by Lia Riley
“There’s your wolf.”
A small gray fox regards us with a stoic, unblinking gaze.
“He looks smaller when not poking his snout out of the bushes,” I say.
“We fear what we can’t see clearly.” Rhys hooks his thumbs in his belt loops, no idea he’s slaying me. “Zorro!” He cocks his chin in my direction. “Allow me to introduce my new friend, Auden Woods. She’s come looking for the meaning of life. Perhaps you can help her.”
Zorro stares as if we’re a pair of idiots before retreating into the boulder field. His gray fur is a perfect camouflage against the stone.
“Guess he’s not giving up any state secrets today,” I say.
“Nope. We’re on our own.”
“I need to stop thinking about my future so much. Live more in the present.”
“Maybe that’s why I like you. You look ahead. I keep looking behind.”
He likes me? I mean, he must like me, but the idea combined with my sudden realization that there’s a sharp sixty-foot drop behind him makes me woozy.
“All I know is that I can’t look down.”
He points north to a thick cloud rise. “That way, beyond this valley, on the far side of the park, is where La Aguja is waiting.”
For both of us. To make our dreams or crush them to dust.
I give an involuntary shiver even though the day has grown steadily warmer. I resist the urge to hug myself. “Can we go back down?” The impulse for flatter earth is overwhelming.
We walk in silence and end up in a clearing beside the stream. The water level has dropped enough that I could easily boulder hop across and return to the main route.
“Look, there’s the trail.” My feet don’t budge toward camp, where my backpack is sitting, ready to go. Despite his offer to hike with me to the climbing camp, this is an easy out for him.
“Aye.”
We watch the water rush over the rocks, wash them clean. If he tells me to go, I won’t be forced to decide on what to do with his story.
I rise on my toes, flex my calf muscles, unable to get rid of the tension that’s gripping my body. “I know you said we could hike together, but now that I can, should I leave?”
He considers his words. “Only you can answer that.”
“I’m serious. Do you want me to stay?” I’m not sure how I want him to answer.
“The answer should be no, and it’s not.” The dark note to his voice makes the warm space between my legs turn molten.
“Rhys.”
He crosses the space between us in five long strides. His expression is furious and his eyes more than a little wild. Here he is, the guy crazy enough to want to climb a deadly mountain. The kind of guy who doesn’t back down from a challenge.
We stand toe to toe, and he towers over me. “You asked if I want you to go. Aye, I do. I want you to leave so badly I could scream it at the top of my lungs. But with my next breath? I want you.” He grabs my braid in his fist. “I’m half-mad with the wanting of you.” The pressure on my scalp doesn’t hurt, but it’s close. “But I should let you walk away.”
“So do it, then.” Frustration surges through me as I try to shove him away. I’m not some stupid toy for him to play with because he’s bored and alone.
He loosens his hold, but then lunges forward, burying his face in the top of my head, breathing deep. My hands, pushing against his shoulders, begin to do the reverse, cling, pull him closer. I can’t have him touch me and not do the same.
“Stay the night with me,” he mutters into my hair.
Oh my God. This is it. An invitation to Pound Town. My lungs don’t work, as if I’ve fallen in the deep end of the pool. This isn’t an asthma attack. This is a life attack.
I stare at him. “Yes.” My whisper is barely audible.
He draws back. “You will?”
“It’s New Year’s Eve.” My stomach throbs. “The perfect time to embrace new adventure.” It’s tricky to smile with this huge lump settling in my throat. His irises are the exact same burning yellow that licks the edge of a flame. Inside, I’m scorched down to bare earth, but not empty, rather primed, as if now, at last, I can grow.
He hesitates a moment before brushing his palm over my hair. “You can back out. No harm, no foul.”
“You’re trying to discourage me?”
His gaze darkens. “Auden, I’m asking you for one night of no-strings sex. No’ exactly a romantic proposition.”
He’s right, but I’m going to agree anyway, because the part of me that wants this is overriding the part that cautions. “Yeah, Prince Charming could probably spin a better line.”
“Don’t want to give you any lines. I’ve nothing to lose, so I’ll speak plain. Most people? I endure them. But I like you. I want you.”
“You like and want me?” Jesus, my heart is two seconds from hulking out of my chest. Pretty sure a vein or two has popped from the pressure crushing my internal organs. “Or you like that you want me?”
“Can’t it be both?” His half shrug coupled with the hint of a playful grin twists my stomach into a pretzel. My insides are an honest-to-goodness mess at this point. Jesus, I’m even biting my nails. Time to stuff my hands in my pockets and hope my courage is hiding next to the lint balls and random pesos.
“I want…” My knees quake even as heat radiates up my thighs. My body is stuck between fight-or-flight mode, or rather more to the point, fuck-his-brains-out-or-flight mode. “I really, really, really want to say yes.”
Pretty sure he growls, and the sound is so primal and unabashedly needy that I start to get wet. I can feel it, illicit and wicked, pooling against my underwear’s thin cotton.
“And you understand that tomorrow we’ll go back to being near strangers?” He tilts my chin and leans down, his bottom lip grazing the side of my jaw.
Strangers who are intimately acquainted with each other’s baby makers? My laugh is doing this Jerry Lee Lewis “Whole Lotta Shaking Going On” impersonation. Great, I’m getting propositioned for afternoon delight and giggling like a middle schooler. I clear my throat and try to rearrange my features into something a little more alluring and worldly. “I won’t even shake your hand after.”
“Let’s get this crystal clear. I’m asking to use you, Auden.” Those words should be ugly, selfish, disrespectful, but they don’t match the promise in his face.
Jesus H. Christ. My brain has officially exploded. “Maybe I want to use you, too.” And that’s the truth, in more ways than one. I drop my hands from his shoulders to the bottom of his shirt, let my fingers steal under, and holy shit, yes, good-bye, misgivings about his story, and hello, stomach. My own muscles are strong and compact, but over them is a sense of softness, of give. Rhys is forged from stone and iron. I could crash against him again and again until nothing remains but rubble.
I slide his top up farther, and he pulls away, fists it off, and throws it behind him. There’s a rustle in the bushes from where it lands.
“Not big on shirt wearing, are you?” I murmur.
“Rather feel you, lass.” He tugs my shirt up, wanting to undress me in the forest. “Look at your body. You’re gorgeous.” He rests his forehead against mine, gaze fixed on my breasts. I look down, too, and it’s strange to see all my familiar curves and dips. My shape has always seemed so normal, and yet suddenly it appears wanton and impossibly erotic.
“Will you let me touch you here?” He circles a thumb over the rise of my breast, sensitive even behind the sports bra’s thick fabric. My nipple hardens, aching to be rolled between his clever fingers.
“Yeah,” I manage to whisper. “God, yes.”
“And here?” He grabs hold of my waistband, slides a knee between my legs, and angles up to grind against where I need him most.
I hump him like a wild animal and don’t have the shame or good sense to stop. The thin layers of cotton between us might as well not exist. “Please, keep going.”
“I imagined your taste all morning. What it w
ould be like to drag my tongue over that sweet pussy.” The way he says “tongue” with that gravelly lilt, I could die now and be happy. But I should petition whoever’s on duty at the pearly gates for a few extra minutes so Rhys can put that dirty mouth to extra-good use.
I whimper something that starts as the word “Please” and ends in a jumble of consonants.
“You’ve the look of a girl who hasn’t been properly kissed in a long time.”
I can’t control a shiver. “Maybe ever.”
He nuzzles the side of my neck. “Better make it good, then.”
A lick of unease cools some of my heat.
What are you doing?
Here I am, hooking up with Rhys MacAskill, and I haven’t said a peep about the fact that I figured out who he is or that I’m interested in his story. He said he wanted to use me, and I want to use him, but not just physically. This is a mega conflict of interest, right? A rough, frustrated confusion wells within me.
But then he’s there, bold lips covering mine like this gesture is the most natural thing in the world. It’s a whisper of a kiss, a flashlight in the dark, a faint taste of salt. He teases his tongue against my lip seam, and when I open, we circle each other until I’m consumed by the taste of him, the lingering hint of currants and Earl Grey. All other thoughts, anxiety, and better judgment are thrust away by the wet, hot heat.
The stream babble fills my ears. His tongue works like a slow eddy, pulling me into a natural rhythm. Kissing is usually something slightly desperate, as if I’m trying to get somewhere, chasing an elusive feeling hinted at in great movies and love songs, something that transcends flesh and saliva. He’s taking me there, to that place.
My nails sink into his shoulders and he doesn’t flinch. I can’t stop. I want to leave marks, as if engraving my initials in a tree with a penknife. His exhalations take on a raspy edge. Maybe I really can do anything if I put my mind to it, so I put my mind here, into this kiss, this give-and-take.
It should be simple, so simple, a touch of tongue, a brush of lips, but it’s as if the forest crashes down around us. Guilt and desire collide, each emotion sharpening the other. He might be saying my name. He could be reciting the entire encyclopedia. In this kiss, there is nothing, and everything. We’ve stumbled to the place of secrets, where lovers through the ages have sneaked away. We can’t stay here. No one can. But that’s what makes it better. Knowing that you’ll lose a thing sharpens the sweetness.
A kiss should be the simplest thing in the world.
Not this gentle stirring, like wind through the underside of leaves, inexorable as the glacier grinding behind us. So hot and yet it doesn’t scorch. No, with every breath, with every touch, his kiss carves.
When he’s finished, my landscape will be forever changed.
13
RHYS
I stifle a groan of need as Auden grinds against my leg, losing herself in the back-and-forth hip rock. Doesn’t take much imagination to predict how she’ll move when I’m inside her, and the knowledge is bloody brilliant.
“That’s it, lass. Use me. Use me how you need to,” I whisper in her ear.
She trembles, halting the sensual motion with a jerk.
“Are you OK?” I should be asking myself the same question. What the hell just happened? Fuck, I’ve kissed more than a few girls, but nothing has ever come this close to undoing me and we haven’t even really begun.
“Guess I’m a little nervous.” Her teeth chatter.
“Shite, you’re cold.” Not to mention the fact we’re beside the trail. Anyone could walk up, see us, see her. I turn to grab her shirt. A shame to cover those lush curves, but an animalistic jealousy rises in me. I don’t want anyone else to have the privilege of glimpsing her skin, at least not today, while she’s mine.
“Thanks.” She shoves her head and arms through the holes, pulling the hem down over her stomach.
“Are you sure you’re all right?”
“I told you I’m nervous.” She doesn’t hold my gaze. “You’re the first new guy I’ve been with in a long time. Guess I’m out of practice.”
“Aye. Me, too. Out of practice, that is.” The last time I tried to hook up with a woman ended in disaster. I went to a bar in Colorado while Dad was at Bible study and the silence of his house grew oppressive. The girl was sweet enough, cute, good for a laugh. But when we kissed, nothing happened. I couldn’t get hard or bear having her close.
Even sex’s fleeting oblivion had been denied me.
Then Auden popped in as unexpected as a ghost, slipped under my defenses before I had time to mount a counterattack. She’s got me at her mercy, with a mad wish to please her. This is a bad idea. With every kiss I become more and more certain of that fact, and more drunk with anticipation.
“Come.” To hell with the consequences. I want her naked, panting, and wet beneath me. I want her in all the ways she can give. Aye, I made it clear that I intend to use her. But how did she respond? “Maybe I want to use you, too.”
Bloody hell.
“Rhys!” she shrieks as I scoop her up in my arms.
I stop her laughing protest with another kiss. One that almost takes the strength from my legs, tempts me to drop us both to the earth and rut her senseless.
When I get her in the tent, she still responds, but the tenor’s changed.
“I need to tell you something,” she whispers.
“What, are you a virgin?” It seems unbelievable, but what else could be making her so uneasy?
She shakes her head with a grimace. “No, that’s not it.”
“Then let’s talk later.” I coax another kiss. Outside, by the stream, she’d responded without fear or reservation, but another sort of game is at play here, and I don’t know the rules. “If you want to, we can stop,” I murmur against her. “We can stop anytime. I’d never force a thing on you.”
“I know.” She threads her fingers through my hair.
“Want me to put my shirt back on?”
“No. God, no. Pretty sure you break a couple of different laws of nature whenever you wear one.” Her hands splay my lower belly. “I mean, you’re ridiculously beautiful.” She shakes her head. “Forget me. I’m being stupid. We’re using each other. This is all that’s happening here, right?”
“Right.” My cock twitches, ready to start doing just that. Using.
“And it’s New Year’s Eve after all. Might as well start the year off with a bang. All puns intended.”
“You’re sure, then?”
She nods slowly. “I have a chance to be ravished by a sexy-as-hell Scottish mountaineer in a tent in the middle of nowhere. If I don’t make that happen, later I’m going to kick my own ass.”
“So I’m to be your adventure—is that it?” I undo her pants.
She slides her hands around to my shoulder blades and down, nails grazing their way toward the base of my spine. “There are condoms in my bag. I brought them on a weird impulse, in case I had a chance for some rebound action.”
That’s not what I want to be, but I don’t flinch. “I knew you had them.”
She pulls back with a frown. “How?”
“Saw them last night when I was getting your inhaler.”
She snorts. “You must have thought ‘Today is my lucky day.’”
“Nah. It was more, ‘Christ, I hope this chick doesn’t die on me.’” What do I care, if she wants me for a rebound? It’s not the worst thing in the world. It’s not like this is ever going to be anything more.
“Wow.” She slaps my skin. “Mr. Sensitive is in the house, or tent, whatever.”
“Well, I would no’ have much minded giving you mouth-to-mouth.” I go in for another kiss, take my time about it.
Finally she stops, reaches into her backpack, and pulls out a foil.
Everything moves fast after that, clothing dispensed with, an increased urgency of tongue, lips, and touch. I raise her on top and she freezes. Fine. She wants me to take charge. Not a problem. I settle her
beneath, my body casting a shadow on her pale skin. She presses the condom in my hand, and I’m acutely conscious of myself as I slide it on, that she can see me, all of me, for the first time.
I spread her legs, settling against her center.
She stills. “Do it,” she whispers, a little desperate. “I don’t want to think. Do it now.”
Give the lady what she wants. My head enters her, just the tip—so fucking good. I’m determined to watch her face but halfway through the thrust forget entirely. Forget everything. Jesus God. Jesus God. I sink deep and for a moment don’t move, can’t move. I brace my weight on my elbows, not wanting to crush her. When I withdraw, there is a sucking sound as the sweat sheening our stomachs comes apart and slaps together again at my return. I must be nervous, too. Shite, my hairline is damp.
I don’t know the way of her, so I start off with a slow rock and glide, see if that’s good. Her soft, breathy sounds rocket me to the brink despite the gentle rhythm.
“Harder.” She wraps her legs around my ass and slams me to the hilt again and again, but I’m not hitting her clit.
I shift, ready to do just that, when she begins to moan.
Already?
“You’re close, lass?” I keep pumping, press my tongue against the roof of my mouth, struggle to hang on.
Auden throws back her head. “Now. Come.”
Fuck. I fill her with a last heavy thrust. She cries out as I empty myself, but it isn’t until I finish that I know for sure.
All her sound and fury signified nothing.
She fucking faked the whole thing.
I might be an idiot, but I know the few key signs to look out for, like contractions against my cock—a law of physics I worked out before my eighteenth birthday. Perhaps not every guy pays attention, but that’s what I do best. My greatest strength and biggest curse is having single-minded focus.
Shite. I roll onto my back, a pain spreading through my gut. The late-afternoon air replaces her heat, the sweat cooling on me.
She’s quiet, too. What did I do wrong? Everything was so good by the stream. It felt real, realer than anything I’ve ever experienced.