Chapter Ten
Hawk kissed Sinead like they were the only two people in the world. Right now, they might as well have been.
Alone in the wilderness, within the nylon walls of the tent, every soft catch of her breath against his mouth unlocked a door he never realized he shut.
“Sinead.” Her name came out as a hot rasp of want.
“Don’t stop,” she breathed and pulled him back down.
He didn’t. He kissed her jaw, learning the places that made her gasp and squirm. Pressing kisses down her throat, he memorized the rhythm of her pulse hammering beneath his lips, as fast as his own.
She arched into him, and that motion nearly snapped his control in half. His own heart pounded in his ears, loud enough to drown out the wind outside. Loud enough to drown out everything but her.
He skated a hand up her side, and the sleeping bag made a swishing noise. Her laugh bubbled out, uncontrolled and contagious as hell.
“Let’s get these things off.” He felt along her body until he located the zipper, but every time he jerked it downward, it freed more giggles from her.
“There’s nothing smooth about this.” Frustration edged his voice, but he finally yanked hers open and worked at his own.
“Tell me the zipper’s not stuck.” Her voice fizzed with amusement.
He whipped his bag open and tugged her into the gap so there was no space left between them.
“Not a chance.” He slammed his mouth over hers, trapping her soft noise of desire. The kiss went from zero to sixty in a blink, leaving only heat and her body sliding against his.
She found the hem of his shirt and shoved it up, unmanicured nails scraping his stomach with impatience. He groaned low in his throat and helped her get it off because he needed her hands on his skin more than he needed air.
He found her shirt too, and in a fierce motion, he pulled it over her head. Bare skin brushed bare skin, and they shared a moan.
Under the rustle of them shedding the rest of their clothes and the thunder of his heart in his ears, he dialed into the night sounds outside the tent. For a beat, he tracked the wind, an owl’s hoot and an insect humming outside the tent flap.
And something else.
A soft clink, metal against rock, followed by a scrape that didn’t belong to any of the sounds he’d already catalogued.
He was up and moving before he fully registered deciding to, weapon in hand, diving through the tent flap buck naked into the cold night air, senses locked and ready for a threat.
A raccoon froze mid-lunge at their food stores, beady eyes catching the moonlight, one paw still hooked around one of the nuts Sinead hadn’t eaten.
Hawk exhaled hard, adrenaline draining out of him all at once. “Seriously?”
The raccoon didn’t dignify that with a response, just scurried off into the brush with an offended chitter, leaving the container rocking gently in its wake.
He stood there a second longer, catching his breath, weapon lowering, and heard Sinead’s muffled laughter drifting out from inside the tent.
“Everything okay out there, soldier?”
“We’re under attack,” he said dryly, ducking back through the flap. “By a raccoon.”
“Did you neutralize the threat?”
“He surrendered and fled the scene.”
She was still grinning when he knelt back down beside her, some of the stress from the day finally broken by the sheer absurdity of the situation.
Confident they were safe—from the raccoon, at least—Hawk braced his body over hers again. Soft curves conformed to his harder body, and she issued a low gasp as his erection pressed into her lower belly.
“I see the cold air didn’t have any ill effect on you,” she breathed.
He huffed a laugh and kissed her. The heat between them quickly escalated to an inferno, and soon she was rocking into him.
“Heath!”
The sound of his name on her lips shredded his control even more. He delved his tongue into her mouth and spent long heartbeats showing her just how damn much she deserved to be loved.
Her story about her father had weighed on his mind ever since she told him. What he never expected was to identify with it so much where his own father was concerned. He thought he’d buried that part of his life, but finally, he saw it clearly.
Her father expected something Sinead could never be. Hawk’s flat-out rejected him by walking away.
Somehow, he felt the hole he’d carried all his life had been filled just by her being near.
Tearing from the kiss, he dropped his forehead to hers, staring into her eyes. She sank her fingers into his hair, and he moved down her throat to spatter kisses over her breasts. He trapped her nipple between his lips and gave it a sucking pull that ripped a low cry out of her.
He bathed the other with the same attention, swirling his tongue around the peak over and over again. His cock throbbed between them, and the restless rock of her hips was driving him mad.
When he skimmed a dozen kisses over her stomach, her breath came in faster pants.
“Oh god. Heath!”
He’d been craving this since he caught a glimpse of her washing in that stream.
He hitched her calf over his shoulder and buried his tongue in her sweet pussy. Juices coated his tongue and dragged a growl from him and a sharper cry from her.
As he slipped his tongue through her folds to her clit, he damn near lost it right there. He tensed, holding back, wanting—no, needing—to feel her come apart on his tongue.
He led her toward the peak slowly with soft swipes of his tongue. When her body stiffened, he took her higher, sucking on her clit and setting a pace that would send her flying in seconds.
Her thighs clamped tighter around his ears, her body trembling.
He backed off and zigzagged his tongue lower, through her folds until he reached her entrance.
One flick of his tongue had her arching off the ground. She scratched at his shoulders, raking her fingers over his nape and anchoring them in his hair as he tongue-fucked her without any intention of stopping until the birds on the next mountain heard her screaming his name.
Her heel thumped his shoulder, but he sank his tongue into her tight walls again and again. Juices flooded his tongue, and he licked a path back to her clit.
The instant he pressed on her taut nubbin, she broke apart in long, shuddering waves. Her breathless gasp mingled with his own groan of victory. He stared up the length of her body, wishing for daylight just so he could watch her shatter in his arms.
Her hips bucked, and stifled moans escaped her. When he felt her body go slack, he softened the swipes of his tongue.
But he thrust two fingers deep into her pussy.
She jerked upward and her walls clamped on his fingers in rhythmic pulses. He lifted his head hoping to catch a glimmer in her eyes in the dark, needing to remember how she looked in this moment, when she belonged to him.
A rough cry tore from her throat and she collapsed, panting hard, her stomach dipping with every breath.
In a smooth glide, he shifted his body over hers. His throbbing cock was drawn to her heated core without him needing to position it.
“Tell me you want me buried inside you.” His voice grated like sandpaper on bark.
She wrapped her arms around him and pulled him an inch closer. Her breath was warm and minty on his mouth. “I don’t want you buried inside me. I need you.”
Her words sent his heart into a wild beat as he held her gaze in the darkness, and in one swift shove, he joined them.
* * * * *
Sinead’s inner walls were still contracting from the back-to-back orgasms he’d given her when he rooted himself deep.
She traced the outline of his shoulders with her palms and skated them down the hard planes of his back. Muscle rippled to meet her touch, and their lips found the other’s in a seeking kiss.
When he rocked his hips, drawing out his thick length almost to the tip, she moaned into his mouth and clung to him tighter.
Two thrusts. Three. He missed a beat, and the next thing she knew, he was rolling her to straddle him.
“Ohh. God.” She shuddered as she took him deeper and her mind swirled at the feel of him filling her.
Overflowing.
She braced her hands on his broad chest and began to move. Rocking her hips slow at first, and then faster as she saw what she could do to this hardened man who’d seen battle and still came to her with a soft confession in the middle of the night.
He gripped her hips, fingers digging in like he had no intention of letting her go, as she rode him faster.
The cords in his neck stood out as he fought for control, but she wanted to take him to the brink and beyond, the way he had her moments before.
Pushing upward, she let his length glide through her clenching walls. She hovered there for a beat, their gazes locked.
“Fuck! You’re so damn tight, darlin’.” He bit the words off in short bursts, and he tightened his grip on her.
In one hard nudge, he jerked his hips upward, filling her again. And again.
And oh god, she wasn’t going to survive the wilderness with Heath Hawk. Not if he did that one more—
“Yes! Harder!”
She lost it.
One arm banded around her back, yanking her flush on top of him. Their bodies fused as their mouths clashed in an endless kiss and her lover stole the last coherent thought in her mind.
The guttural growl rumbling through his chest spread through her, and she felt the first hot splash of his cum hitting her inner walls.
She moaned into his mouth, and he fed her a roughened groan in return.
Their bodies took over, and when her brain reconnected, she was sprawled on top of Hawk, her head pillowed on his hard chest.
He brushed his callused fingers over her spine, the touch so tender that her heart squeezed.
He kept her locked to him, like letting go of her might send them both back to what they were before—back to three days ago when they didn’t know what this felt like yet.
She traced a lazy line down his ridged abs, and he caught her hand and brought her knuckles up to his mouth. The soft kiss he pressed to them drew a sigh from her.
“Heath.”
“Yeah?” She heard the smile in his voice.
“How many times can we do this and still have enough energy to hike tomorrow?”
His whole body shook with a laugh, almost sending her toppling off him. He planted his hands on her ass and held her in place as they laughed.
She trapped her lip between her teeth, trying to think of a time when she had ever let go with so much abandon. Not growing up, when her parents held her to high standards. Not as a young adult when she was trying to figure out who she was but somehow always landed back at her parents’ door.
Definitely not in the past few years of being her father’s corporate sidekick, powerless yet gripping tight to whatever thread of control she could grasp.
For the first time in her life, she was able to just live in the moment.
And enjoy it to the fullest.
She pulled him closer, like she could make up for lost time all at once. “Heath.” Her voice cracked around his name. “I need you again. Now. And I don’t want slow.”
“Copy that,” he muttered against her throat, and all of his restraint went up in smoke.