by Gemma Snow
Instead of reliving the delightful memories of first his mother walking out, then finding Aubrey didn’t mean all she’d said to him in the year they’d spent together, Dec busied himself with turning on the water, letting it warm the otherwise cold room. Of course, the power was going to be out until they could get an electric company up here to deal with the wires he and Micah had practically had to walk through last night on their way home, and the temperature in the cabin was dropping with every hour. If they needed to, as they’d done in the past, they could head on down the mountain to Triple Diamond and bunk there for a while, but Dec much preferred the plan of keeping Lily alone in his house for a good long time.
She dropped the blanket she’d been wrapped in on the floor and stepped into the warm shower, letting the water slosh over her hair and body. A soft moan escaped her swollen lips and Dec stood there for a moment, just watching, transfixed by the sight of her soft, willowy curves under the spray. She didn’t have large breasts, but they were pointed and perky and the sight of them made his already throbbing dick even harder.
“Are you going to come join me, or did you want to watch the show?” A look of surprise crossed her face at the words and Dec had to laugh, though the sound came out ragged and rough and he knew that once he got in that shower, in the heated, steaming spray against the cool October chill, he was going to be lost to her. Probably for a good long time.
“You’ve gotten bold,” he said, continuing to watch her for another long moment. “I like it.”
She blushed, though it might have been the heat from the shower. Either way, he couldn’t deny how much he liked the shade of pink on her usually pale skin.
“I like being bold, too,” she said. “I feel more like myself than I have in a long time.”
At that, Dec stepped over the lip of shower and joined her under the spray. He gently ran his hands down her arms before pressing a kiss to the back of her neck.
“Thank you for sharing it with me,” he said. She arched to take more of his touch and he continued his slow exploration of her skin, all the parts he had rushed last night in his desperate need to be inside her.
“Thank you for making it easy.” She placed her hands on the stone wall before her and arched her back just a little. He groaned. He couldn’t help it, not when her body was so lithe and inviting and he knew just how decadent her heat felt all around him. Without a second thought, he dropped to his knees, spread her legs and pressed his mouth to her hot cunt.
“Fuck, Dec.” Lily inhaled sharply and he grinned against her pussy, juices already flowing freely from between her parted folds. Oh, hell yeah, he could get used to this. He’d never tasted anything sweeter in his life and he continued to explore her, lick her, taste her until she was pounding one fist against the wall and murmuring his name in a string of curses and demands.
“Eat me, oh, God, yes.” Her words came out tangled and harsh and he already knew just how close she was to her release and just how much he wanted to be the one to take her there. So he brought his hands around to her front and began teasing her clit, swollen and sensitive and over the sound of the rushing water he heard her sharp inhalation of breath. “Fuck, I’m going to…I’m going to…”
She burst against his mouth, exploding, screaming even louder than she had the night before and he continued to lap at her until her body stopped arching and bowing, until she finally managed to catch a breath, until she turned around to look at him, guiding him up to stand, to capture his lips with her own. The fact that she was tasting her own release on his mouth made Dec’s cock ache and he pulled back a little.
“I want to do this right,” he murmured, because, damn it, wasn’t that the fucking truth? “I did promise you the bed, didn’t I?”
Lily grinned, her eyes a little hooded and sleepy and it made something deep inside him pulse with pure, unadulterated male satisfaction.
“I’ll wash your back if you wash mine,” she said.
They would have gotten through the shower faster, except that Lily kept pulling him in for kisses against the cool stone wall and Dec was hopeless to resist them, giving in to her tempting charms every time she moved for him. Finally, though, they shut the water off and he wrapped her in a large towel, grabbing one for himself before he picked her straight up off the bathroom floor and carried her back into his bedroom. She let out a small squeak but wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed the droplets of warm water off his skin as he walked.
The rain beat heavily against the window, casting the room in cool grays and blues, sprinkled against a skyline of fall foliage. When he placed Lily down on the bed, her mischievous eyes looking up at him, even the view of the Black Reef Mountains paled in comparison to the naked woman lying before him.
“I want you.” Her words were direct and simple. “I want to feel you inside me. I want to ride your body hard and fast. Dec. I want you.”
Never let it be said that being bold was overrated.
“How do you want me, honey?” he asked. “I love hearing all those filthy words coming out of your mouth. Tell me what you want and you know I’ll give it to you.” He was pretty much terrified he’d already given her too much, but goddamn it, this was worth every minute of heartache he’d be up against down the line.
“Lie back against the pillows.” Her words were no longer filled with amusement but instead spoke of a bold confidence that maybe turned him on even more. Dec did as she demanded then she was running down the length of his body, kissing his chest, his collarbones, his stomach, sliding up to kiss his lips, long and lingering and so decadent that there was no way he’d last long under her seductive assault. He buried his hands in her hair and ran them down her back and she shuddered under his touch before pulling away from him.
“Condoms?” Her voice was breathy and a little out of control. Good. He nodded to the drawer by the side of the bed.
“Top left.”
She rolled off him, fucking pity, that, and opened the drawer. Her eyebrows rose and her expression changed. She tossed a condom onto the bed and held up a bottle of lube.
“Surely, the women you’re with don’t need any encouragement?”
Dec laughed, but his cheeks heated and embarrassment flushed up his body. Not embarrassment. He wasn’t going to be embarrassed, not by this. After all, she had her proclivities, Ryder and Christian had theirs and Madison Hollis certainly wasn’t going to win any Nun of the Year awards. Dec was entitled to a fantasy or two of his own.
“It’s…it’s not for the women,” he managed. Her raised eyebrow indicated the question on her lips before she said it and he beat her to the punch. “Not gay, Lils, or bisexual or whatever.” All right, this was going to be over faster if he just freaking said it, here. “It’s for me. It feels good with fingers sometimes. But I’m not asking or anything.”
She looked him square in the eye as she crawled back over across the bed, the bottle of lube still in her hand. The expression in her eyes was one of curiosity and…interest? Either way, he definitely didn’t see judgment or reproach and so relaxed against the pillows.
“Do you want me to?” she asked, her voice a siren’s call to his once again nearly painfully hard cock, standing straight up from his body. “Do you want me to ride you and…” She paused, trying to be delicate, if the expression in her eyes was any indication. “Use my fingers? I’ll try it, if it’ll turn you on.”
Just the image of her riding him, one finger sliding in and out of his ass, was enough to make him almost lose it right then and there.
“You really don’t have to—”
“I really want to.”
She slipped down the edge of the bed, pausing above his cock and slowing. With all the teasing patience of a woman who’d already come and come hard, she licked down his whole length, brushing her mouth against his balls at the bottom. She did it again and Dec closed his eyes, pressing his head back against the pillows as he focused on the sensation of her mouth against his dick, the pleasu
re and pressure building hot inside him.
Then he felt the press of one cool, slippery finger at his ass and opened his eyes to look down at her, giving her one last, unspoken chance to back down. But there was determination in her eyes and she grinned one more last, mischievous grin at him before putting her mouth to the head of his cock. She pressed into him just as she slid down his length and every fucking thought fled, his body racked with pleasure, his mind blank.
She pressed and slid and rode his cock with her mouth, each motion pushing him higher and closer to the edge of her pleasure until Dec was sure he’d lose it, whatever pathetic grasp he still held on his control.
“Lily, baby, oh fuck, you gotta stop or I’m going to…”
She slid a second finger in to join the first and he did, careened right over the edge of pleasure when she hit him just there, her mouth still wrapped around his cock, her breasts pressing against his swollen balls and he pumped into her mouth, cursing and muttering as his release completely overtook him.
He lay there for a moment, his breathing heavy, mind blank and body still rioting in the aftermath of the pleasure she’d given him. Lily slowly slid out and out then came up the bed to kiss him, first his chest, then the underside of his jaw then brushing her swollen lips across his. She lit him to flame, this woman, made him want things Dec hadn’t ever realized he would want again, made him ache to be inside her all the time.
“You’re a goddess,” he murmured against her still damp hair, smelling of him, his shampoo, his bedroom. The possessiveness that overwhelmed him in that moment made Dec feel a little crazed and he smiled at her with a wide, sleepy grin.
“I like making you feel good,” she said, face somehow both innocent and mischievous at the same time. She shivered, and Dec realized that though his body temperature was raging, it was October in the mountains and the heat was out.
“Under the covers, you.” He pulled the comforter back and hauled her cool body under the blanket with him and pressed against her back. “And I will never complain about you making me feel good.” He paused and sighed. “You’re the first person who I’ve ever told…about that, I mean. It doesn’t usually just come up in conversation. So, thank you.”
She turned around to kiss him, still somehow finding a way to press her lush ass against his dick, which had clearly not gotten the memo about having literally just orgasmed.
“Thank you for trusting me,” she said, her voice quiet, as if she somehow knew exactly what it took for him to admit to what he wanted. And maybe she did, because despite having been in his life for just a few days, this woman had a way about her, something that just meant she always understood, always seemed to know.
“Thank you for trusting me, us, with being your first lover since Daniel.” It felt important to say, important to acknowledge just how big a step she was making by sleeping with him. Both of them. Dec winced a little. He’d managed to forget that Lily wasn’t there just for him, managed to remove any semblance of her burgeoning relationship with Micah from his mind. But that wasn’t fair, either, and he tried to reconcile his jealousy with the fact that she was currently curled up in his arms, having just pretty much sucked the life out of him.
“Well, I did burst into tears my second night here,” she said. “I owe you, both of you, a lot I think. But for now…” She rubbed a little harder and Dec had to wonder if this woman was a miracle worker, because she already had his cock responding to everything she asked for. It grew hot and hard against her ass and, by the time she reached for one of the condoms from the bedside table, he was already ready for her. Again.
And she was ready for him, which he could spend the rest of his life getting used to, because when he slid the condom on, then edged her wet opening, she spread her legs wide and took him, pressing back to get more of his cock inside her and wrapping her arms around his neck to pull him closer. He brought one hand around to her clit, stroking her, pushing her higher until her breathy moans made him surge inside her and she rocked, losing control, losing focus.
She broke apart, her pussy clenching around his cock from the inside out and Dec managed one more long, low thrust before he lost himself to the feel of her, to her heat and delicious warmth and the tightness of her cunt pulsing around his cock. He groaned hard and came, flooding the condom and jerking as he did, joining Lily in the aftermath of heavy breathing and glazed eyes.
“Oh, my God.” Her voice was so low, so heated and spent that Dec’s heart glowed a little with masculine pride. She turned to look up at him, hooded eyes glowing with her spent arousal, so sweet, so heart-stoppingly gorgeous.
“Between the shower and the way you do that,” she said on a small laugh, “you’re going to make it damn near impossible for me to return home at the end of my research.”
Dec kissed her nose, all covered in soft, caramel freckles, and pulled her close to his body. And if he didn’t mind the idea of Lily Hollis staying here, if he didn’t mind the thought of keeping her in his bed, his shower, for a very long time, he wasn’t going to think about it. Right.
Chapter Ten
Lily jumped when she heard the truck come up the drive. It was the second truck that had arrived the drive that day, the first being the electrical company, which had, miraculously, managed to get the power back up and running, so the house was no longer a frigid icebox. Still, she’d been so happily waiting for a truck that she’d been disappointed to find out they were getting power back and that it wasn’t Micah coming home. Crazy.
But now it was. She recognized his blue truck through the windows as he crunched up the muddy, rocky path and pulled to a stop in front of the house and her heart hammered a little bit harder, all pretense of reading her book on the plants and animals of the Rocky Mountains completely forgotten.
This was absurd. Even the dogs, now just Rosie, Axel and Penny, the others having been relocated back to the barn, barely lifted an ear at Micah’s approaching footsteps and yet, Lily sat there waiting for him with bated breath, wanting for him, too. She and Dec had fallen asleep some time earlier and she’d finally gotten up, gotten dressed and French-braided her hair, since she’d slept with it wet and spilling out in every direction. Then Dec had apologetically told her that he needed to do some paperwork for a new session of their camp and he’d kissed her hair before heading to the offices on the second floor of the loft.
She had tried to read, until a soft weight had settled on her feet and Lily looked down at the scrap of fur who had been her companion through the thunderstorm—the first part of the thunderstorm at least—and she resigned herself to some very difficult Lily-Penny playtime.
But she couldn’t exactly bring a search and rescue dog back to her San Francisco apartment and she tried not to let herself fall in love with the little wild pup. That thought, which had come just around when she read the line, One of the most valuable coniferous groves along the Rocky Mountains is located…had been accompanied by the very alarming thought that she wasn’t only going to struggle to keep from giving her heart to Penny. Oh, no, oh so, so, so no. Because Christ on a coniferous grove, I am going back to California.
Even though part of Lily’s soul was drawn to these mountains, to the fresh air and expanse of trees and…and the men who lived in the wilderness, she was quickly falling in love with. The wilderness. I’m falling in love with the wilderness.
Micah came through the back door and his presence pulled her from that very dangerous train of thought. He stomped his boots on the mat, long, ink-black hair streaking wildly in the wind from the open door. Behind his broad frame, she could tell that the rain had slowed, or maybe even stopped.
“Hi.” Yeah, despite all desire to play it cool, which she hadn’t had to do with Dec, since they’d woken up spooning, since Dec was so much more accessible, so much easier to read, she hadn’t been able to stay on the couch for more than a second before crossing the room and coming up to him. Micah’s grin was wide and not entirely innocent and though she’d come like
gangbusters earlier that day, her body flooded with warmth and heat at the sight of him.
So instead of just lingering there, instead of making it weirder than it needed to be, she tilted up her head and kissed him.
Micah tasted like the wilds of the Montana mountains, like fresh air and fresh rain and autumn leaves covering the ground, and she wanted more of that wildness, needed it more than she needed her next breath.
“Well, hello to you, too,” he said, his voice dark and rich as fire. “You sure are a sight for sore eyes, pretty thing.” She felt pretty, when he looked at her like that, felt strong and confident and powerful and wanted, all from the simple expression in his eyes.
“I missed you. I’ve gotten very accustomed to sitting on your lap over the last few days.”
He somehow made raising his eyebrow into about a dozen different promises and Lily blushed, despite the fact that she’d done a pretty big number on propriety the night before. And this morning.
“Well, my lap is a definitely available,” he said, laughing. “You just might have to wiggle around a little to get comfortable.” She couldn’t help it. She glanced down to the seam of his jeans and, when she saw exactly how straining they were, she bit her lip, mostly to keep from allowing her whimper of desire to escape.
“Wild Flower.” He had his hand on her chin, guiding it upward. “If you keep looking at me like that, we won’t be able to claim we have the cleanest counters in the state anymore.” She looked at the counter and Micah chuckled. Then his voice grew very serious and he boxed her in against the nearest one, his proximity making the blood in her body burn hot and her skin yearn for his touch. “Is that what you want? For me to fuck you on the counter? Or maybe I should just spread your legs and bury my face between your thighs. How does that sound?”
