Deep Woods

by Newbury, Helena

  It scared me, how much I wanted her. And the lust was just the surface layer, white water on a wave so deep, so powerful, it was close to sweeping me away. I could hear the blood rushing in my ears, feel my eyes flicking over her too fast: her eyes, her hair—

  Her lips….

  I tore my gaze away and took her hand in my hand. When I felt how cold she was, I came dangerously close to melting. And when I ran my fingers up her arm, probing and testing, a big swell of protective need rose up in me and I had to stare hard at the goosepimpled flesh because I didn’t dare look into her eyes. “Nothing broken,” I muttered. “But you’re going to have a hell of a bruise.” I tried to let go of her arm but I couldn’t seem to. “You could have been killed! If it had hit you in the head—”

  “I just—I wanted to make sure everything was okay!” she said. “I didn’t want you to get back and find the cabin wrecked.”

  That very nearly did it. My heart went caramel soft and it took a superhuman effort to growl at her. “I don’t care about the damn cabin—” Her wet hair was falling over her face and I brushed it angrily out of the way—

  And suddenly, I was looking right into her eyes.

  The rest of the world ceased to exist. I don’t care about the damn cabin...something in my eyes must have completed the sentence because I saw her eyes widen, her pupils grow.

  Her lips parted.

  And I just growled, grabbed her waist with both hands, plucked her up off the floor, and brought my lips down on hers.

  40

  Bethany

  HE KISSED ME and nothing else mattered. I didn’t feel cold or wet or even in pain. My eyes closed and in the warm blackness, all that existed were his lips. They owned me, made me his, then spread me open and damn well plundered me, and I flowered open beneath him, inviting him in as urgently as he invaded. I could feel his panting breaths and that I was panting, just as hard. Everything that had been building up for weeks was finally being released.

  His hard upper lip demanded every part of me, wouldn’t stop until he knew me completely. And just behind it, that wonderfully soft lower lip, brushing over my sensitive flesh, making me tremble. Other sensations started to trickle in, now, one by one. The brush of his beard against my neck, that reminder of how wild he was, the hair so gorgeously soft. The heat of him through the blanket, his body like warm rock. His hands—oh God, his hands, big and powerful, gripping my waist under the blanket and holding me in the air like I weighed nothing.

  That silver wire inside me, the one that was drawn so achingly tight whenever I was around him, was vibrating and dancing, singing in harmony with every hard press of his lips. And all those vibrations were bouncing and echoing, low in my belly, triggering a deep, scarlet, bass drum rhythm that made me squirm and crush my thighs together, and that got more powerful with every kiss.

  He growled low in his throat and pulled me to him, my upper body pressed tight against his chest. My legs kicked either side of his waist and hooked around him as if it was the most natural thing in the world, as if I belonged there. My groin settled against his abs and a flutter went right up my body, leaving me light-headed. In some ways, it was just like when he’d carried me over the gorse bushes, that first day. But then I hadn’t been naked and wrapped only in a blanket, my legs entirely nude as they encircled him, one bare breast spilling through the opening in the fabric to press against his shirt.

  I was breathless and desperate: the feel of him against me was amazing. My hands dived through the opening in the blanket and slid over the swells of his biceps and the wide curves of his chest, and with every brush of my palms over soft cotton and warm muscle, I felt myself melt. There was something about the effortless strength of him, the way he could hold me so easily. It made me feel small and weak in an entirely good way. My legs tightened around him and I ground myself against him, flushing but unrepentant, and he cursed under his breath.

  With my legs around him, he could free one hand from my waist. He slid his fingers through my hair, burying them deep in the cool wetness, using his thumb to wipe beads of water from my forehead as he kissed me. His palm was deliciously warm against my cheek and he used it to guide me, turning me how he wanted me for his kisses. They were becoming deeper, the tip of his tongue playing with my lips and then darting between them, seeking out mine and dancing with it.

  He started moving around the cabin. Each one of his heavy footsteps bounced me against him, rubbing the washboard of his abs against my groin. At first, he was just turning around and around, too fired up to stay still. But then his steps grew purposeful and he marched us over to one particular spot and stopped. I still had my eyes closed but after a few seconds, I figured out where we were. I could feel heat bathing my back through the blanket and warming my soaking hair. He’d moved us next to the stove.

  Realization hit. He’s moved us next to the stove so that I won’t freeze when he takes the blanket off me. My groin tightened and that scarlet drumbeat inside me boomed louder, faster.

  His hand started exploring me under the blanket, running up from the naked curve of my waist, his thumb brushing the side of my breast and making me heady. Then down, sliding around the crease of my hip to cup my ass cheek and tug me harder against him. Both of us panted harder and he broke the kiss, lifting my head so that he could shower kisses down my chin and down the length of my throat. Between his warmth against my front and the stove warming me from behind, the last of the chill was chased from my body. I fumbled with the blanket, but it was trapped between us. I wanted to be naked against him, needed to be, but I wasn’t sure how to go about—

  The hand that was exploring me slid around my back until he was holding me under the arms. Then he lifted me up and away from him. He used his other arm to gather the blanket and pull. Soft wool caressed my nipples for a second as it was whipped away and then it was fluttering to the floor and I was hanging there nude, dangling in his grip, my toes kicking just clear of the floor. I opened my eyes and found that he was looking right at me, his gaze raking up and down my body. I stared back at him, lips parted in shock. I’d never been so utterly naked before, not just bare but displayed, hanging there helplessly just a few feet from his eyes. I’d never been confident about my body but the way he looked at me, the way his gaze just ate me up, made me light up with pride.

  He brought me closer to him and used both hands to lift me higher, so that my breasts swayed towards his face. I realized what he was about to do a split second before he did it and felt my lips open in an O...then his mouth enveloped my nipple. I arched my back, pressing against him as his tongue worked at the hardened bud, hotly bathing it and then circling around the edge in a way that made me grind my hips in mid-air.

  He licked my breasts for long minutes, until I was a writhing, groaning mess. I could feel the heat of the stove baking my naked back and ass, blasting away the last of the water. But now my front was glowing, too, the heat of his mouth making me throb and pant.

  He slid one arm around my waist and pulled me against him, and I threw my arms around his neck. That freed one of his hands and he slid it slowly down between us...and between my legs. When he cupped me, I went weak...and then a thick finger was sliding up into me, finding me wet and ready.

  He carried me across the room and my heart sped up as I realized we were heading for the bed. When we reached it, he bent low and then dropped me the last few feet, so that I landed with a gasp and a bounce. His finger only left me at the last second and I lay there staring up at him, feeling the emptiness, the ache where it had been. And he gazed right back at me, eyes locked on that exact place, and then lifted his head and looked me straight in the eye as he pulled off his clothes.

  His shirt first, tossed on the floor to reveal the caramel boulders of his shoulders and biceps, the chest so wide and strong that it made my pussy twitch and my skin tingle, my whole body anticipating the hard press of him against it.

  Then his jeans, his shorts, his boots, all kicked down his leg
s and off in one urgent tangle. His thighs, thick with muscle, and, between them—

  I gulped and my ass tensed and shifted on the bed, my body reacting on primal instinct: first inching away, a little scared, then lured closer, hypnotized. Big. Not just long but thick, the head silky smooth and the shaft weighty and hard as rock.

  He put one knee on the bed, between my ankles. He glanced at my legs and took a breath, but no words came out. He met my eyes and I saw how his eyes were hooded with lust: he was too turned on to speak.

  I opened my legs and felt his eyes shoot up my thighs to the soft lips of my pussy. My breath was coming in fevered pants, now, the drumbeat inside me thundering and crashing.

  He climbed fully onto the bed and the way it sank under his weight, the way the muscled bulk of him nudged my thighs further apart, made my stomach flip-flop. This is real. We’re really doing this. His hands thumped down either side of my head, trapping me, his arms solid as tree trunks, and the drumbeat inside me became a continuous roar. I grabbed hold of his wrists, running my fingers over their hardness, hanging onto them to ground me as I went spacey and light, my ass making slow circles on the bed in anticipation.

  He dipped his head and kissed down my body: between my breasts, over my stomach and all the way to my pussy. Then he moved forward, looked down into my eyes—

  God. I felt the silken touch of him against my wet lips. For a second, we stayed there, those cornflower-blue eyes staring right into my soul. Then the arrow-shaped head of him was parting me, opening me...stretching me, my hands climbed his wrists, clinging on—

  I rolled my head against the pillow, arching my back as he pushed deep. The heat of him...God, the solid girth of him, plunging into me. Every new millimeter he touched set off new streamers of pink and silver pleasure, making my eyes flutter closed and my lips open wide. He drew back and the pleasure became a needful ache. He thrust deep again and it compressed, glowing hotter and brighter.

  His hips sunk between my thighs, opening me wider, and that hard, muscled ass came into play, driving him into me. Three hard thrusts and he was in me to the hilt, my hands clutching at his shoulders and my lips forming his name. Then he lowered himself to his forearms and began to fuck me, the weight of him pinning me to the bed, his pelvis grinding against my clit on each thrust. God, the feel of him, the hard solidness of him after weeks of imagining it. His body was like a drug: the more I ground my softness against him, the more I needed to.

  For long minutes, the bed creaked in rhythm, the hard swells of his pecs grazing my nipples and the pleasure flaring hotter and hotter, compressing with each stroke until it was as dense as the core of a star. I felt my mouth moving but I didn’t know what I was saying. At first, he kept his control, coaxing me closer and closer to the edge with a steady pace. But the more I writhed and gasped under him, the more turned on he got and the more his control began to shred, until he was hammering into me full speed, pounding my softness into the bed with his body. My hands clawed at his back, my legs came up and cinched tight around him. The pleasure was filling my whole body, taking me over. Somewhere in the distance, I could hear myself begging for release.

  He suddenly stopped, grabbed hold of my waist and twisted, and with a yelp I was rolled over so that I was on top, my knees spread wide to straddle him. He guided my movements for a few strokes, lifting and dropping me, and then as soon as I started to move myself, his hands went to my breasts. Now I knew why he’d wanted me this way. There was something in the way he touched them—delighted, lusty but almost reverent—that told me he’d been dreaming of doing this for weeks. He gloried in them, filling his hands and squeezing, using his thumbs to stroke my nipples to aching peaks, and I’d never felt so proud of my body, so...worshipped.

  I could run my hands over him, now, use that hard chest to press against as I rode him. My ass bounced atop his thighs, my back arched and I moaned, moving faster and faster, the pleasure swelling and tightening, urging me on. I could hear the wind howling outside, branches slamming against the walls, but nothing could touch us, in here. We were safe and warm and all that mattered was the perfect, hard slide of him inside me, the trembling streamers of pleasure it threw out, the feel of his fingers as they crushed my breasts just right—

  “God, Bethany…” he said it in a low growl and what I heard in his voice, that mix of disbelief and victory and sheer joy, made that silver wire inside me draw tight, vibrating and singing right down into my soul. I panted for breath, almost slipping over the edge—

  And then he grabbed my ass with both hands, drawing me down hard as he thrust up hard, his thumbs stroking along the crease of my hips, and that did send me over the edge, the orgasm corkscrewing up through my body, rippling along my spine and making me lift my face to the ceiling and cry out. My hips twisted and bucked against him as I felt him shudder and shoot jet after hot jet deep inside me.

  Then I was slowing, wilting, collapsing forward onto his chest to lie panting atop him. And he brushed the hair back from my face and kissed me long and deep and tender.

  When we eventually disentangled and stretched out, I found that, lying on his back, Cal’s big body took up most of the bed. But I discovered a perfect, Bethany-sized space between him and the wall where I could lie on my side and cuddle up against him, his arm around me and my cheek on his chest. Outside, the storm still howled but with the wall behind me and Cal between me and any danger, I felt utterly protected.

  There was a whump as Rufus jumped up onto the bed. He padded all around and over our legs in excitement: he’d never had two warm humans to cuddle up to at once before. He found a spot where he could wedge himself, turned around three times and then cuddled in, sighing contentedly.

  For a while, I just basked in the afterglow, tired and happy. And then, with his pec as my pillow, I dozed off to sleep.

  41

  Cal

  I LAY STARING UP at the ceiling as Bethany slept, her long dark hair spilling down my torso. As my body cooled and my breathing slowed, reality was setting in.

  What have I done?

  I’d known from the start that I couldn’t have her. I’d told myself I had to keep my distance. Then I’d broken every rule. And now….

  Now all I wanted to do was take Rufus and go to Canada with her.

  For six years, I’d been existing, not living. Serving my sentence in my self-imposed exile. These last few weeks, she’d given me a taste of another life.

  But I couldn’t have it.

  Bethany thought she knew me, but she didn’t. I couldn’t let it go on like that. I couldn’t be close to her and not tell her what I’d done. And if I did tell her….

  I looked down at her, peacefully asleep with her head on my chest. I imagined those big brown eyes going wide: shock, then disbelief. Then finally horror.

  I couldn’t take that. Not when I felt like this about her. Anything was better than that.

  Even saying goodbye to her forever.

  42

  Ralavich

  I SNATCHED UP the satellite phone on the third ring. “Alik?”

  Alik is not an emotional creature but for once, he sounded happy. “Got something,” he told me. “I’m with a local smuggler. I thought she might try and get out of the country and I was right, she was here, arranging for passage to Canada.”

  A scream. A woman’s scream can be a beautiful thing, a sound that gets me hard. But this was a man’s scream, raw and agonized. I winced and held the phone away from my ear. “What are you doing to him?”

  “I make little slit in his balls,” said Alik. “And then with fork, pull out—”

  “I understand,” I said quickly. “Ask him when she’ll be there.”

  Another scream. It went on and on. Then a man’s voice, cultured and refined but ragged with pain. “Tomorrow! They’ll be here tomorrow!”

  43

  Bethany

  NEXT MORNING, we had to leave early to be at Jacques’ boat for noon. The wind had stripped every last leaf f
rom the trees and blown them like snow into huge drifts. The ground was littered with branches and some trees had been felled completely, ripped out of the ground to lie on their sides with their roots dripping dirt, or snapped completely in two, exposing creamy, pale wood. It was awe-inspiring and scary, a reminder of how powerful nature was. Any other time, I would have been fascinated. But today, I crunched through the leaves head down, miserably brooding.

  I’d hoped. I’d thought that after last night, he might have changed his mind. But when I woke, he was sitting next to the bed, already dressed. Next to him was my backpack, already packed for me with all my clothes and supplies for the journey. But there was no bag for him. I’d looked into his eyes, my own eyes filling with tears, and when I saw the sadness there, I knew I wouldn’t be able to change his mind.

  We reached the raft. I could see Jacques’ steamboat on the far side and Jacques was standing by the door that led downstairs, waiting for us. But between us and him was the river and it was nothing like the calm, sunlit scene it had been last time. The storm had swollen it and it was raging and foaming as it rushed downstream, the water a dirty grey-brown with white caps to the waves. I saw branches being tossed and tumbled by the current. Sometimes they’d disappear, sucked beneath the surface and I waited for them to pop up again...and they didn’t. It had gotten colder, too, and the water would be colder still. I shuddered.

  One at a time, we gingerly boarded the raft. Then Rufus jumped excitedly aboard, setting it rocking, and I had to grab hold of the rope and tell him sternly to sit! If any of us wound up in the water, I wasn’t sure we’d make it to shore.