Chapter 17
Carla
I run.
Which is stupid, and I know it’s stupid even as I do it, because I have no idea where I’m going.
Mostly because there is no way I’m outrunning a shifter.
My only hope is that he doesn’t follow me, that I get lost but somehow make it to civilization without one of these crazed shifters finding me, and that I never have to see Magma again.
I’m mortified.
Why did I watch him?
Whyyyyyy?
I duck under a low branch, push through a curtain of hanging vines, and run some more.
He grabs me from behind, and I wheel around, making a soft squealing sound.
He’s standing there, larger than life. His eyes are on mine, and they’re stormy as anything.
Of course they are. I was watching him jerk off.
His hand is warm and loose around my wrist. Not holding me in place, exactly. More like a suggestion. I could pull free if I wanted to.
I don’t.
The ink on his chest and arms is dark in the low morning light.
I force myself to look him in the eye.
“I’m sorry.” My voice comes out small. “I didn’t mean to watch you. I…was shocked.”
I stop.
I have seen this man’s face completely calm in moments that would have had me in pieces. Now is no different. I have no idea what he is thinking.
My cheeks feel like someone pressed two hot coals against them. To make matters worse, I still have this throbbing between my legs.
“You’re turned on,” he says, eyes narrowing on mine.
Crap! Crap!
How could he know?
I glance down, and my nipples are hard, pretty much pointing at him through the grime and dirt.
Craaaaaaap!
I shake my head. “No… I…um…no…”
“Don’t deny it.” His voice is deep. “You’re wet, and—”
There is a loud crash nearby. Too close and too heavy not to be a dragon.
Double crap!
Then another.
Then a third.
Shiiiiit!
Everything in my body goes completely still. My embarrassment vanishes like it was never there. In its place is something cold and immediate, spreading out from my chest.
He moves one finger to his lips as my eyes go wide with abstract fear.
I nod. I don’t think I’m capable of words right now anyway.
Magma picks me up and starts sprinting. I’m not sure how, but he doesn’t make so much as a sound.
In fact, the only noise is me breathing hard.
I try to do that softer. I press my face against his shoulder and try to shrink into him, one hand locked at the back of his neck, and I start praying even though I’m not religious.
There are sounds behind us of birds being startled and animals scuttling. There are snarls and growls, but they’re fairly far away. Not far enough for my liking.
We make it to the fig tree. He lowers me to my feet, and angles me toward the opening where the gap in the trunk is half-hidden behind a trailing curtain of roots and vines. I go in first, and he follows in behind me. He carefully pulls the vines back across the gap.
Then we are wedged together in the dark, his chest against my back. I pray that they don’t come this way.
Magma is very warm, and it gives me some comfort feeling him close.
I am shaking. I can feel it starting in my knees and working up, and I hate it, but there is nothing I can do to stop it. I’m sure Magma wouldn’t be able to go up against three of them. He’d be killed, and I’d be… I don’t want to even think about what would happen to me.
The snarls and growls grow closer. I think they might be talking, although I can’t make out what they are saying.
Something low and soundless rumbles inside Magma’s chest, and his hand tightens around me. I force myself to breathe slower. To calm down. They won’t find us in here.
There is another snarl, closer this time, followed by a barking laugh.
I pull in a breath.
His mouth finds my ear. “Shhhh.”
I press my face into the side of his chest and hold what breath I have.
He puts his lips to my ear again. “Trust me.”
I’m not sure what he means by that, but I nod because I do trust Magma. He came after me at significant risk to his own life.
He moves. Gently, carefully, lowering me back and then slides his big body over mine.
Holy crap, but he’s big and heavy.
His erection digs into my belly, thick and heavy, making my cheeks heat and my heart pound.
I remind myself that he’s in that weird fight-mode he spoke about earlier. It’s his dragon. It’s also because he didn’t finish…what he was doing earlier…on account of my interrupting him.
It’s fine.
It’s all good.
I do trust him. I’m safe because of him.
He puts most of his weight on his forearms, holding himself up just a little, or I would suffocate. He covers me almost completely. His body is like a wall between me and whatever is outside. I try to ignore his throbbing cock.
When the crashing noises grow closer, he slides his hand down between my legs and cups my sex.
I almost gasp but just manage to stop myself.
I close my eyes and bite my lip instead.
What the heck!?
What is he doing?
The warmth of his hand soaks through the damp lace and into my skin, and my body does not care one bit what the tactical reason for any of this is. It cares only that his hand is there, right there, against the place that has been aching since I saw him palming himself not so long ago.
The throbbing gets a little worse where he is pressing both against my channel and my clit. It feels good but not enough. A part of me wants to rub against him. I want to move. I want him to move.
I close my eyes.
I am going to hell for this. I am going to hell, and I deserve it.
He presses a little tighter, and I have to press my lips together so that absolutely nothing comes out of my mouth because they are here.
They’re pushing through undergrowth, a low huffing exhale between bodies, the drag of something against bark. How many I cannot tell, and I don’t want to.
They are loud, grunting and pounding their feet against the ground with every footfall.
There’s snuffling and one of them stops walking.
No!
Please.
My hand on Magma’s arm tightens.
“What is it?” It’s a gruff male voice, almost inhuman, and I hold my breath.
“Ummm…ahhhhhh…” There’s more snuffling. “I thought I scented something. This way.”
They keep going.
“That deer passed through here,” another voice growls.
Magma stays still above me, his hand steady, his chest barely moving.
It sounds like the males are walking away.
I exhale softly.
My grip on his arm loosens by degrees. The shaking in my legs does not stop, but it gentles a little.
He doesn’t move his hand. Not yet.
We wait and wait and wait some more until my ass starts to feel numb and my legs start to cramp.
When he finally lifts his hand away, the barest drag of his palm across the damp lace sends a sharp little pulse right through the center of me, and I bite down to stop myself from moaning.
That’s it. It’s clear that I’m a total weirdo.
He doesn’t move off me.
He stays still.
His cock is thick and heavy between us, and it twitches again, and I have to stop myself from shifting my hips and opening my knees to feel him settle there between them. To put him at the heart of me.
No.
Absolutely not.
Eventually, after what feels like a long stretch of time, he brings his mouth to my ear. “I think they’re gone,” he whispers, then eases himself off me.
Magma crawls out first. He moves the vines aside, looks out, goes still for a long moment, then reaches back and takes my hand. He helps me through the gap.
Outside, the jungle looks exactly the same as it always does. Green and deep and entirely indifferent to whatever just happened in there.
“Are you okay?” he asks.
“Yes.” I cannot quite look at him directly.
He is quiet for a moment.
“I’m sorry,” he says. “What I did was unavoidable. Your scent…they would have found us.”
Oh!
Okay…that makes sense.
I nod. “I understand. It’s…um…fine. I knew there was a good reason why you did it.”
I am praying that this is where it ends. That he doesn’t bring the other thing up.
Please let it go! Please!
My face feels hot. The heat has migrated down my neck and into my chest, and I am fairly certain that if I stood in front of a mirror right now, I would look like a stop sign covered in dried, peeling mud.
He swallows. I watch his throat work. He runs his tongue across his lower lip and looks away, and I think that maybe he’s thinking about bringing it up.
“We should probably get going.” I use my thumb to point, even though I have no idea where we need to go. I just hope that we leave and that we don’t talk again. We can just remain silent for the rest of this hell-hike. It would be safer that way.
I’m good.
We’re good.
It’s all good.
“We should probably talk about what happened.”
“Nope…I’m good. There’s no need.” I force myself to shut the hell up.
“I didn’t mean for you to…” He rubs the back of his neck and pushes out a breath. “I didn’t mean for you to see that…me.”
“It’s fine.” I lift one shoulder, aiming for casual, landing somewhere in the vicinity of desperate. “It’s one of those things. It’s normal and natural. I was just about to look away…I swear…I…um…was just a little shocked…that’s all. I froze…you know?”
Shut up, Carla!
“You froze?” His mouth twitches.
“Yep.” I nod too many times. “I had just got there, and I froze for half a second.”
“Half a second?”
“Yes…absolutely. I’m not a pervert. I swear.” I hold up both my hands.
“I didn’t think you were,” he says. I think he’s trying not to smile.
I want the ground to open up and swallow me whole. I want to be absorbed into the root system of the nearest tree and transported somewhere far away. That would solve all of my problems. Every last one.
“Okay,” I say. “Sure. Can we leave it? Forget the whole thing happened?”
He shakes his head.
Why is he shaking his head?
“No, we can’t.”
“Why not?” I ask, and I almost manage to make it sound like a reasonable question and not the plea it actually is. “It would be better if we forgot it happened…please.”