Chapter 1 #8
I thought it might have been reflexive, the press of his hips into mine. But when I arched into him, there was nothing reflexive about the way he did it again.
“Hannah.” His lips dropped to my shoulder, his hand sliding up my leg. “What are we doing?”
“I don’t know,” I admitted in a breathless rush when he pressed into me again, when he kissed my neck. “But it feels good.”
“Fuck yes, it does.” He hissed when I rocked back. “You’re okay with—”
“Yes.” And I was. Maybe it was getting to know him better last night. Maybe it was how good his body felt molded to mine. But right then, the only thing I wouldn’t have been okay with was if he stopped.
“Can I touch you?” He took the strap of my tank top between his teeth, pulled it down my shoulder, and I said, again, “Yes.”
I moaned when he slipped his hand under my top, gasped when he cupped my breast, rocked back into him again when his thumb rolled over my nipple.
And we were like teenagers. Him in his sweatpants, me in my sleep shorts, his hips rolling against me as he kissed my shoulder, my neck, sucked my earlobe into his mouth.
As his hand slid into the front of my shorts, cupping me, his long fingers dragging through my center.
And I knew one thing for certain: Darryn Madigan was really good at this.
Good at knowing what I needed without me having to tell him.
Knowing that, yes, I wanted his fingers inside me.
Just like that. And, yes, finding my clit now, sliding up and down, a light pressure, a slow, mind-numbing pace.
And, yes, his hips moving faster now, his hand between my legs holding me firmly against him, his fingers circling as I reached up and grasped his neck, holding on while he drove me so close to the edge there was nowhere else to go.
He pressed down a little harder, and I cried out as release ripped through me in an exquisite, throbbing, pulse. Then I felt him follow me over.
Erratic thrusts, his harsh breath in my ear, a deep, satisfied groan. And after a long moment, after we both came down, he pulled me close and growled into my ear, “You just made me come in my pants.”
A laugh worked its way out of me. And when I said, “I really love this for us,” he laughed too.
“Are you sure you’re okay?” he asked. “I know you didn’t want—”
Rolling over in his arms, I said, “I wanted to.” I cupped his cheek, loving the rasp of his stubble against my palm. “Sometimes it takes me a while to make up my mind about something. Especially when I’m worried that thing might hurt me. But I wanted to. I wanted this.”
His eyes went soft. “I don’t want to hurt you, Hannah.”
“I know.” Even though I hardly knew him, I believed him. So I kissed him and said, “I know you don’t.”
“Well, if you’ve made up your mind”—his lips tilted into a crooked grin—“does that mean we can turn this into a fuck cabin now?”
This smile, my smile, it was like joy, like light pouring out of me, like levitating. And when I said, “Yes,” he rolled me over, kissed me fiercely, and was hard again so quickly I wanted to give him everything. Everything he wanted. But we were messy.
“Darryn?” I asked while he pushed my tank top up over my breasts, kissing and nuzzling and sucking. “Is there a way to shower here?”
With a slow lick over my peaked nipple, he looked up at me through his long lashes and said, “No running water, remember?”
“But when I first saw you, you had a towel around your waist, and you were all wet.”
“Ah, right. The creek.” He rose above me. “It’s cold.” He kissed my cheek. “But the sun is shining, and the birds are singing.” He kissed my lips. “And I promise I’ll warm you up after.”
Hand in hand, we walked along the creek beside the cabin. The water was crystal-clear, early morning sunlight reflecting off tiny waves like a thousand sparkling diamonds.
“It’s just over here.” Darryn ducked into the trees, leading me to a deep pool that looked like something out of a fantasy novel.
Mountains rose to the east, the sun starting its slow climb over their jagged peaks.
And around us, aspens quaked in the breeze, their tallest branches glowing yellow and orange.
“It’s beautiful,” I said.
“Even more beautiful now.”
I turned, and he was looking at me with a soft, appreciative expression that made something inside my chest crack. And maybe my heart had been cold after all, buried under an inch-thick layer of ice that was just now starting to melt.
We stripped off our clothes, then stood beside the creek, both naked, bathed in sunlight, and he said, “I can’t explain how you showed up here.
I don’t know if it was fate or luck. But I really didn’t want to be alone this weekend.
I didn’t want the silence like I usually do.
I wanted…you, I guess.” He squeezed the back of his neck, color flooding his cheeks. “That probably sounds crazy.”
“It doesn’t,” I said, or if it did, we were both afflicted. “Because I wanted you too.”
The way he looked at me then, like I was something to be grateful for, like this was a moment he’d never forget, made me want to unwrap myself for him, peel off all my protective layers and say here.
Here I am. If you want me, I’m yours. And I was a breath away from panicking about it when he reached out for my hand, aimed a smile at me that would melt the arctic, and said, “Come on, Hannah. Let’s get wet. ”
“Fuck!” I cried, my lungs seizing as the frigid water assaulted me. “It’s freezing.”
“Oh, it’s not so bad.” He dunked his head, then broke the surface with a sharp gasp. “Okay, it’s pretty bad. But”—he looked up at the vibrantly blue sky as droplets of water sluiced down his throat—"it’s better after you’ve been under.”
Holding my breath, I closed my eyes, steeled my nerve, and sank. There was something about the shock of freezing water, something satisfying in the way the initial jolt of it faded, and you knew you could tolerate it. That you could survive it. That it would be better after you’d been under.
And when I came back up again, Darryn was there, in front of me, pulling me against him.
I wrapped my arms around his shoulders, and he kissed me, his lips parting mine, his tongue sweeping in, soft but demanding.
He was a wall against the current, holding my hips steady as I let go of him and lay back.
Puffy clouds moved across the sky as his hand slid down my chest, between my breasts.
I listened to birdsong as he hardened against me.
“I want to fuck you like this.” His voice was low, almost pained. “With your hair streaming behind you and your nipples so tight and your skin so pebbled. The way you look right now… It’s fucking pornographic, Hannah.”
“You can,” I said to the sky, wanting it, wanting him to fuck me in this creek while I watched the clouds drift by like nothing else mattered. “I can’t get pregnant anymore. And I don’t have any STIs. Unless you do.”
“No.” Leaning forward, he brushed his lips over the space between my breasts. “But are you sure?”
I gasped when he sucked my cold nipple into his hot mouth. “I’m sure.”
Holding me tightly with one hand, he reached between our bodies and dragged the head of his erection through my center. “You’re so slippery. I could just slide right in.”
“Please,” I moaned, extending my arms over my head as he pushed into me, only an inch, and then another. And it all felt so good. The cold water. His hot hands. His hard cock.
“Christ,” he grunted, grasping my hips, sliding all the way in while I floated. “Can you feel that? Can you feel how hard you make me?”
Lost in the sensation of buoyancy, the small ache in my thighs from holding onto him, I said, “I feel it.”
“It’s too good. I’m sorry, but I won’t last.” His fingertips dug into my hips. “Should I pull out when—”
“No.” It was unthinkable, unimaginable, losing the connection, the fullness before I had to. So I cinched my legs around him and said, “Stay.”
He closed his eyes, thrusting harder, faster as he said, “thank you,” in a voice so strained it lit a flame inside my belly, heating my core, licking along my spine.
My back arched as he hit a spot inside me that tore a moan from my throat.
“Can you come again?”
“I don’t know.” His thrusts turned shallow, then deep, then shallow again, making my vision blur and my legs shake. “Yes.”
“Touch yourself,” he said while he picked up his pace, using both hands to hold me still. “Come with me.”
Reaching down, I teased myself, and with a few circles and another series of shallow then deep thrusts, release exploded through me, bright pleasure and cold water mixing into a sensory cascade that swept me under.
And Darryn wasn’t far behind, reciting my name while he drove into me, while his hips snapped and his eyes closed and everything sped up, then slowed, then stilled. Everything but the water, the clouds, our breaths.
He gathered me limp and heavy into his arms, and held me against the warmth of his chest, spinning us slowly in the water together.
“I don’t think I’ve ever felt this way before,” he said, his voice rumbling in the place our chests touched.
Nestling my nose into the soft crook of his neck, breathing in that crisp autumn scent that must have come from this water, I said, “I haven’t either.”
And I didn’t know what it meant, the way his arms around me felt so safe, so right.
But when I pulled back to look at him, I hoped he could see that I would never forget this moment either.
Not just the sex, but the silence. The closeness.
The beauty of everything around us. His hand running gently over my back.
My body wrapped around his. How we both seemed to know that this was important.
That it meant something. That it was real.
Even if we only had these few days, it was real.