Deep Woods

by Newbury, Helena

  Silent tears were rolling down my cheeks. I leaned forward and put my hands on Cal’s shoulders. I didn’t know what to say to make it better but I needed him to know I was there.

  “I get outside, start walking home...and everywhere, there’s just people, normal people, and they don’t realize there’s a monster right there, walking next to them. I’ve killed a family. I’ve killed children. And the other ones...the people I assassinated. How many of them were innocent, just people the CIA decided were inconvenient? I’m crossing a bridge over a highway and the next thing I know, I’ve stepped up onto the parapet.”

  I stared at him in horror, unable to speak.

  “I’m standing there, with the traffic roaring past below, and I’m thinking, do it, because I don’t deserve to be in this world, anymore. And then I hear this little bark. I’ve dropped the puppy’s lead, but it hasn’t run away. It’s just sitting there looking up at me and I think...who’s going to take care of him if I do this?”

  “And so I climb down, and I pick up the lead, and I figure out a different way. I go back to my apartment, pack a bag, empty my bank account. The dog picks up the shirt I gave him in his teeth: I guess it’s his, now. And then we just walk out...and keep walking.”

  “You just...left?” I asked.

  “I just left,” he said. “Slept rough. Hunted for food. Kept going and going, getting further and further from the cities, from people, until I reached the woods. Found the spot where the cabin is, used all my savings to buy the land.” He looked around him. “Monsters belong in the woods.”

  It was the most heartbreaking thing I’d ever heard. I flew at him and flung my arms around his neck. “No!” I told him. “Jesus, Cal, no! You’re not a monster. It wasn’t you. You were just trying to protect people.”

  He was stiff and unyielding under me. “Doesn’t bring that family back, though, does it?”

  I rested my head against his. “No,” I admitted.

  “You know why I was in Seattle, that day I met you?” he asked. He pushed me back just a little so that he could look at me. “I had a friend, in the CIA...or as close to a friend as you can get, in that place. Shawn Lox. Good guy. Military, same as me, except he was Airborne. They had him doing what I did. He woke up and got out about the same time I did.” He looked away, off into the trees. “Except...he didn’t go into the woods, he crawled into a bottle. Wound up driving to a military base at three in the morning, drunk out of his mind, screaming outside the gate about the things he’d done. They were about to arrest him when he pulled a gun and shot himself. It made the papers, even in Marten Valley. I was in Seattle for the funeral, to say goodbye.” He shook his head and looked at me. “I don’t know if there’s any coming back, for people like Shawn and me. I want you. I want to come with you to Canada,” he said. “I want...this. Us. But after what I did…”

  “Isn’t that for me to decide?” I demanded. I got to my feet. “Isn’t that why you’re telling me all this? So there aren’t any secrets, so I can decide for myself?”

  He sat there looking up at me, shocked. Then slowly nodded.

  I’ve never been more sure of anything in my life. “Then, Cal, I’ve decided! I want you. I need you. You—You put your arms around me and I feel safe.”

  He looked away. “But I’m a—”

  “No! No, you’re not. Maybe you were. Maybe, for those few years, when they were using you, you were a monster. But not anymore.” I crouched down. “Look, I can’t say it’s okay. I can’t undo what you did. But you can’t change who you were, who they made you. You can change who you are.”

  He shook his head. “After what I did—”

  “You can still make it right. I don’t think anyone’s beyond redemption.”

  He looked up at me. For all his strength and size, at that moment, he looked like a scared kid.

  “Really,” I confirmed. “But you can’t do it out here.” And I reached down and offered him my hand.

  He sat there staring at me for a moment and I saw a change come over him. He seemed to lift. It wasn’t that the pain was gone: he’d carry that with him forever, and maybe he had to. But he had something else, now. He had hope.

  He gripped my hand and I pulled him to his feet, nearly overbalancing. After sitting for so long, he looked even taller than normal, towering over me. Or maybe he was standing taller, now. He looked around at the forest, glanced up at the sky, took a deep lungful of air as if experiencing it all for the first time. Then he looked at me.

  And for the first time, he was free. Those cornflower-blue eyes sparkled in the moonlight, eating me up, and instead of hiding it, or turning away, or scowling, it just went on and on, making my heart lift and bob and that silver string inside me draw tight and sing.

  He closed the gap between us with two quick steps that shook the ground, then he scooped his hands under my ass and I yelped as I was suddenly lifted skywards. He stood with me clinging to him, my legs around his waist, and in the quiet stillness of the night, we just stared at each other. Both of us slowly realizing that there was nothing holding us back, anymore.

  When he spoke, that iron certainty was back. “I’m gonna get you to Canada,” he told me. “We’ll get Jacques to bring Rufus. I’ll build us a place to live. And no one’s going to take you away from me, ever. Sound good?”

  I couldn’t speak. So I just nodded, very, very firmly.

  And then I couldn’t speak anyway because he was kissing me.

  57

  Bethany

  STRAIGHTAWAY, it was different. The storm clouds that had always gathered around him whenever he came close were gone and he was on me full force. I gave a little mewl of shock and delight as that hard upper lip spread me wide and left me helpless and his tongue plunged deep.

  My hands came up and traced the muscles of his back through his soft cotton shirt. The kiss grew and built, the world spinning around me as his lips owned me, each hard press sending earthquakes down through my body, crumbling me, making me dissolve in his arms. His strength and size had always made me go weak but this was something else: he was finally unleashed to do exactly what he wanted and what he wanted was to make me his. His hands on my ass were squeezing and rubbing, teasing me with what was to come, and every time my breasts stroked across his chest through our clothes, he’d let out a low growl.

  I felt like I was flying. Part of me had just surrendered. Something in him, in that raw, hard lust, had triggered something in me, making me go melty and soft with shocking speed. But at the same time, something else was happening. His hands, his lips, the feel of him against me...they were setting off explosions of pink, hot pleasure, making me tremble and sigh. But the explosions had a silver edge to them, and each kiss, each rub of his pecs against my nipples, made that silver crackle down my body, the sensations twisting together and becoming an aching need as they hit my groin. With each hard press of his lips, my hands moved faster on his back, desperate to know him, to touch every hard inch of him.

  He broke the kiss and I felt us start to move. He walked with me in his arms and each big, earth-shaking stride he took bounced me, making my groin stroke along the washboard of his abs and my nipples drag along the hard curves of his chest. My breathing tightened and I clung to him, burying my face in his neck and planting kisses there. I didn’t know where he was going but I didn’t open my eyes. I trusted him.

  He crouched and laid me down on my back on something soft. I finally opened my eyes to see him kneeling over me, gazing down into my eyes. Beyond him, the silhouettes of treetops rocking in the breeze, inky black against a deep blue sky that was speckled with a billion silver pinpricks.

  He gazed down at me. “You’re the most beautiful damn thing I’ve ever seen.”

  I drew in my breath but before I could respond to that, he was kissing me. Slower, this time, but no less possessive, and as his tongue found mine and danced with it, I moaned. I felt my shirt lift away from my breasts and the buttons being popped through their holes un
til he could spread the sides like wings. Then I felt his hands on my jeans and I swallowed, my breathing speeding up. One button popped. Two. Three. I opened my eyes and saw him kneeling there, eyes locked on my groin and the panties that were slowly being revealed. The store in Marten Valley had been stocked with basics so they were plain white cotton briefs, not some weapon of mass seduction made of lace and air. But Cal was gazing down at them as if they were the sexiest things they’d ever seen, his eyes blazing in a way that made me crush my thighs together and squirm.

  He undid my boots and pulled them off. Then he hooked his hands in the sides of my jeans and lifted me effortlessly up off the ground so he could slide them down my legs, taking my socks with them. I dropped back to the ground, panting, my pale legs gleaming silver in the moonlight. I saw now that I was lying on a patch of moss, lushly green and springy. It was late and I should have been cold but when he hunkered down over me, straddling my half-naked body, all I could feel was a deep, violent heat thundering through my body, leaving me panting.

  He moved in close, slid a hand under my shoulders, and brought me up to sitting, handling my body as if I weighed nothing. The open shirt fell from my shoulders. He leaned forward and kissed me full-on and savage, nibbling at my upper lip with his teeth, then kissing just my lower, an open-mouthed, breathless kiss that went on and on. I felt his other hand lift my tank top inch by inch until it was gathered under my arms. Then he broke the kiss just long enough to whip it over my head and off. He looked down and the way he drank in the sight of me, his chest rising and falling with heavy pants of lust, made the heat inside me tighten and throb.

  He slid his hands up my naked back and unhooked the clasp of my bra, and I lifted my arms as if in a stupor so that he could get it off. Am I really doing this?! I’d never been naked outside, before and—

  The bra came off and I gasped. I could feel the breeze playing over my sensitive flesh, caressing it, my nipples rising and tightening. I inhaled, smelling the trees, the earth, the endless sky above. It felt so freeing….

  Then Cal hooked his thumbs in the waistband of my panties and slid them down my legs and off. As my legs rose to help him, I fell back...and then I was lying there on the ground, completely naked, feeling the outdoor air waft over every inch of my skin. I swallowed. It was heady, exciting, but I was more exposed than I’d ever been. I looked down at my curves uncertainly….

  Then I looked up and saw how he was looking at me, and any last-minute insecurities melted away. He was gazing down at me almost reverently as if I was some goddess of the forest he’d stumbled upon while hunting. Then, as his eyes swept down my body, his breathing changed and those blue eyes gleamed as if he couldn’t decide whether to worship me or ravish me.

  He sunk his fingers deep into my hair, fingering the strands, then cupped my cheek in his palm. His thumb brushed my lips and I panted against it. Then the hand was moving down: over my throat, over my collarbone...he cupped my breast. I gasped and my toes pressed against the moss as he rolled it in his palm and then began to stroke and knead, sending silver streamers of pleasure arcing down to my groin and making my hips rise and circle in time with what he was doing.

  He dipped his head and I cried out as my hard nipple was enveloped in heat and wetness, his tongue lashing over it and circling around and around. My heels braced against the ground and my back arched, my hands going up to grab his shoulders and then tangle in his hair. The feel of those rough, powerful fingers squeezing and rubbing was already driving me crazy and now each swipe of his tongue sent an extra pulse of hot pleasure straight to my core. I began to pant, grinding my hips together, needing him.

  He kept licking me, sucking more of my breast into his mouth, now, devouring me with lips and tongue as he growled low in his throat, a vibration that buzzed against my nipple. I could feel the tension in his hand as he fought to hold himself back, his touch becoming urgent and just the right kind of rough. Then suddenly, he couldn’t wait any longer to explore more of me. His hand slid down my body, over my stomach, and then outwards, over my hip and down my thigh. Then it twisted inward and I groaned as it slid edge-on between my knees and upward. The edge of his hand kissed up against the softness of my lips and rocked there, knobbly and perfect, sending a ripple of heat slamming through me. My thighs closed tight for a second in response, trapping his hand. Then, as they relaxed, he twisted his wrist and easily pushed my thighs apart.

  He cupped me there, fingers rubbing over lips that were already sticky and moist, and my breath caught. Without taking his mouth from my nipple, he looked up at me, watching my response as he plunged a thick finger up into me.

  I bucked and trembled, rolling my hips up to meet him and arching my back off the ground. The firm, hot lashing of his tongue across my nipple, the hard, knobbly slide of his finger inside me...the sensations raced through my body and met, becoming one continuous throb of pleasure. I let out a high little cry and twisted around the finger, drawing a low groan from him as my satiny walls caressed him. With my legs open, he’d had to switch to straddling one of them, and that meant that I could feel the outline of his cock, hot and hard and straining against his jeans.

  He finally lifted his mouth from my breast and the feel of the breeze on my spit-wet skin made me gasp. Then he was kissing me, hungry and quick, his tongue moving in the same rhythm as the finger in my pussy, and my body danced in response, my hands diving under his shirt to roam across his back and chest and my legs wrapping around his arm. The pleasure was twisting in on itself and building: tighter and tighter, hotter and hotter. I could feel myself slickly wet around his thrusting finger and I clawed at him, writhing, wanting him. When I couldn’t take it anymore, I broke the kiss, barely escaping his chasing lips. “C—Cal!” I managed, panting.

  He looked down at me, those cornflower-blue eyes hooded with lust. His finger slowed but still moved lazily inside me, throwing out pink blooms of pleasure edged in trembling silver each time it glided along my walls, its progress audible in the shudders of my breath. He knelt there, hulking over me, the hunter who’d captured his prey. The thought made me gulp and sent a dark spike of heat straight down to my core, boosting that needy ache even more. I stared up at him, pleading with my eyes. And he kissed my panting, desperate lips one last time and nodded.

  He got to his feet and stripped off his shirt and then the white t-shirt beneath. He kicked off his boots and shed his jeans and shorts in one go. And then he stood towering over me, naked. His body was bathed in moonlight, each hard edge gleaming silver, each massive, solid curve shining as if he was carved from iron. Free of his clothes, he looked even wilder, even more part of nature. The beard, the massive size of him, the huge pecs, and the brutal power contained in that chiseled six-pack: he was a wild man, a barbarian of the forest.

  He walked towards me and each heavy footstep vibrated through the ground, making me bite my lip. He was big, but viewed from down here, he was a giant. And lying at his feet, naked on the ground, I felt like some village maiden laid out for him as an offering. My groin twitched at the thought and my eyes went to his cock, the shining head of it slapping against his abs with each step.

  He knelt down, nudging my legs further apart, and I went weak. There was something about the size of him, the way the width of his hips forced me to open wider. He was gentle, kind...but physically, he was a beast. And now, with nothing holding him back, I was about to experience him unleashed.

  He lowered himself atop me until his chest just brushed my aching nipples. I felt the head of his cock nestle up against my slickened pussy lips. His forearms pressed into the ground on either side of my head and I swallowed, took a deep breath—

  He drove into me in one long thrust, his muscled ass flexing and pushing him deep, pressing me down into the earth. I cried out at how good it felt: that long silken push, the hot girth of him stretching me, and he let out a throaty groan at the feeling of filling me. His hips drew back and then he was lunging forward again, plunging even dee
per into me, making me gasp and tremble. He pulled back again and this time he pressed his elbows against the tops of my shoulders, holding me in place. Then he plunged into me again and I rolled my head back against the moss as he filled me completely.

  We lay there panting for a few seconds. Then his hips started to move again, a slow pumping that made me gasp and grab at the grass with both hands. Each inward stroke squeezed the glowing pleasure tighter, making it hotter and more needful. Each slow pull as he left me was a sweet ache that made my toes dance and my hips roll, urging him back.

  He was taking his weight on his forearms and knees, taking care not to crush me, but there was still something deliciously about feeling his weight on me, being pressed down into the ground by it. And the brute size of him as he rode me, his hips spreading my thighs wide apart, the huge hard curves of his pecs stroking against my breasts...the feeling of it as he slowly pumped me made me grind my ass in circles against the ground. And that in turn made him groan, and his slow pumping began to break down as he fought for control.

  He frowned down at me and that stern mouth twisted into a lopsided grin. Devilwoman! What are you doing to me? And I flushed and smiled, embarrassed but delighted that I could do that to him. And did it some more.

  Cal growled like, well, fine, if that’s what you want. And he gave up on his slow rhythm and just fucked me. His cock pistoned into me, unstoppable, and I cried out and grabbed at his ass, running my hands over it. I could feel the hard smoothness of it, the dimples as it flexed, powering him into me. Thrust after thrust, compressing the pleasure inside me faster than I could release it, pushing me towards the brink.