Mountain Rescue Lion

by Zoe Chant

  Eric flicked the tip of his tongue over her nipple. He looked up at her from under his lashes, the corner of his mouth pulling up into a smile when her back arched at the sensation.

  "Sensitive?" he asked, his voice low and warm.

  She could barely find the breath to reply. "Y-yeah. Don't stop."

  He flicked his tongue over her again, teasing; without conscious thought, she found herself grabbing hold of his tousled hair, holding him down against her. His low, startled laugh brushed over her skin like a physical sensation. He let her grip guide him, sucking at her nipple until she was arching up against his mouth, moaning, squeezing her thighs together in time with the hungry pulse of blood between her legs.

  Eric stroked her leg, his thumb drawing a line of fire up the inside of her thigh until he was just brushing against the soaked fabric of her panties. Cora clenched her thighs around his hand, straining to grind against that teasing touch.

  Eric pressed his thumb against her clit, not teasing anymore, giving her perfect pressure right where she wanted it. He held his hand still for her to press against just the way she wanted. He sucked harder at her nipple, his free hand cupping her other breast, his thumb rubbing perfect little circles over her clit.

  Her climax hit her hard and fast, pleasure so bright it was almost blinding. Her entire body tightened, her thighs clamping down around his hand, keeping him right where she wanted him. Her voice broke on a moan.

  Eric kept his hand on her all the way through, his thumb on her clit until the pleasure became too much, and then he eased her gently back down from the peak, his fingers stroking slickly over the lips of her pussy, sending shivery aftershocks through her.

  "Thank you," she murmured, leaning her heavy head against his shoulder, tilting her face down for a lazy kiss. God, she felt amazing.

  Eric had a few red lines running down the back of his neck. Cora brushed the tips of her fingers against them apologetically, chasing a vague sense memory of her nails scratching over his skin. "Sorry."

  "Mm, I liked it." Eric's voice was still rough with arousal, and where Cora's entire body seemed to have melted into a happy puddle, his muscles flexed with barely-contained energy beneath her hand.

  Cora ran her hand down his chest, following the sharp lines of his muscles down to his flat stomach, to the trail of hair leading down. His underwear had been pushed down a little, revealing the flushed head of his cock. She ran a finger over the tip. Eric's hips snapped up towards her hand. He made a low, almost pained sound, his voice cracking. "Cora, please—"

  Cora had a single condom in her wallet, although she'd never actually expected to need it. She suddenly found herself incredibly thankful for her habit of preparing for every eventuality as she pressed it into Eric's hand.

  "Come here," she said, pulling him on top of her until his cock pressed hot against her thigh.

  She fumbled to push her panties down further, then did the same for his boxers. Eric dropped his head to her shoulder, his eyes squeezed shut, his breath catching every time she brushed against him as she moved.

  She reached between them to wrap her hand around his cock. Eric stopped breathing entirely when she guided him inside her, his hands clenching in the fabric beside her shoulders. Cora closed her eyes in bliss, feeling his cock sliding slickly against her folds, stretching her open slowly, just the right size to push against all the right places inside her.

  Eric started moving slowly, gently, as if he could tell exactly how intensely she felt him, every nerve still alive and sparkingly sensitive after her orgasm. She could feel the effort it took him to go slow, his muscles almost vibrating with tension, every breath carefully controlled. She could tell he was so close it hurt.

  She put her hands on his hip and pulled him fully inside her, guiding him into a deep hard thrust that lit up her entire body and made him shudder in her arms. "Come on," she said, and then gasped when his movements followed the guiding touches of her hand, setting off sensation inside her like a bright shower of sparks.

  She found herself suddenly on the edge again, her body tightening around him, her hands clenching on his hips, her breath speeding up in time with his. "Come on, come on," she muttered, and then cursed, softly, under her breath, when he finally released that iron control and started fucking her hard and deep and exactly right. Pleasure flowed between them like a current, a connection that felt so close and deep she almost imagined she could see it: a bright trail of light connecting her body to his.

  Eric bent down to kiss her, his lips on hers like a circuit closing. The pleasure exploded bright and overwhelming through her entire body.

  Eric cried out when she did. They went over the edge together, clinging to each other, his forehead against hers.

  Eric gently rolled them to lie on their sides, still cradling her tight against his chest. She could feel him heaving for breath, shivering in the aftermath. Her own body felt wrung out and limp, perfectly sated, and tired to the bone; a good tiredness, triumphant, the feeling she had when she reached the top of the mountain, sitting down to rest with the world spread out beneath her.

  Her face was wet. She reached up to swipe at her eyes, vaguely surprised. Had she been crying?

  Eric's fingers tangled with hers, gentle on her face as he stroked the tears away with the tips of his fingers.

  "You okay?" he asked, his warm voice full of concern, full of a feeling she couldn't look at too closely just now, no matter how badly she wanted to.

  She'd only known him for such a short time. How could she feel so deeply affected? How could he—how could he feel whatever it was she thought she saw in his face?

  "I'm okay." Her voice shook. She huddled against his chest. He wrapped his arms more tightly around her, holding her close, safe and warm against the heat of his body.

  She drifted off to sleep in his arms, their shared body warmth keeping them comfortable in the cold night.

  ***

  Cora startled awake to a rumbling sound, loud and deep enough that she felt it in her bones, felt it vibrating through the ground beneath her.

  Eric sat up with a gasp. "What—"

  "Avalanche. Not here—higher up." The sound swelled to a crescendo, the thunder of tons of snow all starting to slide at once, enough force to move boulders the size of houses. Cora had seen avalanches go down before, always from a safe distance, and could easily match the sounds to the trail of destruction.

  The noise was muted enough that she knew the avalanche wasn't going to get anywhere near their own little hide-out. Eric had apparently come to the same conclusion, now that he was more awake; she could see him relaxing from the first adrenaline rush of waking to that terrifying din.

  The noise finally subsided, the loose snow settling in its new position. Eric turned his head towards the sound, towards the unseen top of the mountain.

  "I hope no one got caught in that."

  "Should be okay," Cora said. "With that storm, anyone with any sense will have gone to the camps for safety, and they're all set up in sheltered spots. They should be fine there."

  "Yeah. Let's hope you're right."

  Eric ran his hand over her naked shoulder, which was quickly getting chilled. The sleeping bag had slid down when they'd sat up. He tugged the covers back over her, his warm hand curling over her cold skin. "You okay?"

  "Mm. Not my favorite way to wake up."

  Avalanches were a constant threat up in the mountains. Cora was careful, but there wasn't such a thing as perfect safety, not up here; that rumbling noise of snow starting to slide had featured in more than one of her nightmares. Waking up to that sound, in the first moments of disorientation, before she remembered where they were and that they were safe, had been terrifying. Her hands shook.

  Eric pulled her more tightly against his side. His naked body was strong and warm against hers, endlessly reassuring. Eric stroked his warm, steady hands down her back. Cora closed her eyes and curled into the caress, sighing in contentment as the tight knots
between her shoulder blades started to loosen under his touch. Finally, she fell back asleep.

  Chapter Four

  When Cora woke up again, sunlight was filtering in through the narrow entrance to their cave.

  Eric stirred beside her, shifting to his side with his eyes still closed, long lashes fluttering when a ray of sun fell on his face. His hair was tousled with sleep, shining golden in the morning light.

  Cora ran her fingers through the soft strands until Eric blinked his eyes open. He looked at her, and a slow, blinding smile spread over his face.

  "You're real." His voice was rough with sleep.

  "I am," Cora confirmed with a laugh.

  She knew where he was coming from. Yesterday felt almost unreal to her, like a dream. Had all of that really happened?

  Eric tipped his head against hers, nuzzling her cheek in lieu of a good morning kiss. Cora smiled, charmed. He reminded her of a big cat.

  Well, that's what he was in a way, wasn't he?

  Out of everything that had happened yesterday, that was still the hardest to believe. Had he really turned into a cat in front of her eyes? It felt too real to have been a dream. And yet…

  "Eric…?"

  She hesitated. How did you even ask something like that? Hey Eric, did you actually turn into a mountain lion, or am I having high altitude hallucinations?

  Eric extracted one hand from the sleeping bag and held it up. A soft golden light enveloped his fingers, and when he crooked them, five long, dark claws emerged from the tips. He twisted his hand back and forth a few times, letting her get a good look, and then retracted the claws, as neatly as a cat. For a moment, that golden light flared again. When Cora reached out to take his hand it was fully human again, no sign left of what had just happened.

  "Does that answer your question?" Eric grinned.

  "How did you know that's what I was going to ask?"

  He shrugged. "You were making a face. I don't know, I guess… I guess I just feel like I already know you pretty well?"

  He glanced at her from under his lashes, looking shy all of a sudden.

  "I guess you do."

  Eric's face brightened, and she felt her own smile growing in answer to the look on his face.

  God, he was gorgeous. And there was something about the way he looked at her… as if she was the only thing in the universe that mattered.

  She shook herself out of her reverie. "We should get going."

  They packed up their camp in silent accord. Already it felt like the most natural thing in the world to work with him, her body moving easily around his in the cramped space, as if she'd picked up some sort of sixth sense for where he was.

  Outside, the weather was as perfect as one could hope for, the sun shining down out of a clear blue sky. Cora shook her head at the fickleness of the mountains. One moment a storm fit to blow them off the face of the Earth, the next this.

  The snow glittered in the sunlight, a deceptively peaceful blanket. The beauty of it took her breath away, even knowing the dangers: there'd be holes and crevasses hidden beneath that layer of freshly-fallen snow. They'd have to be careful on the descent.

  But Cora had been up and down the Rai Parvat often enough that the safe route was burned into her brain, and Eric seemed almost as familiar with the terrain. The snow had compacted overnight, and although they still sunk in to the ankle, at least it wasn't coming up over her knees anymore. They made quick progress down the trail, walking hand in hand.

  "So how long have you been working in mountain rescue?" Cora asked.

  "God, a long time. I've been helping out since I was sixteen, although I didn't start doing it as a real job until a couple years later."

  "Wow. You must have a lot of stories."

  "Oh, some. You do see some pretty ridiculous stuff," Eric said. He put his arm around her shoulder, pulled her in for a quick kiss, and released her with a smile. "You must get your own share of idiots, as a guide."

  "Don't you know it," Cora said with a sigh. "Okay, go. Most reckless idiot you ever had to rescue."

  Eric laughed. "Hmm, let me think. I guess that'd be the guy who saved the life of Betsy the armchair."

  Cora looked over at him. Eric's eyes were sparkling with mischief, so she was pretty sure she'd heard that right, but— "Betsy the what?"

  Eric grinned. "There was this group of Scottish tourists. And for whatever reason they'd decided to go camping on Mount Evans for their bachelor party."

  "Oh no," Cora said, wincing. Drunken idiots on mountains. She'd seen her share of those, and it never ended well. She listened, one hand over her mouth, as Eric described how one of the drunken bachelors had gotten lost in the woods.

  "So he stumbles around up there for what must've been at least half an hour. Ends up at the top of a gully," Eric said. "He looks down, and he sees something white and fluffy, all the way down there. Now this guy's from Scotland, where they've got sheep on every mountain. He decides it must be a sheep that fell and got stuck. And he's gonna rescue the sheep."

  "No!" Cora laughed behind her hand.

  Eric grinned. He took the hand that had been covering her mouth and pressed a quick kiss to her knuckles. She leaned in to kiss him for real, although the kiss turned out lopsided, both of them smiling against each other's lips.

  "Keep talking, I gotta know how this ends."

  "Well. The guy starts climbing down into the gully, at night, in the dark, wearing nothing but his shorts, and it's just started to rain."

  "Oh God," Cora said, wincing and laughing at the same time.

  "Yeah. Noble idea, terrible execution. So the walls of this gully are mostly earth, right, and with the rain it's all turning to mud, and he slips and falls and somehow manages to slide all the way down to the bottom, not a scratch on him. But there's no way he's ever getting back out on his own."

  "Yikes." She could tell from the way Eric was telling the story that it wasn't going to end badly, but oh man, that could've gone wrong.

  "Fortunately by this point, his friends had noticed that he hasn't come back. So they call mountain rescue, and mountain rescue calls me, and I managed to pick up his scent trail."

  "Wait, you can do that?" Cora stopped and twisted around so she could look at Eric's face.

  "When I'm shifted, yeah." He glanced at her from under his lashes, looking a little anxious all of a sudden. "Is that... okay?"

  Cora blinked at him, startled. "What? Why wouldn't that be okay?"

  "It's one of those things that non-shifters sometimes find a little creepy."

  "Really? No!" It sounded incredibly convenient to her, actually.

  Eric gave her hand a squeeze, looking relieved.

  Cora leaned up to brush a kiss against his cheek. "I think you're wonderful," she said, low, feeling her face burn. "And the mountain lion thing's really neat."

  Eric's closed his eyes for a moment, nuzzling his face against hers, drawing her into a kiss. "I'm glad," he said, his voice cracking slightly. He took a deep breath.

  "Anyway, by this time the gully is starting to flood..."

  Cora listened breathlessly as Eric described how he'd managed to find the poor tourist, down in the gully, asleep on a small hillock.

  "That was just about the only dry spot left down there, too," Eric said, making a face. "I was up to my stomach in mud, which, let me tell you, is even less fun as a mountain lion than it is as a human. The cat part of my brain was so mad."

  "What is that like, anyway?" Cora asked. "Do you think like a cat, when you're shifted?"

  But no, that couldn't really be. Eric had still recognized her, even when he'd been a mountain lion. He'd seemed to understand her, and he'd managed to communicate, too.

  "I'm mostly still me, even in my mountain lion form," Eric said. "But there's definitely some cat instincts—and some instincts that only shifters have, too."

  Cora was going to ask about that, but Eric looked like he regretted mentioning it; he jumped right back into his story.
<
br />   "So this guy's curled up around—well, let's just say, it wasn't a sheep," Eric said with a grin. "There was this old armchair, with all the fabric worn away and the stuffing bulging out, so it's basically just a bunch of white fluff. And my poor drunk bachelor's all snuggled up to it, with an arm around the fluffiest bit. And then of course he picks that exact moment to wake up—and I'm still standing there as a mountain lion, no time to shift back before he sees me."

  "Oh no," Cora said.

  "Oh yes. So you have to remember he's still drunk, and by this point he's also exhausted and hypothermic, and he still hasn't even realized that that's not a sheep he's snuggling. So this guy, this wet, shivering, half-naked guy with his little pocket knife, he gets in between the sheep—the armchair—and me, he stands up in front of a huge mountain lion, and he goes—" Eric's voice shifted into a faint imitation of a Scottish accent—"Screw ya, kitty! This here's me Betsey! I saved her, I named her, you cannae have her!"

  "Aww." Cora pressed a hand to her face, trying to contain a giggle. "Stupid, but brave."

  "Yeah," Eric grinned. "It was kind of touching. Not as touching as it would've been if I hadn't been wet, tired, and covered in mud."

  "How did you ever get him out of that gully?"

  "Ran away, shifted back where he couldn't see me, called in backup. They ended up pulling both of us out with the winch from the pick-up truck. The most difficult part was getting that guy to let go of his Betsy." Eric grinned. "Thankfully, he was drunk enough the next day he just assumed he must have hallucinated the mountain lion. He was mortified when he sobered up. I got a really nice thank you card from him, actually."

  Cora laughed, bumping her shoulder against his. "That's something."

  Eric turned to her with a grin. "Your turn. Most obnoxious client you ever had."