Loving the Wounded Warrior

by Adriana Anders

  My other arm flew out to hit him, maybe? I had no clue what I was doing. It was unimaginably wild. I was unhinged. He snared my limbs and wrestled me onto my belly, my arm bent behind my back. He pulled at the hood of my parka, giving him just enough room to catch my nape with his teeth.

  I froze, snared like some kind of prey, my insides aching for him, while part of me wondered what the hell I was doing.

  Against my ass, he was hard and I couldn’t help but press back into him. At his groan, I did it again, spurring him to action. His hand slid between me and ground, to yank at the fly of my pants, which he dragged down, hard enough to leave a burn on my hips and…

  Oh. My. God. I was bare-assed in the wild. More fumbling between us and there he was, hot and hard against me.

  I let out a long, low, guttural sound and ground back against him, which he apparently didn’t want, because he put a heavy hand to the back of my neck, leaned back, yanked off his glove with his teeth, and slapped my ass… hard.

  A few seconds passed. Was he waiting for me to tell him to stop?

  I wouldn’t. Ever. This was suddenly, shockingly, what I needed. It wasn’t nearly enough.

  Pushing against his hand, I turned my head as far as I could. “Again.”

  The huff he let out was relieved or turned on or…I had no idea. I was a jumbled pile of want. Empty, waiting, hungry for this stranger/not stranger to do what he wanted.

  He squeezed my ass cheek and slapped the other and if I could’ve ground my clit into the cold, dry earth, I would’ve. I would’ve done anything he wanted. Anything.

  When he slid that hand under my pelvis and pressed me up, I helped as best I could, still trapped in my pants. He muttered something low and mean and wrenched off my boot before pulling my pants all the way off that one leg.

  Another slap wrenched a squeal from my throat, his hands pulled my ass apart and then, his fingers, oh Lord, his fingers, thick and rough, slid over my soaking lips, to fuck into me. It was harder than last night, but I was more turned on and the whole thing was easy.

  “Fuck, you’re wet.”

  “For you, Kurt.”

  “Shit,” he muttered. “For my cock.”

  He drew away and I craned to watch him palm himself. The dark frustrated me. I wanted to see him. His hand on that big erection, the expression that went with this aggressive beast he’d become. I wanted it all.

  “Let me suck it,” I begged, only to get another slap when I made as if to turn.

  “No.” He spanked me again and pressed my ass open wide again. “You’ll suck it later.”

  “Yes.” Oh, God yes.

  He shoved his hand under me, dragged up my top and bulky parka, and palmed my breast, pinched it harder than he’d done last night, reached for the other and did that one. Sounds emerged from me that I could no more control than I could the needy rock of my body. I screamed his name and, in response, he moved away, then bent low to lick me from behind me, his tongue catching my clit full on.

  I came, drew up tight and shattered hard. The quickest, most explosive orgasm of my life. There and gone in the blink of an eye, but so potent it left me boneless. He could spank me to kingdom come, tear me apart and put me back together again over and over, and I’d let him.

  Or maybe he’d already done that.

  He shifted me, lifted my ass, and pressed the thick head of his cock to my opening. Too sensitive, I shied away for a second, but his strong arm shoved my shoulders back into the cold ground, and held me still, keeping me prisoner, while he gave me everything I’d never realized I wanted from a man. And maybe I hadn’t. Maybe it was just him.

  Slowly, almost painfully, he pressed inside.

  “Don’t move, O’Neal.”

  I obeyed, loving that low growl and the rough fingers at my nape.

  “I won’t,” I whispered, the sound frantic as the bird wings flapping in my chest.

  He couldn’t be that far inside, but at this angle, with his weight holding me down, he felt bigger than anything I’d taken inside of me. An inch at a time, he forced himself in, took me, used me.

  We might have been taking his virginity, but it felt like it was the other way around.

  I almost stopped him before he’d sunk all the way in. You can’t do this, I wanted to cry, though I couldn’t figure out why. Don’t be just sex. Be more.

  He groaned, finally fully seated inside me, and my frantic thoughts settled at the solid perfection of him.

  “Jesus, O’Neal. You’re so fucking tight. Had no idea.” His body surrounding mine, he waited. Did he expect me to say something? How could I? What was there to say when he’d taken me and turned me inside out?

  What could I do when he’d destroyed every last link in my armor, every boundary I’d created, every stitch of my safety net?

  Nothing. I could do nothing, but let him take me, use me, maybe throw me out when he was done—like I’d done with more men than I cared to admit.

  I could get addicted to this extra dose of emotion. It made everything more. We’d barely started and already, the sex felt amazing, mind-blowing. Deeply satisfying in a way I’d never experienced.

  At the same time, beyond the drugging haze of pleasure, was the terrible certainty that this wouldn’t end well for me. At all.

  But for right now, I closed my eyes, pushed back, and decided I didn’t care.

  * * *

  Kurt

  Sensory overload. The sounds O’Neal made, the smell of her, the feel of her clasping my cock…

  I shut my eyes tight and waited for it all to subside. When she moved back to meet me, I squeezed my hand tighter at her hip.

  “Don’t move.”

  Christ, my voice was as grim and demanding as a Drill Instructor’s, but it made her clamp around me so hard I had to throw back my head and concentrate on the stars. Anything to stop from coming twenty seconds after I got inside her. Although I’d heard that was pretty normal for virgins.

  I’d thought about this moment for as long as I could remember, had tried every trick and toy to simulate sex, had gotten sucked off by women all over the fucking world. But never quite ready to commit, I’d put off the real thing. And nothing could have prepared me for this.

  She shifted again and I clenched up with something…not anger, exactly, but something weirdly close to that. It made my lip curl when I ground out her name, the one word ominous in the quiet, cold air. And, Jesus, she backed up again, begging for retaliation.

  She wants me to spank her again. The thought shot through me like a sharp current of electricity. And right behind that: Don’t give her what she wants. Withhold it.

  That gave me another rush so hot and hard I shuddered from it.

  Slowly, with all the control I could drum up, I reached for her long, soft hair, pale against my hand, wound my fingers through it and wrapped it twice around my fist.

  Incredibly, her cunt squeezed me again. I pulled, gently, hunched forward, and rasped into her ear. “This good?”

  The noise she let out made no sense, so I relaxed my hold.

  “Gotta tell me, babe. You want this? This way, I mean?”

  Her hair pulled taut as she turned to link eyes with mine. She looked…oh shit. Blissed out. Wild. Beautiful. If I touched her cheek, it would burn me, her eyes were big and glazed. Her mouth hung open in an invitation I couldn’t deny. I leaned further, sealing us together, and put my lips to hers.

  Beneath my knees, the ground was hard, but everything about her was soft. So tender. Our tongues danced, like we’d done this a million times. It was her taste I couldn’t get enough of. Here at her mouth, her pussy. I wanted to consume her. To make every bit of her mine.

  “Tell me.” I let her mouth go and tugged her head.

  “What?”

  Leaning back, I pulled almost all the way out before sinking back in, firm, but slow.

  “Tell me you want this.”

  “I want this, Kurt.”

  “Am I too rough?”

>   I let her hair go and she shook her head.

  “Say it.”

  “This is perfect.”

  Then why’d she sound like that? Like maybe she was about to cry?

  I pulled out, lifted her up to straddle me and sat back on my heels, my cock aching and bereft, but every other part of me needing reassurance. Her parka puffed against me and I let my chin drop to my chest with a laugh before looking up at her again.

  “You’re so fucking perfect, O’Neal.” I shook my head.

  She let out a huff. “How so?”

  “This.” I tapped her coat and turned my head to take in the tent, our cooling food, the landscape behind us.

  “This is perfect?”

  “You. In this place, bare-assed in your coat. Doing…this. It’s like…” Don’t fucking lose it. “It’s like God sent you. Providence. Or something.”

  When she didn’t answer, I knew I’d gone too far. She’d get up, put on her clothes, say something about heading back into town. None of which I’d blame her for. I’d treated her like a sex toy. And then told her she was heaven-sent. Talk about over the top.

  I swiped a finger over a smudge on her cheek. Christ, I’d ground her face into the dirt.

  She smiled, put one hand on my shoulder, leaned up and forward, and wrapped her cold fingers around my erection. Her teeth bit down on that bottom lip of hers—which I wanted to do, dammit—and before my dulled brain had time to catch up, she pressed the crown of my cock to her entrance and lowered herself. Her expression must have mirrored mine—sheer bliss—and my breath came out on a long oh.

  She lifted up on those strong legs, then sank back down again, taking me hard and swift.

  “Oh, hell yes.”

  She did this three times before I lost it. Jaw clenched painfully tight, I grabbed her ass, lifted and pulled her down with a smack.

  This. This was it. Face to face. Our moves savage and sharp, and her face…Jesus, I couldn’t describe it. Ferocious in the way her mouth opened, her teeth were bared, but softer in the way her eyes stayed on mine. Like she needed the connection. Like she fed off it.

  I wanted so many things in this moment—little things, like more of her female smell and a bite of that irresistible top lip I’d never forgotten after all these years. My brain took us through every position in the damn Kama Sutra and beyond, but we’d never have time for that tonight. Which brought me to the big things, shit I’d never have believed I’d think about the first time I was balls-deep in a woman. Like maybe she’d keep me. Maybe this wasn’t where it ended. Maybe she’d stop taking the pill one day and we could—

  Whoa. I cut myself off with a groan.

  “What was that?”

  I ignored her question, slapped her ass and lifted her up again. She squeezed and twisted a little at the tip of my dick before sinking back onto me again.

  “Feels so good, Kurt.”

  “Fuck it does,” I gasped. “Want this to last.”

  The sex, I meant. I wanted the sex to last.

  Instead of slowing, she fucked me harder, and reached down to rub her clit, which…holy shit…

  Years of porn couldn’t prepare me for the reality of this—my cock, glistening wet in the moonlight, buried inside her. Her slender hand working hard between us. And, biggest of all, in my foggy brain was that she didn’t mind if I came fast. She just wanted to be there with me.

  “Do it, O’Neal.” I slammed her down, my fingers pressed so hard into her ass that she’d be sure to bruise. Shit. Don’t bruise her. “Be the first to come on my cock.”

  Why not the only one?

  Maybe the bruises would make her think of me.

  She moaned and rubbed faster, frantic, her eyes doing the same sweep as mine—from that place where our bodies joined, to my face and back. She met my gaze and got impossibly tighter. A vise around me.

  “I’m coming,” I told her, my voice weirdly calm while everything else went ballistic. My balls tightened painfully, my dick hardened, every muscle in my body went rigid, and I pistoned into her like a battering ram. “Oh, fuck.”

  “Pull my nipples.” My eyes, almost shut, flew open when she said that. I reached one hand down, scooped up the coat, found her tit and twisted. “Harder. Pull it.”

  I tugged, with more force than I’d ever dared use on a woman, and she exploded. Her mouth dropped open, her head fell back, her body tightened its hold and sucked me into orgasm.

  Two, then three thrusts and I had to grab her waist to stop her from moving, while I came as deeply inside her as possible.

  Oh my God.

  Couldn’t see. Couldn’t catch my breath or hear anything beyond the pounding of my pulse in my head. It took a while for my muscles to reactivate and my brain to reengage, but when it did…

  Fuck, this wasn’t how the first time was supposed to be. Painful and crude and earth shattering. I’d decided, after all these years of waiting, that I’d make sure the first time was warm and romantic. That it meant something. Not with a near stranger in our fucking coats on a freezing cold mountain… in the dirt.

  “That was…” O’Neal lifted her head from where it had landed on my shoulder and kissed me on the cheek before moving to my mouth. A shudder ran through me at the feel of her still snug around me, my erection barely softening. Those lips of hers worked their magic in a long, wet, deep kiss. After a few heartbeats, she pulled back and held my eyes. “The best sex I ever had. Hands down.”

  I couldn’t talk, but it didn’t seem to matter when she put her lips back to mine and stole the breath from my lungs.

  Not a near stranger. Not a stranger at all.

  Fuck, I could love this woman.

  But what kind of partner could I be when I had no clue who I was, where I was going, or what was next?

  * * *

  O’Neal

  I woke up slowly, opened my eyes to a stained orange ceiling and blinked.

  Tent.

  I shifted, my limbs achy and languid.

  Kurt.

  I reached down and pressed between my legs.

  No longer a virgin Kurt.

  With a slow smile, I turned over to find him…gone. No sleeping bag or clothes. Only his pad remained and that was likely because I was on it.

  For a few frantic moments, I pictured him far away, already walking off the mountain ahead of me. But no. He wouldn’t leave without his tent.

  Would he?

  I’d hunt him down if he did. Because this wasn’t over. It just wasn’t. Not with the way last night had happened. More angst and emotion in that one outdoor sex session than I’d experienced in every one of my shags put together. We’d talked about doing more, but after the day we’d had, we both passed out. I pulled on my socks and pants, remembering the way we’d fallen asleep—wound around each other, entwined like lovers.

  Lovers. That was what I wanted him to be. My lover, or…something.

  Love.

  Crap crap crap, O’Neal.

  Yeah, so I’d fallen for the most emotionally unavailable man I’d ever met.

  And I’d fallen hard.

  Something moved outside and my pulse picked up.

  He was still here!

  I rolled up my bag sloppily and too fast, did the same with his pad, unzipped the tent, and shot out to find him waiting. Impatiently, judging from the way he paced, one hand running back and forth through his too-long hair, fog closing behind him like slowly swirling coattails. His expression was… Not happy.

  Okay. Okay, I could handle not happy.

  “Hey.” Great. Way to wow him with my eloquence.

  “Morning, O’Neal.”

  I swallowed back a weird rush of tears. What was it about the way he’d said my name that sounded like goodbye?

  This was karma. For all the men I’d done and ditched. Just sex, I’d said, over and over and over and here he was about to tell me the exact same thing.

  And I deserved it.

  But I’d die.

  “Hey.” I’
d lost all words. Now I was repeating myself. Speak, woman. “So, what are your plans for—”

  “When do you have to—”

  We talked over each other, which couldn’t have been more awkward, laughed, again with the awkward, and faded out to silence again.

  “You go,” I told him, because I really, truly, couldn’t say anything right now without some of it coming out in tears.

  “So, you headed back to town?”

  I opened my mouth, croaked, and had to try again. “Um. Yeah. Yep.”

  He nodded.

  “You need a ride someplace?”

  “Oh, no I…” He paused and cleared his throat. “Sure.”

  Okay. Practicalities. I could hold it together for this. “Where to?”

  He wrinkled his brow. “Guess town’s as good a place as any right now.”

  “Sounds good.”

  I nodded.

  He nodded. “Want some breakfast?”

  Oh no. No way could I sit through a stilted breakfast with him.

  “No!” Okay, so maybe I said that a bit too loudly, but he didn’t seem to notice.

  “I’ll grab the tent and—”

  “I can help!” If we weren’t walking right now, then I needed something to do with these hands, this body that’d been put through the ringer last night. Every shift revealed a new twinge, every move brought to mind an image or a smell, a taste or a sensation. I’d never forget any of it. Ever. But I needed it out of my mind right now.

  I gulped back a sob and turned away from his puzzled expression. “Gotta go to…” I didn’t finish, just stumbled into the woods, found a private place and peed. I took way too long to gather myself but I finally managed to plaster a smile on my face and drum up a parody of my usual morning-after façade. I could do this. I could pretend like this was any other time. Any other person.

  Back at the camping spot, everything was packed and ready to go.

  I couldn’t look at him for long, but when I glanced his way, Kurt looked nothing like a man who’d lost his virginity the night before. There was none of that boo-yah attitude I’d have expected from someone else.

  I pulled on my pack, looked around for loose ends and waited for him to slide his pack into the chair.