by Ana Meadows
She opened her eyes just a slit and peeked out. She saw the big tan wolf with its jaws clamped onto the skin at the side of the bear’s neck. The bear was tossing her head to and fro, trying to get him off. The wolf was huge himself though, and his powerful jaws weren’t giving in. After a brief tussle, the bear finally threw the wolf off, or he released his hold, Raine wasn’t sure which. She then ran on all fours towards her cubs and the bear family scurried away. Raine was watching all of this with both a sense of awe and foreboding. She turned back towards the wolf, just as it came up to her and looked directly in its eyes. If it stood up on its hind legs she guessed he would be nearly six foot tall at least. Raine was overwhelmed suddenly by feelings of comfort. It was strange; she knew she should be afraid of this wild animal that could end her life with a single bite. He likely only saved her from the bear so that he could have her for his own dinner, but she wasn’t afraid. She felt comfortable with him, and warm inside. Something about his eyes told her that everything was going to be okay.
The wolf turned as she watched it and disappeared behind a large clump of trees. Raine’s head was feeling light and she was wondering how she was going to get back to town on her injured leg. She speculated that if she had to stay out here all night and got eaten by something, if Jack would even look for her. She tried to stand up, and the surge of pain overwhelmed her. As she passed out, she would have sworn that she felt a pair of strong human arms encompass her and lift her off the ground.
Chapter Five
Raine woke up to familiar smells. She had been dreaming that she was home, in her studio in Los Angeles. She could smell the acrylic paints and the charcoals, and even the blank canvas that awaited her brush strokes. One of her favorite things about her studio was the way that it smelled. She opened her eyes and looked around. She was in a studio, but it wasn’t her own. It was filled with bright canvas paintings of wildlife and Native Americans dressed in colorful traditional garb. She tried to move then and realized that she couldn’t. She looked down at her leg and saw that it was strapped to some kind of cot that she was lying on and it was wrapped in gauze. She could smell something besides the tools in the studio. She smelled some kind of herbal scent as well. It was pleasing and relaxing. She was still groggy and wanted to close her eyes again. She fought it, telling herself that Jack must be frantic by now and she had to get back to town. Sleep was calling to her though, begging her to close her eyes. She almost did when a man stepped into her view. It was Jacy. He was the one who gave her the feelings that she shouldn’t have and didn’t understand. Suddenly she had once again forgotten all about Jack.
“What happened? Where am I?” she asked.
“You sprained your ankle and twisted your knee. You also have a nasty cut from the bear’s claws. Do you remember any of that?”
She thought about it. Her head ached, “I remember taking pictures…then I saw the bear cubs, and their mother was right behind me. Then there was a wolf…a big wolf. It saved me…I think.”
Jacy nodded, “I’ll take you back into town as soon as you’re okay to ride on the bike. You may need to stay here tonight. In the future though you might not want to mess with a mama bear’s cubs.”
Raine’s head wasn’t working well yet, otherwise she may have wondered how he knew so much about what happened to her. Instead she thought about Jack. She at least owed it to him to think about him, but she had to wonder if he was thinking about her. Would he be worried? She wasn’t even sure.
“What is this place?” she asked Jacy.
“It’s my studio,” he said, softly.
Raine smiled. Maybe that was the connection that she felt so strongly. “Are you an artist?” she asked him.
“Yes, I paint landscapes and wildlife. I also do a lot of tribal symbols. It helps bring in a little money for my family. Not much though.”
“I’m an artist too,” she said. “So I definitely understand the “not much” part. I’m a photorealist, mostly. I create things from photographs, or at least I try to. That’s what I was doing today…taking pictures.” She suddenly remembered all of the “No Trespassing” signs and said, “I’m sorry I was on your land without permission.”
Jacy grinned and said, “Well, I would call the sheriff, but it seems you’ve been punished enough. The bear was on patrol.”
Raine smiled back at him. She couldn’t help herself, his smile was infectious. He was about six three or four and like she had noticed the first time she saw him, his eyelashes were incredibly long both on top of his lids and on the bottom. It gave his dark brown eyes a sexy, smoldering look. His lips were full and dark red against his light brown skin. His hair hung just below his ears with no real style to it, but the dark, glossiness of it made up for all the rest. Raine was almost physically compelled to touch it and see if it was as soft as it looked. His body was perfect as far as she could see. He almost looked like he had been sculpted from brown clay and wondered if he worked out a lot. Then she looked around the room once more and remembered that she wasn’t in L.A., and things were a lot different here. His muscles likely came from the things he did day to day, not from a weight bench.
Jacy sat down in a chair next to her bed. He smelled like the woods, natural but pleasing. “What is that herbal smell?” she asked him.
“It’s a poultice I made for your leg. My grandmother is a shaman; she taught me a lot of her tricks.”
“Aren’t shaman magical or something?” He grinned again and she felt foolish for asking.
“They’re kind of like a combo doctor/priest. They heal by ways of things like potions and poultices as well as communing with the spiritual world.”
“I’m sorry. I don’t mean to sound ignorant,” she mummered.
“You don’t,” he responded. “There’s no shame in not knowing or understanding something. The shame comes in closing your mind to things you don’t know or understand. That’s where you start running into things like hate and racism. Ask all the questions you like.”
“Do you like it up here?” Raine asked him, “Away from town and people?”
He grinned again. “We have people here too,” he told her. “But yes, I like it here. I don’t care for large crowds of people. I prefer animals. Speaking of, can I see your pictures?”
“Sure, where’s my camera?” Jacy picked it up off the floor next to her bed and handed it to her. She flipped through a few she had taken of the mansion and when she came to the ones along the river she leaned in his direction and started showing them to him. As he rested his arm on the bed rail, it brushed against hers and sent a thrill of electricity down her spine and throughout parts of her body that she told herself shouldn’t be feeling thrills because of anyone except Jack.
“I like that one,” Jacy told her. It was the photograph of the wolves she had taken not long before the bear attack.
“Me too,” she agreed. She pointed at the tan wolf and said, “I think this is the one who saved me. Is that normal?”
Jacy looked down at her and she was suddenly envisioning his full lips descending down over hers. She could feel tingling in her nipples and wetness spreading between her legs. She wondered what was going on with her, she had honestly never felt this way about anyone, except Jack.
“It’s not the norm, no,” he told her. “Wolves, as bad as their reputation may be, aren’t all that different from us. They seem to know good from evil and right from wrong. I think you got lucky though.”
She was still staring at his face. His lips to be precise. Getting lucky was most definitely what she was thinking about, right or wrong. She could feel her breath becoming ragged and she thought that she could see the difference in the way his chest rose and fell as well. Or maybe it’s my imagination? She thought, right before he did lower his head and press those soft, sexy lips to hers. Raine didn’t even pretend it wasn’t what she wanted. She parted her lips and allowed his tongue to find its way into the warm cavern of her mouth. His kiss was like nothing she had ever felt befo
re. He seemed to be almost in a frenzy, licking and sucking on her lips and then once again plunging his tongue deep inside her mouth. Raine didn’t have the presence of mind to remember, or care that she barely knew more about this man than his name. All she knew was that she wanted him like she had wanted nothing or no one before in her life. He leaned down and scooped her up in his arms as they kissed and carried her to a small room in the back where there was a real bed. Lying her down on top of it, he asked in a lowly tone, “Do you want me to stop?”
There was a rational part still operating somewhere in her brain screaming at her to say, “Yes! Stop!” But, in a shaky voice Raine voiced what her heart felt, “No, please don’t stop.” With that, Jacy began to strip off his clothes. As Raine watched, his glorious body was revealed to her piece by piece. His chest was completely hairless and rippled with muscle. His biceps bulged and both of them sported a tattoo of a colorful tribal band. He slipped off his jeans and she could see that his thighs and calves were as ripped with muscle as the upper part of his body was.
He lay down next to her and his closeness was intoxicating. He held her face in his hands while they kissed, lustfully nibbling at her lips as his hot body pressed against her. He kept kissing her as he slid his hands down across her neck and to the top of her chest above her t-shirt. He slid his palm across her nipples that seemed to be straining against the fabric of her bra and shirt, and then down across her belly. He lifted up the t-shirt to reveal her soft, flat stomach and he leaned his head down and kissed it. Jacy kept pushing her shirt up, kissing as he went until he had gotten it all the way up over her head and off of her completely. Then he kissed and licked the cleavage between her breasts as he slid his hand underneath her back and unhooked her bra. He pushed that out of his way and attached his mouth to her nipple. Raine began to shudder and squirm as his tongue and teeth made love to her breast in a way that she never even imagined possible. While he pleasured her breasts he slid his hand down to where her soaked panties were. He must have taken her pants off while she was unconscious to wrap her leg. She hadn’t even thought of it until now. She didn’t care. She shivered with pleasure as his hand reached down under the elastic band of her panties, sliding over smooth skin until he reached her lips. Dipping a finger into her wetness caused them both to moan in ecstasy.
His lustful hunger was driving Raine as much as his touch. He made sexy little noises as his hands explored every part of her body. He slid one up and down her chest, every so often sliding it down to her pussy, stopping to rub her engorged clit. He was gentle, but at the same time he was possessive and dominant and Raine was surprised at how much being possessed by a stranger suddenly turned her on. Raine had never been with a stranger. She had never been with anyone but Jack. This was completely out of character for her, but she wasn’t going to worry about that now. She honestly didn’t care about anything except what Jacy was going to do next.
He was taking his time with his exploration and Raine was essentially rendered helpless to move, both by her leg and the assertive way he held her body in place with his own. He started kissing and nibbling on her neck. Raine never knew until today how much she liked the feel of a gentle bite on her skin. She didn’t stop to think of how she would explain any marks he left either. He kissed his way once again across her breasts and down over her stomach. When he reached her panties this time, he took them in his teeth and slid them down sensuously, far enough to be able to place gentle kisses and nips on her upper thighs and between her legs.
Raine’s body felt like it would burst, she had never felt anything like it. When his lips and tongue at last found her center she cried out, barely stifling a scream. His licking and sucking was sending sensations tearing through every fiber of her body. She had her hands wrapped up in his hair, and it was as soft as it had looked. She tugged at it, guiding his face deeper between her legs feeling the orgasm that was building and ready to explode. When it did, she didn’t even try to stifle the scream, it would have been more effort than she had left in her body.
Jacy worked his way back up to her face with his sexy kisses once more. When he reached her lips it was Raine this time that sucked his tongue and his bottom lip into her mouth like a starving woman. She liked the way she tasted on him. While his tongue was buried deep in her mouth, he slipped the entire length of his hard cock inside of her. Raine clutched onto his broad shoulders, trying hard not to dig her nails into his flesh, but as he began to move in and out of her, rocking in a motion that she knew she could quickly and easily become addicted to, she forgot about protecting his skin, she barely remembered she was a civilized human being. She dug her nails into his back and even clamped her teeth down on his neck. When he was ready to come his muscles all tensed up and he threw back his head and let out a sound that to Raine sounded like the howl of the wolves she had heard earlier in the day. His pleasure pushed her over the edge again and Raine felt her own inner walls pulsing in rhythm with Jacy as her release rushed through her. It was the sexiest thing she had ever experienced.
Jacy got out of bed after that only to get her some water or a bite to eat. The rest of the night was spent making love and then collapsing, spent into each other’s arms. Raine lost count by morning of how many orgasms she’d had, but she knew that even as good as sex was with Jack, it had never been this intense, or mind-blowing. She also knew that when the sun came up, she wouldn’t be ready to walk away and never experience it again.
Chapter Six
When Raine woke up after sunrise she was alone. It was a feeling that she was sadly, becoming used to. She had to pee like crazy and as she was struggling to get up when Jacy came in.
“What are you doing?” he said.
She smiled, “I need to use your ladies room.”
Jacy looked like he was trying to stifle a laugh, “Let me help you.” He wrapped a light blanket around her since she still didn’t have on her clothes and carried her through a door in the back of the studio to the outside. The air was crisp and it smelled even better way up here than it did down in town. Raine found herself not only attracted to Jacy, but more and more attracted to life in Montana. There was a small, wooden building out back and he carried her to that and said, “My ladies room, please excuse the décor.”
Raine wrinkled her nose but she wasn’t deterred. She smiled at him and said, “Thank you, I’m sure it will do.” She had to pee too bad to refuse. He helped her inside and waited for her to finish, carrying her back inside and sitting her back down on the makeshift bed.
“Are you hungry?” he asked her.
“Not really,” she said. “I could use some coffee.” He surprised her by getting a cup off of a shelf and pouring her a cup of coffee out of an old-fashioned percolator pot.
“Cream and sugar?” he asked.
“No, black is fine. Thank you.” He sat with her while she had her coffee. “So are you a full-time artist?” she asked him, “Or do you have another job?”
“My family and I are loggers. We harvest the trees when they’re ready and sell them to the lumber mill over in Helena.”
“You re-plant the trees then too, right? That’s why your side of the land is so much lusher than the other.”
“Yes. We were raised to never take from the land without giving something back.”
“That’s nice,” she said, and meant it. “The whole world would be a better place if everyone was raised like that.”
“I agree,” he smiled. “Would you like some help getting dressed?”
“Um…” she said, looking down at her leg, “Maybe a little.”
He handed her the t-shirt and bra she wore the day before and discreetly turned away as she slipped them on. She couldn’t help but smile at that, as if he hadn’t seen every inch of her last night. She did need help with her pants. He did fine with the first leg, but getting the jeans on over the leg wrap he had put on wasn’t working so he apologetically took a pair of shears and cut them down the side.
