Chapter 18
LIAM
By the time we step into the cabin, night has fully fallen and we’re soaked and trembling.
We waited it out in the treehouse for as long as we could, hoping the rain would let up enough for us to hike back to the truck without becoming completely drenched, but as the sun started to fall—along with the temperatures as the cold front moved in fully—we eventually had to make a break for it.
Even the long drive up the mountain with the heater running full-blast did little to warm us or dry off our clothes that now cling to our shivering bodies.
Gizmo bolts inside, racing for his favorite spot in the loft chair, annoyed with the events of the day that left him wet.
I nudge the door closed behind me, water instantly dripping off me onto the hardwood floors. It pools under Lucky, too, after the short run from the truck to the safety of the cabin was enough to undo any good the reprieve of the drive offered.
She turns to me, laughing, a smile spread across her face, even as she wraps her arms around herself and shivers. “Well, that was certainly an experience…”
Her good humor despite our current predicament makes me grin as I grab the hem of my wet t-shirt.
It worked.
I succeeded in my original goal when taking her to the falls—getting her mind off everything else. Even cold, wet, and physically miserable, the light has returned to her eyes. “We need to get warmed up.”
Lucky nods her agreement and reaches to pull off her wet shirt as I remove mine. I toss it onto the mat near the door, trying to save my floors from the worst of the water, and she does the same.
I’m immediately distracted from getting fully undressed by the way her wet bra clings to her breasts.
I swallow thickly as I struggle to drag my gaze from her nipples pebbling under the damp fabric. My cock hardens, straining against my already too tight jeans.
Fuuuuck…
This wasn’t what I intended when I took her out of the cabin today.
Because it wasn’t what she needed.
Distracting her with orgasms only goes so far, and it would have felt wrong, given the mental state she was in.
And it never even crossed my mind until this moment.
We sat, cuddled together in the treehouse talking for hours, listening to the rain pound on the roof, inhaling the smells of the damp forest around us, and just enjoying being together, being away from it all.
And it was probably the single best day I’ve spent with her since we met.
But seeing her like this now…
I can’t deny the way my body craves her, how badly I want to warm her up and watch her come apart over and over again in my arms.
Clearing my throat, I force myself to reach down and untie my boots. I feel her gaze on me while I toe them off and remove my wet socks, but I don’t dare look in her direction as she strips out of her clothes, too.
Not until I can get my baser instincts under control.
I tug the wet denim free of my legs, tossing it onto the growing pile, leaving me completely nude and still hard as hell.
Goosebumps pebble across my damp skin in the chilly air of the cabin, and I finally turn to face her again, my cock jutting out and still aching despite my best efforts to get myself in check.
Lucky stands before me in only her bra and panties, her arms wrapped around herself as she watches me. Her eyes drift over my naked skin, drifting to my cock, and her tongue darts out across her lips.
All I want is to move toward her, but I make my bare feet move in the other direction, to the fireplace to get us warmed up.
My hand shakes as I strike the match and get the waiting logs and kindling going, both from the chill in the air against my damp skin and because I know she’s watching me.
Waiting for me to turn around.
Waiting for me to do or say something.
But I’m suddenly tongue-tied.
A tension permeates the cabin, and I face her again, unsure what I’ll find or what I should do about it.
She stands shivering in the same place I left her, as if she, too, has been frozen in place by the intensity of what happened today and what’s happening now.
We’ve learned so much about each other over the past several weeks, but how we talked stuck in that treehouse felt like something else. A cataclysmic shift that we both experienced and don’t know what to do with.
It was the decision to stay and fight.
For her and for us.
No matter what.
My cock aches, my body desperate for her in a way that terrifies me now more than it did our first night together.
I move forward and grab the fluffy blanket from the couch. Lucky’s gaze stays locked on me as I approach her and wrap it around her. She groans at the contact of the warm, soft material, and the sound does nothing to help alleviate the stranglehold I’m currently trying to maintain on my control.
She leans into me, her warm breath fluttering across my cool skin, and I scoop her up into my arms, my hands digging into her fleshy bare thighs. The fire crackles behind us, the heat already starting to flood the cabin along with the wonderful smell it creates.
Lucky wraps her legs around my waist, burying her face in my neck and dragging her hot core along my length.
My hips jerk at the contact, and I issue a low growl of warning. “Lucky…”
She lifts her head back and gazes at me in a way I’ve never seen before. I’ve asked for her trust over and over again, and she’s handed it to me. But the way she looks at me now is something different.
It isn’t just trust.
It isn’t just want or physical need.
What I see in those pale blue depths is precisely what I feel when I look at her.
Instead of taking her upstairs to the loft, to our bed, I walk us in front of the fire and lower her down onto the bear skin rug in front of it. She gazes up at me with her blue hair spread out beneath her, damp and wild and unruly, a smile curling her lips as she trails her fingers down my chest.
“This is kind of romantic, you know.”
I chuckle and feather my lips across her cheek. “What is? Getting stuck in the rain and then having to drive up the mountain before we freeze to death?”
She laughs and shakes her head. “No. You starting a fire like this and laying me down on a bear skin rug in front of it. It’s very mountain man of you.”
I drag my head back and raise a brow. “Isn’t that what I am?”
Her returning grin matches the spark in her eyes. “I guess you are.”
“What does that make you?”
She chews on her bottom lip, contemplating the question for a moment as her hand travels lower and lower, across my abs, making my entire body tense in anticipation of where it’ll go next.
Her palm wraps around my cock and I groan, my eyes drifting closed at the feel of her touch.
“I…don’t know.”
The hesitation in her voice is enough for me to open my eyes again, and I take her cheek in my palm, dragging her face up until my lips meet hers. They tremble, as if she’s afraid of the answer.
“I know exactly what you are, Bluebell. Mine. That’s all that matters.”
She whimpers against my lips, and I kiss her fiercely, crushing my mouth to hers and dragging my tongue along the seam until she opens for me. Until she accepts everything I’m willing to give her and have been trying to over the last month.
If she hasn’t figured out exactly what she means to me after everything that’s happened, and after everything we’ve said to each other, then I’ll have to find another way to show her.
Every second of every minute of every hour of every day, I will make Lucky see how important she is, how much she means to me, and how impossible life would be without her.
That’s my mission now.
To give her all those things she never had—including the confidence that this isn’t a dream and I’m not going to disappear.
She wraps her legs around my back and guides me to her slick core.
The feel of her arousal, knowing she’s so ready for me, makes my cock ache to drive into her, has my brain begging me to bury myself so deeply inside that I’ll never leave that spectacular place.
But I hold my hips steady. I keep myself back as I raise myself up on one elbow.
Lucky watches me, breathless and with a furrowed, soft brow. “Why’d you stop?”
“Because I need to taste you first.”
Her cheeks darken, the flickering firelight casting shadows across her body as I slowly work my way down it.
I pause to pay special attention to her breasts, sucking one nipple between my lips and flicking my tongue across it, then doing the same to its partner until she writhes under me, her body seeking what I’m holding back.
But not because I want to tease her.
Not because I want to make her wait.
Not because this is some game.
Simply because I need her to know that this thing between us isn’t just sex.
It isn’t merely a sizzling physical attraction we’ve both felt since the moment we met.
It isn’t a fling that’s going to fizzle out once it has lost its excitement and luster.
It isn’t any of those temporary things.
It’s everything.
And that’s what I plan on giving this woman.
Everything I have, along with my heart and soul.
Alternating between kissing her skin, grazing it with my teeth, and dragging my tongue over the sensitive flesh, I move lower and lower, and by the time I bury my face between her legs and finally taste her sweet cunt, we’re both ready to explode.
Her arousal coats her pussy, glistening in the flickering light from the fire, and I can’t get enough of it. Every glide of my tongue fills me with her taste, and every flick across her clit makes her arch into me like an offering from God spread out before me on an altar of fur.
Those little mewls, moans, and gasps as she threads her fingers through my hair mingle with the crackling of the now-roaring fire beside us, the perfect soundtrack for losing myself in this woman and what she’s brought me.
Hope.
Joy.
Belief in something I wasn’t sure existed for me anymore—a happy ending.