At the same time, I didn’t want it like this. Not some quick thing against a tree with our shorts unzipped. I was in the woods with a werewolf in the middle of a sizzling afternoon, with only my own house in view. The thrill, intoxicating buzz of the moment, fever with him, already feeling so connected, made a mockery of anything short of giving the moment full honor.
Gideon’s hands were under my shirt, trying to push up, going to tear the cotton, it was so pinned against the tree.
I pushed him, almost having to use magic just to get him to take one step back and let me move. As soon as I could, I pulled up the shirt. Up and off and scramble with the bra. Gideon helped, then pulled off his own shirt.
He slid down my shorts and underwear, me lifting one foot, then the other, leaning to the tree for balance with my naked back. I faced him in nothing but a bracelet and the sneakers with ankle socks—which felt dopey but saved my tender feet.
When Gideon had to bend to get everything off, with my final lift of a foot, he pressed his nose between my legs. I was shocked without the preamble of a line of kisses or anything like that, breaths choking and skin trickling with even more sweat.
He burrowed in, tongue stretching to taste me. My right foot was still off the ground, so I raised my knee out to the side, tucking my leg back against the tree while I gripped the trunk behind me. Hitting his knees, Gideon moved in tighter, his hands going to his own fly. He tasted me, trying to reach in. Again, I felt feverish, blood beating in my ears like leaping flames.
I moaned while he touched me, kissed down my thighs, then rushed to stand and free his own shorts. His erection sprang at me as he stripped, boo! As if ready to come right off his body to have me. In a flash, he was naked, touching me again, kissing my breasts, stroking my wet skin. His muscles rippled and shifted with each captivating motion, drawing the eye to compete with the biggest hard-on I’d ever seen in real life. In proportion and all, not freakish, but … damn. I’d never had anything that size.
I thought fleetingly of a condom, adding yet another layer of bulk, no matter how thin. Then I remembered Vel’s snide remark. Gideon also showed no concern for such a thing. I didn’t bring it up. He could have me like that. Hint of fear or no, the desire was stronger than any concern behind it. I wanted him just like that. As much of him as I could take.
34
He increased pressure along my body, pinning me against the tree. His naked erection rubbed between my legs, then up my belly, seeking more, like his hands and mouth, touching and tasting as if famished. I was equally starved for him.
I eased higher on my toes on tree roots. With Gideon bending his knees he was able to push up between my legs. Once more, I moved a knee out while Gideon reached to guide himself. I bit my lip, holding my breath for a second on unwanted nerves while he pushed. His glans split into me. Gideon moaned at the same time I sucked in a breath. He rocked himself forward, his swollen dick curving up to press a couple inches inside me.
“Oh—” I let out a squeak.
Gideon covered my mouth with his.
I gasped, having to pull away to breathe. Then our eyes locked, nose-to-nose. He didn’t blink as he pushed in deeper, eased down, then pushed again, thrusting a couple of inches. I got my breath back, wrapped my arms around his neck, and held on while Gideon slowly felt farther into me, eyes never leaving mine.
I was shivering—the intensity of this eye contact while we merged together making me almost lightheaded. I brought my hands to his face, feeling up into his hair, then down until he caught my fingers in his lips and sucked them, pushing deeper, still watching my eyes.
The angle, how he touched me, the whole situation, even the way he looked at me, all left me with a high so intense I was the one who only went a couple minutes this time. Such a thing had never happened to me; losing myself on power of physical and emotional contact he offered, while Gideon only smiled at me, like he’d known all along he could push me over while he was still only playing.
I couldn’t keep looking at him then, clinging to his neck, crying out against his damp skin in this crazy rush. I loved how he smelled—not even sure what it was. He smelled like camping in the mountains. Like wood smoke and pine trees and wild animals. Yet … that wasn’t it. Something even more and better, something that, like the rest of him, left me too intoxicated to think straight or figure out.
He gave me a minute, still holding me into the tree while I was supporting little of my own weight, knees shaking, aching to lie down. Something tickled my skin—ants or ticks or something else off the tree. I didn’t even look. Gideon brushed it away. He kissed my lips and I opened my mouth. He thrust and I arched my hips out toward him.
I was an overgrown rag-doll, pliant in his hands, barely keeping on my own feet, as Gideon pulled me to him, away from the maple. Sun dapples through shade of the canopies left his hair and shoulders sparkling, prickling with hints of flame in a shaded but burning wood. I longed to lie on the ground with him, feel the long grasses and rough, dry earth on my skin, watch ants run over my arm, the sun skip along my breasts, gleaming from sweat and my lover’s saliva, merging into this place with my wolf mate, wild together.
Gideon wouldn’t let me lie down, although I melted against him. He turned my hips, kissing my neck, through hair stuck to my skin with sweat. I lost him as he moved me, his dick pulling back and leaving me missing him, anticipating more.
We sank to our knees at the same time I turned my back to him, all with Gideon’s hands and body guiding me. His wet erection rubbed my ass as he kept close. I held the trunk, body arched out to him, while Gideon reached around to stroke my breasts and down my stomach with fingertips, making me shudder and pant all over again. There was more urgency now in how he worked himself into me. I couldn’t help crying out—achy, if not a sharp pain—when he first pushed in as far as he could. Gideon stayed slow for a minute, letting me feel him, every detail, sinking into a rhythm with his motions and my breaths.
I moved my forehead from the tree, shifting so one shoulder leaned into the bark instead, taking force of the thrusts, weirdly dazed and blinking beyond the side. The light was too bright out there. The patchy green and brown, mostly dormant lawn, reached to a wild garden, then old rail fence and hayfield running behind with these woods alongside.
Adam stood at the corner of the deer-fence around the vegetable garden, watching us, red shirt as bright as a stop-sign on a sand dune.
I shut my stinging eyes again, ducking my chin while the light still echoed painfully against the backs of my lids.
Gideon moved faster and faster, building up while I returned there with him. Sweat trickled down my arms and abdomen while I, no fan of Georgia summers, loved it, ready to take anything from him and more.
I followed him in a second orgasm, just as full as the first, when Gideon came. He gasped and called me that name he had once before, kaulra, and said I was his mate, while he lost himself inside me.
I didn’t open my eyes until my own rush was fading, Gideon still rocking against me, stroking down the sweat beaded on my back. My left hand went to dry grass at the base of the tree, right shoulder against the trunk, leaning in. I breathed through my mouth, hair falling limp and damp around my face. Prompted by the red strands, I found an easy mental picture of my blood at a simmer through my veins—so damn hot.
Adam was there beside me, on hands and knees as he crept over, having shed his clothes. I thought he was meaning to be ingratiating to Gideon, wait for him to move back, but he ignored Gideon. He inched to me while I tried to catch my breath. When he lightly kissed my lips, I hardly responded, unable to think about him just then.
Gideon pulled out and I eased back, missing the support of him, while my inner thighs became even more wet. I also moved back from the tree. I could lie there with him, where Gideon was stretching on his side on the shady earth, again smiling at me. I started to move toward him, returning it, but Adam was there at my shoulder.
I wanted to tuck hair behin
d my ear, yet a single rubbery elbow didn’t seem enough support. I just rested there on hands and knees, pulling in deep breaths of sauna air, while Adam kissed the point of my shoulder and stroked down my back with a light caress.
Below neat indentations outlining his abs, his dick stood out like a tree branch, reaching for me. He moved a bit closer on his knees to kiss between my shoulder blades, then left his nose at the back of my neck for a long, slow inhale of my skin—much like a dog or wolf will do with a female. Sniff at her withers, check her out while he wags his tail. Is she ready? Will she bite his head off, or hold her tail aside?
I almost laughed at him—feeling tipsy. Instead, I arched my back a little, blinking against sweat and surprised he still ignored Gideon. Adam accepted the invitation for another touch. It seemed Gideon’s opinion wasn’t relevant. If I would have him, that was all that mattered to Adam. I’ve always liked wolves.
I shut my eyes, shivering as he licked sweat down my spine.
His hard-on rubbed my thigh when he moved around me on his knees. He stroked his hands down my ribs, into the curve of my waist and onto my hipbones. Here, he held on, grasping my hips with his hands rather than whole arms like the furry version. When he pulled me back, I let myself lean into him.
There was only a second when I felt the swollen glans rub my skin, seeking me. He knew exactly where he wanted to be. In the next breath, his tip pushed into the hot, wet pressure he craved, all the hotter and wetter from Gideon’s passage. Adam let out a sharp breath as he shoved—all the way in one, clamping us together. Suddenness of his own pleasure seemed to take him by surprise just as it did me. He scrambled to move in closer on his knees, bury himself to his balls in another second—push, groan, and fill me. Then he was thrusting like the real deal, wild and primal, joining with his mate and pounding into me so fast I’d have been flat on the ground, sturdy as I am, if he hadn’t been gripping my hips like a vice—as if I might escape him. Instead of any escape, he clung to me, pounding in fevered, animal thrusts while he panted and made slight whimpering sounds, totally focused on his metaphorical objective of offspring.
I felt him coming, shuddering against me and still thrusting as fast, begging with his body for me to join him. This orgasm was a quick wash of pleasure, the end of the line just then, offering a brief high while he clung to his, slowing his motions, stopping, then pushing again, and finally holding himself into me to kiss my neck and back, leaning weight on me, newly loose and relaxing the death grip on my hips.
He kept gently rocking, staying with me while Gideon rolled over on his back to kiss me from below, holding my face, licking my lips, until Adam’s loss of an erection finally made him slide out.
Hot liquid flowing along the insides of my thighs while Adam licked down to the base of my spine hardly felt hot in the environment. At last, he rolled over like Gideon, turning on his side by the tree, pulling so I lay down with my back to him while I faced Gideon on the wild grass.
Gideon propped on an elbow, pushing back my tangled, sweaty hair, kissing my brow, my lips and eyelids. All the while Adam kissed my neck, his arm around me, one thumb rubbing my left nipple, savoring long, full inhales, drawing in the taste and smell of me.
Gideon eased back so he could look at me. I tried to watch him, the fingers of my left hand laced through his right. Gideon was smiling; a gentle, drunken expression as he must be marveling at tiny pops of sun glinting off my skin the way I did with him. I could have looked at them forever, their bodies, their wildness in this bright, wild world. Instead, I somehow contrived to fall asleep in Adam’s arms.
35
“Ripley!”
I jumped, fear jolting down my spine.
Gideon was there, lying in front of me, squeezing my hand.
“Ripley! Gideon? Adam?” The voice was a little distance away.
The instant I remembered where I was, I knew where it was.
Wade was calling from the back door. He’d returned, come in through the unlocked door, seen my car was here, but couldn’t find me. Cause for concern given recent events.
I heard the back door close. He was going to have a look around the house again, or out front, or maybe try scrying for me. God, he’d said he wasn’t a good scry but, all at once, I didn’t want to take chances.
I scrambled up, startled and more than a little irritated that neither Gideon nor Adam, dozing against me, seemed interested in the summons, much less hopping to action. I felt like snapping my fingers in their faces. Did they want to be seen like this?
Actually … maybe they did. I was the one who’d just had a cautionary conversation with my other new boyfriend about them. Not the other way around. They didn’t care who knew. And apparently didn’t care about a relationship being plural.
Well … screw caution around wolves. I wasn’t going to turn my back on these guys just because they were another species—which seemed essentially human much of the time. And Wade wasn’t the boss of me, and we weren’t exclusive or anything, and none of that explained why I was feeling so guilty as I rushed around, scrambling to find my clothes off the ground, vaguely panicked that Wade might come out here. Also guilty that we’d totally blown a couple hours doing nothing at all and now were leaving him worried to boot.
The sun was getting rather low. Not like I’d just shut my eyes for a second.
Adam stretched, grinning at me. His elbows popped as he laced his fingers together to stretch over his head. Gideon was slightly more sensitive, moving to grab his own clothes while I speed-dressed, and at least not smirking about it, even if in no hurry.
I knocked a tick out of my hair and pulled on my bra. Another shower. Dammit, how many did I need in twenty-four hours?
“We’re out here, Wade,” I called while I tugged on my T-shirt and jogged across the yard at the same time.
“Wade?” As I pushed open the back door. “We were out back.”
Steps jogged down the stairs. “Ripley? Is everything okay?”
“Totally fine. One of the cats got out and we had to catch him and then we were … out there. Didn’t mean to worry you.”
He hurried down the hall. “As long as you’re okay.” He looked so scared, I should hug him and be a better and nicer and more responsible person. I couldn’t. So sticky, embarrassed, and sure there were more ticks on me, I caved to my first impulse to brush past him.
“Sorry. I feel like a spitball after being out there. Just a quick shower and we’ll go over that diary if you’re ready? You okay? Got an overnight bag from home?” All this as I rushed to the stairs, calling back to him.
“Yeah, great. What’s wrong?” Following me at a slower pace but still alarmed. “Did something happen?”
“No—no more interference. We just need to figure out tonight.” I was halfway up the stairs, Wade having stopped in the hall, letting me flee, when I ran back down.
“Okay,” I snapped, rounding the newel post at the bottom to face him. “I was kind of … uh … making out with Gideon and Adam in the woods after we got Blue back inside.”
Wade’s eyebrows jumped, opening his mouth, but I plowed on.
“I know, that’s probably a bad idea and my judgement hasn’t been tops for the last couple weeks and I’m being stupid. You know that, and I know that. I’m sorry because I don’t want it to be, like … between us. I care about you. You know I do. I’m just kind of… Right now is not… And now I have ticks in my hair and I’ve got to jump in the shower. I’ll be right back. Sorry…”
Again, I fled, feeling slightly better and mostly worse.
36
We gathered in the family room with the book, Wade reading with notes and tips from Adam.
The moment was … awkward. But not for long as we were distracted. Because the first thing Wade revealed, that no one had bothered to tell me as they’d been sorting this thing out, was that the diary wasn’t written by a Confederate soldier of the Civil War. It had been written by a young lady of high social standing in Midway Ci
ty in the middle of the 1800s. It had been written by Claribel.
Wade read parts aloud and pieced together others with a summary as best he could figure out. I was impressed by both of them. This, however, was not the overriding emotion by the time we were halfway through the slim volume. It was fury.
Claribel recounted tiny snatches of day-to-day activities. Something the pastor said, or her father did, or the name she chose for her new riding horse. Some years there were only a couple of entries. Despite the small size, the whole thing actually spanned over a decade, Wade said. There was very little during the war years. She did mention, however, soldiers coming through town and billeting there, how many local “boys” had joined the ranks, how her father was away serving as an officer despite his age, how all the family’s horses had gone to the army and the fight against the Union.
“I met a charming boy who walked with me and Emmy as chaperone this evening by the lake. I pray I brightened his day before he must face the cannons, although I daresay he will not recall my name tomorrow. I have already forgotten his. More mushroom soup tomorrow. What would I not give for a single frying chicken?”
That entry sparked my first bubble of anger. It was him, had to be him, yet she had made him no promise. By the time she had penned a journal entry, she could not remember him and longed more for fried chicken than to see his face.
Then brief accounts of her long stay away, a year or more south, having fled Midway City. Finally, she was back home, her father having been killed and brother now owning the house, though he was a grown man living in another place and she lived as the lady of the house with only a few servants to run the place. I hoped they were servants by then, and not enslaved. I wasn’t all clear on my Civil War timeline, nor the exact date when she returned home.
House of Chaos Page 13
