High Risk

by Vivian Arend

  “Hmm, that feels good.” She undulated over him, her sex wrapping around the ridge of his erection. The motion brought the tip of his cock closer and closer to slipping between the soft folds of her body. It felt damn amazing, but he wanted more.

  “You don’t think we’ve had enough wet sex for one day?”

  Becki rose until her breasts were level with his mouth. “I suppose we could try the bed. It was looking very lonely.”

  “You’re not a very good hot tub soaker. We’ve been in for what? All of ten minutes?”

  “Better things to do with life than sit.”

  He could agree with that, especially with the bounty of distraction before him. She sighed happily as he took one nipple into his mouth, playing with the other side, his tongue and fingers working to flick the tiny loops rhythmically. It still blew his mind that she was pierced.

  She pressed her mound against his torso harder, rubbing and pulsing back and forth, and he smiled.

  “You haven’t gotten any shyer over the years,” he noted.

  “You disappointed?”

  “Hell, no. I loved how you were so eager to try everything back then. How you have no troubles telling me what you need right now.”

  He slid his fingers down her belly and through her folds, keeping going until he could press a finger deep into her core.

  “Oh God, yes. That feels wonderful. Sex is fun—it feels good. Why should I be quiet about what I need?” She shuddered as he pinched her clit, shaking the clit bar with his thumb even as he kept rubbing.

  He watched her face, checking to see when she needed more, what she needed. Harder, softer. When he added a finger and she melted around him, he nodded with approval.

  “No reason at all. Ask for what you want, but what I want is to give you what you need before you even get a chance to ask.”

  He lifted her on his hand until he could catch hold of her breast in his teeth. When he bit down and nipped, she cried out, another orgasm taking her as she writhed over his fingers, hips thrusting as if to keep him where he was.

  He wasn’t going anywhere. At least, not anywhere that didn’t involve her coming along.

  * * *

  She’d never been carried so often in her life. There was the rescue the other day, and a couple of times this evening, including now as Marcus plucked her from the water while she was still boneless from her climax. Becki was used to hauling herself everywhere, but this luxury, if she was honest, was kind of nice. It was so very decadent to be carefully laid on the bed, helpless to do anything but accept his touch as he proceeded to dry every inch of her.

  She was in heaven. It took him a long time as he intermingled the caress of the tufted cotton with kisses and small intimate touches. Tiny bites to her inner thighs as he smoothed the towel over her legs. He rubbed her breasts delicately, then kept on rubbing, alternating with soft wet suckles until her nipples were tingling and tight.

  One caress after another followed until she was squirming on the mattress, needing more. Needing something other than to lie there and allow him to drive her higher and higher without a safety rope.

  When he moved over her, his hard muscular body forming a cage around her, she had to gasp for air before she could speak. “You want me to dry you off now?”

  He bumped her thighs with his knees, his weight on his elbows. “I want you to get me wetter.”

  The fat head of his cock nudged her sex, slipping through her folds as he rocked his hips. He paused, the tip spreading her, bare skin to bare skin.

  Becki dragged her legs wider apart even as she teased, “You are insatiable.”

  “Yes?”

  Becki opened her mouth to answer, but her face must have already given the go-ahead. Marcus pressed in all the way to the root in one shot, his cock filling her deep.

  She rolled her hips under him, adjusting to his girth. “Oh God, yes.”

  He didn’t move, just stayed in one place, and with every second that passed he seemed to grow larger. Thicker. Becki squeezed her internal muscles, lifting her legs to wrap them around his waist. The adjustment in position changed the angle of his entry, and she moaned.

  Still he didn’t move. Just stared at her, that wicked expression making all sorts of additional pleasures race over her skin.

  She rocked upward, using her legs to try to work herself on his cock.

  “Frustrated?” he asked.

  “Yes,” she snapped. “Move, dammit. I thought you were going to anticipate what I wanted.”

  “I am.”

  Marcus lowered himself until not only his cock spearing into her sex held her pinned in place, but his torso as well. His body wasn’t heavy enough to make her uncomfortable, but it effectively stopped her from moving anything.

  Except her internal muscles, which she used as unmercifully as possible. Squeezing, clenching tight around his cock. Doing everything she could to get him to react.

  The only response seemed to be the gathering storm in her core. God, she was going to come like this—nothing touching her clit, no outside stimulation but that thick unmoving pressure and the wicked knowledge that it was his cock filling her.

  Words whispered past her ear, chocolaty smooth, dark and even. “Grab the headboard.”

  Anything to get him to actually move. Becki reached overhead, tilting back to look for something to clasp. Perfect vertical bars waited—the solid sections of tree limbs that made up the headboard the right size to wrap her fingers around and hold on tight.

  He took advantage of her slightly arched position, wetness closing over her breast as he sucked hard on one nipple. The sensitive tip stung as he tugged, electric pulses zinging through to her sex.

  “Marcus, please,” she begged.

  “Please what?” He caught her earlobe in his teeth and bit lightly seconds before licking the sensitive spot behind her ear, still not moving from his position as he put his lips to her skin.

  She wasn’t sure what she wanted. For him to go fast and drive her over quickly as he had in the shower, or to keep torturing her. Her mind had turned into a pile of mush, and sensory overload strummed along her nerves.

  “Let your legs down, Becki. Open yourself to me.”

  Releasing her grip and pulling her knees farther to the side made his cock all the more apparent. He pulled back, and she felt every single inch, as if her insides had grown hypersensitive while waiting for him to move. The flared head of his shaft slipped free of her pussy so gradually she had ample time to enjoy the tease.

  Hands wrapped into wood-filled fists, she stretched under him and anticipated.

  Slowly again he filled her, exquisitely slow. Stretching, running over sensitive nerves, driving her upward. Less of a powering forward, more a deliberate joining together, followed by a retreat. There was nowhere for her to go, nothing for her to do but accept his cock possessing her body again and again.

  She closed her eyes as he paused, the tip of his cock taunting her. Rocking in and out until she gasped, so hair-triggered she was ready to break with one more surge.

  “Becki.” A whisper-soft kiss pressed against her lips. “Is it good?”

  “Oh, yes.”

  “You ready?”

  She squeezed tight, holding on to what little control she still had. Stretched out, nothing but him over her, and she was ready to explode.

  He thrust. Hard. Fully burying himself in one motion. Her breath escaped in a gasp, forced from her lungs. She had no time to inhale before he pulled out and plunged in again. One after another his thrusts possessed her. Pushing into her like he was claiming her. Becki clung to the headboard for dear life, her body rocking with the power of his drives. He wasn’t delicate as he took her to the limit. Thrusting again. Again. Until everything tightened and she screamed, her pussy wrapping around him and trying to hold him in place as her orgasm raged.

  He pressed her thigh to the side and changed the angle, completing three more strokes, each one as urgent as the ones that had come befor
e. He froze deep in her body as he came. Shoulders tight, muscles clenched as his cock jerked within her.

  Becki lay there and savoured it all—the rush of blood through her veins, the lingering aftershocks as her sex reacted to the slightest change in his position, the slick of sweat on both their bodies as he moved over her, his breath fanning past her cheek.

  He kissed her. “Sleep. I don’t want to move yet, so tell me you’ll sleep and let me take care of you.”

  His cock still stretched her, the sensation strangely comforting. To have him touching her so intimately was like an anchor. After her long sexual hiatus she should have felt sorer, but there was nothing filtering through her but deep contentment. Adding all the orgasms she’d experienced that day to the fatigue caused by the past night’s restlessness, exhaustion hovered.

  “I could sleep. You don’t mind if I snore, do you?” The words trickled out like a slumberous yawn.

  The soft rumble of his laughter wrapped her as tightly as his body. “Sleep. I’ve got you.”

  I’ve got you. The words echoed in her mind. How many times had she heard that phrase? How often had she said it herself? At the climbing wall. During years of working ropes. A simple expression, but one that meant so much more than it seemed on the surface. There had to be trust involved—complete trust. I’ve got you wasn’t just a nice sentiment, it was life and death in her world.

  The fact that she trusted Marcus to the full extent of the meaning made something inside her glow a little warmer.

  CHAPTER 19

  Icy cold fingers trickled along the back of her neck. She opened her eyes to see the cliff face slowly rotate past a few feet away from her as she dangled on the end of a rope. Everything else remained shrouded behind a veil of cloud. She stretched out a hand to stop herself from spinning, bloody knuckles shaking as she tried to touch the rock. It remained out of reach. Too far for her arms to span.

  How long had she hung there?

  She clutched the rope and peered below her, still revolving in circles as the wind caught her. Zero visibility. Two feet below her to safety, or a death drop?

  * * *

  Becki sat up with a gasp, heart pumping wildly.

  Marcus pressed his arm around her farther as he sat as well, naked chest warming her back. He surrounded her as he made soft shushing noises, rubbing his chin against her shoulder. “It’s okay. I’ve got you.”

  She rotated in his arms, not caring that she was being a total wimp. Every inch of her was cold with dread, and she buried her face against his neck, hiding in his arms.

  He wiggled upright and pulled her into his lap, leaning them both on the headboard as he stroked her hair. “I got you,” he repeated. “You’re safe.”

  She drew a shaky breath. “Nightmare.”

  “I figured. No worries.”

  He kept touching her, dragging his hand through her hair, his left arm wrapped around her as far as it would go. She was plastered skin to skin with him, and it was barely enough. His heat remained a faint whisper—barely making a cut into the frigid stench of her fear.

  Take back control. Refuse to give up. I am the master of my soul. . . .

  She forced out the words, fighting to find something to focus on other than her fright. “If I shake much harder, you can pretend this is one of those vibrating beds they show in cheap B movie hotel rooms.”

  Marcus tucked his fingers under her chin, tilting her head back far enough so he could press a kiss to her forehead. “Do those things exist anymore?”

  He knew what she was doing, or he was at least willing to play along. “I don’t know why. Can’t imagine they add anything to the experience more than what you bring.”

  “Flattery will get you everything,” he promised. “You want a drink?”

  She nodded. Staying in bed was out. She itched to run. To do something to wear herself out until the nightmares stayed away.

  They separated, crawling off the mattress. Marcus handed her a robe, his dark gaze meeting hers until she looked away, too ashamed of bringing her fears into their situation. It was too soon for this to be considered a relationship, and she’d already tossed a great big enormous wrench into the works.

  Go her.

  He dragged on a pair of sweatpants, then held out his hand. It might have been pathetic, but she accepted his clasp like a lifeline, linking her fingers with his and holding on as they walked back through the dimly lit rooms to the kitchen.

  “Tea? Something stronger?”

  She shook her head. “Tea is enough.”

  She sat on one of the tall bar stools at the breakfast counter while he filled the kettle, a thought nagging her.

  “It was different.”

  He turned back to her. “What’s that?”

  “The dream. It wasn’t the same one that’s been kicking my butt all week.”

  “That’s . . . good. I suppose. Still sounds as if it wasn’t pleasant.”

  “It wasn’t, but at least maybe the skipping memories will stop. They might move ahead now.” She could handle being terrified if she got to the truth.

  Marcus leaned forward, resting on his elbows as he faced her. The counter separated them, but with him staring so intently, his presence still held her surrounded. “You’ll get there. It will come back. In the meantime, you need to sleep. You can’t keep going on an empty tank.”

  “I don’t want to take drugs.” She shivered and wrapped the soft fabric closer around her shoulders. “I did eight weeks of treatment after the accident, and I hated the side effects.”

  Marcus nodded. He squeezed her fingers for a second before turning to the cupboards, looking for something. “I hear you. I cut out of my therapies well before they said I was supposed to. Typical of our kind of minds—too stubborn to simply accept the traditional therapies.”

  Watching him move around the kitchen was distracting if nothing else, his naked upper body highlighted in the dim lights he’d clicked on in the hall. The resulting shadows and faint glow only highlighted his muscles as he dropped loose leaf tea into a pot, reaching back into the upper shelves to bring out cups. His sweatpants sat low on his hips. Bands of muscle wrapped around his waist, his abdomen flexing as he moved.

  He used his left arm as much as his right, comfortably holding items to his body, or clasping the tea jar in the crook of his elbow. For the fiddly work he used his right hand, but other than that, he seemed unaware of the missing portion of his arm.

  She’d been oblivious last night. Never once during sex had it registered.

  “You’re staring,” he noted. “Do I have something stuck on me I can’t see?”

  “I was looking at your arm,” she confessed.

  Marcus pushed the teapot to the side and walked around the counter. “Took you long enough.”

  He lifted his arm toward her, as he had when she’d checked out his climbing prosthesis. Only now there was his arm and the stump end, nothing covering it. Becki looked up at his face as she laid her hand on his elbow and pressed it down. “I was just noticing you don’t allow it to stop you.”

  “Oh God, don’t start that.” He lifted his arm again, nudging her with it until she grabbed on. “I don’t have fingers. I can’t reach out the same way I used to. It’s a royal pain in the ass at times, but mostly it just is. There’s nothing to be admired. I’d prefer you were drooling over my sexual prowess or something I have more control over.”

  Becki touched him, wrapping her fingers around his bicep even as she smiled. “Well, there is that as well. Yes, on a scale of one to ten, I admire your cock a whole lot more than your arm.”

  He laughed.

  She ran her fingers over the four inches or so that remained of his forearm. The dusting of hair was dark against his light tan, the skin smooth. Muscles and tendons flexed under her touch as she worked her way lower until she cupped the end. There the skin was rougher, slightly rumpled in spots.

  Marcus shivered.

  She jerked her hand away. “Does it hurt
?”

  “You’re tickling me,” he teased. “Let me grab our tea.”

  Becki let him go. He might not want to be admired, but she still did because he had done what she wanted to do. Gone on living. Put his energies into a new direction.

  Marcus pressed a cup against her fingers before jerking his head toward the living room. “Come on, curl up on the couch and we’ll get cozy until the tea kicks in.”

  “You giving me some patented home remedy?”

  “Herbal. Yeah, it’s one of those ‘calms you down, makes you drowsy’ natural Chinese blends.”

  He sat first, and she unashamedly crawled right back into his lap as she’d done when she’d woken up. Marcus didn’t say anything at first, just sipped his tea and held her close.

  Marcus spoke quietly. “I think it freaks people out.”

  “Your arm?”

  He paused. “You know, it’s more like they can’t understand why I’m not making a bigger deal of it. Like I’m supposed to be all emo and pissed that I lost a limb. Fuck it—I’d take my life over my hand any day, and that’s about what it came down to. People don’t know the big picture, though. They see what they see, and expectations and assumptions creep in.”

  “If you’re handicapped you’re supposed to be a victim, you know.”

  “Right,” he drawled, “or admired for doing what simply isn’t a big deal. People need to get real. If we’re honest, everyone deals with physical limitations of some sort, whether they’re too short to reach into high cupboards, or too out of shape to run for the bus. It’s the mental stuff that takes more effort. Takes incredible bravery.”

  She fought to keep from whimpering. “I don’t feel very brave at the moment.”

  “Oh, Becki. I know.” He put down his drink, rubbing her back gently as she clung to him. His voice carried to her ears, a low whisper, yet full of conviction. “Listen to me. Trust me. You have more than enough courage to face this valley and, in time, climb out the other side.”