by Penny Dee
I don’t want people’s lives to be disturbed because of me. A lot of people have sought out the concealment of the mountain because they simply wanted the peace and quiet of a mountain life. Some people may be running from something and don’t want to be found. Ragnar is right. Whatever the reason, people will want to protect their privacy.
I have to do something. I will call my father and let him know I’m okay. Tell him to stop looking. Tell him I am safe, but that I need some time to think about things.
That way I can protect Axel.
I’m a fugitive.
His words unsettled me.
Yet, they don’t frighten me.
Whatever he has done, it can’t have been bad.
When I hear Ragnar’s truck start up, I go back to my place on the couch and wait for Axel to come back inside.
I want to ask him about being a fugitive.
But I want him to make love to me first.
Because this is who I have become. I’m obsessed with my mountain man, and I’m ready to risk everything to be with him.
Chapter Twenty
AXEL
Ragnar is right.
They will eventually find her here.
I know the mountain won’t give her up. Its people are good at keeping its secrets. But Vince won’t stop hunting for his golden ticket. I have no doubt he’ll turn every inch of this mountain upside down looking for her. Well, not him personally. He’ll pay people to do it.
Even if Lauren calls her father and tells him she is safe and that this is where she wants to be, Vince will keep looking. Because I know a man who values winning over human decency when I see one.
They will find her.
And then, they will find me.
The thought keeps me up all night. So I spend hours worshipping Lauren’s body, loving her, touching her, making her come, over and over again, until she begs me to stop because she can’t take anymore.
I’m exhausted.
But sleep is elusive.
I can’t shake off the fear that I’m about to lose the best thing to ever happen to me.
With my girl sleeping soundly beside me, I leave the bed and descend the stairs to the first floor. I place another log onto the dying fire and watch spellbound as it roars back to life, sending red and gold flames dancing among the embers.
A prickly shiver of foreboding creeps up my spine, and no matter how hard I try to shake it off, I can’t.
I stare into the flames and try to untangle the chaos in my head.
Tomorrow, if the roads have cleared, we’ll go to town and she will call her father. I don’t want to let her go. I want her to stay here with me, tangled in my sheets and moaning my name as she moves with pleasure beneath me.
But that’s not our reality. Because the truth is, I’m a wanted man, and I can never give her the life she deserves. And if we keep going the way we’re going, I’m at risk of falling for the fairytale we have created, and I can’t afford to do that.
I cross the room to the desk I handcrafted from slabs of forest fir, and open the drawer using the polished onyx handle I spent hours molding.
Inside, beneath some papers, is a photo of me. It’s more than ten years old. I’m clean cut, shaven, and wearing a suit. My expression is dangerous and unsmiling, the typical look of a man hired to serve and protect. By the time this photo was taken, I’d seen two tours in Afghanistan, had been shot twice, and had more than three years of experience as a bodyguard. Less than six months later, I would destroy my career and be charged with murder.
I stare at the photo. Look into the cold dead eyes of a man I no longer knew.
Feeling more regret in that one moment than I have in the last ten years on the run, I shove the drawer closed and walk to the fire. One last look at the photo, I drop it into the flames and watch it slowly incinerate. My fingers curl into a fist. I hate my past more than ever because it is the one thing that will keep me from Lauren.
Tormented, I grit my teeth and my fist tightens.
I feel like a cornered bear.
The truth is catching up to us and it will destroy everything.
Us.
I need to come up with a plan.
But first, I need to know how Lauren feels. What does she want? How does she want this to play out?
And am I just a fool for believing something this fucking amazing can survive who I am, and what I have done.
Chapter Twenty-One
LAUREN
I’ve lost track of time.
Cocooned in our little world, everything else has ceased to exist.
I think it’s late. It’s dark, and the only light is the soft glow of the embers in the fireplace.
Outside, the sleet and wind are wild. But inside Axel’s cabin it’s warm and perfect. I watch him from the bed as he walks naked to the fireplace and throws another log into the flames. He stares at the fire for a moment longer, and I can see he’s contemplating something. He frowns, and in the light and shadow of the fire, he looks so beautiful it almost hurts.
I’m so fascinated by him. His body. The way he moves. His thick cock. Even when it’s not hard, it’s big, and I lick my lips as I admire it from afar.
As a lover, he is masterful. And in my delirium from lack of sleep, I start to imagine a life spent with him in this cabin, where we would make love all day, every day. Because I couldn’t think of one good reason why I would ever get tired of making love to him.
I know it’s not possible. I know there is a whole other life out there that belongs to me. But for now, while I have it, I’m going to treat this like a fragile gift, and enjoy it while it is still mine.
I don’t want to think about my other life. Or Vince. Or the wedding.
I want this.
Here with him.
“Hey,” he says, when he sees me sitting up in bed. And the sound of his voice is like a warm touch.
“Hey, yourself.”
I watch as he walks toward me, his beautiful, naked body gleaming like cut stone as he crosses the room. Everything about him turns me on. I’m already needy. I want him, in every way.
He takes the steps with athletic prowess and crawls across the bed to me. He kisses me. It’s gentle. Tender. Seductive. He’s already made me come so many times tonight I’ve lost count. But I want more.
I pull him down to me. I want to feel the bulk of him on me. I want to feel the weight of his powerful body blanketing me because it turns me on, but it also makes me feel safe and protected. Because somewhere in the back of my mind, I know this cannot last. Something is coming. Something that will burst our bubble.
It’s a feeling I can’t shake. It idles in the back of my mind. Taunting me. Telling me to make the most of what we have, here and now.
Axel kisses me deeply, and I run my hands down the smooth, muscular planes of his powerful back. My thighs part and my hips begin to move restlessly beneath him, searching for his cock. Wanting it. Needing it.
I feel his lips curve into a smile against my neck. “So greedy, princess.”
I writhe with frustration and need.
“Fuck me,” I demand.
With a growl, he plunges deep and hard into me, making me cry out, making my nails bite into his skin as they drag down his back.
He groans. “Harder.”
I do as he commands and I dig in deeper, carving my nails down his skin. He buries his face in my neck and growls. “Fuck yeah.” And rewards me with deep thrusts and heavenly grinds of his pubic bone against my clit. The friction detonates my orgasm, and I clench around his cock, arching my back as I come.
But he isn’t done.
He grabs my wrists and pins them above my head, his muscular body blanketing mine as he fucks me harder. Groaning. Panting. His face shimmering with the ecstasy he feels as he drives deep inside me.
“You look so fucking hot when you come,” he pants, his cock pumping into me. He lets go of my wrists to wrap his hands around my ankles. He pushes my legs higher, making my
pussy tighten even more around his pounding cock.
“Oh God,” I moan. With my legs this high, he feels even bigger, thicker, longer. I’m going to come again. Holy hell! I’ve never followed one orgasm so closely after the other with a man before. This time it comes from somewhere deep inside me, and it’s nothing like the others. It’s a slow, building wave of pleasure and no amount of friction is going to make it crest because this is coming from deep within my soul.
Axel slows and switches tempo, using his cock like a sword and pushing it slowly into me, right to the hilt. I can feel every inch of him. Every thick, hard inch of him, and it makes me come like I’ve never come before.
I grab the pillow above me as I cry out, incapable of speech as a mind-blowing orgasm crashes through me.
Axel lets go. He thrusts harder, his big cock sliding in and out of me, his skin slick, his big arms caging me. With an urgent moan, he starts to come. He grips the headboard with his big hands and cries out my name. I can feel him filling me, he’s coming hard, his breathing is ragged, his eyes unfocused, and he shudders and pants my name desperately as he jets his cum deep into me.
When he stills above me, his face is lost to the ecstasy washing through him.
My pussy clenches around him.
Growling, he collapses against me. He grabs my face and kisses me, hard and raspy as he catches his breath.
“I can’t get enough of you,” he says, his lips lingering over mine.
“Good.”
He smiles and it’s nothing short of beautiful, but it fades as he reaches down and tucks a lock of hair behind my ear. His eyes hold mine.
“You and me… is this something?”
His eyes tell me he hopes it is.
“I don’t know what it is,” I whisper. “Because I’ve never known anything like it in my life.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
AXEL
I wake up to see it’s stopped snowing.
My chest tightens. Because it means the roads will reopen and Lauren will call her father. And even though I know she should call him, I know it will mean the end for us.
We’ve been living in a fantasy for the last couple of days. But now that the weather is clearing, it’s time to face the real world.
“What are you thinking?” Her smoky voice breaks into my dour thoughts.
We’re lying in bed, tangled in the sheets, our limbs entwined, our bodies warm and supple against one another.
I turn to look at her and know that without a doubt I am falling in love with her.
I kiss her.
Soft.
Gentle.
She moans softly and shifts even closer to me, tightening her legs around mine, her pussy brushing against my hip bone.
My feisty princess is aroused.
She breaks the kiss to look at me. She’s not naïve. Not a fool. She knows what’s on my mind. Her eyes are warm, her touch gentle as she cups my jaw in her little hand.
“You asked me last night if this is something.” Her face is open, her voice sincere, and I can see it in her eyes, she’s telling the truth. “It’s more than something. It’s everything. I don’t want to leave.”
Her words hit me in the heart.
It’s everything.
“You don’t?”
She shakes her head. “These past couple of days have meant more to me than—well, fuck, anything. Being here with you, getting to know you, letting go of every expectation, and opening myself up to things that are real … I don’t want it to end.”
Her eyes fill with heat, and she bites down on her bottom lip as one finger trails across my chest and down to the ridges of my abdominal muscles. I shiver beneath her touch because goddamnit, this woman has me spellbound.
I don’t want this to end either.
But she needs to know who she is dealing with.
Who I am.
What I have done.
A part of me—a very small part of me—wants to warn her to run. To think about what she is saying.
To think about what she is getting herself into.
I know I don’t fit into her world.
But if she says the word, I will fight to stay in it.
If she wants me.
Because when she finds out who I am, there is a good chance she won’t want me anymore.
“You don’t know me,” I whisper.
She raises an eyebrow at me. “I know enough. But I want to know more. I want to know everything there is about you. What you like. What you don’t.”
She licks her lips as her fingers flitter down the trail of hair toward where the sheet lays across my hips, disappearing beneath it and brushing against my hard cock.
Yeah, the moment she started talking like she saw a future with me, I got hard.
Her eyes darken and she throws the sheet off me.
“I’m not ready to say goodbye,” she says.
And I’ll never be, my heart answers.
She flicks her long hair over her shoulder and slides her firm thighs on either side of me, taking my cock in her hand. Bending her head, she wraps her beautiful lips over the wide crown and draws me deep into her throat, sending me into outer space as she starts to fuck me with her mouth.
I grab the bed beneath me.
This woman. This fucking amazing goddess.
I am done for.
At her mercy.
Pleasure tightens in my belly.
I don’t want this to end.
I want this incredible woman’s hands on me every day.
My head falls back.
Every damn day.
My pulse quickens as she swallows the thick, veiny shaft into her mouth and sucks hard. I bite down on my lip and my toes curl, my breathing growing ragged as my orgasm rises like a wave and threatens to crest.
“Lauren …” Her name is a growl because I’m about to come.
Just as I’m about to ejaculate, she rips her mouth away and shifts above me, taking my cock in her hand and lining it up to her soaking pussy, she sinks down on it and takes me deep into her tight body.
My eyes roll back in my head. Fuck. Me. She’s so damn wet. So fucking tight. So damn perfect.
She rides my cock and moans as she takes all of me. And she takes me hard. I’ve never known anything like it. The pleasure. The sensations. They rattle my senses.
She reaches for my hands, and with a whimper begins to massage them into her breasts and I can’t take anymore. I cry out as my cock pulses my release deep into her, over and over, throbbing my cum into her body. And suddenly, I think about making her pregnant. Filling her with my baby. And the thought makes me come harder, prolonging my climax until I lose myself in the fantasy and dream of a life that was never meant for me.
Chapter Twenty-Three
LAUREN
As I walk to the bathroom to shower, Axel’s cum slides down my thighs and I smile, aroused by the idea of being full of him. And for a moment I let myself fantasize about my belly swelling with his baby, about making love and creating a new life. His baby. And my smile grows bigger.
I shower and my heart feels light.
I’m in love with him.
I know that now.
And I want to stay here with him.
As his woman.
His lover.
I want to wake up to his thick cock every day.
I want to hear his moans of ecstasy in my ear every morning and night.
I want to walk around naked among the pine trees and crisp mountain air.
I want to carry his babies.
I want a life here on the mountain.
With him.
I know it’s crazy.
My mind is made up. I snap off the faucet and step out of the shower. When I’m dressed, I find Axel dressed in a pair of black cargo pants and a tight black t-shirt. Christ, he’s so damn sexy. He looks like he’s about to kick in some doors and arrest some bad men.
Except … what if he is the bad man?
The idea s
lides into my mind.
I’m a fugitive.
The thought momentarily stalls me. But I push it to the back of my mind because I refuse to believe he has a bad bone in that delicious body.
Hearing me walk into the room, he turns around and slays me with his smile. And I decide right then and there that I don’t care what he has done. I know it’s crazy. Hell, the whole thing is absurd. But when you know… you know.
I want to be with him.
Yet …
Something niggles inside me.
Something I can’t put my finger on.
But I put it down to the fact that I know he is keeping something from me, and have to trust that he’ll tell me when he’s ready.
It can’t be that bad. He’s a good person.
“Ready?” he asks.
When I nod, he takes my hand and we run through the light rain to his Jeep.
“Are you ready to do this?” he asks before starting the engine.
I look into his beautiful green eyes.
“I’m just going to tell my daddy I’m safe. I’m not going to tell him where I am.” I click my seatbelt into place. “And I’m going to tell him I want to stay here until I’m ready to go back.”
His eyes search mine.
“You really want to stay here with me?”
I nod. “There is so much I want, Axel. And all of it involves you.”
Love shimmers on his face. “Do you mean that?”
“Yes, more than anything.”
His smile is deeply beautiful as he leans over and takes my face in his hands. His lips find mine, and the kiss is slow and intense. Heat radiates off him, and I can feel the love as his mouth moves sensually over mine.
“Let’s get this over with so we can get back,” I moan against his lips. Because I’m already aroused and want nothing more than to ring my father, and then get back to the cabin so I can spend the afternoon lost in Axel again. My pussy throbs, wanting to feel him sliding in and out of me.
Axel must feel the same way because when he pulls back, he has to adjust the rigid outline of his cock through his cargo pants.
