by Thea Devine
“That’ll keep us dry if it rains?”
“Yep. Go ahead. Try it.”
Jordan followed his lead but ended up yanking one of her poles out of the ground. “Why can’t we share a shelter?”
“There wouldn’t be enough room,” he said, his eyes averted, and she smiled when she saw the pulse in his neck jump.
She stuck the pole back into the hole he’d made, and then watched him start at the bottom and tightly layer spruce branches. By the time he was finished, he had fashioned quite an impressive little cocoon.
“See? Easy. I’ll start the fire and stove while you finish yours.”
“Easy,” she repeated, and got to work. But her mind wouldn’t stay on the project. She wasn’t just distracted with work. Her mind kept going back to what he’d said about following in her father’s footsteps.
It wasn’t true. Not really. She didn’t have other commitments, like a husband or children. She didn’t depend on anyone else to pick up the slack in her life; act like her maid, as her mother had done for her dad for years. Plus, Jordan had a social life. She occasionally had a drink with friends. And here she was on vacation, wasn’t she?
For the third time in an hour, her shelter collapsed. She kicked one of the poles out of the ground and stared up at the sky. It was hazy but the dark threatening clouds hung over the next mountain. Forget this. She’d take her chances.
THUNDER CRACKED directly overhead, waking Zach from a sound sleep. His arm cramped in an unnatural position, he shifted. Something pressed against his back.
“Move over, damn it.”
Still groggy, he blinked. “Jordan?”
“It’s starting to rain and my butt’s gonna get wet.”
There wasn’t enough room for both of them. He moved his arm, and she snuggled close, her left braless breast weighing temptingly on his chest. Lightning lit up the sky. He listened for a moment but heard nothing. “I don’t hear any rain.”
“It’s only a few drops, but anyway, I heard something.”
“It’s only thunder.”
“No, it was an animal, and it scared me.”
Right. He should’ve pretended he was still asleep. This wasn’t good. “Neither of us will get any sleep like this. I would’ve helped you with your lean-to if you’d only asked me—”
“Shut up.” She tilted her head back and scooted up until their lips met, and then slid a hand under his T-shirt.
“Jordan, this isn’t a good idea,” he murmured, already hard, and lying this close, unable to hide his condition.
She taunted him, trailing her fingers to the elastic waistband of his shorts.
He deepened the kiss, bringing his arm around her and finding a bare breast with his other hand. She whimpered when he lightly pinched her budded nipple between his thumb and forefinger. He plunged his tongue deeper into her mouth, exploring her sweetness.
She cupped him over his shorts, while swinging a leg over his thighs, the warm pressure almost unbearable. He pushed her T-shirt up so that he had access to both breasts. Her skin was delectably soft. Kneading and touching wasn’t enough. He had to taste her.
Maneuvering himself wasn’t easy, especially with the friction caused by her leg over his groin, but he managed to lower himself enough to touch the tip of his tongue to her nipple. She moved against his mouth and he suckled the crown until she whimpered.
In the next second, an awful cry pierced the night.
Jordan jumped. “What was that?”
“I don’t know. An animal. It’s not close.” He took her nipple back into his mouth, but she wouldn’t relax and he knew the mood was broken. Resigned, he drew back and pulled down her shirt. “Get some sleep. I’ll be on the lookout.”
“Zach.” Her voice was small, apologetic.
“It’s okay.” He tucked her head under his chin. More than okay, she’d just saved him from making a big mistake.
WHAT REALLY upset her wasn’t that they’d gotten interrupted last night, which didn’t make her happy, either, but that they’d been hiking for five hours and so far he’d behaved as if nothing happened.
Oh, he’d been pleasant enough at breakfast, and had even pointed out the different types of trees and wildflowers that grew at this elevation. They might as well have been talking about the weather. The coward.
However, she did have to admit that the rainbow array of flowers was pretty spectacular and she’d been lucky enough to see three more bald eagles, two of them at fairly close range. When it had occurred to her that she hadn’t once thought about the office the entire morning, she was pretty surprised.
The path narrowed and started a steeper incline, and Zach, who’d trekked considerably ahead, waited until she caught up. “Another two miles and we’ll stop for the night.”
“Really?” Her heart did a flip. The sun wasn’t even close to the horizon. Five more hours until sunset at least. “Why? What did you have in mind?”
He gave her a cryptic smile she hadn’t expected. “You’ll see.”
That did it. Her heartbeat went into overdrive and if she hadn’t been enjoying the view of his fine rear end, she would’ve sped right past him. Even so, two miles seemed interminable but then she got distracted when she heard rushing water.
“What is that?” she asked, catching up to him.
He didn’t answer but led her through a thicket of trees. On the other side, about an eighth of a mile away, she could see a waterfall, gushing from last night’s rain.
“Wow. Cool.” She’d never seen one this close.
“We’ll camp near the water.”
She barely heard him. She raced ahead, the sound of the water growing as she got closer. At the first clear flat spot she dropped her pack. Next she removed her boots and socks. Mostly the ground was carpeted with pine needles, and she carefully avoided the occasional rock as she made her way to test the water. Not that she expected anything but icy cold, but she didn’t care. This was the closest she’d been to anything resembling a shower in three days.
“Be careful. The rocks are—”
He stopped when she lifted the hem of her T-shirt and then yanked it off. Underneath she wore a sports bra, but that came off, too. The jeans took a moment longer to peel down. The bikini panties were a snap. “You coming?” she asked, turning to look at him.
He stood motionless. “The rocks can be slippery.”
“Yes, Mom.” She held on to an outcropping as she felt for her footing from one rock to the other until she was in waist-deep.
She shivered, but held her ground. Her body would adjust soon. Her pulse was another matter. The way he’d looked at her…
“You’re so crazy.” He had his shirt off. After unsnapping and unzipping his jeans, he yanked off his boots. In seconds he was totally, gloriously naked.
Jordan’s breath died in her chest. The man was gorgeous. Perfect. Made her want to hide her not-so-perfect pale body. Too late. She watched him approach the pool, his growing arousal erasing her insecurities.
He stepped into the water, muttering a curse. “This water is going to deflate more than my ego.”
She laughed. “We’ll take care of that.”
“Right.” He winced as he slid deeper into the water.
“It won’t be so bad in another minute.” She couldn’t get the words out without her teeth chattering.
“Whose idea was this?”
“Where’s your sense of adventure?”
Before she knew what happened, he caught her wrist and pulled her to him. Her breasts made contact first, pressing against his bare chest, still dry and warm from the sun. The icy water had made her nipples harder than pebbles and she rubbed against him trying to soak up his warmth.
Groaning, he forced her head back to claim her mouth. She opened to him and he dove inside, his exploration more gentle than she’d expected. His tongue found every nook and recess, ran along her teeth and then flicked hers before it left her mouth.
He lightly bit her lower lip
, nibbled at the corners, extended his quest along her jaw and then trailed his lips down the side of her neck. She arched her back in anticipation. He didn’t disappoint, quickly bringing his mouth to her breasts and taking a nipple between his teeth. He bit lightly, laved the area and then drew the entire crown into his mouth.
She shuddered from the sheer pleasure of it, and he slid a hand down to her backside, molding the curve and using a handful of fleshy cheek to pull her against him. Not that she needed the encouragement. She reached for him, but with her range of motion hindered, had to content herself with gently bringing up her knee between his legs.
He moved against her, and she smiled because the cold water had indeed taken its toll. Poor guy. Hell, poor her. She’d seen what even a little visual stimulation had done. But they had time, and she had no intention of letting some frigid water ruin their day.
“You think this is funny,” he whispered.
Meeting his eyes, she tried to lose the smile. “Actually, no.”
He scooped her up, and with the buoyancy of the water helping his cause, he carried her to an outcropping at the edge of the water and laid her down.
9
THEY WERE close to the falls, which may have accounted for the flatness of the boulder beneath her back. Water had worn down the stone so that it was smooth and slick and even if the top were jagged she doubted she’d care. Not with Zach kissing the side of her neck and stroking the inside of her thigh with his long lean fingers. He was making her so warm and tingly, she thought she was going to explode.
“How did you find this rock?” she asked, her voice ragged and barely intelligible.
“Lucky.”
“I thought it might be a favorite of yours,” she said, and immediately regretted it. She knew he wasn’t the type to sleep with his clients, but it was too late.
He stiffened slightly, his hand stilling, his lips leaving her skin until he braced himself over her and stared into her eyes. “It’s not what you think.”
“Fortunately for you, I’m incapable of thought.” She slid her hands around his neck and brought his lips back to hers.
It took him a moment to relax, and then he kissed her, his tongue probing for entrance, his hand forging higher up her thigh until he found that sweet spot that had her arching off the cool stone surface. Thanks to the warm, humid air, he was hard again, and she circled her hand around his shaft, enjoying the way he shuddered at her touch.
She ran her thumb over the head of his penis, slowly, learning every groove and indentation and making him tense. He retaliated by sliding two fingers inside her and making her totally insane with need. He abandoned her mouth but found her breasts, his beard-roughened chin pleasantly scraping the soft sensitive skin around her nipples as the tip of his stiff tongue touched her just the way she liked it.
He withdrew his fingers from inside her and then used his hand to spread her thighs farther apart. She needed little coaxing. He’d been worried that with all that swimming he’d have to get creative about a lubricant, but it seemed that Jordan had taken care of the problem. But just to make sure, he moved away from her nipples and crouched before her spread thighs.
She was so beautiful. Her pale skin and the dark, close-cropped patch of curly hair that marked the sweet spot, all of it enticed him and made his already hard cock harder. He put his left hand on her hip, his right on her inner thigh and then he bent to taste her.
Cool lips held back the moist heat that welcomed his eager tongue. He moved slowly despite the urge to rush, to have everything he could as quickly as possible. One thing camping had taught him was the rewards of patience. He used the lesson now, licking her in broad strokes, brushing by the hard little nub as if it wasn’t the key to making her insane.
Her hand went to his head where she grabbed hold, pulling, but not enough to make him hurry. Then her moan, just loud enough to be heard over the roar of the falls, let him know she wouldn’t wait long.
He just kept up his steady pace and no sound, no yank was going to move him. The one thing that would was not something she could control. It would come, he just had to give it time.
“Zach, please.”
He didn’t respond except to push her thighs a bit farther apart.
“You’re killing me.”
He smiled at that one, but kept up the pressure, the rhythm. And he was rewarded. She trembled beneath him and he tasted a sudden rush of her tantalizing juice. That was it, she was almost ready.
He moved his right hand so his finger covered the growing nub of her clit. Moving more quickly now, he circled the bud of flesh, holding on to her tightly as she started to squirm in earnest. Alternating between his finger and his pointed tongue, he worked her into a fine madness. He wanted her to explode, go crazy, and she’d better do it soon because he had gone quite over the edge himself.
Her writhing made him abandon fingering her. Instead, he grabbed both hips. That meant he’d have to bring her off with his mouth. Not that he minded.
Only now it was sharp flicks of his tongue in combination with tight sucking, which he assumed pleasant.
Maybe pleasant wasn’t the right word. Pleasant rarely made a woman scream.
She came under his tongue. It was an amazing experience to feel her shatter, but he didn’t savor it for long. He stood as she still trembled, moved between her damp thighs and in one long stroke he was in her to the root.
He threw his head back at the intensity of the sensation. Not only was she hot and wet, but she squeezed him with undulating muscles. It was all he could do not to come right then, that second.
He bit his tongue, then the inside of his cheek and the pain helped him ease away from the precipice. Only then did he begin to pump.
THANK GOODNESS Jordan had found a rock and a sturdy shrub to steady her or she’d have slid away the moment he’d touched her with his tongue.
She was still trembling from her orgasm, and now that he was inside her, rubbing her so perfectly with his thick cock, it was entirely possible she was going to come again.
It was crazy. He’d done everything wrong. He’d licked her too slowly, made her wait after she was ready, ignored her not-very-subtle hints. And she’d never come like this in her life.
What was it with him? How had he known more about her body than she did?
She gasped as he changed his position and there went all coherent thought. Nothing existed except the pleasure coursing through her body. Nothing but the feel of Zach between her legs, inside her, touching her, making her lose the last vestige of her mind as she came so hard she thought her heart would stop.
“I’VE BEEN thinking about it and you might be right about my father,” she said slowly as they lay on top of their sleeping bags, staring up at the stars, their legs intertwined.
Today they’d hiked to the summit, and at her insistence, they’d returned to the falls to set up camp again before heading back down toward the river tomorrow.
“What about him?”
“Sometimes I’m more like him than I care to admit.” Jordan glanced over at Zach, surprised at herself for saying the words out loud.
She just wasn’t one of those people who shared like that. She’d never been. Of course, she didn’t have all that many close friends, and nobody from work ever breached the business wall. And yet in the last few days she’d told Zach about her personal life, about her fears and doubts, about her dreams. The way she talked to him was an anomaly but that could probably be explained by the fact that after two days she wasn’t likely ever to see him again.
No, it was more than that. Much more. Making love to him had awakened a yearning inside her that was going to haunt her when they parted. Mostly sex was about release for her. Scratching that itch. Some scratchers were better than others, but none had been keepers. But Zach was different. This was about intimacy. About that warm, fuzzy feeling that scared the hell out of her because both the vulnerability and trust she’d experienced were so foreign. And the thing was, she
wanted to see him again. She didn’t want this feeling to go away.
“Obviously, that’s not a good thing. What are you going to do to change your situation?”
She let out a strangled laugh, confused for a moment, her thoughts having derailed from the conversation. “If I don’t get my act together on this new campaign, that might be decided for me.”
He slid a hand under her T-shirt and gently kneaded her bare breast. “You’re going to do great. But that isn’t the point, either. You have to make your own decision about the path you want in life.”
She touched his cheek. He was so sweet. He really was. Sweet and…amazing.
He planted a kiss in her palm. “You think I don’t understand.”
About to deny it, she closed her mouth again. She didn’t want to hurt his feelings, but the truth was, he didn’t.
“I’m not here by accident. This was a conscious choice. I used to work out here every summer to help pay for college.”
This surprised her. “Did you graduate?”
He smiled. “Yep. I got a degree in business.”
“But you chose not to use it.”
“I’ve used it. I even bought this company.”
She pushed up, bracing herself on her elbow so that she could look at him. “You own The Great Beyond?”
He nodded, his gaze staying on her face. “I bought it four years ago. It’s small, which I like. Easier to manage.”
Jordan processed the information, though she didn’t feel as if much had changed. The small outfitter wasn’t exactly a growing concern with all the attendant headaches and profits. He wanted to keep it small, fine. Nothing wrong with lacking ambition if your bills got paid and you were happy with the status quo, but she wasn’t one of those people. She doubted Zach understood why.
“Relieved I’m not just a lowly guide?” he said, one side of his mouth lifting.
She glared at him in indignation. “That never entered my mind. I’m impressed that you found something you love and made it your career.”
