Wild Card

by Karina Halle

Nothing matters but us.

  I have been so damn starved for him.

  Six fucking years.

  “Don’t ever stop,” I tell him.

  I’m ready.

  His nostrils flare and then he’s at me, capturing my mouth in a brutal, commanding kiss.

  I gasp, overtaken by his strength, the elegant violence of his lips as his tongue fucks my mouth.

  This is wild, so wild. I’m shaking as he works me, our kiss is messy and hard and full of anger and loss and hate and love and so much history and so much time. So, so much time.

  I’m making whimpering sounds against his mouth and then I’m breathless as he grabs me by the waist and spins me around until I’m up against the tree. My back is pressed against the rough bark and his shirt is coming over his head, the rest of his clothes – jeans, briefs, boots – are cast aside.

  He stares at my body for just a moment, but in that moment, he sets me on fire and everything is urgent now, so urgent, and I’m burning for him.

  He drops to his knees and lifts one of my legs over his shoulder, shoving his face between my thighs for the second time today. Unlike earlier where he was tentative and unsure, now he’s a feral creature devouring his prey, rough and raw. His mouth presses into me, moaning, grunting against my skin. Just his breath, his heat, the slide of his tongue against my clit pushes me already so close to the edge, every muscle in my body winding and winding and winding up.

  He groans again, the vibrations rolling through me.

  “Shane,” I whisper, breathless, going fucking crazy as his tongue lashes at me relentlessly until I’m so spread, so swollen, I start writhing with pleasure, my body famished. I hold his head in place, not even minding the way the bark scrapes at my spine. Even the pain feels amazing.

  “I’m going…” I start to say but my words trail off and I can’t focus on anything anymore, too many sensations are coming at me from all directions. The slick fuck of his tongue, the suck, suck, suck of his lips, his fingers pressing so hard into my thighs I know they’ll leave bruises, the raw skin of my spine.

  A sweat breaks out at my temples.

  My fingers yank at his hair, trying to hold on before I’m gone but…

  I’m gone.

  So gone.

  I cry out, loud, shrill, his name is offered up over and over again and I’m not even myself, not even here. I’m in his mouth and everywhere. I’ve melted and been put back together.

  And I don’t even have room to think.

  “I’ve been craving the taste of you for years,” he says, voice breaking as he gets to his feet. “Now that I’ve had you again, I don’t think this will ever be enough.”

  He takes my hands together until it looks like I’m praying and then turns me around, placing them on the tree. “Hold on, raven girl. There’s only one ride and it’s wild.”

  I weave a bit on my feet and grip the tree as he spreads my legs with his hands, one hand coming forward underneath me and gripping me, fingers splayed so I can feel how large his hands are. He holds me tight, possessive – mine, this says, all mine – applying pressure until I’m less sensitive, then let’s go and positions himself behind me.

  “I’ve waited for you,” he murmurs to me, running his wet fingers down my spine and I shiver, my body beyond my control. “God, I’ve waited for you, wished for you, Rachel. Just like this, just for me. Just us.” His voice is rough with emotion. “I’ve missed you so much.”

  My heart trips at his words.

  But before I can say anything to that, he grips my hips and pushes in, a sharp hiss escaping his lips as he goes.

  I cry out, my nails digging into the bark, holding on tight as he slowly eases in, spreading me wider and wider from the inside out. It takes forever to feel the full length of him slide into me and then he’s in so deep, in so right, I swear I feel him pulsing, his heat coming through.

  I’ve never felt so full of him before, I’m both starving for him and satisfied, filled and indescribably desperate.

  “You like that?” he asks in a quiet rasp as he leans over to kiss my neck, my shoulders. The skin of his chest brushing over my sensitive back. “Did you miss that?”

  “Yes,” I hiss, closing my eyes, my back arching as he eases out and deliberately pushes in again, inch by inch.

  “Tell me you want this.”

  “I… I want this,” I whisper, my words catching as my breath does. I can’t seem to convey what I’m feeling, just how he’s rendering me, shaking and a little wild. “Fuck, I want this Shane. I want you. Give me all of you.”

  “Rachel,” he murmurs and then slams into me until I’m pressed against the tree.

  I cry out, not from pain but from everything. It’s everything, I’m feeling everything and he’s relentless. He starts to rut into me, his hips slapping against my ass in a slowly building rhythm. Inside I’m glowing, everything getting hotter, tighter, my noises louder and louder.

  Shane’s inside me.

  So deep inside me.

  He fits with me like no one else ever could.

  My brain wants to focus on the future, on tomorrow, my plans and the what-ifs but I pull it back. I force it to be here with him. I force it to feel the things it doesn’t want to feel, the scary things, the things that mean the world.

  The fact that I love him so much.

  Too much.

  Can you love someone, want someone too much? Can you go crazy from it?

  I’m afraid if I let go, I just might.

  “Stay with me,” Shane says, breathless as he thrusts into me. “Be here with me, now.”

  He starts pumping hard and fast, fucking me so roughly that it’s digging splinters into my hands, his sweat is dripping onto my back. Each thrust renders me thoughtless, until I’m just a body and a soul and I’m needing, needing, needing more.

  More.

  God.

  “Shane,” I cry out.

  I am so impossibly full which makes me realize how hollow I was before. Empty, carved out, not sure what I was always yearning for when the truth is I always knew his name.

  His hand reaches around, sliding over my clit, still slick, and I whimper because it’s too much and he’s too much and this is too much.

  Don’t ever stop. Don’t ever stop.

  Please, you have to stop.

  Keep it coming.

  I’m almost there.

  I don’t want it to be over.

  Don’t let this be over.

  Fuck me forever.

  My beautiful cowboy.

  “Can you come?” he whispers to me.

  I try to nod but I’m gasping, feeling the cool sweat run down my breasts, my neck. I’m on a tightrope ready to snap. My pulse skips when he groans, tells me he wants to hear me come.

  “Rachel,” he rasps, voice straining.

  His fingers slide.

  I go off like a buckshot and I’m soaring, speeding through time and space and then expanding until I’m confetti, slowly drifting down to earth on shaking legs, barely standing up and holding on.

  Shane’s hands become steel around me as he starts pumping harder, the sweat flying, grunts and groans rolling out of him as he comes.

  He calls out my name and I don’t think I’ve ever heard it sound so revered, his voice almost pained.

  Then his hips slow against me.

  He loses a bit of control, shaking now, and leans over me, reaching for the tree to take the pressure off of me, his hot, slick chest pressed against my back.

  “Fuck,” he says. “Fuck. Rachel, that was…”

  There are no words.

  My mind takes its time coming back into the present, to the now, to the fact that I was just thoroughly fucked from behind by Shane Nelson. Not for the first time, not by a longshot, but fucking hell.

  What could ever top this?

  Who can ever top him?

  And it hurts and pinches and stings that I know the answer to that one very well.

  Shane pulls out and his cu
m drips down my legs and he’s trying to catch his breath.

  Suddenly I can’t breathe either.

  Before it was just want and need and a desire that never wavered.

  Now there’s just my pulse pounding in my head, my legs throbbing, my hands cramped and raw, and that pure, sharp twist of fear deep inside.

  “Rachel,” he says to me as I straighten up, trying to find my balance as I push off from the tree. I turn around and he’s stepping into me, his hand at my jaw, the other holding my arm. “Please tell me that…that…” He swallows, the sweat glistening above his lip as he gazes at me. “Please tell me that meant to you what it meant to me.”

  There’s a strange fluttering in my chest.

  Fear. Hope. Love. Loss.

  “What did it mean to you?” I whisper.

  “The world,” he says before he kisses me, quick and light and laced with tenderness. “It meant the whole entire world.”

  Everything inside me brightens, warm and delirious. Because that meant the world to me too.

  But when someone hands you the world, don’t tell me it doesn’t scare you.

  “Hold on,” he whispers to me and walks over to the saddle bags he strung up on the neighboring tree. Even though the light is dim, painting him in lavender and grey, I can’t help but stare at his gorgeously bare ass. No wonder he was able to fuck me so hard, that ass is made out of steel.

  He comes back with a handful of tissues and slowly glides it up my leg, cleaning me off. He then kisses me on the forehead, discarding the tissues and getting back in his boxer briefs.

  “I know it’s early but…I’m fucking spent,” he says with a wry grin, spreading out the sleeping bag on top of the mat he rolled out earlier. Then he tosses me my underwear and t-shirt, and lifts the edge of the bag. “After you.”

  I put my underwear and shirt back on, quickly go pee behind the trees, not dawdling this time because, you know, bears, and then get inside the sleeping bag.

  When he gets in beside me, his body spooning mine, holding me flush to him, it’s only then that I realize Polly and Fletcher had seen us having sex. Thankfully they don’t seem all that fazed, though poor Fletcher won’t meet my eyes.

  “Is he going to be okay?” I nod at the dog who is curled up at the foot of the sleeping bag. “Not because he saw us fucking, I mean, from what the bear did.”

  Shane pulls back and I look over my shoulder at him as he gives me a funny look. “You were worried about the dog watching us have sex?”

  “No. I mean, for a second. The horse too. But I mean, will he be okay?”

  Shane nods and kisses the back of my head. “He’ll be fine. Bright and early we’ll head back to the ranch. My dad and I can go back out later to get the cows. Right now, we just need to get everyone home and Fletcher to the vet. It’s all going to fine.”

  I exhale, feeling more relieved. “What about Sybil?”

  “Well I briefly saw her just as we came into this site. She was trailing behind us. My guess is we’ll see her tomorrow. Don’t you worry about a thing, you’re safe tonight.”

  I close my eyes, sinking into the feeling of his arms around me, a feeling as strong and old as time.

  Safe.

  I’d spent years in therapy learning how to function after what my father did.

  I’d worked through it all until I could learn to love myself, learn to feel safe.

  I don’t live in that fear anymore, except for the fear of losing myself to Shane all over again.

  But being in his arms makes me realize how safe I really am. With him, without him.

  I am safe.

  17

  Shane

  I awake just after dawn to birdsong.

  My face is buried in Rachel’s soft neck, her silky hair around me like wings.

  I smile. Breathe in the smell of her. The morning air. Fresh and cool with only a hint of the heat to come.

  She stirs, letting out a little moan.

  “Good morning,” I murmur, kissing the back of her head. “How did you sleep?”

  She sighs dreamily. “Best sleep I had in years.”

  “You didn’t dream about bears.”

  She pauses, as if remembering. “No. No, I dreamed about you.”

  “A good dream, I hope.”

  “You’re only in good dreams,” she says and then shifts so she’s gazing at me. “This isn’t a dream, is it?”

  “No. This is all real.” I look up and my eyes scan the horizon, the sun barely lifting above the peaks. Polly is grazing nearby, Fletcher is sleeping. The world looks new, is new. Everything is different now with Rachel in my arms. Better, brighter.

  I smile at her. If she’s feeling different after last night, I can’t tell. But what I can tell is that I’m not rushing out of this sleeping bag. Last night was amazing but that’s not the end of us, it can’t be. Not when I’m dying to be back inside of her, to watch her come this time while I’m deep within.

  I kiss her softly, running my hand down over the swell of her breasts, to her belly, testing the waters. She kisses me back, making sweet little noises at my touch. I’m so darn hard and ready to put this morning wood to good use.

  The only problem is a sleeping bag doesn’t leave much room, especially with two people.

  “Hold on,” I tell her, reaching over and unzipping it until it’s lying flat on the mat and we’re exposed to the new world. In seconds, I’m naked.

  “Lie back,” I tell her as I crawl over her, my hard, bare cock bobbing between us. I put my hands on her shoulders and nudge her back while I settle over top of her. I run my thumb over her lips, pushing gently until her lips wrap around it. With an achingly beautiful smile, she sucks softly and I feel the jolt right through me, all the way to my toes.

  “I don’t think you realize what you do to me, what you’ve always done to me,” I murmur to her, one hand moving her underwear down her legs as she shimmies out of it. I remove my thumb and pull her top over her head as she arches back to let me.

  I stare down at her tits, so perfect, spilling to the sides. They seem to glow in the light of sunrise, pure and flawless, her dark pink nipples hardening before my eyes. I bite my lip, trying to control my hunger, and gently blow air across her breasts. She arches her back again – so fucking gorgeous – and I watch her skin prickle as I trace the goosebumps across her chest with my flat tongue.

  She makes this breathless gasp—we’re both so drowsy still with sleep—and I press my body down on top of her so she can feel how hard, long, and ready I am, the weight of me. Her eyes widen but they aren’t afraid. Not of this. She knows that she can handle it and handle it well, take me for all that I give her.

  I kiss her neck and spread her legs apart with my knee. I breathe her in, the smell of our sex from last night hitting me like a fucking bomb, causing my dick to grow hot, my skin to get tighter.

  I pause, even though my body is like a gun with a quick trigger, and take it all in. Rachel Waters. My raven girl. Here on my sleeping bag, surrounded by my land. She’s under me, naked and vulnerable and willing. She stares up at me with trust, with want, need, and submission. She’s giving herself to me as I give myself to her.

  It means a lot more to me than she could possibly know.

  I take a shaking breath at how real this all is, and while keeping all my weight on one arm, my free hand snakes between her legs. My eyes close at the feel of her warmth—she’s hotter than the summer sun and I could drown in her arms.

  I bury my head into the crook of her neck making small, quick bites along her delicate skin until I find the soft, delicate lobe of her ear. She likes this. She always has. I lightly tug on it between my teeth until she moans, her fingers digging into my shoulders.

  Trying to steady my breath, I slide my hand up to her clit and a low, guttural groan rises up from my chest. She feels like heaven—just as soft and silky as last night, and absolutely wet.

  “You’re so perfect,” I tell her as I push two fingers inside
her.

  A gasp catches in her throat.

  Tight. She’s so fucking tight.

  The way she squeezes around my fingers, holding me, makes my eyes momentarily roll back in my head. My cock swells to the breaking point and I’m not sure how much longer I can hold back. I’m practically panting, working her like this, and she squirms, her head rolling from side to side, that mouth of hers wet and open. Wanting more.

  I can watch this for days.

  Look at what I do to her.

  Her breath catches, and her round tits heave upwards, the skin even more pale against her summer tan. I run my tongue over her nipples, hard pebbles that respond to my every touch, every smooth lick, and she groans again, louder this time. I want to take her to the limit, I want her inhibitions stripped bare.

  Out here, in the wild, I want her wild.

  I want to watch it all under this rising sun, watch her glow and radiate until she’s blinding me. I want her light to banish all the dark years.

  I push my fingers in further and the groan deepens. Her hips jerk upward, again and again, nearly desperate. Watching her writhe and moan underneath me, from just my fingers, feels better than any shot of whisky.

  I can’t take much more. I make a fist around my rigid shaft and position it at her entrance. Her eyes flutter open as I slowly rub my swollen head up and down her silky cleft, taking my time to tease her, to tease myself.

  I don’t need the teasing.

  I suck in my breath, trying to hold back.

  It’s the hardest thing. Every nerve in my body is ready to slam deep inside and fuck her until we’re off the sleeping bag and rolling in the dirt. It takes all my strength to slowly ease my way inside her. She’s so hot and wet as I slowly push in that I begin to shake, my muscles contorting, trying to regain control. I pause and take in a deep, wavering breath before I continue.

  Her face twists as I sink deeper.

  “You feel me?” I whisper hoarsely to her. “You feel all of me?”

  She tries to nod but she’s moaning, caught up in delirium. She’s so fucking tight, like a vise. Both of us are breathing hard, sweat building on my brow, our skin damp. When I’m in deep, I slowly pull out again, watching my cock as it withdraws, glistening with her wetness.