by Vivien Vale
I aim the camera at the sound. It will allow me to get a better look at the wide-eyed deer or bunny rabbit that’s come to greet me. Maybe the picture I take will end up being actually cute for once.
Flash!
“Oh, ffffff…” I’m not singing.
This woodland creature is not of the Disney variety. In fact, this woodland creature would be much more at home in a Werner Herzog documentary.
A bear. It’s a freaking bear.
The bear doesn’t seem interested in answering my question. It looks ragged, like he, or she, just woke up from its own midday badly from a nap.
And I just flashed a big, bright light right in its big, grumpy bear face.
I see a hint of fear in the bear’s eyes, but that’s not stopping it from coming closer. I start pushing myself up, but the second I begin to move, the bear slaps the ground with its paws, lowers its head and makes a low, growling noise.
“Uh… Easy there, big fella. I didn’t mean to wake you from your hibernation or whatever.” Now I really want to move, but I can’t. My head feels like it weighs a thousand pounds, and it falls back to the ground.
All I wanted to do was make a clean break and try to get a fresh a start in life as I could.
“And now,” I whimper softly into the ground, “now I’m just going to die.”
I shut my eyes. This can’t really be happening, can it?
The bear roars. It’s happening. I keep my eyes shut tight.
I feel the heat of the bear drawing nearer, and I hear the sound of its paws hitting the ground—followed by what sounds like the bear’s entire body hitting the ground.
There’s grunting. Huffing. Snorting. Scrambling around.
Then I hear it: a roar.
Not a bear’s roar, but a man’s.
Jack.
Jack’s come to save me.
Barking follows, and I hear the bear snarl in response.
Buck.
My man and his dog are here to save the day.
The final thing I hear is a nasty, awful wet sound.
SNAP!
I open my eyes and lift up my head once again.
I can’t see anything.
Flash! Goes the camera.
Jack is lying top of the bear, holding its head between his hands.
“Jack?”
Jack drops the bear’s lifeless head and stands up.
“It’s okay,” Jack says quietly. “He didn’t suffer. You’re safe now.”
“You k-killed it with just your hands, Jack!”
I can feel him shrug as he comes over to me, scooping me up in his arms.
“I’m a killer,” he tells me. “That’s what these hands do.”
But when he smooths his warm palm over my cold, wind-burnt cheek, I know his hands are good for other things, too.
I’ve felt them. On my skin and between my legs and now, on my face, warming me up with their impossible heat.
There’s a gentleness inside him that I don’t think even he knows is there. But I’m starting to see it.
“Let’s get you home, honey,” Jack says, placing a hot kiss on my forehead.
I feel like my head is growing heavy again, and sleep overtakes me.
Chapter 19
Jack
What the fuck was she thinking?
This girl obviously knows nothing about the great outdoors.
She could’ve got herself killed so easily. The thought of it makes me sick to my stomach. If I haven’t been there in time, Avery’s life would’ve ended.
She must’ve really wanted to get away from me to brave this kind of cold. I can’t imagine what was running through her head. I find myself feeling angry and worried all at once.
I scoop her up into my arms to begin the long trudge back to the cabin. She’s delirious and on the verge of hypothermia.
The whole way back I’m thinking of how much I must’ve scared her. Like I said, I’m a danger to everybody. I have to live removed from society.
But as I feel the slight weight of Avery in my arms, I can’t deny that I have a strong desire for her. Hell, at this point, I can’t imagine ever forgetting about her. She’s got me hooked pretty fucking good.
I hike through the snow with her in my arms. The wind is against us and it’s blowing snowflakes right into my eyes.
I can barely see but I know exactly where I’m going. Living out here has given me a certain sense of direction that’s always on call.
I know how to survive in a snowstorm. Avery obviously fucking doesn’t. I know how to fight off a bear. Avery couldn’t even if she knew how. I know my way around the woods. But Avery, she’s lost as shit out here.
Not that it stops her from trying to fuck around in my domain anyway.
I almost lost her today.
I’m talking to her, trying to keep her conscious, “Avery, are you okay? Do you know who I am?”
She opens her eyes for a second and says, “You’re “You’re…Hagrid?”
Even in her frozen little state, I can see her eyes narrow and her lips curl into a smile.
Christ. Even now, she’s fucking with me.
“Jack,” she says with a tired little giggle. “Of course, I know you.”
Her sweet words do a lot to melt my fucking heart. But all I can think about at this moment is getting her back to the cabin and to safety. I’m gonna have to warm her up quickly.
At last, I see the smoke from the chimney and it leads me to our way home. I have to get her inside.
I run through the blizzard towards the house with Buck bounding at my heels. I get her up to the bedroom and immediately strip away all of her frozen clothes.
Then, I peel off my own layers so that I can warm her up with my body heat. It’s the fastest way to keep her conscious.
“Boof!” says Buck. A little judgmentally, if I’m being completely honest.
“Out,” I order, and he sulks away, looking at me like I’m misbehaving somehow.
Silly mutt is just jealous. He cares about this girl as much as I do. Probably wants to be the one curling up around her and getting her warm.
But this? This is a man’s job.
I lay her naked body down on the mattress. I add some more logs to the little fireplace near the bed so that the fire is roaring and the heat warms up her lithe and beautiful body.
Then I lay down next to her and hold her tightly., pulling the blankets up over both of us. My frame envelops her own and I like it that way.
While I’m bringing her back to life, all I can think about is sending her to the stars and making her come so hard that she’ll never forget this night. I want to punish her for running away from me. I want her to know that it can never happen again.
What is this newfound sense of possessiveness? I never let anybody enter my life; at least I haven’t for a while now. Avery’s starting to get to me. Makes it especially hard to be curled around her like this in front of the fire.
Slowly, she comes to.
She says, “Jack, you saved me out there. “Jack…I almost died.”
I want to scold her, to remind her that she is no idea what she’s doing out here deep in the woods, but I decide that will make the situation worse.
Instead, I find myself whispering calming words into her ear, “I would’ve been there in a matter what. You never have anything to fear, Avery. Not when you’re with me.”
All I can hope is that those words are true.
She smiles up at me and even in the midst of her degraded state she looks fucking gorgeous. It takes all my effort not to bend her legs back over her head and pound her right here on this rug.
We stay there awhile, entwined in front of a roaring fire. Slowly I feel her skin start to heat up. She and I are looking into the flames thinking about each other.
I know she wants me as badly as I do. It takes everything I have, every source of my strength, to hold back from fucking her. I know she wants me to but I have to hold out.
First, we h
ave to have the conversation.
After a long silence she finally says, “Jack, you rescued me. You’re my hero.”
I hold her tighter and say, “No Avery, I did you wrong. I’m sorry for what happened this morning. I’m sorry that you felt like you had to run away from me. That wasn’t me. Can you understand that?”
“I…I…” She hesitates. “I don’t fully understand it, Jack. But something inside of me is telling me to trust you. I will never run away from you again. I’m so sorry.”
I tip her face to my own and look into her tear-filled eyes. It kills me that she felt so bad about this. I’m the one who scared her away after all.
“I will never make you feel like that again. Can you trust me?”
“I think so. I want to,” she says.
With that, I wrap myself ever tighter around her little body. I need her to warm up even more. I need to make sure my baby is fully conscious and safe and healed.
The feel of her so tightly conjoined with my body is enough to make me go crazy. I know she can feel my huge cock pressing against her, hard as ever.
I make no attempt to hide it. I want her, bad.
Now that she knows how sorry I am maybe I can take her. Maybe she would have me once again.
I need to know that she’s fully warmed up though. I need to make sure that she safe. So we stay like that, wrapped up in each other for what feels like an eternity.
The fire’s starting to die out but my desire has not taken a backseat. I’m burning for her, aching for her.
And I know she feels it too. The electricity between us is always on. It keeps us both on high alert.
The feeling is one that I never dreamed was possible for me. To connect with someone in this way is so far beyond what I imagined for myself that I can’t even describe it.
Suddenly, Avery has become important to me. Suddenly, it’s my mission in life not to lose her again. Today was too close a call.
I slide my hands down her body and feel her beautiful ass and her soft skin. I can’t help myself. I have to touch her.
Her body is tense under the feel of my hands and I know she’s simultaneously yearning for it and afraid of it. That makes me happy.
I’m so wild, robust, and overwhelming. She’s so gentle, cultivated, and sweet-tempered.
We are disparate, opposites. And yet opposites attract, and I feel myself aiming for, lusting for everything she has that I am not. I feel impassioned by her tender nature and all I want is more and more of her.
I let my hand graze ever farther down her body.
I shouldn’t, but I do.
She’s mine.
Chapter 20
Avery
Remember being a kid and falling asleep on a long car ride home? You’d wake up just before you got there, and it would take a moment to get your bearings, remember exactly where you were.
I recall the cozy comfort of being so small in such a large back seat. The safe hug of the seat belt holding me adrift as my body sunk forward, nodding off.
It’s almost that feeling again right now. The dopey, childlike exhaustion. The intrinsic knowing that I’m so close to home, I have to stay awake—even when all I want to do is drift back into sleep.
The only difference is that my entire body is frozen in the cold like an icicle, and instead of a seat belt, I’m encapsulated by Jack’s hot, unrelenting warmth.
The man’s skin is burning. He’s not just warm—he’s almost feverish when it comes to how hot his skin feels pressed against mine.
My naked body is gooseflesh from head to toe. I can even feel the cold in my bones.
I burrow against him, finding a place where my body fits against his, seeking to possess his warmth.
My head goes just beneath his chin. I can feel the thick, wiry hairs of his beard scratch against my scalp like a boar-bristle brush as he tucks his chin over me, locking me into place.
In the crook of his collarbone, I settle my cold little nose and my trembling lips. My breath against him there forms a little pocket of humidity. It allows me to regain a little feeling to my stinging cheeks and wind burnt face.
My freezing fingers, swollen and bright pink and chilled through, I tuck beneath his arms. Jack has thick, dense hair that covers the surface of his armpits, but to my surprise, it’s oddly soft. I wind my fingers into its warmth, bringing the smell of Jack’s sweat and musk all around me.
He smells good. No, he smells better than good. This isn’t a Calvin Klein sampler gift bag at fashion week.
Jack is a man.
All man.
I know basic biology. I’ve heard of pheromones before. But there’s a difference between knowing and understanding, and suddenly, inhaling Jack’s scent, I understand completely.
There’s something inside me, some cavewoman part of my brain, that’s broadcasting the message to the rest of my body that Jack isn’t just a source of warmth right now. That maybe, if I’m good and sweet and grateful to him for his daring rescue, he might be a source of something else—something more promising.
Now my body twists against him with newfound purpose. I shove my breasts against his ribs, feeling my hard, cold nipples make quiet demands against the heat of his skin. My stomach finds his hip, and when I shift myself a little more, it finds his—his—
His cock.
His huge, throbbing, iron ingot of a cock, so hot it’s as if it was just pulled straight out of the forge, so long that it lays against me from pelvis to rib cage.
Jack’s cock. Jack’s gorgeous, terrifying, mountain man cock.
I whimper at the thought of it. I whimper again even louder as I buck my hips up and Jack’s balls settle in the little valley between my thighs. He grunts, and his cock twitches against me.
He likes that, I realize. Jack likes having my cold little body pressed up against his hard, steaming-hot cock.
But he doesn’t like it enough, it seems. He pulls his hips away, and I feel my heart break into a thousand pieces all at once.
No! I think, my mind racing in desperation. I need that cock! Jack! Please!
But I don’t say that. I don’t beg. Instead, I press myself against him even harder, winding my long, cold legs around his calves and entangling my cold little feet with his.
I can feel Jack breathing now, with our bodies intertwined like this. He’s taking slow, steady, deliberate breaths, in an effort to regain self-control. Like he’s trying hard to stop himself from wanting something that we both know we need right now.
But I need his body heat. His warmth. I’m frozen to my core, and the only thing that can help me now is being filled with his cock and pumped full of his lava-hot cum.
I rub my body against his, making small little moans of need. I want him. And I know—I know from the way his breath goes all ragged when I do it—that he wants me too.
Finally, I can’t stand it anymore. I can feel his hot palms pressing against my shivering cold spine, but it’s just not enough. I need to feel warmth from the inside, to feel it coursing through my veins.
I can’t handle him being impartial, unmoving, so much like this mountain that he loves so much. I’ve been waiting for far too long. He’s a hot, red-blooded man and I’m a woman who wants to take his cock, cum, pleasure and pain.
And if there’s one benefit of being a little rich girl, it’s that I’m very accustomed to getting what I want. Because I know just how to get it.
I wrench my body away from his chest and raise my lips to his. It’s a kiss to end all kisses. The kind of kiss that’s so full of passion and desire and need and longing that the entire universe fixes on the point where our lips meet, and time begins to shift around it.
That’s how it feels for me, anyway.
For Jack, I can see it’s tearing him apart.
“Avery,” he rasps, breaking away by force. “I can’t—you know I can’t.”
“You can!” I insist eagerly, recapturing his lips once more. “Jack—you can! You have to, Jack. I need y
ou!”
“You don’t need me,” he growls against my lips. I can feel his whole body bristling with frustration, all of it directed at me and my advances. “Your fucking brain’s frozen over, little girl. You need warmth right now. Not a man.”
“Don’t tell me what I fucking need,” I glower. “I’m not a fucking child, Jack—”
My body turns beneath his faster than I can react to try and stop him. Not that it would have been any use. Jack is stronger than me. He’s bigger. And as he wraps his hand on my throat, I remember—he’s meaner, too.
“Then why are you fucking acting like one?!” he bellows, mere inches away from my face. “I told you, Avery! I fucking told you what would happen if you went out there—and did you listen? Fuck no, you didn’t! You haven’t listened to a goddamn word I’ve said—”
“I h-have,” I argue. Now I’m shivering with indignation too, but my body can’t hold my rage.
Jack merely shakes his head. His face is so close to mine, his beard tickles against my lips as he does it. It reminds me that, with the two of us naked like this, he doesn’t have all the power here.
Not even close.
My hips shift beneath his, finding purchase on the hard, thick cock he’s trying so hard to keep away from me.
“I w-want you,” I stutter, staring up at him with intensity and pushing the words through my teeth. “And you w-want me too. I can feel it. Stop fighting it.”
Jack closes his eyes for a moment, like he’s trying to count backwards from ten in his head.
He gets to five at best.
“I’ll hurt you,” he warns me. “Tight little virgin like you… Silly fucking girl. This ain’t no starter cock.”
“H-hurt me, then.”
There’s a brief flash in his gaze that tells me he enjoys that idea all too much.
“No condoms,” he tries again. “Last thing a crazy-ass girl like you needs is for a man like me to put a baby inside of her.”
“M-maybe I want that,” I say through curled, trembling lips. “M-maybe I w-want you to put a baby inside of m-me, Jack.”
That makes his cock twitch.
With it, I can feel the last shreds of his restraint fall to the floor like a flag of surrender torn to bits by rifle fire. Finally.
