Deep Woods

by Newbury, Helena

  And then I looked up and caught my breath, because I saw the way he was looking at me.

  His gaze started on my face and traveled slowly down my body. As it rose again, I could feel the heat of it, as surely as if he was running his hand over my flesh. I felt it going all the way up my bare leg, where it was revealed by the split in the dress. Then higher, tracing the contours of my thigh where the thin ivory fabric was plastered to my leg by the breeze. Up and round and—my breath tightened—right up to my groin. Then up over my waist, up to the low-cut neckline and the pale valley it revealed, and finally back to my face, where it stayed.

  The look said, very firmly, that I didn’t look ridiculous at all.

  13

  Cal

  Look away. I couldn’t. Look away. My gaze wouldn’t move, lost in those brown eyes. Look away, goddammit!

  I finally broke the gaze and stared into the fire. “We should get some sleep,” I muttered. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw her look startled for a moment, then look at the ground and nod.

  I didn’t want to keep pushing her away. God knows, all I wanted to do was pull her close. But she deserved better than the likes of me. The sooner I got her to Tucker’s, the better. Those bastards in the mansion could go to jail, she could go back to the city and I could go back to being alone.

  I lay down on my side of the blanket. The ground beneath us was mossy and springy and the fire made it pleasantly warm.

  Bethany hesitantly sat down, then lay down on her side, her back towards my chest. Both of us were almost at the edges of the blanket, but it was really only designed for one. The gorgeous curves of her ass were maybe six inches from my groin. I could see strands of her hair move when I breathed and smell the exotic scent of her shampoo: some fancy city stuff, pomegranate and honeysuckle or some nonsense like that. It smelled amazing. And underneath there was another, subtler scent. Her, feminine and sweet. A scent that drove me crazy, that had my cock swelling in my jeans. I gave a silent sigh.

  Rufus came and stood over me, then tilted his head, confused. Normally, when we sleep in the open, he cuddles up against me. He looked at Bethany, then at me, then at the cold, inefficient gap we’d left between us. Why aren’t you cuddling up together? he seemed to be asking.

  I silently shook my head. That’s not happening.

  Rufus hesitated, then stepped over me, over Bethany, and stopped in front of her. He turned around three times, then curled himself up and cuddled into her front. Traitor, I thought. But I was glad she’d be warm.

  I lay there staring at her. I was rock-hard, now, and there was an even more maddening side to it, an ache in my chest that I didn’t want to think about, a need that went way beyond sex.

  I was sure I wouldn’t be able to even doze. But it had been a long day of hunting, followed by hours of walking. As the fire died down, I slept.

  14

  Bethany

  I WOKE UP CONFUSED, opening my eyes and then screwing them shut again. Bright light was trying to force its way under my lids. Did I forget to close the blinds? I groped for my phone to check the time. When my hand found only leaves and twigs, I woke up fast.

  The first thing that hit me was the silence. I hadn’t realized how used I had gotten to the constant hum of traffic and the whir of air conditioning. It was just so...still. The fear I’d felt the night before crept back: I was so tiny, out here in the vast wilderness.

  Then I looked up at the sky and my breath caught in my throat. It was dawn and through the gaps in the trees overhead, clouds like fluffy, soft-edged snowdrifts were lit up salmon pink, dusted with gold. I suddenly understood what all the fuss was about sunrises.

  I couldn’t remember the last time I’d been woken by the sun. Or when night and day even had meaning in my life: until today, my phone had always blared me awake with music and I opened my eyes to a room made dark by blackout blinds, whether I was waking up for a day shift or a night one.

  I was a little stiff from sleeping on the ground but surprisingly cozy, despite the fire having burned down to embers. In front of me, Rufus was still asleep, a furry croissant. And behind me—

  My eyes widened in shock: Cal was pressed against my back. I could feel him all the way from shoulder to ankle, big and powerful and gloriously warm. His arm was around me protectively—or maybe possessively—wrapped a few inches below my breasts.

  It felt really, really good.

  And as I explored the feel of him behind me, I became aware of something else: his cock was hard in his jeans and the length of it was nestled right between my ass cheeks. I was self-consciously aware of how good that felt, too.

  I carefully turned my head. He was still asleep, his face relaxed and strangely vulnerable. I twisted more and watched him sleeping. And the longer I watched, the more I became aware of how right this felt: him and me and Rufus, peaceful and secure. Even though I knew that was nuts.

  A frown creased Cal’s brow. His arm tightened a little around me. I watched his eyes moving behind his closed lids. He’s dreaming. And not a good dream. As the minutes passed, his breathing came faster and faster, building to a peak. Should I wake him? Before I could, his whole body tensed—

  His eyes opened and the raw horror there was like nothing I’d ever seen. He was still half in the dream, staring at whatever haunted him, and it was beyond terrifying. His face went dead-white, his skin clammy.

  I slid a hand through his tousled, gold hair, and said. “Shh. It’s okay. It’s okay.”

  He blinked at me and for just a second, he was open and unshielded. And I saw again the pain he was in, every day of his life.

  Then he came fully awake and in a heartbeat, he was his gruff, stoic self. He realized where his arm was and pulled it back, so quickly that his hand brushed against my left breast: a brief, scalding contact we both felt. He jumped up as if trying to put as much distance between us as possible. “Sorry. Must have—”

  “It’s okay—” I started.

  “—In my sleep—” He wouldn’t look at me.

  “Really, it’s okay.” I jumped to my feet. “Seemed like you were having a nightmare.”

  He met my eyes for a split second. Then he looked away and gave a quick shake of his head. Subject closed.

  Rufus opened one eye to see what all the noise was, then reluctantly unwound himself and got up. He stretched, then shook himself and glared at both of us reproachfully. I ruffled the fur on his head and watched Cal as he stuffed the blanket viciously into his backpack and kicked soil over the embers of the fire.

  We started walking and immediately, I was grateful for the makeshift shoes. I still had to be careful not to step on any sharp rocks but I was no longer wincing at every stone and twig, and my feet were dry and warm.

  I noticed how silently Cal moved, slipping through the landscape like a panther, like he was part of it. Rufus was the same, trotting between us and bounding over tree trunks and branches without a sound. I felt clumsy by comparison: wherever I stepped, something cracked or rustled. And every noise was magnified because it was so quiet. I hadn’t realized how loud the city was until I left it.

  I still couldn’t get over how isolated we were. It wasn’t just that we hadn’t seen another person, we hadn’t seen any signs of civilization: not a power line or a fence or a plane overhead. It was eerie. Why would anyone choose to live all the way out here?

  As we climbed a hill covered in thick, waist-high bushes, I blurted, “What were you doing in Seattle?”

  Cal looked around at me, his face unreadable.

  “I mean, it’s a long drive, from all the way out here. If you just needed a city, Boise is way closer. So it must be something specific you could only do in Seattle. I was just wondering what it was.”

  He held my gaze for a long time, then turned to face front. “Personal errand.” He closed his eyes for a second and something flashed across his face before he could control it: terrible, bitter loss.

  Shit! I’d been trying to get to know him so
I could help, not make things worse. “Cal—”

  He just shook his head.

  But I didn’t want to leave it like that. I ran forward through the bushes and got in front of him, then walked backward so he had to look at me. “Cal—”

  He suddenly grabbed my waist with both hands and pulled me to him. I yelped. My whole front was crushed against him, my breasts soft against his pecs. My eyes searched his face. He was panting, as shocked as I was. I saw his eyes go to my lips and I swallowed. I could feel his cock hardening against my thigh—

  He broke the gaze, then nodded over my shoulder...and down.

  I shuffled around...and my stomach dropped to my feet. Just a couple of feet further on, the ground dropped suddenly away. The rise we were climbing had made it invisible until we were right on it and the bushes had hidden the edge, actually overhanging it in places. Walking backward, I wouldn’t have known it was there until my feet came down on air.

  I shuffled closer and looked, very glad that Cal still had his hands on my waist. It was a canyon. The far side sloped gently down but our side was a vertical wall of smooth, dark slate. It dropped straight down at least forty feet. At the bottom, a wide river rushed and foamed over rocks, throwing up spray that made the canyon walls shine.

  “The gas station’s about two miles from here,” said Cal, nodding towards the far side.

  “How do we get across that?!”

  “We climb,” he said. And finally—almost reluctantly—he let go of my waist and pointed at something on the rock wall. I frowned and squinted, not seeing what he was seeing. Wait—He didn’t mean—Oh Jesus….

  There were steps...sort of. A series of rocks that stuck out from the sheer wall and that would let you climb down, if you were some sort of mountain goat. I wasn’t. I looked down at the rocky bottom, so far away. If I slipped, there’d be a horribly long time before I hit.

  I looked around for another way. This couldn’t be it, we couldn’t have no other choice, just to reach a phone! But the canyon extended as far as I could see in either direction. I looked down at the drop again and gulped.

  “You’ll be fine,” Cal told me, his voice a low, reassuring rumble in my ear. “I’ll go first, so if you slip, I’ll stop you.”

  I took the plastic bags and socks off my feet to give me more grip and then Cal led the way, picking his way easily down the side of the canyon. Each “step” was less than a foot wide, with absolutely nothing to stop you from falling off the edge to your right and nothing except the flat rock wall to hang onto on your left. I took a deep breath and followed. I made it to the fourth rock before I made the mistake of glancing down. The river seemed to spin and my stomach churned as vertigo hit. I tried to flatten myself against the cliff but there was no room, the rocks were too narrow—

  “Hey!” said Cal sharply. “Look at me!”

  I found those blue eyes and locked onto them for all I was worth. Gradually, my vision stabilized. I started breathing again.

  “Just keep your eyes on me,” he said, his voice worried but gentle. “Keep looking at me and you’ll be fine.”

  I swallowed and nodded and we started to move again. This time, I kept my eyes firmly on his muscled back and shoulders. I couldn’t forget about the drop but it started to recede a little in my mind. Soon, we were halfway down and I breathed a little easier. Behind us, I could hear Rufus pattering effortlessly down the rocks, probably wondering why humans were so slow.

  But then it got harder, and we were still twenty feet up. The rocks here were slick from the spray and the rocks sucked all the warmth from my bare feet, leaving them numb just as I needed to feel when I had grip. My thighs were soon aching from tensing to stabilize myself. And then, without any warning, I put my left foot on a rock, lifted my right—

  My left foot shot out from under me, I went down on my ass and slid, heading straight for Cal. I screamed a warning, scared I’d knock him off. He started to turn—

  I bounced painfully off a rock and went sideways into space.

  15

  Bethany

  I TWISTED and flailed but grabbed nothing but air. I saw the river and rocks twenty feet below me and my stomach shot into my mouth.

  A hand grabbed my wrist and I jerked to a stop, crying out in pain as all my weight tugged on my shoulder. I swung and hit the cliff—by sheer luck, with my hip and not my head. Then I looked down and saw the rocks and my brain shut down as panic took over. I scrabbled and kicked, frantically trying to find something to grab onto so that I wasn’t just dangling over the drop. My fingernails scraped smooth slate and my feet skittered uselessly at wet rock. There was a noise above me but I was too terrified to pay attention. All my fighting had set me swinging like a pendulum and my shoulder screamed.

  That noise again. It sounded like something I recognized. I forced myself to listen.

  “Bethany!”

  I looked up, wide-eyed and panting with fear. Cal was lying on the rocks, holding me by the wrist. “Stop moving,” he ordered, “then I can pull you up!”

  I kicked again and now I was twisting as well as swinging. I could hear what Cal was saying and it even made sense, but I couldn’t stop: the panic had me.

  “It’s alright,” he told me. Those blue eyes stared right into mine. “I won’t let you go.”

  And I believed him. The words soaked into me, calmed me. I stopped kicking and flailing and my swinging slowed and then stopped. Cal hauled on my arm and lifted me and then got his other hand around my shoulder and pulled and finally he hauled me over the edge and onto the rocks. They weren’t wide enough for two so we wound up with him lying on his back and me flopped on my stomach on top of him. Both of us were panting. Cal was gripping my upper arms and as I looked into his eyes from just a few inches away, he looked like….

  Like he never wanted to let me go again. My heart gave this massive, double th-thump—

  And then a big, wet tongue licked my ear. Rufus was there, nuzzling both of us, and we petted him and carefully got to our feet and continued down the cliff. We went more slowly, this time, with me shuffling instead of stepping and Cal ready to grab me if I slipped again.

  When we reached the bottom, Cal sat me down on a rock beside the river and told me to just take a minute. I didn’t argue: the adrenaline was draining out of me and I’d gone weak-kneed and heady, almost drunk with relief at being on flat ground again. How does he live like this?! He knew the route, he must come this way all the time, even when the rocks were covered in ice and snow. If he slipped, there was no one to grab his wrist. He’d be left lying at the bottom of the canyon with a broken leg or head injuries. And out here, there was no cell coverage, no ambulance or rescue unit he could call. He’d die, all alone. Who would choose this life?

  When I’d recovered, he led the way over to the river. It was wider than it had looked from up above and the sound of the crashing water echoed around the steep walls, loud enough that he had to raise his voice. “You ever cross something like this before?”

  I shook my head.

  “You’ll be fine,” he said. “You’re lucky, it’s not too cold. Give it another few weeks, once we get into fall, and it’ll be freezing. Just plant each foot good and firm before you lift off with the other, or the current will knock you right over. I’ll have your hand the whole way.”

  He took my hand and we waded slowly out. Cal was right, the water wasn’t too cold and in the shallows, it was easy going. But as we got farther out, the river bed dropped away and the current started to pick up. The water rose up my calves, then up to my thighs, and finally up over my waist. The river sucked at my feet as I lifted each one and it was hard work just to walk in a straight line. But Cal, standing upstream of me, was like an oak, shielding me from the worst of the current and hauling me up each time I stumbled.

  The water got deeper and deeper, climbing steadily up my chest, the spray soaking my face and hair. Just as I thought we were going to have to turn back, we reached the halfway point and the river
bed started to rise again. That was when Rufus jumped in, bounded through the shallows, and then doggy-paddled past us. He was waiting on the bank for us when we staggered ashore, our legs weak and shaky. The sun was getting high in the sky now and the warmth was blissful on my chilled body.

  I looked back at the river and the cliff we’d climbed down, amazed and just a little proud. When I turned around, Cal was staring at me. “What?” I asked.

  He just stared. His expression was torn. He wanted to look away, but—

  I glanced down.

  The fabric that covered my breasts was clinging damply and, given that my nipples had gone pebble-hard from the cold, everything was visible. Below my waist, the gauzy layers of the dress were stuck together and plastered to my hips and thighs, and the water had turned the ivory fabric almost transparent. You could see every curve of my legs and ass. I was wearing panties but they were the lacy, silky pair that Ralavich had made me wear and they had turned just as translucent as the dress. At the juncture of my thighs, there was just a hint of a dark shadow.

  I looked up. Cal looked away. Then looked back, unable to stop himself. A wave of heat rippled down my body, making every inch of my skin throb, my groin tighten, and my breath catch. I’d always been self-conscious about my curves. I’d had my breasts ogled by men but I’ve never felt sexy, or alluring, or any of those things that seem to come so naturally to other women. I’d never felt special.

  Until now. When he looked at me that way, I felt every one of those things.