his huge hands.
I run up to him and stop. There’s a scowl on his face and his golden eyes study me curiously, “What’re you doing here?” he asks softly.
“I don’t know,” I answer looking around at the dark trees and smelling the bittersweet tang of flowers under our feet.
He laughs, a hungry sound, “you made me the happiest here.”
He steps forward and offers me the flowers, I take them and bury my face in their silken petals, I pull their strong scent into my lungs and then look back at him and I start to weep, “You died and I broke Jett’s heart.”
He clears his throat roughly, “Yeah, we both screwed up.”
A wobbly smile stretches my lips, “You should see Teag, he looks like-” I trail off.
He groans but then a dry laughs comes from him, “No shit. My son looks like Jett?”
Tears burn the back of my throat, “Yep,” I nod.
He takes a step towards me and the meadow around us begins to grow darker, the trees closer, he’s coming to me yet it looks like he’s moving away. He holds out a hand and there’s a fierce smile on his face, “don’t worry Ang. Don’t worry.”
His voice fades and the flowers disappear from my hands. Startled I look around for him, “Colt! Colt!” I yell but I’m suddenly alone and suffocating.
I wake with a choked scream trapped in my throat, It comes roaring out. Teag whimpers and starts to cry.
Fighting to bite back my cry, I look wildly around. Light is pooling softly on the bed around me and …
I’m alone.
I jump up, wrap the sheet around my naked body. Throwing a look at Teag whose sounds are dying down, I rush out the cabin and run barefoot down towards the tent.
But emptiness greets me.
The tent’s gone. I stop short of the spot and
just stare.
I don’t have to look for his horse.
Slowly I walk over the trampled earth where the tent had stood. I collapse to my knees.
Dawn in still rising around me, shards of golden sunlight pierce the dark green of the pine trees spread out below me.
I turn my face up into it. Feel the first hint of warmth on my cheeks.
Tears rise from my gut, fill my throat and pelt like bullets down my cheeks to die in the earth around my feet.
I stay still for a long time, letting myself cry. Because I just have too.
The sun is above the top of the pine trees when the last tears stream down my nose.
I blink and open burning eyes. I push myself to my feet and stagger back towards the cabin.
It’s totally silent. Teag has fallen back to sleep. Systematically I begin to plan my day. Take a shower. Tidy up. Leave.
I stare at the Native American baby carrier tucked in the corner beside the sink. My brows knit. I bite my lip hard to keep more tears away.
I can’t strap it onto my back, how will I ride back with Teag? Jett’s desertion sucker punches me. Slapping a hand over my mouth, I fly to the cabin door, rip it open and leap over all the steps to the ground.
Running down towards the overhang where Jett had stood the night before I can’t stop myself, I keep going right towards it and the green valley of pine hundreds of feet below.
I pull up at the lip, hunch over and let it rip.
I scream so hard, my eardrums explode in pain. And I keep screaming.
In some dim part of my brain, I try to stop but I can’t.
“STOP. You’re making my ears bleed!” there’s a good natured chuckle beneath the stern words.
I whip around, my mouth hangs open.
Jett catapults easily off the side of his horse, covers the several feet of space between us and drops to his knees in front of me.
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