But there was something that just drew you in. It wasn’t sexual, and even my nudity wasn’t the focus. It was the moment that was being captured—it was a beautiful, private, delicate, joyful moment.
I wondered how I would feel letting strangers see it. See me, like that.
Oddly, it was okay. It was art, and I was confident in myself.
Even with the fact that he’d lovingly and, in exquisitely personal detail rendered the scars on my leg.
“Sell them,” I said, abruptly. “They deserve to be seen.”
He blinked, shocked. “What?”
“Unless you don’t want to.”
He shook his head. “I did them for me. To express…I don’t know. How I feel. How I see you.”
“But they’re too amazing to just…sit up here collecting dust.” I sighed. “I don’t mean that as anything about me—it’s you. It’s your art. It deserves to be seen.” I met his eyes. “I’m okay with it. I want you to show them.”
He rubbed his jaw. “Wow. I wasn’t expecting that. I thought you’d be creeped out by how many different times and ways I painted you.”
I shook my head. “I’m not.”
“It was… I had to. I saw those photos you took, and I just…had to paint you.”
I stood up, faced him. Took his hands. “Thank you, Ink.”
He tilted his head to one side. “For what?”
“Giving me time.”
He just shrugged. “I should’ve…I don’t know. Not been so harsh with you. I’m sorry.”
I stepped closer. “No, don’t apologize. I was angry for a while, yes. But I realized it was what I needed. I had to be pushed. And then I needed to be left alone to deal with myself. To figure my shit out.” I dragged my fingers through his tangled beard. “So, thank you, Ink. For giving me what I needed when I didn’t even know I needed it.”
He gazed down at me, and his hands captured my hips. “So, did you?”
“Figure myself out?” I nodded. “Yes, I did.”
“And?”
I stepped back, out of his hands. Crouched, leaped, landed in a plié, straightened and did a series of turns, spotting on him.
“You’re dancing again.” His grin was contagious.
I bit my lip, feeling overcome by emotion. “Yeah. Not all the way back, but mostly.”
“And what are you going to do?” He was happy for me, overjoyed, proud. “Go back to Paris?”
He managed to suggest that without any hint of worry or fear.
I shook my head. “No.” I sighed. “That season of my life is over, Ink.”
“So…what, then?”
I grinned even more widely. “Well, I’m going into business with Baxter. I’m going to teach dance and dance fitness classes at his gym, and eventually yoga, and do some personal training. We’re buying the building next to his, connecting the two, and renovating it into a facility for classes.”
He let out a breath I hadn’t known he was holding—and I got the impression he hadn’t known he was holding it either. “So you’re staying in Ketchikan?”
I nodded, returning to him, putting myself in his arms. Gazing up at him. “With you.” A pause, as I swallowed fear and doubt, letting hope bubble and rise. “If you…” My voice caught. “If you still want that. Want me. Want us.”
“You’re staying for you? Because that’s what you want for your future?”
I nodded. “I’m crazy excited. I’ll get to dance again, but no pressure. No stress about staying at the top. No more living out of hotels and suitcases. No bickering with the other girls. Just…dancing. Teaching. I’ll get to be in the gym all day, every day, and I love working out and being in the gym almost as much as I love dance. This lets me do both, and make money at what I love, but without the stress of the troupe.” I bit my lip and stared into his eyes. “I’m also staying because I…” I lost my breath, my courage. Summoned it, and used it. “Because I love you. I want to grow a love with you. I want to be your muse every day of our lives. I want to do life with you.”
His eyes were dark, wild, boiling with tumultuous emotion. “Cassie, god, babe.” He wrapped his hands around my hips. “Say it again.”
I grinned up at him. “I love you.” I lifted on my toes, whispered against his lips. “That part?”
He picked me up, his hands cradling my ass and gathering me against him. “Yeah. I like hearing that.”
“You want to know how it’ll sound even better?” I asked, reaching down to find him over his shorts. “If you bring me over to that bed. Make me scream, and I’ll scream how much I love you.”
He snarled. Turned. Took two long steps, and deposited me on the bed. Knelt over me. “You gotta hear it from me, though, Cass.” He planted his huge arms beside my head. “I love you more than I know how to say, Cassandra. Truth is, I spent the weeks up here painting like a crazy man because it was the only way I could stay up here and give you time and space you needed without losing my goddamn mind. And I may have lost it a little bit, I don’t know. I just know I need you. I fuckin…I need you, Cass.”
Lying on my back with my big beautiful Ink above me, all around me, I drew his shorts down. He was bare underneath, as usual. Hard, he angled toward me. Bulbous and rigid. Beautiful, god, so beautiful.
I took him in my hand and closed my eyes in bliss as I caressed his length. “God, you don’t know much I’ve missed this.” I stared up at him. “I dreamed about you every night. Fell asleep every single night, dreaming about this,” I squeezed him, “inside me. I masturbated every single night, thinking about this, about you. Wanting you.”
He hissed, his eyes fluttering, meeting mine. “Shit, Cass. Feels so good to have your hand on me. I want you so fuckin’ bad. I’m crazy for it.”
“I’m here, Ink. I’m here, and I’m all yours. Take me. Whatever you want, however, as long as you want. I’m here for you. All yours, baby.”
He kicked his shorts off, and then knelt on the bed and made quick work of stripping me naked. Boots, socks, jeans, sweatshirt and T-shirt, bra, underwear, fell into a haphazard pile on the floor, and then he was between my thighs and tasting me, nuzzling me with his nose and smelling me, flicking his tongue against me, and I spasmed at the first wet slither of his tongue at my sex, whimpered when he licked me, and came within seconds. A little one, a precursor. He knew that, and didn’t stop. Each movement of his tongue drew me up to wilder heights, made me shake and spasm, quake and shiver.
And then, when I was an instant from falling over the edge a second time, he slid a finger into me and sucked my clit into his mouth and I came with a scream.
True to my word, I screamed his name.
He kept going. Didn’t stop. And I didn’t ask him to.
I went with him, let him take me where he wanted me to go. He went slow, this time. Slow, lazy, fat circles of his tongue. Licks, flicks. Bringing me there lazily. Up the slope to shaking hips and quivering thighs, buttocks off the bed with my heels dug in, spine arched, fire in my belly and stars in my eyes. I shook, and I forced my eyes open, stared down my body at him, stretched out beneath me, his mouth at my core, my thighs framing him.
His eyes met mine, and I saw them smile.
This time, just as I reached the thrashing crescendo, he stopped.
I knew why, didn’t go crazy asking him why, or beg him to keep going.
He pulled away. Crawled up my body. “I can’t wait anymore.”
I clasped him, stroked him to full hardness. “I know.” Pulled him closer. “I can’t wait for you anymore either.”
He frowned. “I…I don’t have any condoms. Again.”
I pointed at my small pack. “I do.”
He grabbed it, opened it, and pulled out the box of condoms I’d bought. Ripped a square away and tossed the rest of the string on the floor. I took it from him and opened it with my teeth, pulled the latex ring out and rolled it hand over hand down his length, my eyes on his the whole time.
He was kneeling. Facing me.
I needed something else, though. I guided him to his back, and climbed astride him. Kneeling on him, reaching between my legs I grasped him. Took him to me, fit him to my opening. I kept my eyes on his, my eyes widening and my lip caught in my teeth as I filled myself with him. Glutted myself on him, impaling him deep inside.
I was drenched with need, slick and ready for him, taking all of him inch by glorious inch, until I was sitting on his hips. He filled me so full I felt split apart by him in the most amazing way possible, aching to take all of him.
I let myself fall forward, catching my weight on my hands, braced on his huge chest. “Watch me, Ink. I want you to see what I can do. I want you to see what I want.”
“Cass, I—”
I drew my hips up, sliding him out. Hesitated. “Pay attention, Ink. This is how I want you.”
I slammed my ass down, hard, taking him all the way in with slapping, shocking force.
He groaned, and I screamed through clenched teeth. I was burning with him, shaking already. He hit everything inside me, sliding past every stretched nerve ending.
“See, Ink?” I pulled up. “See how perfectly I fit around you? I can take you. All of you.” I bent, touched my lips to his. “I can take everything you have…” I slid down him again, “…and still want more.”
“Fuck, Cassie.”
I laughed. “Yeah, Ink. Fuck Cassie. Fuck me. Let go.”
He caressed my breasts, hanging and swaying between us. Then grabbed my hips and held on as I moved, not guiding me or controlling my movements but rather following along. Feeling me move.
I lifted, sank. Again.
Faster.
He groaned, head tossing back. Hips pushing up to meet mine on my downstroke. “God, god, god, Cassie.”
His thickness was battering against something inside me, sliding past a nerve that made me wild. Ohhh god, that was new. It made me crazy. Insane with hysteric need. Screaming, unintelligible and hoarse.
I involuntarily slammed down around him, sucking in a breath as that nerve sang, and I twitched, shaking, my fingers curling into claws in his chest, my ability to move rhythmically gone, now. I felt the heat blossom inside me, felt it rising, felt myself riding it.
“Ink,” I whispered, meeting his eyes. “Oh god, what are you doing to me?”
He groaned, shook his head. “I…god, Cass. I feel you squeezing around me. So fuckin’ tight, Cass. I’m so close, can’t hold out much longer.”
“Don’t, Ink. Don’t wait for me.” I shifted, moved my weight forward, lying prostrate on his hot skin, my face in his throat, breathing him in.
I moved only my hips, then. Slamming backward into him. Faster, and faster. No technique now, nothing but wild abandon. Taking him with all that I had, taking him hard and taking him fast, and it felt like heaven.
“Ink, god, please, please—” I wasn’t sure what I was asking for. Just that I was on the edge, riding the razor edge of climax. Unable to fall over…yet.
“What, Cass?” He had my ass in his hands, holding me apart, guiding me on the downstrokes, lifting me up.
“Show me how you like it, Ink,” I murmured. “Show me.”
He growled, groaned. “Cass, I’m—you…” A sighing growl again, as he buried up into me. “Ohh fuck.”
“Show me, Ink. Take me. Take it. God, please, show me.”
“Cass, you don’t know what you’re—“
I snapped my eyes open, held his gaze as I felt raw furious need blast through me. “Yes, I do, Ink. I know exactly what I’m asking.”
He shook his head.
“I can’t come till you do,” I said. “I won’t.”
“Cass…”
I gathered his head in my arms, wrapped him close, put my lips on his and whispered, desperate, frantic. “Trust me, Ink,” I hissed. I slammed down hard. “Feel that?
“Ohhh god, Cass.” Ragged. Still holding back.
I pulled up, drew a few slow shallow strokes around the tip, and then drove down so my ass clapped against his hips. “Like that. Feel that? Feel me take you?” I did it again. Harder, faster. “Feel me? Feel me taking you? I like it. I love it. I want more, Ink. More. Give it to me harder, Ink. Let go.” Again, and again, and he was growling nonstop, pushing up into me, matching me, nearly. “Let go, Ink.”
He whimpered, a quiet, raw sound.
His eyes flew open, met mine.
Fierce.
Wild.
“Yes, Ink.” I saw it in him.
He grabbed my hips, lifted me so he nearly slipped out.
“Yes,” I gasped, tremoring with anticipation. “Yes!”
And then he drove in, and this time there was no restraint. Not hard, necessarily, but I felt him give it up, felt something inside him break.
He started moving me, lifting me up, drawing me down, meeting me with harder and harder thrusts. Our bodies slapped together, and I screamed each time our bodies touched, gasping in desperation as he withdrew.
What followed then were the most beautiful moments of my life.
He held my gaze and he let go.
He fucked me with total abandon, and it was intimate and surreal and vulnerable lovemaking, pure and wild and primal and delicate.
He surged into me, and I fell down around him, crying with the bliss of him inside me.
I came with him driving in, came around him, and in the moment of my orgasm, he unleashed. I felt him shudder, and our eyes held as he gave himself to me, nothing left inside to hold him back. Each movement was pure and liberated love.
When we finished, I fell asleep in his arms.
A day later—after we’d spent the previous twenty-four hours eating, fucking, and sleeping, and talking.
Fucking.
That’s what Rick had called it, what my brain wanted to call it out of habit.
But it wasn’t that, not anymore. This was new, this was ours.
Silly and saccharine and old-fashioned, perhaps, but I liked to call it lovemaking. Because that was the most accurate term. It was our souls joining. Our hearts merging.
Sometimes, though? It was just good plain old raw fucking.
And that was beautiful and intimate, too.
Today, though, we’d finally left the cabin. We were hiking through the forest, and I knew exactly where we were going, even though I’d never been there before.
His waterfall.
I followed him, my hand in his. He wore a shirt for the first time since I’d met him, and huge, expensive thick-soled hiking boots, and he carried a big backpack.
It took an hour or two of walking, but we reached the river about noon, and after another thirty minutes upstream we went around a bend, over a hill, and then there it was…exactly as he’d described it.
A thin river meandering through the forest, and then descending abruptly over a break in the hill, a fall of only about ten or twelve feet. It splashed down into a pool, swirling and bubbling, a picturesque, storybook setting. Surrounded by the dense forest, the waterfall roaring and splashing, it was…a spiritual place.
He sighed as we settled on the edge. “Love this place.” He looked at me. “Love being here with you. Never showed anyone this.”
“No one?” I asked.
He shook his head. “Nobody.”
I smiled. “Stay here.”
I recognized this spot as the precise location of his first drawing of me, where he sat now was where he’d placed the viewpoint of that sketch.
I stood at the edge of the pool and stripped naked. Slowly, for him.
Stepped into the water, squealing in surprise—cold at first, but then warming to a tolerable temperature as I waded in. I doused myself in the spray, scrubbed my hair. My body.
I turned to look at him, intentionally taking the pose he’d drawn me in: one thigh drawn and bent against the other, an arm across my breasts. He laughed, recognizing what I was doing, and I laughed too.
“Literally making my fantasy come true,” he said.
I crooked my finger at him. “Anything else happen in your fantasy?”
He laughed. “You are absolutely insatiable, you know that?”
He shucked his clothes and stepped in, wading in up to his waist. Drawing near to me. When he reached me, I gathered him in my hands. Brought him to life.
“So.” I caressed him, eyes on his. “What’s the fantasy of this place?”
He laughed, and took my hand. “Come on, let me show you something.”
He led me to the waterfall, and we both got soaked in the plunging spray. To one side, there was a little nook. Not quite behind it, but off to the side was a patch of forest floor right up against the side of the fall. In the noise and white spray of it, wet and mossy and soft—sun peeked through, creating a million rainbows in the water.
“Here,” he whispered.
The pool swirled and bubbled, the forest stood dark and trackless beyond it, the falls a wonder of wild power. I knelt, facing the falls, standing on my knees. He moved behind me, buried his face in my neck.
Pressed up against me. Inhaled me.
I reached around behind me, took his waiting manhood in my hand and plunged my fist around him, once, twice, and he gasped at it, and I knew it was time. I pressed him to me, and he groaned.
“Bag is over there,” he muttered.
I slid my knees apart, pressed my lips to the soft part of his cheek just above his mustache and beside his nose. “I don’t care,” I whispered.
I held my breath as I nestled his thick fat round head inside me.
“I just need you,” I whispered. “Here, now. Bare.”
“Cass…”
“I’ve been on birth control for nearly a month,” I said. “I got on it the day after that talk. The last time we talked.”
He breathed a slow, tremulous breath. “Ohhh god, Cass. Are you sure?”
I sank down on him, and he groaned. “Yes,” I gasped. “I’m sure.”
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