2. Rutger
Chapter 2
Rutger
I ’ve got so many problems, but suddenly I can’t think of anything except Tess.
My body wants her.
The need hit like a sucker punch to the gut that somehow gave me a hard-on like the Empire State Building. I’m like a ravenous grizzly, salivating and gnashing my teeth.
Yeah, I want to fucking eat Tess.
That can’t be right.
I’m staring at the door where she disappeared, and I swipe the back of my hand over my lips. The saliva just keeps coming.
Humans don’t eat humans.
Right? At least, I didn’t think so until about five minutes ago.
Something weird started happening from the moment I saw her. I was on my normal morning jog through the trees, pushing some over that are in my way, heading down the mountain and back up the other side, making sure everything is okay on my property.
Only, this morning, she was down near the bottom and nothing felt normal.
I heard her voice first. She said a sentence that ended with the word “kitten.” I didn’t make out the rest of it, but I heard music in her voice and there was a feeling in my chest like a rope pulling me toward the sound.
Tess was standing in the middle of a sunbeam through the trees, and I was overwhelmed by the sight of her. It was like coming across a princess from one of those old cartoons, she was so pretty. Round and soft. Her hair glowed like a spool of copper wire. Her big doe eyes were innocent but sharp.
She was wearing a giant shirt and jeans, but they didn’t do a lot to hide her body. I still can’t stop thinking about how it would feel to weigh those huge breasts in my hands—and I’ve never touched a woman before, not like that, but I can still vividly imagine how good the weight will settle on my palms.
I want that big round ass of hers pressed against my lap. I wanna grab her waist and measure it between my forefingers and thumbs. I don’t know I could reach all the way around, but goddamn if I don’t wanna try.
The instant I saw her, my dick got so hard that I couldn’t think about anything except pressing it between her breasts and against her ass and just everywhere. I imagined rubbing it all over her softness, up her back, on her poochy little belly, even slapping her cute little cherub cheeks with the head. I almost did it too. I had to force my feet to stay stuck on the ground—
Dammit, I’m made out of need.
Everything human is gone from me. My worries are drowned out by a screaming animal howling for its mate, like wolves hollering all through mating season.
And now that I’ve seen her up close, it’s worse. I caught her scent even hiding behind the sign but now? It’s assaulting me.
Ruining me from the inside out. I thought I might chill the fuck out if I could just look her in the eye. I thought if I got close, I’d notice bad stuff and lose the fantasy.
She’s better than the fantasy.
Tess has pretty fingers tipped by neon nail polish and full lips that I want to feel around my dick. I’m just as interested in her throat. She shows it off when she tilts her head back to look up at me, because she’s such a tiny little princess.
The curve of her chin to her neck to the skin I can just barely see under the gap of her collar—I want to sink my teeth into it. Lick it. Shove my nose in her hair to smell it. I want to stick my tongue in her ears and taste her. There and other places. All the places, but especially down low. Where I know she has womanly parts.
Yes, God, I want to eat that part of her. Eat. It .
I’ve never felt like this before.
I’ve never met a woman who makes my head feel fuzzy and like the world is spinning me sideways.
I should have been listening when Lindsay was talking, but looking and listening to her with Tess so close was impossible.
Lindsay and I have business. She says she’s been trying to renew the lease so her art program can stay on my land. We can resolve all your concerns , she said, like I should understand what she’d been telling me. I hadn’t even heard a thing she said before that because I was eating Tess with my eyes.
It would have been fine, except that I still haven’t read the lease.
That’s the biggest problem.
I can’t fucking read enough to know what the hell Lindsay wants from me.
Leases have a lot of long words. Lawyer words. Paragraphs of it.
When you grow up in the forest, there isn’t a lot of chance to learn fancy words.
I can read stuff like “caution” and “DeWalt” and “double aught” and exactly everything else I need to do my normal work around the property. I’m good at my work. I’m great with my hands. I have to be. I started working with my dad at the lumber mill when most kids were learning letters, and I lost half of two fingers over it. The ring finger and pinkie on my right hand don’t go past the second knuckle.
I’m still real good with those damaged hands.
Back when I still had grandparents, Grandma tried to teach me the letters and the words, but my brain didn’t seem to want to understand. It would twist the letters, and it would make me mad. So, they told me to be proud of my big, calloused hands instead.
“Sign of a man who works for a living,” said Grandpa.
They took me in after my dad died to the sawmill. Someone hadn’t inspected the safety on one of the machines in too long, Dad tripped at the wrong moment, and he was just gone like that.
One day I had him. The next day I didn’t.
It took a little longer for my mom to disappear.
She didn’t die. She just left.
See, my mom was scared of me. I hit six feet tall before I was even a teenager. “Early bloomer,” she used to say, like it was an insult. “You’re a monster.”
She was nice to me sometimes, but it always felt a little like she was just a zookeeper trying to keep the lion fed with a long stick.
She hated the forest, hated the sawmill, and hated the fact her kid turned out to belong in the wilderness where she didn’t want to be. Dad always said you can take the girl out of the city, but you can’t take the city out of the girl. I didn’t really know what that meant when I was young, but watching her berate him and everything about the forest and our life up here, I pieced it together soon enough.
Don’t marry a city girl , my dad used to tell me. Don’t volunteer for misery.
So after my dad went away to heaven, my grandparents said, “We can keep him with us, if you want.”
My mom said, “I want.”
I think I was eleven when that happened.
Good people, my grandparents. They retired the sawmill after Dad died. They found other uses for the land. They were the ones who made the first lease with Paint Forest Program. Said it was good to let the college sit in our forest, that it made people happy. The lease money paid the taxes, they said, although back then I didn’t know about taxes, but I do now. They’re bad. They take and take and threaten. I hate taxes. But, if I’m being honest, I still don’t understand what they are except money you give and if you don’t, they come and take.
My grandparents were simple like me. They said they never finished school either, but they were smart. Their hearts were like Clara’s diner in town. Always room for one more.
Two years ago they got the fever and both left me during the winter. I’ve been alone since, except for the artist people that come in the summers.
I miss my grandparents. Not just their kindness, either. I miss that they could read leases and Lawyer Words. They never let anyone take advantage of them.
People try to take advantage of me now. Usually, they come with smiles and reassurances, but I can see their deceptive eyes. They want the land. It’s valuable, I guess.
To me, it’s priceless. It’s part of me. I could never leave. I don’t fit anywhere else. In every way.
I can’t even fit through most doorways in town. I have to duck, curl my shoulders in, turn sideways.
People stare. They always stare.
There’s no way I can know if Lindsay’s one of those people who take advantage, unless I read the lease.
I should care about that.
A lot.
And I do, in a way. I like Lindsay and I want to trust her, and I don’t want to admit that I can’t read the lease agreement. But today, none of that seemed to matter.
Because once I saw Tess, I stopped caring about all that. Now, instead of figuring out how to save my land, I’m lurking in the woods outside the window to her cabin.
I can’t stop watching her. She’s got one of the nice cabins. Little but cute like her.
She’d be horrified if she knew how badly I want to violate her. How heavy my nuts have gotten looking at her. The way my dick hardened so I feel it throbbing through my entire body.
I watch as she sets her backpack on the bed and her kitten on the backpack.
The kitten’s tiny, but it looks vicious. It immediately starts jumping at the curtains with claws sticking out, and the claws look like needles.
My teeth grind. That little creature makes me want to run, but I want to look at Tess more.
Tess is fearless. She scoops the kitten up, and she smiles when she scolds it.
Then she bends down to do something on the floor—maybe unlace her shoes. I don’t know. I can’t see. And even if I could see her feet, I’d be too distracted to look.
Once she’s bent over, I get a real look at that ass.
God must be real. It’d take a God to sculpt something that perfect.
Just watching her move around gets me so hard, it’s like the blood rushes out of my head, my legs, my fingertips. I’m so fucking turned on by the sight of her unpacking that the fabric on the front of my worn jeans starts to tear.
I reach down, grabbing myself, trying to adjust. I’ve gotten so hard the head sticks out my waistband. The slit’s weeping and deep purple, for fuck’s sake.
I’ve had hard-ons before. I’ve jerked out relief a few times. I just…never used to think about it all that much. There’s not a lot of women on a mountain, and my relationship with the ones who come here has been professional.
I keep busy. I’ve been mostly alone.
I’d never seen Tess before.
So this isn’t like one of those hard-ons where I can just wait it out. When I grind my hand against my crotch, it’s no relief at all. I don’t want just anything rubbing against me. I want what I’m looking at—that big round ass shifting side to side.
Instinct’s giving me all kinds of ideas. I don’t know how many of those ideas are realistic.
I could rip apart her jeans and get that ass out where I can see it right. But then what? Can I just bury my face against her ass and…eat her?
Why do I wanna eat her so bad?
Tess straightens. Her hair has totally escaped its ties. It tumbles loose around her shoulders, and I swear to God, I can smell it from outside. It’s like Fruit Loops or something. That’s the sweetest thing I’ve ever eaten, but I already know, she will be sweeter.
It gives me more ideas. I think about wrapping her hair around my fist, wrapping my fist around my cock, jerking off with her hair so that my dick hits her cheek over and over until I blow my load all over her face.
I think of those movies I saw when I was little where they put cream pies onto someone’s face.
That’s what I’m imagining. But it’s Tess’s face dripping with everything I have in my balls right now. It would be that much, I think. Like the pie…
She starts to turn my way.
Fuck.
I try to duck out of view of the window.
The forest is my home and I move fast in it.
But I’m not myself today. I’m a clumsy, stupid animal, and my belt loop catches on a nail sticking out of a fence post. So when I try to leap back into the trees, I crack against the side of the cabin instead.
“Fuck!”
Tess spots me instantly. Her face falls, and I think she’s about to scream, but her eyes turn soft.
A moment later, she’s stepping outside with her brows drawn together. “Are you okay? I heard a thud. The whole cabin shook like an earthquake.”
“Fine,” I growl.
She glances around. Nobody can see us where we’re standing.
Now I can see that she’s barefoot, and her toes are just as brightly colored as her fingers. And those thoughts of rubbing myself against her return, only this time, I’m rubbing my dick between her feet.
She takes in the sight of my belt loop caught on the fence and giggles behind her hand. “So…what were you doing out here anyway?”
A smile dimples her cheeks. Her eyes are on my dick, and I know her question isn’t genuine. The hard little peaks of her nipples are teasing me through her shirt.
Tess knows what I was doing.
But she’s giving me an out.
If I was a clever guy—if I wasn’t just some forest monster stalking this little doll of a girl—I could come up with an excuse.
But all I manage to grunt out is, “I need.”
My brain wants me to say that I need help getting unstuck.
My entire body has other plans.
I need you.
I need to touch you. Smell you. I need you naked in front of me. I need to eat you, starting with those painted toenails and working my way up until you scream. I need to fuck your face. I need—
“I need,” I say again.
“Well, I can help with that,” says Tess, like she can read my mind.
She eases closer.
As soon as she’s in arm’s reach, I grab her.
Wrap my arm around her waist. Jerk her toward me.
Tess gasps.
She’s just as soft as I thought she’d be. She smells even better than Fruit Loops. That little gasp? It makes my hips thrust involuntarily, shoving against hers, pressing the agony of my hard-on against her body.
Fuck.
That’s what I was missing. The warmth of her body.
My hand spans her back, and she’s so much smaller than me that I almost cover the whole thing. Her curls fall over my fingers.
“Who are you, anyway?” she asks breathily.
“Rutger,” I say, like that explains anything.
“I know that. I mean, Lindsay told me…” She’s gazing at me with those big brown doe eyes. “You own this place, right?”
“The land.” It’s amazing I’ve got any words at all. She shifts and the sweet friction against my crotch sends heat rippling up my spine. “It’s my baby.”
Saying that feels wrong on my tongue. The woods are no longer my baby, she is. I need her to be my baby.
“So you’re like…forest daddy?” Tess says teasingly, playfully.
I like the sound of that word on her lips. “Say it again,” I demand. Fuck, my cock is so hard that it’s like my heart is beating in my balls.
“Say what?” She knows what I mean. The flush in her cheeks tells me that she’s still teasing.
My hand wanders up, under her hair, to the back of her neck. I bow her against me. “Say it.”
“Daddy,” she hisses.
That’s it. I buck against her, the arousal taking control of me again.
“Baby,” I mutter into the warmth of her breath.
Her hand wanders between us.
Those brightly-painted fingers curve around the shape of my dick, and her lips form a surprised, “Oh.”
“You really do need help, Daddy,” she says.
I snarl when she moves her hand to my belt loop, which is stretched out long, still caught on the fence. But she doesn’t let me out of that problem. She uses it as leverage to rub her thigh against my leg, lifting herself halfway off the ground.
Baby girl doesn’t know what a monster she’s unleashing.
Lifting my knee, I push forward between the heat of her thighs. She’s so hot I can feel it through two layers of denim. I can smell something sweet, and I don’t know what it is except that it’s coming from her.
I want it. I want to eat it. I want to eat her. That ferocious hunger hits me again, only stronger.
When my thigh slides under the crease between her legs, she gasps again. Pink spots brighten on her cheeks.
“I could help you with that,” she says again, even softer than before, needier, like she’s feeling the same crazy animal urges that I am.
She rolls her hips. Soft heat scrapes along my captive dick.
I slide my hand down her back to the waistband of her jeans. Her shirt’s a little tucked. I pull it out and slide two of my fingers between denim and soft flesh. Dipping further gets me to the crease of her ass. The stumps of my fingers squeeze into her skin.
She can probably feel that I’m mutilated. If she cares, she doesn’t show it. She slides her foot up the back of my leg and urges me closer.
“I don’t have a lot of experience,” I say abruptly. “With this.”
“Me neither.” She shrugs.
But our bodies know exactly what to do.
I use my grip to make her move. My hands fulfill those urges that tell me exactly what to do with her. I move her over me.
Steering her hips, I slide her up and down, and up again. I hike her thigh up higher, spread her legs wider, and rub harder.
“Fuck,” she whispers, her eyelashes fluttering. “Fuck. Oh my God.”
Even through our jeans, my cock slots right against her.
Her curves capture me. She grinds along the shaft and I fist her hair reflexively.
I’ve been on the brink of coming since I saw her bending over inside. Now, it’s not gonna take me long to finish. Pleasure’s got a tight hold on my spine. My vision’s dark around the edges, so I can’t see anything but the ecstasy on her face.
A shudder rolls through her body. I feel it in her neck, gripped by my hand, and I feel it in her knee shaking against me. She makes the sweetest little whine I’ve ever heard. It drags out long. Her eyelashes flutter a bunch.
She’s coming.
As soon as I realize, I follow her down.
My teeth clench, my back bows, my nose buries in her hair.
I come hard, roaring toward the glimpses of blue through the tree tops.
Birds bolt into the sky. Squirrels skitter away in the leaf litter.
Thick white ropes of cum spurt out the waistband of my jeans. I can’t help it. It shoots up onto my belly, onto my belt. It gets on Tess’s pretty little painted fingers.
She lolls against me, boneless, and raises her fingers to look at them. “That’s one problem fixed,” she says with a gaspy little laugh.
I’m shocked when she licks them.
Tasting me. Cleaning me off her skin.
She makes eye contact the whole time.
My whole world is her now. In those eyes, I find a forever I didn’t know I could have.
Finally, finally, she unhooks me from the fence nail.
I’m released.
For a moment, I stand over her, bristling with desires that haven’t softened. My dick’s ready to go again.
I brace my hand on the wall over her head. I make a cavern out of my body, sheltering her under my shadow. Bowed to hide her from the entire world.
“Thanks,” I hiss between my teeth. In that one word, I load everything I’m feeling. I let her hear how hungry I am.
Suddenly, a voice breaks the air. “Tess! Teeeee-ssss! You here?” It’s Lindsay.
“You’re welcome, forest daddy,” Tess whispers, licking her fingertips again. Her smile broadens as loss cinches around my heart when her body breaks from mine.
“Tess!” Lindsay shouts. Her voice is getting closer.
All I want to do is throw Tess against the wall of the cabin and rip her jeans off and follow these urges down the path to wherever they lead, but I can’t do it.
Not yet.
She turns and walks away to answer the call. I have to stand there, clenching my fists, blowing breaths hard through my nose, resisting the desire to make this woman mine in every way possible.
I’m going to have her.
Nothing else means anything to me anymore.