by Amira Rain
“Well, I did just get scared. But by you.”
With a sigh and a pleading sort of expression, or maybe it was an expression of exasperation, he just looked at me for a long moment. “Please just let me walk you back to the house.”
“Sorry, but, no, thank you. Not unless you agree to let me use my knife-throwing skills to-”
“No. Let’s not talk anymore on that subject tonight. And to make sure that you don’t bring it up again, I’m going to distract you.”
Snorting, I tightened my arms across my chest. “Well, good luck, because when I get my mind set on something, there’s nothing that can distract me.”
“Is that a fact?”
“That’s a fact.”
“Let’s see.”
Gently, he moved a hand beneath my chin and tipped my face up, then brought his delectable mouth to mine. At the feel of his firm, warm lips, I immediately felt my body relax, and when he began deepening the kiss with his hands moving to cradle my face, my arms fell finally from my chest to my sides. After only half a minute or so of him kissing me, I felt absolutely limp as a wet noodle, with my muscles like jelly.
As well as Reed’s plan was working, I wasn’t yet completely distracted, though, hadn’t yet forgotten what he was intending to distract me from. So, when he eventually broke our kiss and asked if his distraction method was working, I gave him an emphatic no.
“It’s actually not working at all. You’re going to have to do a lot better than that.”
Reed gave me a sexy half-grin. “Challenge gladly accepted.”
As irritated as I was, I very much liked the sound of that.
*
Reed began kissing me again, this time with more intensity, although still with a tenderness that soon had me making quiet sounds of pleasure. Now I was definitely becoming distracted, but not yet completely and thoroughly.
So, presently, I broke our kiss, panting a little. “I’m still not distracted. I guess you could try taking your shirt off and see what that does for me.”
Seeming to be enjoying the game, he immediately complied, lifting his t-shirt over his head, which allowed me a good look at all the rippling muscles in his broad chest and shoulders. The sexy sight alone made me bite back a whimper of desire. Silvery in the moonlight, every hard ridge and contour seemed to be begging for my touch, and when Reed pulled me into his arms and began kissing me again, I indulged myself, running my hands over his chest and then his back, making a few soft moans into his mouth while I did so. Clearly enjoying himself as well, he allowed his hands to begin wandering just like mine were, moving them from the small of my back to my rear with a low growl rumbling in his broad chest.
When he broke our increasingly passionate kiss after maybe a minute or two, his deep voice was incredibly husky.
“How about now? Are you fully distracted yet? Or should I lose a few other articles of my clothing, too?”
At this point, I’d become so distracted that I couldn’t even really remember what he was supposed to be trying to distract me from.
I nodded anyway. “Yes. Yes, please… I want you to take off all your clothes. To be completely honest, I’m nowhere even close to fully distracted yet, and that might help a bit.”
With his eyes glinting and his mouth curving in the hint of a sly half-grin, Reed complied with my request, taking off his boots, socks, jeans, and boxers, allowing me to see him in all his completely naked glory. And what a glorious sight it was. From his powerful, muscular thighs, to his six-pack abs, to his well-defined chest, I feasted my eyes on his body and his bare skin, although I focused on one area in particular, which was the area I was most impressed with.
Standing high and proud, his erection was a thing of perfect beauty. Thick, long, and from what I could see in the dim light, hard as a rock already, it could not have possibly been a more perfect specimen of a male member. It fact, it was a male member that I’d fantasized about my entire life, but up until I’d slept with Reed the first time, had never actually experienced. But now, to my extreme delight, it was all mine to experience once again. However, first, I had to get out of my own clothes. And I wanted Reed to help me do it.
“Will you please undress me?”
With his eyes twinkling, he spoke in a low, husky growl. “Oh… so can I take this as a sign that you’re fully distracted now?”
With butterflies rioting in my stomach, I lifted my gaze from his thick pole to his face with difficulty. “Am I what? Oh. Oh, yeah, right. Distracted. I guess so. But, still... I don’t think I’m quite distracted enough. And I have a feeling that you helping me out of my clothes might just do the trick.”
“And you’re sure it's not too cold out here for you?”
“No. To be honest, I’m actually a little hot.”
With our kissing having worked me up to the point of actually sweating a bit, I really was a little bit overheated. The warm spring evening felt like it had gone from sixty-something degrees to eighty-something within a couple of minutes.
After I’d kicked off my shoes and peeled off my socks, Reed lifted my sweatshirt above my head and then flung it aside with his gaze on my chest. I was wearing a lacy red bra that displayed my cleavage to its best advantage, but I wasn’t wearing it for long. With his breathing accelerating, Reed had it off in about three seconds, and he then just looked at my breasts with his breathing accelerating further still. When he cupped them in his large, strong, long-fingered hands, my own breathing became fast enough to match his. And when he began kissing me again, using his thumbs to play with my stiffened nipples, I couldn’t hold back a long, low moan, although I did this without even breaking our kiss.
Soon I’d lost my jeans and underwear; I wasn't even exactly sure how. Between Reed’s hands and my hands, my jeans and underwear had almost seemed to fly off of their own accord. After this, our hands continued roaming, but now over completely smooth bare skin.
Presently, Reed broke a passionate kiss to look at my naked body in the moonlight, raking his gaze from the top of my head to the tips of my toes. “You’re so, so beautiful, Samantha. You’re absolutely gorgeous. You could make a grown man nearly weep with desire.”
Or make a grown man nearly lose his voice, I thought. Reed’s voice was such a husky croak now that it was just a degree or two from laryngitis, which served to heighten my desire to know that his own desire was so great. As if I already couldn’t tell from the rapid rate of his breathing and the extreme hardness of his stiffened male member.
When he pulled me back into his arms and began kissing me again, I hiked a leg up on his slim hips, wanting to feel his hardness against my most sensitive spot, which was now throbbing with need. However, to my dismay, I wasn't quite tall enough to make what I wanted to happen, happen. Seeming to realize what I was trying to do, and where exactly I wanted to feel his hardness, Reed took his long shaft in hand and began slowly running the thick head of it between my slick feminine lips, gliding it over my most sensitive spot with each upstroke, and then again on each down stroke. He did all this without even breaking our kiss.
The pleasurable sensation of his intimate caress was almost more than I could take, to the point that my legs became rubbery, feeling as if they wouldn't hold me up much longer. As if sensing this, Reed moved a hand to the small of my back, supporting me while I moaned into his mouth, rocking my hips ever so slightly at the same time.
It wasn’t long before I needed more, more meaning all of him, every last granite-hard centimeter of his manhood. However, considering that we were in the middle of a forest, with rocks, fallen branches, and sticks littering the dirt trail beneath us, I wasn’t quite sure how we might be able to have sex without sustaining a few scrapes and bruises, and without both of us getting incredibly dirty. Not that I’d really mind too much. In fact, I was becoming so desperate for Reed to bring me to release that a few scratches and some dirty skin would be well worth it.
Panting, I broke our kiss and spoke in a voice nearly as husky
as his. “Please. I want to feel you inside me now. I don’t care if we even have to lie down on the bare ground, rocks and sticks and all… I just want you. But maybe we can put our clothes beneath us like a blanket or something.”
“Or... I’ve got a different idea. We can just stay upright, like how we are, if you want. I can hold you up the whole time.”
“But... I’m not an ultra-petite woman, you know… and I’ve already gained two pounds since I’ve been pregnant.”
“I know… but I’m a shifter, so to me, holding your gorgeous body is almost literally like holding something as light as a feather. Let’s try my way, anyway, and see if you like it.”
I said all right, and he lifted me up with his hands beneath my rear. I hiked my legs up, locking my ankles behind his back, reveling in the feel of his hardness against me and thinking that I was probably going to like his way an awful lot, even though I wasn’t quite sure how he was going to get himself inside of me, since my arms were around his neck, and his hands were needed beneath me so I wouldn't fall to the ground. But I should have known that a shifter would have some hands-free entrance trick that an average person would think virtually impossible.
With very gentle movements, Reed began bouncing me against his hips, groaning, until he’d somehow positioned the head of his thick shaft at my entrance. Then, after a brief pause, he gripped my hips and slowly pulled me toward him until every inch of his stiffened pole was buried deep inside of me. Moaning, I threw my head back, literally seeing stars as they twinkled in the vast velvety sky above us.
It turned out that I did like Reed’s way of having sex without us having to roll around in the dirt. I actually loved it. Swaying his hips so that he bounced me away from himself before sliding me back down his considerable length, Reed apparently loved it, too, if his frequent loud grunts and groans were any indication. Making a few very loud noises of satisfaction myself, I was soon lost in a world of intense, mind-blowing pleasure, glancing into his eyes every so often while he did all the work for us both.
It wasn’t very long at all, maybe only a few minutes, before the sensation of being completely and totally filled by his repeated thrusting sent me tumbling over the edge of heaven. While Reed picked up his pace of bouncing me off his hips, seeming like he was about to tumble over the edge of heaven himself, I cried out, clinging to his shoulders as wave after wave of ecstasy crashed over me. Just before my rapture was complete, he reached his own powerful climax with a growl so loud that an owl somewhere nearby suddenly took off in a frenzy of flapping wings and hooting, as if it had been startled.
A while later, back at the house, Reed and I discovered that our carnal appetites weren't yet fully satisfied, and we lost our clothes for the second time that evening, although this time in his bed. A long while after that, I fell asleep in the warmth, strength, and safety of his embrace, finally miles beyond fully distracted.
Several days passed. Reed and I shared dinner together every night, and two more moonlit walks through the woods, becoming even closer to each other every single day. He asked me to just move all my things into his room, so I did, incredibly happy about it. I twice brought up my wanting to help against Gerard and the Bloodborn bears, and each time, Reed did a thorough job of distracting me, once distracting me so well that I enjoyed two climaxes during a single distraction session in the deep woods.
I continued practicing my knife-throwing, becoming better and better at it every day, learning how to focus despite bouts of morning sickness and dizziness. I became so good at my skill, in fact, that one particular day, I just about completely shredded a new corkboard target I’d bought.
At the end of the week, Reed’s spies returned with information they’d stealthily gathered from their operations around Blackbrook. Enraged by the loss of thirty of his men, and mystified as to why he hadn’t defeated Reed and his men easily, Gerard planned to attack Somerset yet again, once his remaining men were all healed from their injuries, which would probably be within a couple of weeks.
Gerard had actually been so enraged by his defeat that he’d killed one of his five common-law wives in cold blood when she’d dared to suggest that maybe he should just abandon Blackbrook, move their group somewhere far away, and accept that Somerset was Reed’s to rule.
With an icy chill dancing along my spine, I asked Reed how Gerard had killed his wife, hoping that whatever he’d done, it had been quick and as painless as possible. However, Reed’s frown told me that it hadn’t been even before he spoke.
“Unfortunately, in his bear form, Gerard slashed this woman’s throat out, but she had the misfortune of not dying right away and tried to flee…so Gerard let her run, knowing that she’d soon bleed to death, which she did. I don’t think we should feel too awful about this, though. Years back, this same woman stabbed and killed two of Gerard’s other wives, simply because she was jealous. One of those other wives was only eighteen, and was seven months pregnant, too.”
Horrified at how anyone could murder out of simple jealousy, now I didn’t feel too awfully bad about the way the woman had died.
A short while later, before I could ask him what he intended to do about Gerard’s planned second attack, Reed was pulled away by a phone call from his second-in-command, Alex. Apparently, Gerard had some spies of his own out and about, and one of them had just been spotted to the east of town, trying to eavesdrop on a conversation between two of Reed’s men who’d been taking a break from patrol duty. Reed had to go, saying we’d talk more later. However, he didn’t return that evening, and was still not home by the time I went to bed alone around eleven, curling up with the part of the blanket that still held his scent.
The next day, he was out leading his men on patrol, and I was busy practicing my knife-throwing. The June day could only be described as gorgeous, and I was tempted to feel that all was right in my little world. But, of course, there was only one problem, and that was the uncertainty of Gerard and what he might do hanging over the entire town. With each day that passed, my desire to see him dead and gone grew and grew. As did my determination to help see it done, even if I had to do it myself.
I planned to bring this up, yet again, with Reed at dinner that evening, and I was glad when he showed up exactly on time at seven, despite the fact that two more Bloodborn spies had been spotted that day and he and his men had had to deal with them, meaning they had to track them down and kill them.
Knowing he was probably starving, I planned to wait until Reed had eaten to say anything about my continued resolve to help. I also wanted to know if he’d yet decided on a plan of action now that he had intelligence about Gerard’s plans. All this could wait until dessert, I figured. I knew that Marie had made a white chocolate raspberry cheesecake, one of Reed’s favorites, and I hoped that once he was tucking into a slice of it, it might make him receptive to some of the things I was planning on saying. This was quite a long shot, I knew, but I figured it was probably worth it to at least give it a try.
However, well before we got to dessert, well before we were really even into our dinner, Marie came flying through the swinging door into the kitchen, ladle in hand, and as pale as if she’d seen a ghost. Her speed and her appearance, with her face chalk-white and eyes wide, was so alarming that Reed flew up from his seat with his own eyes wide.
“Marie, what’s the matter? What’s wrong?”
Having come to a sudden stop by the table, she just stood panting for a few moments, clearly trying to catch her breath, before speaking. “The front yard. Please just come look.”
CHAPTER 16
With his expression one of equal parts concern and surprise, Reed jumped up from the table and began flying toward the kitchen and the front door. I followed after him, and Marie followed after us both, breathing heavily. However, by the time we all got to the kitchen windows, there was nothing to see in the front yard beyond the trees and decorative rocks and other things like that.
Breathing a little slower and easier now, Mar
ie spoke in a trembling voice. “It was right there… right in the yard. It was a Bloodborn. I could see its glowing red eyes.”
What ensued was a discussion of where exactly Marie had seen the glowing red eyes, and if she was sure she’d seen glowing red eyes. Once convinced, Reed all but flew out the front door, after telling me in no uncertain terms that I was to stay inside. He even told Marie that she was free to bar the door with her body to keep me from leaving if I so much as tried to step a single toe outside. I didn’t even consider the idea, though, already having become sure that Marie would stop me using any means necessary. Also, with her present, I had no desire to start a repeat of what had happened several days earlier, with her nearly getting mauled to death after following me out of the house.
She and I ate dinner together while Reed was gone, and an hour later, he finally called to say that Marie had been absolutely right in what she’d seen. There had indeed been a Bloodborn spy lurking around in the area, and Reed and his men had killed him, then had done a sweep of the entire village to make sure that that had been the only Bloodborn spy in the area.
Once convinced, Reed came home, escorted a still-frightened Marie to her house, and then returned home once again, saying without a trace of irony that he was hungry as a bear.
Being that I’d been extraordinarily hungry during my pregnancy, I had seconds of dinner while he tucked into his first plate. After he’d had seconds as well, we moved from the formal dining room to the island to enjoy thick slices of Marie’s cheesecake while being closer to the front door, so that Reed could fly out at a moment’s notice if he received word that any other Bloodborn had been spotted.
While making slow work of the last few bites of his cheesecake, Reed began muttering that it was going to take all hands on deck to defeat Gerard and his bears if they all attacked en masse again, because they all seemed to be recovering from their injuries quickly.
