It was true what Dane had told her: she would be hunted if she ran. She was being hunted.
Gotta be silent. Gotta be alert, she thought, skulking tensely through the forest. Gotta be cool. Gotta keep it together. Just get home and—
Accidentally, her foot connected with a dead tree; there was a spray of pulpy wood, landing with a hiss across the ferns. Her toes tingled, and, for a second, she let her concentration slip as she examined her boot.
“Ow,” she murmured, distracted.
A dove cooed, but there was no other sound; then—
“Ginger?” A voice.
She recognized that voice. Her head shot up.
“Hunter!” she gasped, horrified.
He was fifteen, twenty yards away, jacketed, wearing jeans and lug boots. He looked just as good as he always did—big, strong, handsome. Broad-shouldered, short-bearded. Rugged… and shocked. He looked shocked.
One step. He took one step toward her.
And she took off at a run.
“Ginj—no—wait!”
She ran as fast as she’d ever run, the pines flashing by. His canoe wasn’t far off—if she could only get there—only launch it—
But he wasn’t far behind her—he was fast, a powerful runner, gaining with every stride—
“Ginger! Stop, God damn it!”
She ignored him, kicking up an extra burst of speed—pushing herself to the limit—
Over her shoulder, the sound of his pursuit changed. It lost its clean beat, its lightness; he stopped yelling. Now it was louder and messier—there was snuffling—grunting—
She spared a glance.
Bear.
She screamed. Instinct blinded her—GRIZZLY! CHASING ME!—and she cut away to a shore pine and lightning-chained up it, as fast as a champion climber. By the time she was two-thirds up, she was drenched in sweat and shaking, and he was roaring and scratching down at the base of the tree.
The roars melted into human speech. “Ginger! Come down!”
She stared down the bristly length of the trunk, speechless.
“Ginger!” he repeated, human again, and naked as he came. “I’m not going to… for fuck’s sake, Ginger, I wasn’t going to hurt you, I—Look, girl, don’t make me come up!”
She scoffed, still trembling. “And you wonder why I’m trying to run away?”
“Ginger…”
“You don’t think it could have anything to do with the fact that you’re a terrifying, two-thousand-pound beast half the time, do you?”
He paused, prickling; she could see his jaw clench.
“I liked that jacket I was wearing, girl.”
“I didn’t force you to bear-burst out of it! Like some kind of—were-Hulk!”
He snorted, obviously despite himself. She felt a stupid, giddy rush of warmth over the fact that she could still make him laugh.
“Ginger,” he said, and, his voice calmer, “come down.”
“No.”
“I’m not going to hurt you.”
“I wrecked your canoe.”
There was a silence at these words. The birds filled it, chittering.
“Okay,” he said finally. “It’s only a thing. I don’t even care. I’m just glad you’re not dead… that was a hell of a storm last night.”
“I’m sorry.”
“For the canoe…? Or for…?”
“For the canoe.”
“Yeah. Well.” A waxwing trilled. “Use that fancy Amex and buy me a new one.”
She wiped her sweaty neck with a grimy sleeve. The sky was cooling to lilac; it was almost evening, and she couldn’t stay in this shore pine all night, especially with Hunter at the base.
Slowly, hesitantly, she started to shimmy down the tree.
When her feet hit the ground, he immediately—immediately—put his hands on her waist and pressed her back against the trunk. His closeness made the air hot and thick.
“Ginger,” he said lowly, “that was a stupid thing you did.”
“Which one?” she asked dryly, trying to hide the way he made her pulse flutter.
“I was thinking specifically of how you tried to paddle back to the mainland—but since you ask, yeah, everything you did was stupid.”
His body was almost flush against hers. Her heartbeat thrummed.
“Let go of me,” she whispered, loving the salty, sweaty scent of him.
“Stupid… but bold. I almost respect you for it.” The gold in his eyes brightened to a hot ring. “Almost.”
“Let go—”
“Never been seduced before,” he growled, and she heard a shade of real, brittle anger in his voice. “Don’t think I like it.”
“Hunter—”
“Guess you didn’t mean anything you said that night, huh?”
Had she? Not the parts about wanting to be his or stay in his cabin. But she’d meant it when she told him she liked him—and when she told him she wanted him.
Mess.
“God, Ginger.” His voice had gone husky; his hands tightened on her waist, and, almost unconsciously, she gripped his strong arms. “You used me.”
“Yes,” she admitted, very, very quietly. “I did use you.”
And God, was it good.
Then one of his hands was in her hair, and he was kissing her mouth, the hinge of her jaw, her ear; he was teething her neck. She wanted to stop him, wanted to push him away—wanted to make a last dash to try and steal his canoe, again—but instead her arm went around his neck, and her thigh rose to press against his hip.
“You do things to me, Ginger,” he murmured hoarsely, right against the hollow of her throat. “I want you. Can’t help it.”
“Hunter—” she breathed, coloring up. “Don’t—we need to stop, we—”
“I can’t help it!” he repeated, his voice thicker, deeper. “Ginger—I need you—need this—”
Next she knew they were on the forest floor, and he was stripping her and she was letting him; hell, she wanted him to. The pine needles and oxalis felt good—primal—against her naked back.
He got her bra off—the way the snap sounded, she half-thought he might have broken the eyelet closure—and her plump, unblemished breasts fell free. The cool, piney air felt good on the naked skin.
She pressed his head to one of her rigid pink nipples, forcefully. His mouth closed on it and sucked hard; her eyes rolled back, and she blindly grasped for some nearby sword fern. His beard and half-chapped lips were rough on the milk-soft skin of her breast, but the coarseness was electric, delicious—masculine.
We shouldn’t be doing this.
He sucked both of her nipples to a deep, flushed fuchsia; it was bliss, but her pussy was swollen and crying out for attention, distracting her. The hot, muscular weight of him, the way he was kissing along her clavicle, biting her shoulder—
I need to get away! I need to get away from this place—from these people!
His cock was rebar-hard between her thighs, sinfully tempting. Slick with sweat, she ground her hips helplessly, demandingly against his, his cock trapped between their bodies.
But I want him. I want him.
The sex is too good. He’s too good.
I want this so much!
She couldn’t resist—didn’t really want to—and wouldn’t.
He sucked on a couple of his fingers, then slid his big hand down between her thighs.
“Perfect, Ginger,” he growled, his voice pure gravel. “Perfect pussy.”
She gasped as his thick, wet fingers rubbed up and down her strawberry-pink slit. He pinched her clit gently; it hardened even more, and her vision swam. Then he sank his middle finger deep inside her, right between her puffy lips.
“Hunterrr,” she whined, wriggling against the forest floor.
“Perfect pussy,” he repeated, his voice thick and husky. “So soft. So hot. Tight.”
He pressed another finger into her, making her back a
rch; her breasts flattened against his hard, hairy chest. She was so wet, so slick, that he could pump his fingers in and out of her deeply, forcefully, easily.
“H-Hunter—” she gasped, her eyes rolling up in her head from the simple ecstasy of having his big fingers inside her. “That’s—”
His mouth closed on hers, and he kissed her roughly, hungrily. Possessively. She loved the savage taste of him—pure salt, pure heat, pure pine. Her inner thighs were drenched from the froth of his fingering, and from the flood of her sheer, overwhelming arousal.
He fisted a hand in her hair, pulling just enough to hurt—a delicious hurt—and then, between her legs, he pulled his fingers out of her. She bit back a wail of frustration.
“I’m going to take you, Ginger,” he whispered, hoarse and fierce. “I’m going to fill you. You want it as much as I do. You’re like me—you can’t help it.”
It was true. She rolled her hips desperately, eager for his hard, swollen cock. It was pinned against her abdomen, leaking hot pre-come onto her navel.
“I’m all man, Ginger.” The harsh desire in his voice made her legs spread as wide as they could go. “And I’ll prove it to you. You’ll never go back to MacAlister.”
He lifted himself up on a hand, reaching between their bodies to grab the base of his cock. Then he guided himself inside her; the fat, flared head of his dick sunk easily into her soft, hot folds.
She moaned loudly, her fingers digging at the needley soil. The pleasure of him inside her—it was as sharp as cut crystal, overpowering. Her hips bucked, then pressed up flush against his, forcing him deep—as deep as he could go, all the way to the hilt.
He groaned; his free hand, the one not tangled in her hair, pinned one of her wrists above her head. The pressure of his big clenching fingers made her skin throb.
“You make me so hard,” he hissed roughly.
“Fuck me,” she breathed, struggling to get the words out. She felt as sweet and hot and mindless as melted toffee.
“Your skin’s so soft,” he growled. “And you smell so good. Like vanilla.” His cock flexed inside her, swelling even thicker.
“Fuck me!” she repeated, rocking her hips urgently. She wasn’t sure if she’d ever needed a man to fuck her this much in her life. What was he doing to her?
He pumped against her, working his hips, doing just what she asked: fucking her. It was so good, so fulfilling—all she could do was whimper and pump back, her eyes rolling up in her head.
Instinctively, she tightened on him, capturing him in the hot velvet grip of her pussy. He groaned, thrusting harder, faster—forcing hotter, sweeter friction. His fat, rigid cock shucking in and out of the lather of her cunt drove her wild; she gripped the back of his neck, locked her thighs around his hips. Bit her own tongue, hard.
His muscular chest, its hair deliciously chafing her breasts, was sweaty against hers. His strokes were strong and anvil-hard; punishing. He was growling, panting, half-kissing her, half-biting her.
He was an animal: a big, strong animal, ramming deep into her slick, hot cunt. An animal that was taking her. Satisfying her. Her toes curled.
“Oh, Hunter—Hunter—oh—”
She was close. The filthy, mind-melting pleasure of being fucked by this handsome, powerful man—this half-man, half-beast—on the forest floor in the wilderness was too much. Her clit was as hard as an opal—so hard that it had swollen out of its hood.
“Hunter—you’re making me—come—”
“Good!” he panted. “Come! Come on my cock, Ginger—you’re—mine—”
Her back arched. The jackhammering of his pulsing cock was sending her over the edge. Her fingers, clawing the back of his neck, drew blood.
“Need you, Ginger—” His voice was rough, barely human. “Need to come inside you—fill you—”
Even the last time with Hunter hadn’t been this good, and it had been good. She’d never been fucked like this—never. Not with this raw, feral energy. Not with so little restraint. Not like she was being mated by a breeding stud.
It was too much. Her orgasm was a thrust away—
“Hunter!” It was a wail.
She came. Her climax was nuclear, devastating—unsurpassed. She writhed against him, her body wracked with waves of hot, sizzling pleasure; it whited out her mind. Her pussy drooled so much from the orgasm that she could hear the foaminess of his strokes.
He came a half-minute later, spraying like a firehose inside her. The hand in her hair pulled hard; the hand on her wrist crushed so tight and so strong that she felt her skin bruising. She could feel the timpani-drubbing of his heartbeat, his chest pressed flush against hers.
She gasped and bucked, her pussy clenching on his orgasming cock; she’d never been filled with that much come. The sheer pleasure of it all turned her blood to fizz. She thought she might never come down.
“Ginger,” he growled, nipping her soft, flushed neck. “Ah, fuck… my Ginger.”
She certainly felt like she was his, just that moment: pinned beneath him, overflowing with his come, sweaty and vibrating from the titanic climax he’d given her. In that moment she almost wanted to be his. Forever.
“Hunter,” she breathed, her voice a dry whisper. “So good. Amazing.”
“I told you,” he said, gruff, panting, “I’m all man. All man! And I can satisfy you!”
She believed it.
But she was floating back to Earth, and she remembered where they really were, and what they really were doing. She remembered the situation she really was in. And she put her hands against his powerful chest, and pushed.
“Off,” she said, still breathless. “Roll over.”
He did—reluctantly—and the night air immediately cooled her wet, boneless body.
Chapter 22
“Don’t get up and run away,” he warned, his breathing finally calming. The rush of trees moving in the night wind was all around them, hypnotic.
“I have to run. I’m going to run. Help me run.”
“Ginger,” he said seriously, putting a hand over his face. “You can’t just run away. Don’t you get it yet?”
“Let me take your canoe. I’ll book it, Hunter. I’ll be in Vancouver in a day.”
“It’s dark, Ginj. And you don’t even know these waters.”
“Give me a compass. I bet you have one. I’ll just paddle northeast and—”
“The channel’s full of bears, Ginger! And they’re all out looking for you!”
“Just let me try!”
“You already tried! You sank my canoe, and I caught you!”
“Then you take me. Take me back to the mainland.”
“No!” He sat up on an elbow. “That’s against our law, Ginger. I’m not helping you get away from the elders. Where would you go even if you could get back to Seattle?” He put a hand on her arm. “Be reasonable! Even if you made it to the city, Dane would just be obligated to bring you back—”
“I’d go far away,” she interrupted. “Back East.”
“There are bears out East, Ginger. There are bears everywhere. And not just bears. Wolves, cougars, foxes, coyotes, lynx—there are shifters all over the continent.”
She didn’t have time to be shocked about that. “Okay. Further away. Overseas.”
“Overseas?” he half-laughed. “Where?”
Delhi. Laila’s family’s estate. “Overseas.”
“You won’t get out of Sea-Tac, Ginger. Someone will nab you right in the airport.”
“Screw you, Hunter!”
“You just did, so… I mean…”
“How do you know that I can’t—” A new and obvious thought came to her. “You told them. Didn’t you? You told them I left!”
“What?”
“You were the only one who knew I took the canoe, Hunter! And you told everyone else on that godforsaken island that I did it, or they wouldn’t all be out looking for me! You’re the reason the strait’s full
of them! Full of people chasing me!” Anger bubbled up, hot and blinding. “How could you? You know I might die! I might be sentenced to actual, literal death! If you wanted to come after me alone, fine, but this? I could be getting far away from all of this right now if you hadn’t stacked the odds—”
“Far away? Yeah, as ‘far away’ as this hunk of rock we’re lying on!” His voice rose. “I told Dane you left, and Cat, and then we told the elders. We had to. It’s our law, Ginger!” His grip on her tightened. “What exactly do you think I owe you? You stole from me! After fucking me!”
“Ugh!” She rolled to her feet, grabbed up her jeans, and pulled them on. Guilty rage made her skin burn. “Dane pilots the yacht, right? The cutter?”
“What? Yeah, he does. Why? Did you see it?” Hunter stood, too, sounding wary.
“Fine. He landed here too—I saw him. I’m going over there.”
“Ginger, no.” He reached for and held on to her wrist. “Come back with me.”
“No!”
“Don’t be an idiot! It’s nightfall! You’re going to cross this island alone? To get to him?”
“Look, Hunter,” she said, with as much calm as she could muster, “I get how it is for you. Okay? I can see your side of this—intellectually. Problem is, I am not feeling particularly intellectual about this situation.” Her teeth gritted. “My life’s on the line. You can fathom why I made a break for it—right?”
“Of course,” he said gruffly.
“Right. I made a break for it, and you told everyone that I did and made sure they all came out in force to bring me back. Now I can’t try again. I’m done. That makes me angry. That makes me bitter. ’Cause I want to live. I want to get away from here.” She swallowed. “So get your hand off my arm and let me walk it off. If I don’t get mauled by a grizzly by decree of your bear-council, maybe we can work on forgiving each other.”
His hand slipped from her wrist. “Let me… let me walk you across the island.”
“No.”
Rescued & Ravished: An Alpha's Conquest (A Paranormal Ménage Romance) Page 26
