Wilder (Savage #2)

by Jade C. Jamison

  I felt so clean. So clean. I didn’t know that I’d ever felt quite like that.

  By the time I finished, Kevin was stepping out of the tub. “Yeah…it’s getting cold.”

  “Sorry.”

  “Nah. It was nice. I’m not complaining.”

  “I think I’m going to rest for a few minutes…just enjoy being half naked in a warm house.”

  He nodded and I opened the door, letting some steam escape as I walked onto the fluffy carpet padding the hallway.

  Every sensation—from the feel of the carpet fibers against the bottom of my feet to the caress of the warm air on my shoulders—felt heightened. A small smile formed on my lips as I walked across the hall to the larger bedroom.

  I lay on the bed and looked outside at the picture nature had created in that window frame. The landscape was absolutely breathtaking and awe-inspiring, and it was rejuvenating to my spirits to gaze upon it, not focusing on the fact that I was going to have to trudge through that snow again soon. The sky was gray and growing darker, signaling that a storm was moving in, but I couldn’t tell how long we had before we had to head back.

  The hot water in the shower had taken a toll on me, and my muscles were relaxed and lazy, feeling like they were going to melt into the mattress. My wet hair made me feel a little chilly, but nothing like the bone-deep cold I’d been experiencing since arriving up here in the mountains. The chill now was a mere discomfort, one that was easy to ignore as I admired the scene outside. All that was missing from making it perfect was a deer or a rabbit or some sort of wildlife gracing me with its presence in front of the window, but I knew it wouldn’t happen because they were all probably hunkering down, preparing for the storm.

  Preparing while I was, in all essence, playing…escaping for a moment from reality.

  I heard Kevin enter the room behind me. He was quiet, but all motion was amplified in the still of the house, especially now that the water was no longer running. I expected him to talk at first, but he didn’t say anything. Maybe he too felt awe at the picture in front of us. I felt him lie down on the bed behind my back, and then he snuggled up next to me, pressing his body against mine. He draped his arm over my waist, holding me close, resting his head on top of mine so that his cheek pressed against mine, quietly gazing out the window.

  After several minutes, he said, “I remember you.”

  I was quiet, letting those words sink in, and I knew it could only mean one thing—he remembered Nina Davis, the girl from high school, the one who’d had a crush on him for longer than was healthy. I swallowed, not knowing what his words implied and wondering if the memories just now came to him or if he’d recognized me long before that. I felt a tear fall down onto the bridge of my nose before sliding onto the pillow beneath.

  I had so many questions, but I wasn’t going to ask a single one of them. The enormity of his revelation had rendered me speechless, and I wouldn’t have known where to begin.

  It was then that I felt his lips on my neck, and my inner desires drowned out the thoughts swirling in my head. I couldn’t deny that deep ache any longer and I moved a hand behind me to drive my fingers into his hair. His hand was pressed against my belly, pushing the damp towel into my skin, and he moved back a little on the bed so that I could slink more into his embrace.

  Until I was lying flat on the bed.

  It didn’t take much time, all while kissing passionately, for his body to be atop mine, his fingers looping underneath the towel to undo the tucked-in knot that had held it to my body. His skin touching mine felt like fire, and his lips against mine fanned those flames.

  These kisses were nothing like the sweet, sensual ones in the shower. These were sizzling, consuming, burning, stoking the fire in my engine once more. I needed this man like I’d never needed one before.

  It wasn’t long before he had my towel peeled completely off, kissing the sensitive spot between my breasts before trailing his tongue up the side of one and circling it around my nipple. I let out a long breath of air and heard a small noise form in the back of my throat. Through the cloud of pleasure, my brain tried like hell to remember the last time I’d been touched by a man…but I couldn’t. The only answer was way too damn long.

  Only he didn’t stop there. He began kissing his way down my stomach as he worked his body between my legs, and that could mean only one thing.

  And the last time a man had been there?

  Even longer. As aroused as I was, I knew I’d be lucky to make it through three strokes of his tongue.

  But I was going to try.

  It felt almost foreign, brand-new, like I was a young woman experimenting again, trying to see how much pleasure my body could handle. I’d never found that threshold, had never even discovered how much pain and misery it could take, either, but I knew I was long overdue for something good. For far too long, my mind, body, and soul had been punished for a crime I couldn’t even begin to fathom and, even now, I didn’t know where life’s journey intended to take me, but I was going to focus on this oasis in the desert of my existence.

  It was all I knew for the moment.

  Kevin kissed inside my thigh and I felt my pussy grow tight, wanting to clench around his cock, and I sucked in a quick breath. I brought my palm to my forehead and drove my fingers into my hair, as though I needed something to hold onto, because I felt like my skin was ready to jump off my body in anticipation. The other hand I thrust into Kevin’s hair, hoping my desperation wouldn’t cause me to use it like reins or a rollercoaster handlebar.

  My brain, in a last-ditch attempt to keep me miserable, wandered, thinking of a multitude of things designed to keep me from orgasm—trying to be horrified about how my body had seen better days (down below, yes, but all over as well), thinking about our situation, worrying about anything my neurons could latch onto.

  But there it was—his tongue’s first stroke—and thank the heavens that muscle of his was mightier than my brain at the moment. I took a deep breath as all my focus homed in on those sensations below, and my body grew taut, building to that release I knew was imminent.

  That got my juices flowing and made me bite my lip. It felt so damn good, like I was twenty again. Had it felt this incredible back then? I somehow doubted it. I could sense that my thigh muscles tightened in response to his next stroke, but all thought left my mind at that point. For now, my entire world consisted of Kevin and that little pleasure center he was commanding.

  And he was. For the moment, I would be his willing slave, pledge my undying love, be whatever he asked.

  But he didn’t ask for any of that. He freely gave, and in mere moments, my heart was thumping in my chest as my mind and body reached that pinnacle and exploded. Pure delight flooded my veins as I gave in to an orgasm of epic proportions.

  Did I scream? Did my legs betray me and try to clamp my lover in a vice? Did I say all manner of lovely bullshit in the throes of pleasure?

  I didn’t know, but I was pretty damned sure I died. And that was all right.

  Chapter Six

  I lay in Kevin’s arms for longer than I could calculate, staring out the window and watching as the sky grew darker. Part of me wished we could stay like this forever, in this place the world seemed to have forgotten about, away from everything bad and horrible and dark.

  That might have been nice, but there was still the question of my kids…and the rest of my family. I needed to know they were all right, had to find out where they were. I didn’t know how the hell I was going to do that or when, but I needed to.

  Up against my body, Kevin felt strong where I felt weak, warm where I could only sense cold. He had become to me everything I’d always known he was, and the realization that I had fallen in love with him again struck me hard. It had been an easy slide, one I hadn’t even known I was on until my feet were back on the ground.

  I decided there, in his arms, that I wasn’t going to fight it.

  But I also wasn’t going to acknowledge it out loud. After o
ur weird past as teens, I didn’t know what to expect from him in the aftermath. I only knew this moment, and I was going to cherish it, hold it tightly in my heart like I might clench a locket in my fist, and then I was going to let tomorrow bring what it would. I would leave this room with no expectations, no hope.

  It was something I’d grown pretty good at over the years.

  As if he could read my mind, he said, “We should probably head back.”

  “Yeah, I was thinking that. I think a storm’s moving in, don’t you?” I turned around in his arms. Part of me didn’t want to. I was sad—profoundly—but felt like I shouldn’t be drowning in that emotion. And I didn’t want to give away anything in my head.

  His voice was soft when he said, “Yeah, I think so, so we shouldn’t screw around.”

  I smiled in spite of myself. “A little late.”

  He grinned, too, and I imagined that he was feeling inside the same way I was but also wanted to try to put on a happy face. Pulling me closer, he kissed me tenderly. He didn’t say anything, though, even after his lips left mine.

  I wanted to acknowledge the significance of his earlier revelation, even though part of me was afraid to go there, so afraid of what the truth was. But I had to know. “Do you really remember me…or were you just saying that?”

  A wistful smile remained on his face, and he ran two fingers down my cheek. “Yeah.”

  I searched his eyes, wanting to ask him a million more questions, wondering if spending time together had jarred his memory or if he’d just said he didn’t remember before because he didn’t want to deal with me or…maybe there was something I hadn’t even thought of. But now was not the time, and my insides were too raw, these feelings too fresh. I couldn’t take rejection right now. I had no way of knowing if that was what was coming, had no reason to even think it, but my vulnerable heart was trying to shield itself somehow.

  I swallowed and touched my lips to his before easing out of his embrace. Then, sitting up, I grabbed the towel, and the overly modest part of me wanted to cover myself up again, but for what reason? He’d seen me stripped bare—not just my body, but I knew somehow that he’d seen deeper than that, that he’d seen inside me and knew my innermost parts. A damp towel would no more cover that than the snow could hide the mountains. Yes, the mountains were now clothed in white, but there was no mistaking what they were nor the enormity of their stature. The same was true of my innermost feelings and, somehow, I knew I couldn’t hide much from him anymore.

  That didn’t mean I didn’t want to try.

  It was something I’d done all my life, really. Like when I’d been much younger and the medical bills had first piled up. It was the first time I’d taken a second job. I had to initially put on the appearance that I enjoyed it or that, at the very least, it didn’t affect me negatively. Nobody wants a sour employee and the manager at the second job could have easily replaced me with someone younger and more enthusiastic but someone who probably didn’t need the income as badly as I. My primary job? How easy it would have been for them to tell me I couldn’t moonlight because it interfered with that job…so I had to pretend to be happy, pretend that working over seventy hours a week wasn’t exhausting and soul-crushing.

  I had to smile for my husband, for my children, for everyone who knew me.

  But the universe knew. It knew everything piled on me was killing my zeal for life.

  Oh, don’t get me wrong. It made me stronger. As a young girl, I never would have guessed my capacity for pain, adversity, would never have known my endurance—until my feet were held to the fire, until I’d had to endure my time in the crucible. I’d shown myself that I was a fighter, that I was tough, that I could take anything the world had to give me.

  I hadn’t known how to stop it from making me bitter, though.

  I resented life a lot and hadn’t felt joy from it in so long that I didn’t know if I’d recognize that emotion now. But, looking back, I wondered if all that adversity had prepared me for this moment right now—of finding a way to survive in a way human beings were no longer accustomed to, doing things I’d never wanted to do.

  It had.

  And now part of me wanted to cling to this strong man on the bed beside me, to take shelter in his arms…but I didn’t know that he was offering it, and I wasn’t going to ask.

  No man had ever taken care of me and now, as I approached the second half of my life, there was no way I would ever ask. I didn’t know that I would even know how to take that help when offered anyway.

  I stood, holding the towel to my chest in a modest move in spite of my intentions. “Storm’s coming.” The weather looked like it was ready to turn at any moment, and I didn’t want to get caught in it. Besides, it was time to pull myself out of fantasy land and grow up again.

  I heard him, although it was almost spoken to himself. “Yeah.” I also heard him getting out of bed, but I was already walking to the bathroom to get my clothes on.

  Had I been a weaker woman, I probably would have cringed at the idea of putting dirty clothes on, but I’d learned long ago that while invention is the daughter of necessity, her twin is fortitude, and I’d found that trait inside myself long ago. It had long since become my motto—you do what you gotta do.

  And, as always, I did what had to be done. I didn’t question it, didn’t whine about it, and I certainly knew shitty situations wouldn’t fix themselves. If we were going to leave, I’d have to get dressed, no matter what it took.

  I was pulling the sweater over my head when Kevin entered the bathroom. I still hadn’t taken a long, hard look at his body, but I let my eyes sweep over him before sitting down to put my socks on. There was a cloud of melancholy in that room, hanging over both of us. I couldn’t quite figure out why—if it was because we regretted giving into our basest desires or because we were getting ready to return to what had become a pretty miserable fucking existence. For all I knew, we had different reasons for the heavy emotions or maybe he was as unsure as I was.

  I rifled around under the sink until I found a blow dryer and then dried the parts of my hair that were still damp. There was no way I was going outside with a wet head. I didn’t think I’d survive, hood on my head or not.

  I was tying the laces on my boots when Kevin said, “You know, it’s not nearly as big as your aunt’s place, but we could all stay here until we figure a way out.”

  “What? You mean sleep here and stuff?”

  “Yeah.”

  I shook my head fervently. “We can’t do that, Kevin. This place belongs to someone. What if they’re just gone for a while?”

  “No one’s here, Nina. No one’s been here for months.”

  “Yeah, but still…”

  “We’d only have to move food, because there’s nothing here…but we wouldn’t have to look for wood or haul water or—”

  “No, I can’t do it. I can’t. I just—for some reason, it feels wrong. If I was positive no one lived here… Besides, that’s my aunt’s house, and she wouldn’t mind if we stayed there.”

  Kevin looked at me without saying a word for what felt like minutes, but I knew it was only a few seconds before he answered. “Fine. All right. Whatever makes you happy.”

  I let out a puff of air with half a smile. “I think happy is overstating it, but it would make me feel better.” I stood, my shoes secure on my feet, and then picked my coat and gloves up off the floor.

  “I suppose that means you want to leave the toilet paper and stuff here.”

  I nodded before leaving the bathroom, on a mission to find something to write with. I was glad Kevin was okay with my hesitation to claim this place, whether it was logical or not. I searched through a few drawers in the kitchen until I found a small notepad and pen, and then I wrote a note. I wasn’t really sure what to say so I kept it simple.

  To the owner of this house: I and my companion have been staying at my aunt’s place with no power or running water for some time now, and we came across your place. The b
ack door was unlocked, so we let ourselves in. We used your shower, but it doesn’t look like you’ve been home for a while, so I hope that’s okay.

  I couldn’t bring myself to sign it, but writing that note alleviated most of the guilt. I then realized I needed to clean up after ourselves. I went to the bedroom, smoothing out the covers. Kevin was fully dressed by the time I returned to the bathroom, and I placed the washcloth and towels on the rack on the wall so that they could dry. As I left the room, shutting off the light, I saw Kevin turning the heat down on the hallway dial. Then he looked at me. “Ready?” Holding our weapons of choice, he waited for me to take mine.

  I zipped up my coat and took the shovel. “Yeah.” Once outside, I pulled up the hood and slid the gloves on, because, even covered, I knew my fingers and toes would be aching by the time we got back. I looked at the sky and noticed the first few flakes falling from the sky. Kevin took my hand and we began walking back to our temporary home.

  Chapter Seven

  The trek down the road and back up the mountain was arduous. The main problem was that the hot shower followed by a massive release of endorphins had made me far too relaxed and drained for a grueling hike.

  At least I only had my shovel to carry…and Kevin was beside me to lean on.

  I felt that about him and it filled me with a peace I had never known. I had always been the one to rely on, the one to whom people—especially my family—turned, trusted, needed…and now I felt like maybe I had someone.

  Bad idea thinking that way. I had to remind myself that that was just the afterglow. I knew I was experiencing some funky emotional high—and low—and I needed to watch myself. It was fucking with my judgment and I needed to nip it in the bud immediately before I made some calls I’d regret.