Chapter 34 Maya
MAYA
The idea hit me somewhere between the third fence post and the fourth, while Nate was crouched beside the trail replacing a rotted-out marker. I was absolutely not staring at the way his shirt pulled across his shoulders.
He glanced up and caught me looking. A slow grin spread across his face.
“You going to help, or just supervise?”
“I’m quality-checking.” I tilted my head. “That one’s crooked.”
“It’s perfectly straight.”
“If you say so.” I shrugged and turned back to my clipboard, making a show of scribbling something down. “I’ll just note it in the report. ‘Marker 7B: installed by volunteer with apparent depth perception issues.’”
He stood, brushing dirt off his knees, and crossed the trail toward me, plucking the clipboard from my hands.
“You’ve drawn a smiley face.”
“It’s an assessment matrix.”
“It’s a smiley face with horns.”
“That’s you. I’m capturing the volunteer experience.”
He shook his head, still smiling, then handed the clipboard back. But I saw it, that little flicker of heat that flared in his eyes.
“What’s next on the list?”
“Actually, I want to check something.” I was already turning toward the trail. “It’s a bit of a detour.”
“A detour where?”
“You’ll see.” I started walking.
After about thirty seconds of silence, a low laugh rumbled behind me.
“Maya. Are you taking me where I think you’re taking me?”
I glanced over my shoulder and gave him my most innocent expression, which, based on the heat in his eyes, failed completely. “I don’t know what you mean. I need to do a routine inspection of the hut. Make sure the roof is holding up. Check the supplies. Very official ranger business.”
“Routine inspection.”
“Mm hmm.”
“Of the hut where you nearly died in a storm.”
“That’s a dramatic retelling.”
“Of the hut where I carried you inside and took your clothes off.”
My stomach flipped. “You were providing first aid.”
“Right.” His voice was closer now, and when I looked back again, he’d closed the gap between us to almost nothing. His eyes were bright with amusement and something darker underneath it. “And this routine inspection requires both of us?”
“Occupational health and safety. I need a buddy. For safety purposes.”
“For safety purposes,” he repeated, low and slow with his gaze dropping to my mouth.
With my blood warming, I turned back to the trail. The fifteen-minute walk to the cabin was the longest of my life. Finally, I stepped onto the porch and turned around, leaning against the door frame, arms crossed.
“So. Shall we inspect?”
Nate stopped at the bottom of the steps, hands in his pockets, looking up at me with an expression that was somewhere between adoration and surrender.
“Lead the way, Slayer.”
I pushed the door open and stepped inside. The hut was warm from the afternoon sun, golden light slanting through the windows.
Nate stepped in behind me and the room got smaller. Hotter.
He looked around, hands still in his pockets. Then his eyes came back to me.
“So,” he said. “How’s the roof looking?”
I kept my gaze on his. “Structurally sound.”
“Supplies?”
“Fully stocked.”
“So the inspection’s done.”
“Appears to be.”
He took a step closer and reached for me, pulling me against him.
I slipped my arms around his neck. “I like this place,” I said quietly. “I like that it’s ours.”
“Yeah,” he said, just as quietly. “Me too.”
Then he kissed me, and the talking stopped. The sweetness vanished the second his tongue swept into my mouth, replaced by a desperate, starving heat.
The low-grade fever I’d been nursing on the way here flared hot and strong. We dragged at each other’s clothes. His hands on my shirt, mine on his belt, until somehow I was completely naked and he was still in his jeans, with his shirt buttons undone.
His mouth found my neck while his hand slid down my stomach. Fingers trailed over my hip, my inner thigh, until my breath was coming in short, sharp bursts and my hips were tilting toward him of their own accord.
“Nate.” Half plea, half warning.
His fingers slid over my clit and my whole body jolted. I was so ready for him that the first stroke of his fingers tore a moan out of me that bounced off every wall in the cabin.
“Jesus, Maya.” His voice was rough against my ear. “You’re so fucking wet.”
He pushed two fingers inside me and I cried out, my back arching.
His thumb kept working my clit while his fingers curled and stroked, and the dual sensation was so overwhelming that my knees buckled.
His free arm caught me around the waist, pinning me against him, holding me up while his hand took me apart.
“Oh god,” I gasped. “God, that feels so good.”
His mouth found mine and swallowed the sounds I was making while his fingers drove into me, steady and relentless.
Voices.
Outside. On the trail.
My eyes flew open. Nate’s hand stilled.
We stared at each other. My chest was heaving, his fingers were still inside me, and two hikers were walking past the cabin maybe twenty feet from where we stood.
“Nate,” I whispered. Frantic. “Nate, they’re right there.”
His eyes locked on mine. Blue and blazing and completely steady as he reached past me and turned the lock with a quiet click. Then that same hand came up and covered my mouth.
“Then you’re going to have to be quiet,” he murmured.
Oh. Fuck.
His fingers started moving again.
I nearly bit through his palm. The pleasure slammed back into me like it had never left, amplified by the adrenaline and the insanity of what we were doing.
I whimpered, my eyes squeezing shut.
The voices were closer now. A man and a woman, chatting casually about the trail conditions.
Nate’s voice at my ear. “Look at me.”
My eyes opened. His face was inches from mine, his gaze dark and intent. The combination of his hand over my mouth and his fingers inside me and the sound of strangers right outside was so filthy and so thrilling that my entire body clenched around him.
His rhythm held steady. with deep strokes that hit the spot that made my vision blur. I was climbing so fast I couldn’t breathe. My moans were trapped against his palm, my hips grinding into his hand, and every muscle in my body was pulled wire-tight.
The hikers paused. Right outside. Something about checking a map.
Nate’s fingers drove deeper and his thumb pressed harder and his eyes never left mine.
I came so hard my legs gave out.
The orgasm ripped through me in wave after wave, brutal and blinding, and the only thing keeping me upright was his body pinning me to the door.
I shuddered against him, tears pricking at the corners of my eyes from the sheer force of it.
His fingers moved, slower now, drawing it out until the last aftershock rolled through me and left me boneless.
The voices faded. Footsteps on the trail, getting further away, until there was only the sound of my ragged breathing against his palm.
Nate lowered his hand from my mouth. His fingers slid out of me gently and I whimpered at the loss.
His forehead dropped to mine, his lungs fighting for air while adrenaline wrecked us both.
“You,” I managed, when my brain came back online, “are an insane person.”
He laughed, a little unsteady. “You started it.”
“I started a routine inspection. You turned it into a felony.”
He brushed his lips lightly across mine. “Technically it’s only a misdemeanor on park land and Fogarty’s isn’t on park land.”
I let out a laugh that was half sob, half delirium, and pulled his mouth down to mine.
His jeans needed to go. Immediately. Like, yesterday.
I grabbed his belt and yanked him toward the mattress, walking backward on legs that were still trembling. He came willingly, his hands desperate on my skin.
“Sit,” I told him.
He sat on the edge of the mattress and looked up at me, his shirt hanging open, his chest rising and falling too fast. I stood between his knees and finished what I’d started, unbuckling his belt, popping the button, dragging the zipper down.
He lifted his hips and I pulled his jeans and boxers off together.
Then I pushed him back and climbed on top of him.
His hands went to my hips as I straddled him, my knees sinking into the old wool blankets on either side of his thighs.
His cock pressed hot and hard against my inner thigh.
I rocked forward, sliding the length of him through the slick heat between my legs without taking him in.
His jaw clenched and a rough sound tore out of his chest.
“Maya.” Strained. Almost broken.
“Mmm?”
“You’re killing me.”
“Good.” I did it again, slower this time, and the friction against my still-sensitive clit made me gasp. His fingers dug into my hips hard enough to leave marks. I wanted that. Wanted proof of this on my skin tomorrow.
Reaching between us, I wrapped my hand around him, guiding him to my entrance. His breath hitched.
My eyes held his as I sank down onto him, slowly taking all of him until he was buried to the hilt. His hands slid up my thighs, his grip tightening like a vise on my waist as he whispered, “Move.”
I moved.
Slow at first. Long, rolling strokes that dragged every inch of him inside me.
His head fell back and the sound he made was low and wrecked and so raw it sent a shiver down my spine.
My hands braced on his chest, fingers spread across the hard planes of muscle, and I set a rhythm that was lazy and deep and utterly selfish.
He mapped my body as though he was trying to memorize it. My thighs, my stomach, the curve of my waist, up to cup my breasts.
His palms dragged upward, teasing my nipples, and I faltered. A moan spilled out of me that made him grin.
“There?” he asked, doing it again.
“You know exactly what you’re doing.”
“Absolutely no idea.” He sat up beneath me, the angle changing so suddenly that I cried out.
His mouth closed over my nipple and his arm banded around my lower back, pulling me tighter against him.
The shift in position drove him deeper. I gripped his shoulders and my rhythm changed, faster now, more urgent, each downstroke hitting me so perfectly that sparks scattered behind my eyes.
“Fuck, you feel incredible.” His voice was muffled against my skin, his breathing ragged. “You have no idea how good you feel.”
I did, actually, because he felt like the answer to a question I’d been asking my whole life.
My pace quickened. He thrust up to meet every downstroke, pushing deep as I came down. The sound of us together, skin on skin, heavy breaths, his groans and my gasps filling the small cabin, was obscene.
His hand slipped between us and his thumb found my clit and I nearly came off him entirely. Still sensitive from the first orgasm, the pressure was almost too much, teetering on the edge of overwhelming. I grabbed his wrist.
He stilled instantly. “Too much?”
“No, it’s perfect,” I gasped out.
His thumb circled with the lightest pressure while I rode him harder, chasing something that was building fast and fierce in the pit of my stomach. His free hand gripped the back of my neck and pulled my forehead to his.
“Let go. I’ve got you.”
I shattered. The orgasm crashed through me like a wave breaking, every muscle in my body pulling tight and then releasing in long, shuddering pulses.
My body clenched around him and he groaned, deep and guttural, his hips snapping up into me twice more before he followed me over the edge.
He buried his face in my neck and came with a sound that I wanted burned into my memory forever.
His back hit the mattress. I went with him, sprawled across his chest, both of us gasping for air like we’d just sprinted a mile uphill. His heart hammered against my cheek. Mine hammered right back.
Silence, except for breathing. The creak of the cabin settling around us. After a long, liquid minute, I lifted my head.
“So. Inspection complete?”
He laughed, brushing a kiss to my temple. “Passed with flying colors.”
“I’ll file the report Monday.”
“Please don’t file a report.”
I grinned and dropped my cheek back to his chest, listening to his heartbeat slow.
His fingers trailed up and down my spine in long, absent strokes.
The warmth of him, the weight of his arms around me, the quiet of the hut around us, all of it settled into my bones like a missing puzzle piece sliding right into place.
“We should come here more,” I said. “For inspections.”
His fingers stilled on my back, then resumed their path. “Yeah,” he said softly. “We should.”