With Every Breath (Wanderlust #1)

by Lia Riley

  “So do you.”

  “Like art.” The tips of her nails graze beneath my navel, raising my internal temperature twenty degrees. “I love your hardness.”

  “I love your softness.” I groan when she undoes my trousers, tugs my boxers, and takes my cock in her wet palm. Fuck, she must have licked her hand first. She slides down my length without resistance as her tongue flicks against my lips. Jesus, the way she works her hands. When her teeth return to close on my nipple, she grazes hard, just as I’d asked, just as I need.

  “Jesus-fuck-damn-Auden.”

  “Hmmm. You’re not so articulate when I do that. What about this?” She cups my sac, presses a thumb to the base of my cock, and a garbled sound tears from my chest.

  “You wee witch,” I gasp, every muscle in my body taut, steel hard.

  “Or this?”

  “Mary and Saints.” Now I’m thrumming, as if the place where her skin touches mine is overlaid with live wire. The thing she does with her mouth—good, so fucking good.

  My breathing is loud. Lust rises, hard and fast, relentless as a floodwater. Losing control is hard, and a part of me, a large part, rails against it, screams to be released. But there’s also curious relief. For the next few minutes at least, everything is out of my hands. I can do nothing, nothing but feel everything Auden gives. I twist against the rope and my wrists chafe, but the hurt is good, not because I like pain but because I like Auden. The girl has me smitten. I’ve given her pieces of myself that I’ve never shared with anyone. In return, she’s taking me to places within myself that I didn’t know were there. Around every corner waits something new, unexpected, and—

  “Ow. Fuck.”

  “Oops. Sorry. That was my teeth; got carried away.” There’s the furtive sounds of her undressing, and then she crawls astride me, thighs bracketing my waist. The heat of her sex is slick as she rubs me, her silky inner skin hot as it slides across my shaft. She’s not entering me, just teasing with the promise.

  “Oh.” She grinds harder. “Oh, yes.” She is using me, and I don’t mind. There’s a part inside me that rages, says I’m nothing, worse than worthless, and it might be true, but for right now, I can lie here and let this beautiful girl make another of those beautiful breathless sounds against me.

  If my skin is fire, hers is an inferno. Heat radiates through my lower belly in a series of slow pulses that gather in the center of my sac. I flex, desperate to touch her, and yet the rope holds firm. I jerk my head to the side, knocking off the scarf, and the sight of her naked above me tightens my throat. Her face is upturned, the angle exposing her throat’s creamy white skin, the dark line of her erratically pulsing vein.

  “Look at you,” I mutter.

  She opens her eyes and stares down, freezing. “You can see me.”

  “Aye.” I swallow hard. “That I can.”

  She ducks her chin to her chest and moves to cover her breasts.

  “No!” I want to grab her but am held in place. “Don’t shy from me.”

  She glances through her lashes. “I’m not sure what to do next.”

  “Touch yourself again.”

  “You’re very bossy for someone tied up.”

  “Do it.” I hardly recognize my voice. “What you did earlier was the most fucking beautiful thing I’ve ever witnessed.”

  She moves a hand between her legs and gives a few soft swirls. “You’re easy to look at, too.” When she strokes my chest, her wetness sheens my skin, and that’s it; I’m at the end of my own fucking rope, and grind myself free of the bindings.

  She lets out an amused shriek as I pull myself loose and tug her against me. “You’re a crazy girl, you know that?”

  “Crazy as a fox.” She kisses my cheek.

  “Very foxy.”

  “A foxy lady?”

  “Come here.” I kiss her slowly, stroking the rise of her breast, then along her stomach, and lower still. “You like a light touch. I remember.”

  “Sometimes. It can change.”

  “So right now, is this good? What I’m doing here?”

  She gives a little shiver, her toes curling against my calves. “Yeah. Really good.”

  “And when I touch you here?” My fingertips skim her inner lips. I want to press my whole hand up against her heat, but this isn’t about my wants. It’s about her. Her needs. I want to give her everything.

  I’ve barely begun to touch, and yet she responds, growing wetter by the second. Her breathing takes on a ragged edge.

  “Slower,” she pants.

  “No. Don’t think I will.”

  “I don’t want to come yet,” she pleads.

  “Why? You can come and come again.”

  “I’ve never been able to.”

  “This is a new year, remember?”

  “A new year of multiple orgasms?” She grabs her hair in two fistfuls. “I can get behind that.”

  I keep up the light, skimming strokes, but with my other hand ease a finger inside, one slow thrust. When I find the soft ridge above her entrance, I press hard while increasing the pressure on her clit.

  “Rhys.”

  I do it again and again, until her muscles clamp around my fingers and she comes in a drawn-out shuddering climax.

  “How was that?”

  She opens one eye and gives me a dazed grin. “Pretty sure I need to phone the president and ask him to award you a Congressional Medal of Honor.”

  “The smile on your face is reward enough,” I murmur gruffly.

  “Really?”

  “No.” I chuckle despite myself. “But it sounded good, didn’t it?”

  A laugh slips out of her. “You’re awful.”

  I crawl back on top. “Awful enough to see if you can go again.”

  She pouts her sexy mouth. “Am I an experiment to you?”

  “No, but you are quite a lot of fun.”

  Her mouth curves against mine as she presses a condom in my hand. I roll it on without breaking our rhythm. As I slide the tip of my cock into her heat, fear strikes out of nowhere, anxiety sinking into my muscles like venom. What if for all my big talk, I can’t please her this way?

  “I need you inside me, Rhys,” she whispers. “All the way in.”

  The way she watches me with such desperate helplessness weakens my own resolve. No more waiting. I reach under her ass and jerk her hip to better get the angle that hits her clit. My reward is her walls tightening. She rocks against me, and I keep on her until she is close, almost there, but not quite, not quite.

  “What else? What else do you need?” I’ll do anything for this girl right now.

  “Not sure.” She closes her eyes. “Maybe a little talking.”

  “Dirty?”

  “Yeah, no one’s ever done that to me.”

  “I’ve no’ done much myself.” Fuck, her pussy tightens fractionally, and I’m conscious of every inch of her.

  “We’ll be each other’s first. Just go gentle, cuddle after, and remember to respect me in the morning.”

  “I can do that.” I smile into the side of her neck. “You’re so soft and warm, I’d cuddle you after any day.”

  “That makes me sound”—she gasps before finishing—“like your teddy bear.”

  “Nah. I wouldn’t do this to a teddy.” I flip her over onto her hands and knees, checking that the condom is still snug. “Look how ready you are for me,” I say, sliding to the hilt. “Taking you this way, I see the arch of your back and”—I finger her wet clit—“have easy access to all this sweetness.”

  She pushes back to meet my thrust. “Love the way you smell,” I whisper hoarsely. “Loved tasting you earlier.”

  She offers up a moan.

  My hand moves to her throat, her pulse frantic under my hand. “Tell me,” I say. “Tell me how much you want this.”

  “So bad.”

  “You like this?” I slam balls deep. “Being taken hard?”

  “Yes, yes.” She keeps repeating the word.

  “
You know what else I can see? Your sweet, sexy ass. That’s it, lass. Spread those thighs wider.” She’s stretching around me, and fuck, the fit is glove tight. I know this sounds cliché, but inside her, it doesn’t just feel good; it feels right, like I’m where I am meant to be. The only other time I’ve come close to the same sense of belonging has been on a mountain.

  “What are you doing to me?” I lift her to my lap, stay buried deep, peppering kisses along the base of her neck.

  “Same thing you are doing to me.” She reaches back to brace herself against my hips.

  “God, look at you.” I stare over her shoulder at her breasts, the softness of her stomach, the delicate curls between her legs. “I feel your wetness on my thighs.”

  “Take me. Don’t hold back.” Her nails sink deep. “You feel incredible.”

  I go hard with a fleeting hope no one has wandered close to our tent, because the sounds she makes, it’s like she’s forgotten herself, and then I’m gone, too. For a guy who never makes noise during sex, I’m unleashing rough groans. Sweat slicks my body and hers until there’s no clear line of either of our beginnings or ends. Two becoming one isn’t some bullshit thing. I know that now, because while I’m inside her, she’s just as deep inside me.

  “Rhys. I—I—Rhys…” She is past speech, and it doesn’t matter because I feel her words instead. She’s coming for me, and I’m right there, too. Tomorrow everything is going to change and she has no idea. I’m not ready for this to be over, for her to pull away, look at me with new, hard eyes, and find me lacking.

  I’m not ready to give this moment up.

  Never has it been this way with anyone, and when she drops her head against me with a shuddering sigh, I hold her tight, so fucking tight.

  How do you ever let a girl like this go?

  20

  AUDEN

  I’m amazed that I can still hike. Hand to God Rhys screwed me sideways. We got halfway through my condoms, calling it quits only when the friction started hurting. He took me again and again like a desperate man, as if he were soaking me up, as if we wouldn’t have another day. I wonder if the mountain is getting under his skin, if he is beginning to be aware of the danger he faces.

  This morning we woke early and packed while avoiding eye contact with the nearby campers. Rhys forwent a hot breakfast because I couldn’t choke down porridge while people gaped as if we were sex fiends.

  Apparently we weren’t quiet.

  On the bright side, it doesn’t look like I’ll be pledging my life to a showerhead. Turns out—surprise—I can come during sex with the right guy, just need a little patience and focus. Two characteristics Rhys possesses in spades. We make good miles through the morning, despite the increasing heat and our smoldering chemistry. We take lots of kissing pit stops. Is kissing even the right word for it? It’s more like we fuck with our mouths—I don’t have a better term for it.

  With every touch, with every breath, Rhys shows me I’m special, treasured.

  It’s silly to think this way about someone I’ve only just met. Insta-love has always been an unbelievable concept conveniently suited to Hollywood romantic comedies. I was with Brett for almost all of college and he never made me feel this way. Rhys and I didn’t do a whole love-at-first-sight thing, but the intensity between us after a few short days is almost palpable.

  Everything I thought I knew about anything is being challenged.

  Except I still haven’t actually given him the one thing he demands above anything else—truth. And the fact of the matter is, he hasn’t told me his story either. So is all of this simmering between us ultimately fake, even though it feels realer than anything?

  I can’t believe that.

  Hooves strike rock behind us. A weathered gaucho in a worn jean jacket and a wide-brimmed black hat comes around the bend, leading a line of three small brown and white packhorses, while a young boy who resembles him enough to be identified as his son brings up the rear. They give nods and wide smiles as we step off the trail to make ample room.

  Rhys calls out in halting Spanish, asking who he’s delivering gear for, and the man answers with “Nick Goodall.” The name is unfamiliar even as Rhys nods in approval.

  “Some of this gear is for me,” Rhys tells me.

  The man glances over his shoulder with increased curiosity, asking about his climbing plans.

  “La Aguja,” Rhys answers simply.

  “Conchetumadre!” The man whistles. “Eres loco.”

  Basically: Holy shit, you are crazy.

  Rhys avoids my stare. No doubt because he senses the gaucho echoed my thoughts exactly.

  I don’t want him to risk himself, but neither can I ask him to give up his dream so that I don’t have to face my fear of losing him up there.

  They clomp up the hill and vanish into the tree tunnel, hooves fading as the regular forest sounds return.

  “Who’s Nick Goodall?” I ask.

  “I told you some friends are at the camp, from an Australian team.”

  “Right.” I nod. “The ones with the crazy names.”

  “Nick Goodall usually goes by Goonbag.”

  We are closer and closer to our goal, the base camp, but my heart is as plodding as my pace. I don’t want to get into it with him about the climb. If I start sounding like a broken record, it will only make it easy for him to tune me out, believe I am anxious because of my own lack of climbing skills.

  Instead, I change the subject entirely. “You don’t happen to have a can of Fanta in all that gear, do you?” I ask dreamily, clasping my hands together. I want him to think I’m less nervous; hopefully, that way he’ll listen to my concerns more open-mindedly when the time is right.

  “Fanta? As in the soft drink?” He wrinkles his brow. “Can’t say I do; I have plenty more porridge though.”

  “Dang.” My shoulders fall. “I’ve started having this fantasy about orange-flavored soda a few hours ago. Weird because I don’t even really like anything carbonated as a rule. But since this morning, the idea of a pressing a cold can against my neck, letting the condensation cool my skin, then that little hiss when you flip the top—”

  “Fuck.” He drags a hand over his scruff. “Auden, you canno’ talk like that. You’ve gone and gotten me hard.”

  “Sorry, not sorry. But can we please stop a second? I think this is a sign that I need some sugar.” I swing off my backpack and balance it against my leg. “I have a couple candy bars stowing away in the top pocket.”

  “Aye, next to your inhaler and condoms.”

  “You see where my priorities lie. Maybe that could be my big story instead. ‘Hiking in Patagonia: A Tale of Chocolate, Asthma, Broken Tents, and Scottish Monkey Sex.’”

  “I’d buy two copies.”

  I laugh, unwrapping a chocolate. “Want a bite?”

  He recoils his head. “No, thank you.”

  “What?” I glance between him and the bar. “Who in their right mind turns down chocolate?”

  “No’ a big fan.”

  “But how can you be my soul mate if you don’t love chocolate?” I need to quit speaking before thinking. Obviously, I’m kidding, because calling Rhys my soul mate is borderline crazy talk, but the way he’s staring, it’s like I’m not jokingly waving around a half-melted candy bar, but offering my heart.

  In truth, the metaphor kind of works, seeing as love is sticky, delicious, and makes one hell of a mess.

  “Fine. Give us a bite.” Looks like he’s going to give me a hall pass for that gigantic foot-in-mouth.

  I hold out my hand, and instead of biting the bar, he nips my finger, slides his tongue to the join of two of my fingers.

  “Oh, you fight dirty.” My breasts ache and there’s an answering pulse between my legs. How can he turn me on this much with a single naughty tongue-lashing?

  He bends and lifts my pack. “Get this back on.” His expression is dead serious. “We need to reach camp. I want to be inside you.”

  Why do I feel like
there is an unspoken second part to his statement? “I want to be inside you, one last time.”

  It’s not raining, but the mountain is fast disappearing again beneath a thick blanket of clouds. “The weather is so changeable down here. You don’t like it, all you have to do is wait five minutes.”

  “Southern Patagonia is at the bottom of the continent, farther south than any other landmass except for Antarctica. Winds come screaming across the ocean and slam into the other side of those mountains, where a large ice field spreads, the Hielo Sur.”

  “That’s what’s behind the mountains—an ice field? I’d wondered.”

  “The great southern ice cap runs through the heart of the range, so vast it generates its own weather.”

  “La Aguja doesn’t look like it wants to come out and play,” I say. The peak is shrouded again. The mountain is almost completely lost to view by a thick swirl of cloud.

  “Aye, no’ a big surprise. It’s positioned to attract the worst weather, part of the reason attaining the summit will be such a challenge.”

  “It’s not as high as many others. What makes it famous?”

  “The difficulty. Look at Everest. Is it a test? Sure, it’s the highest mountain on earth, but it also comes with all the support and infrastructure, not to mention paid guides. As long as the person has coin and is fit, they stand a fair to decent chance of standing on the top of the world.”

  “I mean, I don’t think I could do it, but I guess I see what you’re saying. Climbing is expensive, right?”

  “Can be. Some of the lads you’ll meet have spent half their year doing menial labor to get a fix here.”

  “Is that what you do? You and you brother?”

  “Aye, worked construction between trips. I had two years at university, studied geology before dropping out. Figure I can go back and study when I’m older and less fit. Cameron and I paid for many trips ourselves, but oftentimes costs such as gear, transportation, Sherpas, even oxygen, mount up. If you can get anyone else to front some cost, it’s a help. Get some money in return for corporate branding, or sell an image. Occasionally wear certain outdoor gear and get photos snapped in places people recognize.”