Chapter Fourteen
In which this just sucks.
Sloan…
This sucks. So much.
Not the surroundings, even though I think we spend more time detouring around jagged granite boulders than forward momentum. This mountain, though. It’s beautiful. The dark grey cliffs give way to meadows like a sweet reward for all our hiking, and there’s crystal clear water from the river that we’re following.
Even though my ribs scream every time I take a deep breath, the air is wonderful; crisp, and clear like when my father used to take me on those adventures to Nantucket and the sea air would sweep in, salt-tinged and pure.
It’s too bad all my summers at camp didn’t involve more of this actual camping. I feel like a burden and I know Ethan could make double time with those long-ass legs of his. He never shows impatience though, even as he searches the sky. Once, we heard the drone of an engine and he pulled me under a stand of pine trees. It was a commercial jetliner, based on the size and too high to see us.
Back to why this sucks.
My ribs hate me. It might be more than two broken ribs because my right side is on fire, and by the time we stop for the night, my skin feels ready to peel off my bones.
“I wish there was another way, darlin’.”
Ethan’s fingers carefully navigate the angry purple bruise over my ribs that’s turning black. I know my skin’s inflamed but there’s nothing to do about it.
After stopping for the night, we’re crouched near the campfire, and he helps me unwrap my chest. I’m too tired to care that my lack of a bra (screw you, vintage Dior!) means he can probably see everything.
He already did , my mean little voice reminds me, nothing new here.
His long fingers brush the underside of my breasts, but I don’t think it was intentional. He keeps his gaze firmly on my ribs.
“Well, you said we have another day or two,” I say, not moving because I don’t want to flinch and make him feel bad. Though I don’t know why I care. “I can do it. We just keep walking until we’re picked up and then…” I sigh rapturously, “I want a long spa day and fried chicken and pie.”
Taking his hands away from my skin - something I note with some regret - Ethan chuckles. “Fried chicken and pie?”
“Well, not at the same time,” I say, “I eat pie first like a civilized person. What about you?”
“I’m not much of a beer drinker, but a cold bottle of Tennants lager sounds grand right now.” He settles his back against a pine tree, poking at the fire with a stick.
“Well, thanks to you, my culinary horizons have certainly expanded.” And they have, he brought me wild blackberries for an afternoon snack, the rabbit, and a handful of roots that tasted like potato chips.
“Now, ya see? A positive development,” he grins.
“How do you know so much about this stuff?” I ask, “I know your clan is ridiculously wealthy. Didn’t they send you to fancy schools?”
“Aye. But there’s so much ya must do for yourself. Ya must survive and so ya always have a Plan B. And a Plan C and D. There’s a lot to be said for experience. Our fathers dropped my cousins and me in the middle of the wilderness more than once to teach us to work together.”
“That sounds like the team-building exercise from hell.”
He laughs, “Aye, but it worked.”
Ethan reeks of competency. He can make a controlled crash landing in the mountains, patch wounds and catch rabbits, and do all that manly shit. With his five o’clock shadow growing out and his broad shoulders straining the cloth of that Henley, I can easily picture him chopping wood or like, wrestling bears.
“So, what is your specific job description in the MacTavish clan?” I ask, “I know just enough to be clear that you’re Mafia.”
He gives me a strange smile. “I find desired objects and people.”
I wait for more, but that seems to be it. “Okay…” I want to know more, like how did he find me? He’s ended the conversation by putting our sleeping spot together with a generous pile of pine needles and laying the blankets out over it.
“No pillows tonight.” He sweeps his hand toward the bed. “You’ll be as comfortable as I can make ya though.”
“We’re doing pretty good, all things considered,” I try to sound optimistic. Easing myself down on our pine needle bed, I realize he’s going to have to snuggle me to make us fit. Sucking back a pathetic whimper, I carefully turn on my left side. The throbbing in my ribs is a relentless drumbeat at this point. The events of the last two days have left me as nothing but a bruised bag of skin, I’m really hoping the pain will dull enough to let me sleep. He’s folded a sweatshirt for a pillow for me, which is so oddly touching, so when he curls up behind me I don’t say a word.
“You know, if this was one of those trashy romances,” I say drowsily, “this would be the equivalent of getting stuck in a hotel room with only one bed.”
I feel his broad chest move against me as he chuckles. “I dinna think I’ve ever read one.”
“Oh, well, it’s a trope. There has to be a way to get the enemies to become lovers so forced proximity is the vehicle to get them to fall for each other.”
“Ya seem to know a lot about these trashy romances,” he says, amusement still clear in his deep voice.
“Yeah, that’s because I read like, five a week,” I say with zero shame. God, his body heat is like standing in the Sahara Desert, and on this cold as hell night, I can feel myself edge incrementally closer to him. He realizes this and helps me out by molding himself against me, my back to his warm chest, his legs tucked against mine, and a steel spike poking my back.
“Ignore him,” Ethan says, “the bastard dinna realize this is a survival situation.”
“That’s your dick?” I blurt. It feels alarmingly long and even hotter than the rest of him. Any moisture left in my mouth has traveled south to my lady bits.
Who knew? Instant lust is an excellent painkiller.
His laughter jolts me and he carefully rests his hand on my hip, away from my ribs. “Well, aye. My Desert Eagle is still in my kit bag.”
“I should say something stern about being vain enough to compare your dick to the biggest handgun in the world, but…”
“The Desert Eagle isn’t the biggest,” he says seriously, “that’s the Pfeifer Zeliska .600 Nitro Express. Heavyweight, which cuts down on recoil and the bullets are six times the size of a standard nine-millimeter round.”
“Don’t make me laugh!” I wheeze. “And of course, you would know that.”
“Part of the job, lass.” He pulls the blankets up higher and between his heat baking me and the comfort of his closeness, I finally fall asleep.
“Lass… Sloan, sweetheart?”
“Mmmmm?” Oh, please don’t wake me up, this is the best I’ve felt in…
Oh, shit.
I’m lying on top of Ethan like he’s my extremely beefy mattress. His thick thigh is between mine and I am rubbing myself against him.
“Oh! Oh, my god! I’m so sorry!” I try to scramble off him and my ribs twinge angrily.
“Ah, ah! Dinna move.” His enormous hands are holding my hips in place. “I’m enjoying it, I just want to make sure ya want this.”
“I’m molesting you in my sleep and you want to make sure I’m giving consent?” I hide my face in his neck. This is so humiliating.
“Endorphins make an excellent painkiller,” he says encouragingly, “And I’m thinking you’re close, baby.” Slowly, his hands propel my hips to slide over his thigh again and he is so right. My borrowed boxer briefs are wet and my clitoris is throbbing insistently. Damn him! His thigh is so sculpted that I can feel the defined muscles under his jeans. “Shh… there’s a good girl. Use me.” His fingers tighten on my ass, carefully lifting his thigh higher. “Keep going,” he whispers diabolically, “ya need this. You’re gonna come all over my leg, rubbing that sweet pussy until we’re both soaking wet. I can hear your little whimpers and they’re turning me the feck on.”
My thighs clamp around his leg and the rough texture of his jeans is almost too much against my needy center. He smells like how warm feels and his hoarse whispers of filth and encouragement are too much and the blaze spiraling in my center bursts into a supernova and I have to bite down on his shoulder to keep from screaming into the night sky.
“Fuuuck…” he groans, fingers still flexing on my ass.
I’m shaking, why am I shaking?
“Ya did so well for me, baby,” he whispers in my ear, “so pretty when ya come.”
“I’m sorry,” I groan, “I can’t believe I molested you.”
“Shh…” he’s stroking my tangled hair, “go back to sleep now.”
His cock is thick and hard, pressing against my hipbone. “Can I do anything for, uh… For you?”
“I can handle a case of blue balls for one night,” he says, amused. “We’re not gonna do anything that will make you hurt worse.”
Bursting out into helpless giggles, I mumble, “Yeah, but isn’t it painful for a guy?”
He carefully curls his arms around me and I feel his chest expand into a deep sigh. “Dinna push your luck, little girl,” he rumbles. “Go back to sleep now.”
So, I do.
The rhythmic hum of helicopter blades wakes me the second time and it’s low enough that the pine trees we’re under are thrashing back and forth.
“Is it one of yours?”
Ethan gently sets me on my butt, covering me with the silver survival blanket he uses on top of all our other blankets at night. “I dinna think so, I don’t recognize the helicopter. If this was a MacTavish rescue, they’d be using the loudspeaker to alert me. If they have thermal imaging, we need to be very still.”
It’s just before dawn, the first, hesitant fingers of pink and red touching the horizon. I scoot closer, pulling the reflective blanket over him, too.
What if it’s a legitimate rescue? What if we’re losing our chance to be saved? I tuck my head under his chin, feeling the bristles of his beard against my temple. I have to trust that Ethan knows more about the dangers than I do.
I barely stifle a shriek as a huge deer bursts out from the underbrush across the camp, clearly driven by the helicopter’s noise. A spotlight targets the deer, then clicks off as the chopper moves on.
“Thank ya, brother,” Ethan says to the buck. “If they did spot a thermal image, they’ll attribute it to the animal. Time for us to get moving.”
Waking up with wet underwear is not nearly as pleasant as how they got that way, but I tighten my seatbelt around my baggy trousers. I’m still mortified that I more or less pinned the man down and had my way with him last night in my sleep. The memory of his hoarse whispers and his hands on my hips make my clitoris perk up hopefully.
I’m worse than a teenage boy.
The terrain is rough again, the river we’re following narrows down often to a gorge carved in the granite. Skirting the boulders is slippery and tricky, and more than once he has to grab my arm to keep me from plunging over the edge.
We’re making good time, though. By midday, I start seeing the first hints of civilization; a paved road in the distance, curls of smoke from a fireplace, maybe.
And then the first bullet hits the rocks behind us, shattering them into shards.