Chapter 9
IRIS
The first twang of pleasure is so raw, so visceral that it’s a shock to my system. I jerk when he gives me a long lick, but it’s the deep humming sound he makes at the back of his throat that makes my nerve endings tingle. As if he’s never tasted anything more delicious.
Steering him where I want, I get what he means by that. I sink my fingers into his hair although there’s no need to do anything.
Because my mountain man’s got his entire mouth on my… pussy, that’s what he called it. And his fingers are there too, playing with my entrance, while his tongue keeps tapping at my clit in an incessant, mind-blowing rhythm.
“Oh, oh…” I say, my mind incapable of anything coherent. “Oh my God, Elias.”
“You taste like tart raspberries, Princess. With sweet cream on top. I could eat you over and over, for the rest of my life.”
He sounds drunk on… me. And that phrase, the rest of my life, makes my heart pound harder than with just the pleasure. But I don’t have the rest of our lives with him. I only have a few days—a finite number of moments and I want so much.
The urgency pours fuel on my hunger. As do the scandalous sounds his tongue makes as he licks over my clit, up and down, around and around, with a relentless pace.
I clasp his head with my thighs, the stubble on his cheeks scraping at the tender flesh. “That feels so good. So good. Please don’t stop.”
“Not going anywhere, baby girl,” he says, whispering those words into my opening, making me vibrate from inside. “I’m going to stick my fingers inside you, yeah? If it hurts, tell me and I’ll go slow.”
“Yes, please,” I say, licking over the sweat beading on my upper lip. “Whatever you want to stick inside me, mountain man, I’m game for it. Just please,” my voice sounds serrated, high, “keep going. Make me come.” The words are new to me but with him, they are exactly right, natural. Perfect.
“More than once, baby girl, and that’s a vow.” With that, he penetrates my opening with one finger.
I stiffen as he adds one more, then one more, going deeper, making way for himself. A flash of pain makes me jerk like a fish flopping on land.
His hand kneads my hip, gentling me. “Sorry, Princess.” He sounds like he himself is in pain. “I had to break your hymen. No more pain, yeah? Trust me.”
“I do trust you, Elias,” I say, sweat beading over my face. My hips start their own dance, chasing his mouth, thrusting forward, eager for more.
“Come for me, baby girl. Show me how much you need this, yeah?” He pumps his fingers in and out slowly at first, and then picks up speed. It’s like he’s planted a device deep inside me that could detonate any time. “Tell me how good it feels.”
“So good, so good,” I chant, my pulse rioting all over my body. “It feels tight and achy and like I’m going up and up and up. Like I want to throw myself off a cliff. Don’t stop please.”
He does something with his fingers that stretches me further. All the while he doesn’t let up on licking me over and over. “Let it go, Iris. Let it come. I’ve got you.”
And then he hooks his fingers deep inside me while sucking at my clit with his lips and I go off. Pleasure rolls over me in drowning waves, wrenching me under, shaking me apart.
I gasp and jerk and let out a keening scream, as if I can hold onto it for just a little longer. My fingers dig into his shoulders, the nails scratching his skin but I can’t let him go. It’s like every nerve ending has been set on delicious fire.
“Fuck, baby,” Elias says, lapping me up. “Look at how much slick you make when you come. You’ve got me drenched.” With the utmost gentleness, he pulls his fingers out of my core and my hungry flesh lets go with an unwilling squish. “You okay?” he says, before pressing a kiss to the top of my pussy.
I nod, aftershocks still pulsing through my pelvis. My nose is running and my eyes are wet. I feel like I walked through fire and have emerged like a newborn.
He looks up and the tip of his long nose and his sensuous lips are coated in my wetness. And his green eyes, they blaze with a fiery need that I’m suddenly desperate to sate.
As I watch, my chest heaving, he wipes his mouth and then paints my stiff nipples with my own arousal. A fresh spark of pleasure arrows down to my core and my muscles clench on emptiness.
“It’s been worth it to be in hell, Angel, if I get to taste you at the end of it.”
The sob I choked off at the indescribable pleasure threatens to break through but somehow, I catch it.
I want to, need to, fulfill his every longing, every desire, everything he’s buried deep to survive out here, all alone.
“Come inside me, please. I want to feel like a woman, mountain man, one who satisfies her man.”
His long eyelashes flicker down, then up while his thumbs draw lines over my belly. “You sure?”
“I’ve never been surer of anything in my life,” I say.
He leans in and takes my nipple in his mouth. The shock is visceral. Fresh pleasure sets off a new spiral in my body.
I moan and fall into him, pressing my forehead onto his shoulder as he suckles at me with an erotic sound that’s its own assault, the wet pull of it loud in the quiet cabin.
Arrows of pleasure zoom down to my core as he switches from one nipple to the other.
This time he licks around it with the tip of his tongue.
Making me wait, making me pant, making me dig my fingers into his nape and pull his head. He laughs against my breast before he opens his mouth and nearly takes all of me inside. I jerk and shake. A mini explosion rocks through me.
"Did you just come again?" he says, kissing a line between my breasts where my heart’s thumping.
I groan. "I think I did."
"Jesus, Princess. You've got a hair trigger. I'm going to enjoy counting the number of times I make you come."
I sag against him for just a second, boneless, my breath ragged, pleasure still shimmering through me in fading waves. Then the emptiness makes itself known again, deeper and more insistent than before.
I rock my ass back and forth on the bed, my muscles begging to squeeze something.
Anything. The sheets are damp beneath me, the scent of my arousal thick and unfamiliar in the warm air.
My clit is too sensitive already. "I can't bear it, Elias. I feel empty. How is it that I didn't know you before tonight and yet everything inside me feels like it’s been waiting for you?”
He stills. Just for a second.
The silence of the cabin presses in. The fire has burned low, just a soft orange pulse behind the grate. Outside the pines are hushed.
And I close my eyes. Brace myself to be pushed away. I went too far. He only promised me a few days. Our entire arrangement hinges on that. And I crossed a line.
Fear slithers down my spine and my heart pounds so hard I can feel it in my throat, in my temples, in the tender place between my thighs. I don't think I could take it if he pushes me away. Already I've bound myself to him.
What happens in a few days when I have to return to my old life? How do I survive walking away from this man who's already shown me a lifetime of pleasure in just a few hours?
I fake a laugh—even though it's the last thing I feel like doing—and dig my teeth into the meat of his shoulder. "Ignore me, okay? My stepsisters did tell me that some women get super emotional after their first orgasm. Clearly my brain is not thinking rationally.”
I feel his fingers drift over my back, warm and unhurried. Slowly he pulls the t-shirt off my head, pushes me back onto the bed, and crawls over me. With the lamp behind him, his face is in shadows.
For once I'm glad I cannot read his expression.
I couldn't bear to see him laugh at me, or worse, feel sorry for me.
His hands stroke me from my ankles to my neck, over and over, the rough drag of his palms against my skin the only sound between us, as if he's learning every line and curve and dip of my body.
"Spread your legs for me, Princess. I'll try to be gentle, okay?"
I clasp his cheek. Because I want to touch him. Because I want to keep this connection between us going. It's not just desire we feel for each other. I know that this man’s going to make his mark on me, change me forever. The Iris after Elias is going to be a different woman.
"I trust you, Elias. Even if you hurt me, don't stop, okay? I want this."
He groans and the sound seems to come wrenching out of the depths of him. "Jesus, Princess. I never believed in destiny before, you know, but now I don't know what to think."
And then his fingers are again at my core, playing me like he's a maestro, dipping inside and out, stroking my clit as if it's his favorite switch. Drawing more and more of my arousal out of me, he leans down, notching his cock between our bodies and a guttural moan rips out of me.
He's hot and hard against my aching flesh and I cannot wait to feel him inside me. His chest rubs against my breasts but he's very careful not to put his entire weight on me. The woodsmoke and salt scent of him fills every breath I take, warm and dark and entirely him.
And finally, his lips find mine.
I taste myself and his desire in that kiss.
It's a sweet kiss, not at all possessive or dominating, but soft, slow, as if I'm already precious to him.
He licks at my lips, asking to be inside me, and I laugh against his mouth.
And then his tongue is inside me, licking up every corner of my mouth, even as I can feel his head poking at my entrance.
"Give me your knee. Push it up towards your chest."
I do as he says and feel myself stretch down there. Then slowly he feeds himself inside me.
"Move," I say, putting my hands on his shoulders. "I want to watch."
He laughs. "No, Princess. No watching. Only feeling this time. Maybe next time I'll let you see how you swallow me."
"Okay," I say, falling back against the pillow.
My hair fans out beneath my head, half dried now, cool and loose against the nape of my neck.
I'm hot everywhere else, burning against the sheets, and on top of me he's a delicious weight.
His hips press me down into the mattress and I can feel him.
My flesh resists even after he stretched me with two orgasms and three fingers.
"Relax for me, Princess. Tell me how much you want this. Look at me."
I open my eyes and my vision is filled with Elias. The scars, the rough bristle on his cheeks, the blaze of his eyes. He's my forever man. I know this now. I know it deep in my heart.
"I love how you make me feel," I say, pushing my head up and stealing a kiss. "I love how you make me see myself, Elias, and for that—" but I don't finish the words as he pushes in with one thrust.
My torso arcs off the bed, my body almost instantly trying to eject him out, but it's not possible. It's not what I want. The urge passes and I take deep breaths.
I'm not a virgin anymore. The thought lands softly, not with loss but with something close to wonder.
I chose this. I chose him. Whatever comes next, this moment is entirely mine.
“Christ, baby girl. Your cunt feels like heaven, squeezing me tight, choking me to keep me in.” He finds my mouth again.
This time the kiss is different. It is deep and possessive, as if he's branding me with his kisses too now.
As if he means to own every part of me. His lips drift from my mouth to my temple, warm and deliberate, even as his hips begin to move.
"You with me?" he murmurs against my skin.
"Yes," I say, bringing his hand to my chest. "It feels like you're here. It feels like you're everywhere. It feels like I've come home." I don't swallow the words. I don't even shy my gaze away. I hold his and say the words.
He nods. Or I think he nods, because my body is under a surfeit of sensations and it's very possible that my mind is making up things I want to see.
"Hold on to me, Princess. I'll try to be gentle." He laughs again and the sound is serrated, filled with self-deprecation. "I might not succeed. It seems I fail at a lot of things when it comes to you."
I bite his lower lip and smile. "I like you failing with me, Elias. I like that you can't follow all your rules."
"You're a witch," he says, and then he's moving.
It feels like each thrust is hitting me in so many different places—deep inside my womb, inside my heart, inside my throat.
He's everywhere. Those first few thrusts are rough, pushing me up on the sheets, but he's there anchoring me down, his body a furnace against the cool air of the cabin.
I press my feet against the hard curve of his ass, pulling him deeper, and hear his breath catch.
His chest draws up and down like bellows, the drag of his skin against mine a friction that sets off sparks everywhere we touch.
Somehow, he sneaks a hand between where we are joined and tweaks my clit and I go off again.
And then he loses it.
My grumpy, wounded mountain man loses it, loses himself in my body, chases his own pleasure. He uses my body, pounding into me in a merciless rhythm. And I hang on to him, my fingers clasped around his neck, loving each thrust, loving how he takes what he needs, loving that he's lost in me.
I store every sensation. Every drop of sweat that plops from his face into my hair. Every guttural sound he makes, every time he chants my name, every merciless thrust as he owns me.
Because this is mine. All of it. Even if only for a little while.
And I know that I will survive the rest of my life, whatever horrors come, with this memory, this man, lodged deep inside my heart.
With this memory of him moaning his release inked into my flesh.