Scrap looks up from where he’s squatting, tying back a flap on the tent, a question in his eyes.
“I’m so sorry.” My voice breaks.
He takes a minute to reply. “I am, too,” he finally says. “But I’m other shit as well, you know?”
I do. I am, too. Relieved and angry and full of hope for the first time in forever. And in love. So fucking in love. And when our eyes meet across the camp, I see all of that and more reflected in his eyes.
Finally, when he’s done fussing with all the stakes and ties and gear, he makes his way over to me. “Feet hurt?”
“Yup.”
He sinks down and pulls my boots onto his lap. “Hey. What are you doing?” After this hike, my feet are gonna reek.
“We’ve got enough time to go swimming before it gets dark if we do it now.”
Nope. No way. “Who said anything about swimming?”
He waves his hand around. “I brought you to a waterfall, woman. What did you think we were gonna do?”
“I’m not prepared for this.” Not in any way. It’s broad daylight. I’m wearing jeans.
“I know.” He drops a kiss on my nose, and then he applies himself to unlacing my boots. As he tugs them off, I can’t help but sigh, loud and long.
“That feel good?”
“Yeah.” And then he peels off my socks. I try to pull my feet away, but he’s got them good. He draws them closer and checks the blisters on my heel.
“No broken skin. That’s good.”
And then he moves his hands to the zipper of my hoodie. “This has to come off, too.”
My heart leaps in my chest. I brace myself for panic, but it doesn’t come. Not quite. Instead there’s a quickening in my pulse, a jittery dance in my belly.
Am I going to do this?
I’m out in the wilderness for the first time since I was a kid, and there’s nothing around for miles but owls and foxes. Scrap swears there’s no bears. There are no people, no eyes but his. And his eyes on me don’t hurt.
He unzips my hoodie and eases it off my shoulders. “I’ll stick this in the tent for later.”
He hops to his feet with admirable lack of groaning, and then he’s back, offering me his hand. I take it, and he pulls me up.
“This next.” He draws my arms into the air, and looks me a question. I leave them raised.
He takes the hem of my tank top and gently peels it over my head. I can’t look down, so I watch him instead. His eyes rake down from my white bra to my bare, white belly. I wait for my lungs to seize, for the noise in my mind to swell to a cacophony.
Maybe this place is Narnia. There’s some magic here ‘cause I stay in the moment. The sun on my shoulders. The birds calling to each other way high overhead. I glance down.
The big scar is an angry, reddish pink diagonal from my breast down into the waistband of the jeans. I’ve got a dozen others, too, silvery white, some puckered. Fucked up constellations. The best you can say about them is most don’t hurt anymore unless I turn a certain way.
The big scar is the eye-catcher, though. Even I look at it and wonder that a human’s body could knit back together from something like that.
Scrap keeps staring, and now I’m turning red, a flush blossoming across my chest.
“You done?” My voice is sharp. I raise my chin.
“Nope.” He drops his gaze, and then he’s unbuttoning my jeans. He takes a moment to unbutton and shuck his own, so now he’s standing naked in front of me, his cock bobbing straight up in the air. He rolls down my jeans, panties and all.
“Step out.”
I step out of my jeans ‘cause I don’t know what else to do.
Scrap grabs both my hands, and he lifts my arms to the side. Then he smiles his half-smile and bends to kiss me, long and sweet.
“You don’t have to act like it isn’t hideous.” I wrap my arms around my middle.
“I don’t have to act like it is, either.” He kisses me on the nose. “Let’s go swimming, baby. We’re wasting the light.”
Then he grabs my hand and guides me, naked and jiggling, trying desperately to cover my most jiggly bits and failing, into the pool under Pennsylvania’s saddest little waterfall.
The water is cold, and holy Lord, it feels amazing on my feet. Scrap sighs as he traipses to the middle and sinks in to his chest.
“Come on, babe. It’s waist deep here.”
“It’s cold.”
“It’s warmer out here.”
“Bullshit.”
“Come find out.” He laughs and splashes me, gets my hair wet, and I can’t let that stand. I shriek and splash him back, and then I’m in the middle of the river, too, and we’re twisted together, the water up to our chests, and we’re floating, intertwined, his legs hot against mine, my skin slick against his.
He takes my hand and guides it under the water.
“Feel this.” He juts into my palm, hard, thick and hot. My heart speeds up.
We haven’t gone this far since the face stomping incident.
He must see the worry cross my face. “Chill out, baby. I ain’t gonna fall for a sneak attack more than once.”
“You didn’t just—” I sputter, and he takes my hand and moves it up and down his shaft, and his breathing hitches. His eyes are bright, and there’s a hunger in them that rouses warm, fizzy bubbles in my stomach.
“Come on.”
He leads me back to the bank, the water sluicing off of his carved chest. Before I can cover myself, he’s guiding me across the smooth rocks, to the tent he’s pitched.
“Check it out.”
He helps me down, following quickly, and it’s all going so fast I don’t think about the scars and the angles and the jiggling. He’s inflated an air mattress, and there’s a sleeping bag unzipped to double size across it. He pats the ground, but he doesn’t have to. It’s so soft and comfy, I lay flat, stretching out all the aches and pains, and he lays down beside me, smiling, toying with my hair.
“You like the air mattress?”
“I love it.”
“You love your old man.” He strokes down between my breasts, glancing over my belly, and plays with the curls between my legs.
“I do.” My tired, clean body has turned my mind mellow and malleable.
“Open up for me, baby.” I bend my knees, and his rough fingers slip between my folds. He keeps his eyes on my face, kissing me, sliding his tongue along mine, tasting and teasing, and then he backs up, meets my gaze, smiles.
My pussy begins to throb, especially around the nub he teases, circles, then neglects while he runs his hands down my thighs and up to my aching breasts. He’s touching me all over, not lingering anywhere long, and every stroke eases an ache or stokes a longing.
My hands get antsy, and I touch him, too. His hard chest, the hair curled and damp from the river. His cock, even harder now and hotter, dripping precum from the tip. His breath picks up, and his blue eyes swirl in the deepening shadows. Outside, the cricket chorus swells and recedes.
My body is sore and alive. My hips begin to rock of their own accord.
“Like that, eh?” Scrap keeps the tempo that makes me squirm, and he starts to rise above me. I tense. Without missing a beat, he lowers himself back to the mattress, and rolls me on top of him. His cock nudges at my pussy, and I start rocking again while he grins up at me, as happy as I’ve ever seen him.
It’s coming. My belly is coiling tighter and tighter, and if I were alone in my bed, I’d know how to chase this down, use my fingers to ease this ache.
“Scrap,” I whine because I want it. He urges me to bend closer, sips at my lips, nips at my neck, and glides his hot cock through my folds, up and back.
“I know, baby. We’ll get there. We ain’t in no rush, are we?”
I guess not.
He notches his cock in my entrance, and this time, I’m drenched for him. He guides me down and thrusts inside me in one smooth motion, pauses a second to read my face, but I’m okay, and it�
�s perfect. He smiles, and then moves, and it’s like he’s stoking the fire higher. He groans in my ear. “You’re so fucking soft. So perfect.”
He twines our fingers, bringing our hands to rest on his chest right above his heart,, and he watches me with the corner of his mouth quirked up as he rocks deeper and deeper, steady, and now I’m bucking, grinding down, searching after more, and he lets my hands go so he can sneak his calloused fingers back between us to find the little bud that’s pulsing and needy for him.
He circles and circles, thrusting into me with his hot cock and then withdrawing to the tip, only to urge me to sink down on him, and it’s too much, and not enough, and I’m whimpering, my fingers warring with his to get at my clit, and then I’m there, exploding, waves bursting outward through my whole body while my belly quivers and my thighs shake.
I scream, and Scrap laughs softly, so happy, and then he shouts as he cums hot inside me.
“That was—That was—” I’m entirely out of breath.
“Us. Together. The way we’re always gonna be for the rest of our lives.”
“Wet and stinky and loud in a tent?”
“Yup.” Scrap slaps my ass. “Exactly.”
“Can we bring Frances next time?”
“Sure thing. You’ll need to carry him though. You know he ain’t about to hike up no mountain.”
I sigh. “Well, there goes that plan.”
Scrap’s quiet a moment. “Shit, woman. You know I’ll carry your dog.”
“Yeah?” I wriggle to kiss him, to get even closer.
“Yeah.”
A while later, I drift off, cocooned in warmth and the smell of pine, lulled to sleep by water rushing over rock and Scrap Allenbach’s breath beneath me. The world outside the tent feels beautiful, boundless, and alive. And so do I.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
I write trashy reads that satisfy emotionally. Right now, I’m into bikers, but I’ve been known to flirt with mountain men, aliens, dukes, criminals, and billionaires. Regardless of the backstory, my characters are human, their love is messy, and their happy ever after is hard won. I love mistakes, flaws, long roads, grace, and redemption, in life and in books. That’s why I read and write romance. Hope you enjoy the stories!
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OTHER BOOKS BY CATE C. WELLS
Charge: A Steel Bones Motorcycle Club Novel (Book 1)
Charge and Kayla. An older man/younger woman, single mother romance.
Nickel’s Story: A Steel Bones Motorcycle Club Novel (Book 2)
Nickel and Story. An older man/younger woman romance.
Twitch: A Steel Bones Motorcycle Club Novella
Shirlene and Twitch. A prequel to the Steel Bones MC series.
Plum
Jo Beth and Daniel. Set in the Steel Bones MC world. Coming soon.
Scrap: A Steel Bones Motorcycle Club Romance Page 18
