Christmas in the Mountains (Mountains Series Book 4)

by Phoebe Alexander

  Then there was Owen, who had grown from an energetic, inquisitive little boy into an animated, opinionated young man. He loved hanging out with James and discussing their views on life – everything from history to politics to religion to science. James couldn’t believe the extraordinary body of knowledge that kid had amassed, and he had a feeling most of it came from his own efforts, not from any textbook or classroom. James saw Owen becoming an academic someday, much like his mother. Or maybe even a politician, as unappealing as that prospect was in their day and age. But Owen would be one of the good ones, James reasoned, a selfless civil servant dedicated to the constituents he represented. James had tried to talk up the military to his stepson, but as of yet, Owen had no interest. He was a hard-headed creature, also not unlike his mother.

  Finally, his darling Lynnea. Though only a year of age, she had personality enough for a dozen children. Her bright blue eyes already seemed to see the world with a maturity far beyond her years, and her laugh was truly infectious. She was a charmer, and it only took a few minutes in her presence to have adults wrapped around her finger. James imagined she was in all her glory during this brief separation from her parents. She had even more people around than usual to dote on her, including all of her grandparents, her uncles, Rachel and her clan, and both of her siblings. But, despite that, James was concerned she would wonder in her little, innocent mind if her parents were ever coming back for her. The first night they were away, they were able to FaceTime with her, but the reception hadn’t cooperated since. Though she was undoubtedly precocious, James knew at one year of age, his daughter’s perception of time was not fully developed. The three days they’d been away probably felt like a lifetime to her.

  Thinking of his children warmed the regret that had cooled in his veins after leaving Sarah at the cabin with the Foxes. As he trudged along, cutting his own path through the thick blanket of snow, he looked for signs of humanity. He figured he’d made it about a quarter of a mile, and there hadn’t been a single cabin. If he remembered correctly, the closest one down the mountain, in the opposite direction from where Charlie and Zora had been staying, was at least a mile away. Maybe two. At the rate he was going, the deep, heavily packed snow sucking away his speed like a vacuum, it was going to take him a few hours to reach it. And who knows if there are even people staying there? he considered.

  His mind began to wander back to the previous night, to what happened after Sarah and Charlie went outside to the hot tub. Zora took one look at him, a devilish grin quirking her lips, and commanded that he wait for her in the bedroom – naked. He narrowed his eyes at first, incredulous that this mere waif of a woman was ordering him – a Lieutenant in the U.S. Army – around.

  Then he remembered something one of his Army buddies had told him during a deployment: crazy chicks are the best fucks. James surveyed the wild look in Zora’s dark eyes, and it did look borderline crazy. Maybe he ought to enjoy the experience instead of being so conservative and guarded. If there was one thing his wife had taught him throughout their years together, it was to open his mind. He’d never regretted it when he followed her advice, especially when it came to things of a sexual nature.

  He almost imperceptibly nodded at Zora, and she returned a satisfied smile. He made his way to the bedroom, unbuttoning his shirt and pants on his way. He stripped off the rest – everything but his boxer briefs – and sat on the bed anticipating her arrival. He wasn’t wearing a watch, and there was no clock in the bedroom, but it seemed like the minutes ticked by one by one with no sign of Zora. He heard his wife’s laughter coming from the hot tub, which he could view from the bedroom window, even though it was iced over with a beautiful pattern of intricate crystals.

  He watched Charlie stroke his hands down his wife’s cheek, cup her face in his palms and lean in to plant his lips on hers. It was not done in the raw, primal way he’d seen him take charge of her during their afternoon romp. It was a tender, loving gesture. James squinted as he watched Charlie pull Sarah onto his lap so she could straddle his gigantic cock. He restrained himself from rolling his eyes, a bad habit he’d picked up from his step-daughter Abigail. Charlie buried his face in the crook of Sarah’s neck, the spot James knew drove his wife wild.

  Wait, they’re not fucking, are they? he wondered as she appeared to be moving up and down on his thighs. They had strict rules about condoms and obviously they were in the hot tub so…

  His thought was denied completion when Zora came bursting into the room with something black in her hand. His eyes adjusted in a moment to realize it was a flogger. And she had something else in her clutches too that he couldn’t quite identify. Where did those things come from? he wondered as she stalked him like a lioness. She just carries around a flogger with her? What the hell?

  “I thought I told you to get naked,” she growled as James made his way from the window back around the bed.

  “I – uh –” was all he could stammer.

  “Boxers off and on the bed,” she commanded, her eyes drunk with power. She cracked the flogger on the wooden dresser beside her, and it made a loud, slapping sound that startled him.

  Just go with it, he told himself as he slid the boxer briefs down his thighs. He was surprised his cock had already responded to the authoritative timbre of her voice by beginning to swell. Once her eyes shifted down to see what just her voice had achieved, and a lustful smirk twisted up the corner of her lips, he was suddenly at full attention. He stumbled backwards, almost tripping over the boxer briefs before they completely cleared his feet. He eased himself onto the bed while she stripped off her blouse and jeans.

  Her small, perky breasts spilled out the top of her red lace bra, and the matching thong accentuated the gentle curve of her hips as they sloped out from her tiny waist. Her body was small but strong, with obvious indications of time spent in the gym. Her blonde-streaked hair fell around her narrow shoulders, and with the small whip in her grasp, she loomed over the bed, her petite stature somehow managing to look imposing.

  All James could hear was his own shallow breathing as she swung her legs onto the bed, climbing atop him as though his midsection were a saddle and he were a horse. She bent down, lowering her mouth to his ear and whispered in a raspy, heated tone: “You’re my toy tonight. And I’m going to play with you until you beg for mercy.”

  Against his will, his cock jerked to attention, even more engorged than it had been previously. It jutted painfully into the cool air of the bedroom, begging for even the meekest touch. And just when he thought to move his hands down to stroke away some of the need, she caught his wrists in her hands, which were astoundingly strong. She pulled them over his head, where she clasped them into leather cuffs that were chained together. She then attached the cuffs to another chain she had secured to the bedpost. He winced as the bands cut into his skin.

  He didn’t fight her, though at one point in time his whole body tensed as she jerked the cuffs up toward the bed post. She took her flogger and smacked it hard against his ribcage. “Don’t move!” she growled, the words coming up from her lungs with such force, they had the volume and strength of a drill sergeant.

  “Okay!” he shouted back, but then she smacked him with the flogger again, twice on each thigh. He couldn’t believe how quick the flick of her wrist was, or how hard it stung.

  “Don’t speak unless I give you permission,” she seethed, lifting her body off his legs and repositioning herself at the edge of the bed. He was propped up on pillows, his arms stretched above him and chained to the bedpost, his cock still waving proudly in the air like a flag.

  She spread her legs, drawing her knees up on either side of her hips so James could see the thin strip of her red lace thong separating her ass cheeks. She moved the triangle of fabric covering her pussy aside with her finger, revealing her swollen pink lips. James instantly remembered plunging into her warm depths earlier in the day, how tight and hot her walls were squeezing him when he brought her to climax. The memory of it ma
de his cock throb as desire quirked every nerve in his body into a state of frenzied need for touch, and right behind that, a growing desperation for release.

  He shifted a bit in the confines of his bondage, wishing he could stroke his cock while she played with herself. She threw her head back, laughing at his sorry state. “Oh, do you wish you could touch yourself?” she asked, clearly reveling in his discomfort. He pulled against the chains again, grunting as she brought her glistening wet fingers to her mouth to lick them off. Just watching her tongue dart across her fingertips made his balls ache.

  “I got my pussy nice and wet for your tongue,” she announced as she climbed up his body again. She aligned her hips with his face and lowered herself until her dripping folds hovered just above his mouth. He started to speak, but she sat on his face, muffling any sounds that attempted to escape past the warm, succulent juices seeping out onto his skin.

  He heard the back door open, then voices carried down the hallway. While Zora writhed on top of his face, the cabin began to fill with both her moans and the sounds of his wife, who was apparently in a similar state of rapture. Zora’s fingernails dug into the mounds of muscle over his breastplate as she rocked herself against his mouth. Her head thrown back, eyes closed, lips open in a perpetual moan, there was something insanely hot about this woman taking what she wanted from him.

  Sarah was forward and uninhibited in expressing her desires, but there was something softer and sweeter about her when she chased the heights of carnal bliss. Zora, on the other hand, was demanding and vocal, telling James what to do. “Fuck my cunt with your tongue,” she groaned at one point, and then at another, she demanded he suck her clit. Finally, she warned she was going to come all over his face, so he braced himself with a huge gulp of air as she began to grind her soaking pussy into him, her hands gripping the sides of his face like an eagle seizing its prey.

  Minutes later, after her last spasm reverberated on his dripping chin, she lifted herself. He gasped, filling his lungs with air that was heavy with her heady, wanton scent. He couldn’t remember the last time his face was soaked from his forehead to his neck in a lady’s juices, and he seriously doubted he would be allowed to wipe it off.

  After she dismounted, she scooted between his legs with a satisfied sigh. “I can tell you enjoyed that, James,” she claimed in a throaty rasp. It was true: the evidence was a dribble of pearly pre-cum drizzling down the head of his cock.

  He swallowed hard, wondering what she planned to do to him next. Before he could think too deeply about her next move, he heard his wife squeal Charlie’s name, the sound tearing from her throat like the scream the shell of a firework makes before it explodes. Well, she’s clearly enjoying herself, he thought before the flogger cracked down on his thigh, then again on his abdomen right above his cock.

  “Pay attention to me!” Zora demanded, her coal-black eyes narrowed and lips pursed.

  James’s blue eyes pinned on her dark ones, and he could practically see the sadistic wheels turning in her head as she devised her next move. “How badly do you want to come?” she queried, presumably giving him permission to speak.

  “Uh…pretty bad,” he croaked, struggling against the chains.

  “Spread your legs,” she ordered, and he complied, but the flogger still came crashing down on his inner thighs and then out onto his hips.

  “Does that hurt?” she questioned, searching his face for any sign he was lying as he nodded. “Good. Now, listen to me. You are not allowed to come until I give you permission. And if I think you are disobeying me, you’re going to get the flogger on your balls. Do you understand?”

  He hated the whimpering sound that emanated from his throat, and the way his balls tightened in a sick combination of fear and excitement upon being threatened. How can I be revolted and turned on at the same time? he asked himself. This is the weirdest sex I’ve ever had! Why am I enjoying this?

  But he was. His cock was dripping with need, and all he could think about was Zora’s mouth on him, or being engulfed by her ravenous pussy. Anything warm, wet, and tight right now… He’d do everything he could to hold back, but he had a feeling once she did touch him, it was going to take every ounce of his strength. And here he thought his will was tested overseas by the demands of war.

  She seemed to move in slow motion toward him, bending so she hovered just above his cock, her mouth mere inches away. Then she moved closer, and he thought he might explode just from her hot breath falling on his pulsating manhood. Finally, she stretched her tongue out just enough to run the very tip right up the bulging vein that striped his shaft. His whole pelvis jerked as if a shock of electricity had just bolted up his spine.

  Then she did it again, up the other side of his shaft. He felt another bead of pre-cum escape, oozing down the crown until her tongue darted out to catch it. “Mmmmm…” she moaned, her voice vibrating against him. “You taste delicious, James. I might be tempted to have a little more of you.”

  He winced as her mouth engulfed his entire shaft down to the base, a surprised gasp pushing out of his lungs. “Oh, yes, very tasty,” she confirmed, taking another pass at it, taking him so deep into her throat, he thought he might explode at any moment.

  And so she spent the next hour torturing him with exquisite skill, teasing him with her tongue, her lips, her hands. At one point in time she lowered herself onto him again so that the tip of his cock brushed against her clit. Just when he thought she might plunge her pussy down on him, she stopped, dismounting his torso with an evil laugh. James had heard stories of sexual sadists, but he never, ever thought he’d experience the punishment inflicted by one.

  After he was drenched with sweat, breathless, and sure he heard Charlie and Sarah snoring away in the other room, Zora finally put him out of his misery. She rolled a condom down his shaft and submerged his painfully engorged cock deep within her molten-hot pussy. As her walls began to squeeze around him, he held his breath, knowing that her slightest movement would send him over the edge. She rocked back and forth for just a moment, waiting for him to open his eyes again. When her dark gaze pinned to his anguished desperation, she said the magic words: “You can come now.”

  He groaned as she began to writhe her hips against him, pulling away from his body and then slamming back down until her pelvis pounded into his. She began torturously slow at first, but then picked up speed, and every last ounce of control in his body having evaporated, he felt his balls explode, sending sperm rocketing up his shaft and out his head with the power and speed of an assault rifle. He cried out as the waves of pleasure overtook him, reverberating through him long after the last spurt of cum had erupted.

  And when he was done, she unclasped his chains and left him there in bed alone, tears streaming down his face. The descent down the mountain was nearly as painful as the ascent. As the memories of the experience crashed back over him nearly as strongly as the original feelings, he remembered how absolutely spent and depleted his body was after her torture session ended. She didn’t reappear from the bathroom, so after he recovered, he managed to make his way out of bed. He felt like a hospital patient awaking after a grueling surgery and anesthesia – groggy because of the sedative, with the “good drugs” masking the pain of the surgeon’s knife.

  He stumbled into the living room, thinking what he needed at that point was to wrap his arms around his beautiful Sarah. His goddess. His wife. But he found her curled up in Charlie’s arms as if she were his.

  Eight: Falling

  The sound of snow crunching under his boots had become like the sound of cicadas in the summer. Though it was deafeningly loud in the vast silence, he soon blocked it out. Every twenty minutes or so, he pulled out his phone to check for a signal. He was glad he had left his phone on the charger the night before. Otherwise, with his luck he’d get into range of a tower only to have a dead phone. He planned to call his office at Ft. Carson and find out who was in, then he could get someone up there within the hour. His call would prob
ably interrupt the Christmas Eve festivities at the base, but surely someone would want to play the role of hero to save Christmas for the entire McAllister family. It sounded like the plot of a holiday blockbuster.

  James couldn’t believe how brightly the sun reflected off the snow. He didn’t think to bring sunglasses on the trip, and his sock hat didn’t block any of the blinding glare off the sparkling white blanket. I should just be glad I have a warm hat and gloves, he chided himself, pulling the cap farther down to cover more of his face. He wore his bulky military-issue parka, rated for temps well below zero, and he pulled the collar up to block more of the biting wind. He managed to cover himself enough so the only parts truly exposed to the elements were his eyes, cheeks, and nose. And those were frozen. His nose felt like a huge hunk of ice that might be chipped off his face if he were to touch it.

  His lungs burned with the frigid air circulating in and out of them, his body struggling to warm it before sending it back out in a frosty cloud. His thighs felt as though they were turning into blocks of ice, even with the fleece lining in his pants and the long johns he wore. But worst of all were his fingers. Even though he was wearing the warmest gloves issued by the U.S. military, he felt his fingertips turning so numb, they ached.

  Even reliving the previous night’s adventures with Zora only warmed him to a degree. He now understood after reviewing the situation that he was set off by two things: 1) how much he enjoyed being dominated and 2) how upset he was to see Sarah asleep in Charlie’s arms without even saying goodnight to him. After such a humbling experience in the bedroom, he really needed his wife. She was his rock. His everything. And she hadn’t been there.

  He approached a thickly forested area just around the bend from a clearing. He saw the tops of the trees appear below him, then as he approached, the full panorama of tall, stately pines rose up before him, their boughs hanging low, weighted with mounds of sparkling snow. The blood in his veins froze when he heard twigs snapping and snow crunching behind him at the entrance to the forest. He whipped around to see a majestic bull elk staring him down. He wore a heavy crown of antlers reaching at least four feet in the air, branching out into sharp tips. Once James turned to face the animal, the elk studied him, attempting to determine whether or not he was a threat. The huge beast lowered his shaggy brown head to the ground for a second, holding it there and lifting just his eyes to a spot a little beyond where James stood in the pine grove.