by Skye, Harper
“Zach…” she said his name and reached up to press her mouth tenderly against his. He let her kiss him, but she could feel he was still holding himself back.
“I can’t lose you again, Ailsa,” he said quietly against her mouth, and she nodded and pressed her lips to his again. “I know.”
“But the last thing I want to do is take you away from your home.” He was pulling his face away from hers, and Ailsa reached up onto her tiptoes, capturing the back of his head in her hands so he couldn’t move too far away.
“Sometimes you have to make a choice,” she said. “And you have to go where your heart lives.” She pushed her forehead against his so she could look directly into his eyes. So that when she said it, he would know the truth.
“Zach…”
“Yeah…”
“My heart lives with you.”
Ailsa could feel the tears against her face as he kissed her. She didn’t know if they were hers or his. She didn’t know how they were going to make this all work. She didn’t know what lay ahead. But he was hers. And she was his. That was what was true.
Ailsa could feel Zach’s arms tighten around her. The ground moved away from her feet as he lifted her closer into him. She could feel the pounding of his heart against her breast. She could feel his fingers skimming the bare skin at her waist. She could feel herself losing her breath as his tongue reached deeply into her mouth and she pressed back into his. And Ailsa tried to silence the voice in her head that whispered this was way more than she deserved.
Chapter 33
The drive back from the beach felt longer than Ailsa could believe. Zach’s hand wandered across her thigh, sliding slowly higher until goosebumps tingled across her skin. She played with the hairs at the back of his neck, tracing light circles, running her fingers along his ear and jaw until he ground his teeth and pressed harder on the accelerator.
By the time they pulled up to the small wooden cabin, the tension between them was almost unbearable. In an instant, Zach was out of the truck and pulling at the passenger door. Ailsa almost fell into his arms and immediately their mouths crushed against each other, their hands groping desperately at each other’s bodies. They stumbled together into the cabin, and Ailsa heard Zach kick the door shut with his boot. Already barefoot from the beach, Ailsa began climbing the ladder to the loft, and Zach threw his boots off and was immediately behind her.
The slanted ceiling and the low bed gave the loft a cozy feel, even though the air was cool. Ailsa felt the wooden slats beneath her bare feet as she watched Zach climb the last few steps and come to stand before her in the bedroom. The intensity of his gaze fell across her whole body, and Ailsa was certain she had never wanted anyone more than she wanted Zach in this moment.
His hair was wild with the sea winds, his brown eyes darkened by the shadows of the room. The muscles in his arms stood out, as if he was holding back a tension and his wide hands opened by his sides. She stepped towards him, ready to continue what they had started outside, but Zach reached out instead with more control. He locked her into his gaze, and she was suddenly held by his new slower pace.
Carefully he brought her towards him, slipping her shirt slowly over her head so that she could feel the way the material slid against the bare skin of her waist and stomach and arms. He ran his rough hand over her shoulder, down her left arm, around the curve of her waist. Ailsa could feel her breath catching again and again as he touched her. So lightly she could barely sit still. So solidly she could barely move. Zach’s eyes remained locked on hers as he brought his hand back up and over her skin at the top of her breast, over the black cup of her bra, down her belly to the button of her jeans.
Ailsa had never had someone look at her the way Zach was looking at her. As if every cell in her body was perfect. As if every curve of her was a work of art. As if she was the only adventure he ever needed to take again.
She reached out and fisted the bottom of his teeshirt, and Zach let his hands lift so she could bring it over his head. She pulled it slowly, revealing the dark hair at his lower stomach, the v-shape of his muscles as they moved below his waistline. Then the wide solidness of his chest, the power of his shoulders as they rippled to help her pull the shirt over his head.
She let her hands run over all of him. Every part of his skin she wanted to touch, every slight rise of muscle beneath his skin, every curve at his back, at his waist, at his neck. He let her touch him, and it was almost as erotic the way he watched her do this. Standing like a mountain in his power, letting her explore every place she needed to touch him.
Then his hands were at her waist. She shifted her hips, sliding her leggings down over her thighs, stepping out and then looking down she played with the button and zipper of his pants until they came loose and fell to the floor. Stepping into his body, Ailsa pressed herself against the warmth of him. Her arms wrapped around his neck and she brought her mouth against his, using her tongue to part his lips and pushing the need of her inside him.
Neither of them spoke. Everything had been said and now they needed something different. They needed to say these same things with their bodies. I love you. I need you. You are mine. I am yours. You are it for me. My heart lives with you.
Zach unhooked her bra and reached a hand up to take the weight of her breast into his palm. Ailsa heard a soft moan and she wondered whether it had come from her or from him. He eased her down onto the bed and the sheets were a coolness against her back. He brought himself on top of her, his mouth against her chest, her nipple, his tongue tracing slow circles that made her moan slightly softer and grip his shoulders. Inch-by-inch, Zach brought his rough mouth down the length of her stomach. And then he was sliding her underwear down her thighs and she fell into a chasm of vulnerability and exposure that was the entrance to another kind of love.
Reaching above her head and pulling the sheets into a fist, she held herself in that place. Trust. Love. Allowing him into the sacred depths of her. His mouth at the tender skin inside her thigh. His hand lifting and parting her legs. His mouth against her, tongue running slowly up the hot wet length of her cunt. Ailsa felt her breath catch high in her throat as he stroked her, slowly at first, so slowly it almost hurt, so slowly it felt like she would break. And then just when she felt herself begin to shift with an unbearable need, she felt his tongue press harder against her.
“Zach…” his name fell from her mouth as she gasped for air.
It was his finger this time, moving against her, reaching slowly inside the silken heat, drawing it back out and across a point of ecstasy. Ailsa’s mind narrowed until all she could feel was his hand against her, telling her again and again — I am yours. And you are mine. I will give you everything. I will hold you while you break apart.
Ailsa heard her voice rising, her hands clawed into him. The world was gone and she was gone. Her back arched as he stroked against her, using the strength of his hands to exert just the right pressure. She was losing all the pieces of herself. She was coming apart. “Zach…” she heard herself gasp as she lost her breath and the pulsing of her orgasm rocked her. Again and again she gasped for air as he felt her come.
When she opened her eyes, he had moved on top of her, soothing her with kisses across her face, across her chest and neck. Her hands reached for his face and brought his eyes directly in front of hers. She was seeing straight through him. And she could tell he was looking straight through her. They were holding nothing back now.
He didn’t speak, but Ailsa could see the desire pressing against his eyes, and she nodded reaching towards his bare hips. Shifting her legs, she guided him inside her and then gasped as the tenderness from her first orgasm rocked her again. “Ailsa…” she heard him breathe her name as he brought himself deep inside of her. She could feel every part of him, and she knew he could feel the wet heat of her in a whole new way.
Ailsa let him move inside of her, choosing his own pace. He moved gently, stroking her as he stroked himself inside her. His breath gr
ew rough and his arms flexed as he held himself over her. I love you. I love you. Was he saying it out loud? Or was she simply hearing the language of his heart?
One hand moved to clasp her breast, and as he rubbed his thumb across her nipple, she could feel herself rising again. Zach’s breath was coming harder as he tried to control himself, and Ailsa dug her fingers into his back. “Let go.” She pressed her mouth against his and her tongue pushed against him with a desire she no longer wanted to control.
Immediately Zach moved into her, riding her harder and faster until she was blinded by the pleasure he was making in her body and her gasps became silences when no breath would come.
It was minutes before either of them could move. Ailsa lay, feeling the solidity of Zach’s presence next to her, feeling her womb full of his seed. Slowly as she came back to her senses, she realized she was lying on her back holding her hands at her lower belly and thinking about what it would be like if she wasn’t on the pill and one of these seeds could find a home inside of her. She started at this thought, but then she felt Zach reach out and lay a hand on top of hers and she realized the thought didn’t scare her like she would have expected.
Slowly she turned her head, her long hair spreading out underneath her and smiled at him. He gave her a lopsided grin and shifted his hand against her belly, and Ailsa wondered whether he was secretly thinking the same thing she was…that one day, one day, he could put his seed inside of her and together they could make a baby that would be both of theirs.
“You okay?” Zach murmured, shifting on the bed.
“Better than okay,” she assured him.
“So…” Zach said, sinking one elbow into the bed to prop himself up. “You’re really going to stay with me then?”
“There’s the small problem of the fact that I’m still British and you’re still American and technically I can’t stay here…”
A wide grin spread across Zach’s face. It was a face of mischievous secrets and boyhood joys. He laughed. “There are things that can be done about that, Ailsa McKenzie.”
“Are there then…?”
He nodded confidently. “But what do you think you’d like to do? It’s one thing to hang out in the cabin for the summer. It’s not an issue of money, but you’ll go crazy in the cabin every day…”
“Well,” Ailsa bit her lip and looked over at him. “Pete did tell me he wants to apprentice someone…”
“Making instruments?” Zach’s face showed his surprise and excitement in equal measure. “Would you want to do that?”
Ailsa nodded. “Yeah, I think I might. You know, I just never really considered it before. But…you’ve already seen my talents in the workshop…” She winked at him and Zach burst out laughing.
“Yes indeed…Well, that makes tons of sense.”
“Yeah, it could be kind of amazing!” Ailsa nodded, ignoring his cheeky grin at the mention of their time in the workshop. “Pete is such a master craftsman, it would be incredible to learn from him. And he’s already got a business with too many orders coming in, so I think there really is work for me if I want it.”
“That’s amazing, Ailsa!” Zach’s smile could not stretch any wider across his face. “Seriously! This could really work.” He let his head drop back onto the bed and let out of whoop that made Ailsa laugh until her sides hurt.
“I’ve never seen someone so excited!” She giggled when she had caught her breath again. “You’re like a little boy in a toy shop!”
“I feel like it!” Zach said, sitting up again. And then his face grew serious and he leaned over her, his naked body curving above her until he was looking into her clear blue eyes. “I will take such good care of you, Ailsa,” he almost whispered.
“I know you will.” She reached up and ran her fingers through his light brown hair.
“Ahh!” He fell back into the bed. “I’m so fucking happy, I feel like I’m going to burst!”
Ailsa sat up herself and looked down at him, letting her long hair fall onto his chest like a waterfall. “Well you just lay there and try not to burst. I’ve got some revenge to attend to.”
Ailsa swung her bare leg over his hips and slowly bent down until she could take the skin of his chest between her teeth. Gently she brought her teeth into his chest to nip at his skin, pressing her soft warm mouth against him. Already he had tensed underneath her. When she bit him again, his chest rumbled with a groan, and when she trailed her tongue down the length of his belly and across his delicate foreskin, he sucked in his breath.
“Fuck…” the word trailed out of him mouth with such intense pleasure that it turned her on just hearing him.
Moving between his legs, she hovered her mouth over him, the warmth of her breath teasing him into a state of intense arousal. Slowly she took him into her mouth, sliding her lips down the length of him, moving her tongue gently against him. She felt an energy surge through her as she drew another deep moan from this man that felt so strong but she could make so weak. He wanted to be weak with her, she knew. He wanted her to hold him as he came apart. It was the one place a man could ever show this side of himself — in the arms of the woman he loved.
Chapter 34
Ailsa propped her feet up on the dash of the old truck and turned towards Zach her mouth stretching into a wide smile. Zach was grinning back as he slid into the driver’s seat. Ailsa didn’t know about him, but her face was beginning to hurt with all this smiling. But somehow she couldn’t stop.
“Ready for our next adventure?”
“Ready.”
The engine of the truck roared to life, and Zach threw an arm across the back of the seat and turned as he reversed the truck down the dirt drive.
There were three roads that led out of Nome to nearby villages. None of the roads connected Nome with the rest of Alaska. Ailsa tried to grasp the true isolation of this place as they turned onto Council Road East and began to make their way through the vast landscape. She rolled down the window a few inches and let the breeze whip into the cab of the truck and lift her hair from her face.
For a brief moment, Ailsa wondered at the random series of events that had brought her to this isolated edge of the world. All the moments, decisions and coincidences that had brought her to this truck, sitting next to this man, driving out of Nome into the wilds of the Seward Peninsula in Alaska. What if she had never met Steph last summer? What if she had turned down her invitation to the lake house? What if her fiddle bow hadn’t broken? What if Zach hadn’t come out to the bar that night? So many what ifs that had led her to this perfect moment with her left hand laced through the warm rough hand of this man who made her heart race and somehow, despite all the odds, loved her.
Without warning, an image of Caitriona’s face flashed before her mind’s eye and Ailsa’s eyes pricked with hot tears. Her friend would never get to have this. She would never get to feel the love of a man that was perfect for her. She would never get to build a life with someone. She would never get to explore the world and pursue all the dreams they had conjured up on their hikes through the Highland hills. Ailsa felt her heart turn stone heavy in her chest and for a moment her breath heaved unsteadily.
They were driving out into the wild unknown now, their little truck the only vehicle they could see for miles. Here and there little cabins dotted the landscape. But humans were clearly only one of this land’s inhabitants. This was the land of the eagle, the musk ox, the caribou, the moose… Ailsa’s eyes flew across the land with the speed of the truck, searching for these wild creatures, and trying to gain a grip on the present moment and prevent herself from being dragged back into the past.
“Safety Roadhouse is just up here,” Zach said, glancing over at her. “It’s the last check point on the Iditarod before the finish line in Nome. Sure enough, it wasn’t more than five minutes before the lonely looking saloon came into view.
“It looks like something out of a Wild West film,” Ailsa commented.
“This is as wild and as west as
you get, ma’am,” Zach reminded her, twanging his voice slightly.
“True,” Ailsa laughed, trying to push her thoughts of Caitriona away. She squeezed Zach’s hand a little tighter. He was helping her stay present. Stay in this life, which for whatever reason, she had been given.
“We can stop on the way back to Nome, but I thought we’d keep driving awhile.” Zach looked over at her for confirmation and she nodded. “Yeah, great.”
“You okay?” Zach looked back at her suspiciously, and Ailsa wondered what had given her away. Was it something in her voice? In her face?
Hesitating, she saw Zach glance down at the space between them, and Ailsa realised that she was gripping his hand as if she were trying to hang on to him. Biting her lip, she uncurled her fingers and eased the tension from her hand.
“Sorry.”
She felt Zach lift his foot from the accelerator and the truck began to slow. “Tell me.”
“I don’t want to.” She shook her head and found her gaze dropping away from his face. She paused a moment and she could feel him waiting. “They’re just thoughts,” she murmured.
“Thoughts about us?” Zach asked. His thumb was stroking the top of her left hand over the inked rune of destiny.
“No, not about us.” Ailsa let out a frustrated groan. She was so sick of it sometimes, the way these dark thoughts would creep up on her, often at the happiest of times, catching her unawares and usually unprepared. “I just get these dark thoughts sometimes…”
She listened to her voice float out and for some reason it seemed like the open landscape took the edge off the darkness of her mind. “I get these thoughts about my friends…” she continued, slightly amazed she felt able to be this honest. “All the things I get to have that they don’t. All the things I’ll get to experience. All the stuff that got taken away from them in the accident.” The knot in her throat had risen so high up that she had to swallow hard.