Chapter 26 Calder
Calder
There would be no surviving this. No surviving Lara.
All night, I’d cursed myself for my weakness.
My irrationality. My irresponsibility. Maybe it wouldn’t have changed anything, or maybe we would’ve gotten answers faster.
Maybe we would’ve found Rachel already. Now I’d never know because I was too distracted by wanting her.
Too hungry for her to realize where it would lead—to the past. To breaking all the rules I’d made to keep me from this very moment.
The Fuck It moment where I gave in to everything we’d both been fighting.
“I don’t want you to stop,” she panted against my mouth.
There was nothing that could have prepared me for the way I wanted her, nor the way my body reacted to just one taste.
“I can’t stop,” I grunted, sinking my tongue into the depths of her mouth. “Not anymore.”
Lightning. Thunder. Rain.
Rules. Guilt. Danger.
There was no force of nature that could stop me from having her. Taking her.
My hands slid into her slick hair, angling her head as I stepped forward, my foot sinking and sliding in the mud. She inched back, both of us unsteady until I had her back against the RV.
I should’ve felt guilty to press her against the cold, wet metal, but she didn’t even shiver. If she burned even a fraction of the way I did, the cool shower was welcome.
“Calder,” she pleaded, her arms sliding around my waist.
Her kiss was heat and electricity. Sunshine and lightning. Satiation and starvation all at the same time. And for all the ways she stood her ground, nothing compared to the honor I felt when she held fast to me and melted into my arms.
Rain slicked her mouth, my lips moving at an angle so my tongue could tangle and slide along hers. And she gave it right back, moaning and stroking her tongue to mine as her fingers clawed at my soaked shirt. Our kiss became as wild as the storm. Thrashing. Soaking. Striking.
She tugged at my shirt—yanked to drag it up my torso. The scratch of her nails made my skin tingle.
“Lara,” I growled, skating my teeth along her jawline.
“I don’t want to go inside,” she panted, her gaze swimming as it focused on mine. “I don’t want softness or a bed.” She pressed her fingertips to my cheeks. “I don’t want you to fuck me by the rules, Calder.”
Goddamn if that didn’t turn my cock to instant stone.
I grabbed her chin, holding her face hardly a breath in front of mine. “Then how do you want me to fuck you, Tomb Raider?”
I wanted her so damn bad, it came like a hurricane through my system, flooding and destroying every sense for its own satisfaction.
Her bruised lips parted on a sudden breath.
“Like the way you’re looking at me now, Wild Man. Like it’s the only thing that’s going to keep you alive.”
Fuck me.
Fuck my rules.
Fuck everything.
My mouth landed savagely back on hers, kissing her like I wanted to leave a mark. Like I wanted to leave tracks over her lips and skin so I could find my way back to this moment again and again and again.
Her pleas became a heady chant of moans in my ear as my teeth and tongue roamed and ravaged their way to the side of her neck. I’d just gotten a taste of the intoxicating glug of her pulse when I felt her fingers at the waist of my jeans.
She’d given up on my shirt. Everything was too wet to remove easily. Or quickly. And her frustration had become audible.
“Please, Calder.”
I straightened and brushed her hand aside, my gaze roaming over her. Every inch of her was soaked. Her hair. Her eyelashes. Her shirt. My cock throbbed when I saw the peaks of her nipples, hard and begging, outlined in the wet fabric.
Goddamn, she was perfect. Fire drenched in rain and want. Her hair streaked like lava over her shoulders. Her nipples pebbled tight on her rapidly moving chest, raindrops falling off the tight tips every time she let out a shuddering exhale.
Sliding my utility knife from my pocket, the blade streaked open like a flash of lightning. Lara’s gaze dropped, as I ordered, “Turn around. Hands on the Airstream.”
Her pupils blew wide for a split second, but she obeyed wordlessly. Wantonly. As soon as her palms were flat against the metal, she widened her stance, presenting me with her perfect ass.
“The things you do to me . . .” I trailed off and palmed one globe, satisfied when I heard a husky moan escape her throat.
God, I should take this slower. Strip her. Taste her. Get on my knees and bury my tongue in her pussy—
“Stop thinking and fuck me, Wild Man.” Her breathy order injected another measure of lust in my veins, as if I wasn’t already overdosing.
With a growl, I grabbed the waist of her jeans. “Wild or not, there is still one rule for you out here. That hasn’t changed.” Desire flushed over her skin. “Tell me what it is.”
She hummed and whimpered, “Obey.”
“Obey who?” I tightened my grip and flexed my hips against her ass.
“Obey you.”
“Obey me when?”
She tried to move against me again, her desperation turning me on just as much as what she repeated: “Obey you when we’re in the wilderness.”
“That’s right,” I cooed and then rumbled low, “Now, stay still.”
With a hard yank, I jerked her ass back so she was bent forward and stabilized by the RV. Shoving her shirt up, I pressed the flat of my knife to her skin, watching her body shudder just as much as I felt it.
“Fuck, Calder . . .”
“Still,” I reminded her roughly and slid the knife lower, hooking the tip under the waist of her jeans. Angling the blade, I cut the seam that went straight down the curve of her ass in a single motion, the fabric gaping to show me her black thong.
Two swift cuts and I severed that, too.
“Does that make you wet? When I cut your clothes off to fuck you?”
“God, yes.” Her head hung as I sheathed my knife and returned it to my back pocket. The whole time I stared at her, watched her shift her weight, trying to ease her ache.
“And how about this?” I wound the string of her thong around my fingers and reeled it slowly from between her thighs, hearing her choked breaths as the fabric rubbed right along her clit as I pulled it free. “You don’t have to answer. I can see it does.”
The only piece of clothing that wasn’t soaked from the rain was soaked with something else as I balled it in my fingers, desire clawing at the inside of my chest.
“Calder—”
“Spread your legs wider,” I interrupted, dropping the fabric into the mud and reaching for the zipper of my jeans. “Show me just how wild you want me.”
She almost slipped with how fast she moved, and I grabbed her waist, steadying her.
“Careful,” I ordered, returning to work open my jeans.
I watched rain skate down her spine and disappear into the seam of her ass. Knowing it collected lower, where she was already hot and worked up, made my dick throb, and made the groan that ripped from my chest impossible to contain when I finally pulled my cock free.
Lara tilted her head over her shoulder, trying to look at me. As soon as I caught her gaze, I grabbed her ass with one hand and delved two fingers between her thighs. It was impossible for them not to sink straight into her pussy. She was so slick and hot and tight. So tight.
“Fuck, Lara.” I pumped my fingers inside her, feeling her muscles tighten and draw me deeper.
“God, Calder. Fuck me,” she half cried, half begged. “Do you need an anatomy lesson for how it works?”
A burst of thunder quaked around us then, and I stilled with my fingers inside her heat. I waited for the earth’s trembling to stop, so I knew I was only feeling hers as I inched forward until my cock brushed along the seam of her ass. Letting her feel just what she was begging for.
I smiled at the sudden catch of her breath.
“This is your anatomy lesson. If I don’t stretch you before I fuck you, then this is going to be a one-time thing. And I don’t know about you, but I plan on surviving all night inside you.”
“Jesus,” she whimpered as I started to scissor my fingers in her heat, widening muscles that only wanted to bear down and bury me inside her.
“Now, widen your legs.” Obey me.
Her fingers curled into the metal, her arms taut like she was trying to puncture holes through my walls to give her something to hold on to.
I stared down between us, feeling everything start to slow like the storm had created a ripple in time.
Or maybe we had. My thumb rubbed back and forth on her back, massaging her wet skin.
Raindrops trickled down her spine and dripped down her ass.
If they made it to my fingers, I wouldn’t have known. The only slickness I felt was her.
“Please, Calder,” she panted, her weight starting to shift.
“Wild doesn’t always mean savage, Tomb Raider. Sometimes wild just means brutal.” I imparted the knowledge with a curl of my fingers along her front wall until I found her G-spot and she cried out. “Unrelenting.” I pressed over it again, feeling her knees buckle and then give.
As soon as she stabilized, she rocked into my hand and against my cock, bright white charging through my vision. With a grunt, I released her hip and fisted my length, letting out a hiss.
“And unexpected,” Lara added huskily, cheekiness oozing through her fugue of desire. I slid my fingers out of her pussy, about to add a third to the mix when she spoke again, softer this time. “Please, Calder. I need you.”
It was that last part that was my undoing. I’d never been able to say no when she needed me. Even when it was wrong. Against the rules. Even when it was dangerous. And this moment would be no different.
“How many rules are you going to make me break, Tomb Raider?” I growled, already reaching for my cock.
I grabbed hold of my length. My skin was on fire, my cock stretched and pulsing, spilling out of my grip. So thick it felt like a crime to make her take me, but a death sentence if she didn’t.
She looked over her shoulder, her blown-out pupils swallowing mine.
“All of them, Wild Man.”
Another time I’d confess there were none left to break. Another time when my throat wasn’t clogged with ache and my tongue leaden with lust.