Chapter 16
ROWAN
Maybe there’s a reason men don’t come to live in the mountains by themselves for years, without any human company. And it could have something to do with all the pent-up sexual frustration just roiling inside me, begging for an outlet.
Though if I blame the way I feel right now on the circumstances of my living situation, I know it doesn’t quite ring true.
Because at least half of this has to do with the woman in front of me. This crazed, half-wild feeling that makes my eyes a bit blurry, it’s not just about the total lack of contact with another person.
It’s about her.
That fucking mouth, the way she looks at me, almost pleading. The constant need to protect her, to keep her safe. Touching her ankle after she’s injured it. Talking her down and away from a bear. My heart rate always elevated around her.
I think I read somewhere that humans are more likely to be horny after a life or death experience. And Lola is nothing if not one of those, all packaged up with a great body and hair I want to wrap around my fist.
For the past week that she’s been here — has it only been a week? — I’ve had to keep myself back from her. Stop myself from reaching out to touch her.
And now that restraint is broken.
Well, do you want to get that taste out of your mouth?
Yeah, actually, I realized, with her standing in front of me in the kitchen, I really, really did, and I did it in the best way possible.
My cock was hard then, and now, after tasting Lola thoroughly, it’s nearing painful, the wanting.
I’ve never really been a talker during sex, but now it’s like I can’t stop myself.
“So beautiful,” I murmur, stopping to kiss just above her belly button.
I line our hips up and she gasps at the press of my cock against her.
I shudder at our heat joining, and brace myself over her, lowering my head once more to suck each of her nipples into my mouth.
I like watching her squirm.
“Tell me you want me,” I whisper, lowering my lips to her ear. She nods and nods, scraping her fingernails up my sides, making chills erupt in their wake.
“I want you, Rowan,” she rasps, arching up so her breasts press against my chest, then rolling her hips, so my cock slips down near her entrance.
“Fuck,” I hiss, closing my eyes and pulling back from her. “One second.”
“One second?” she asks, blinking hard, coming slightly out of the sex-haze stupor.
“Condom,” I say, staggering to my feet. It’s been so long, I’d nearly forgotten.
I stumble over to the box that still sits by the front door, rifle through it, and pull out the roll Pete brought to me jokingly. How serendipitous. Maybe a thank-you card is in order.
When I return to her, I settle between her legs again, my hands shaking as I roll the condom on over my aching cock. Breathing hard, I leave a trail of kisses up her stomach, over her breasts, trying to get control of myself.
Something in the back of my mind is telling me that this might be the only time I get to have her. She’s an anomaly, landing on my porch in the middle of the night, blowing in with the storm and leaving just as fast.
Her life is in Seattle.
And mine is here.
So, if I only get to have her once, I want to make it good. I want to take my time, drink her in, take her apart piece by piece so I can put her back together in my memory later.
But, of course, Lola doesn’t want slow, doesn’t want measured. Of course she doesn’t.
She reaches down, wrapping her hand around my cock and stroking once, her eyes fluttering shut at the weight of it in her hand. I thrust against her palm and she lets out a noise in the back of her throat, greedily guiding me to her entrance.
Slipping inside her is like… no. There’s no fucking metaphor for this, no way to describe what it feels like to bury myself in this woman.
If I was going to assess it from a scientific standpoint, I’d know it had something to do with the chemicals in my brain. If you scanned me right now, my head would be lighting up like a fucking Christmas tree, flooded with feel-good endorphins.
This must be what people feel like when they shoot up. Like I’m lifting out of my body, yet impossibly grounded to it at the same time.
When I drive into her, Lola wraps her legs around my waist, her heels digging into my lower back. She drops her head back and gives me access to her neck, which I scrape my teeth across while thrusting, trying to get deeper with each stroke.
“Rowan,” she gasps. We’re all breath and teeth and lips and tongue, her body slick with sweat against mine, her limbs loose and hot and happy. Her fingers dance over my back, gripping, then relaxing, her nails not scratching but dragging lightly over my skin, driving me fucking insane.
“You take it from me so well,” I say, not because I’ve thought it in my head, but because somehow, it’s gone directly from my cock to my lips.
Distantly, I’m aware that this is insane. That it doesn’t make sense for the best sex of my life to be with a woman I hardly know. After years with Hannah, it never felt like this. And now, here I am, both losing and finding my sanity buried in Lola Kennedy.
“Keep talking,” she whispers hoarsely, her eyes jerking to the ceiling. “I’m going to…”
“You’re so tight,” I say, because it’s true. And then, instead of the three words that pop to my mind first — which really are insane — I say, “I want you to come for me, Lola.”
“Oh!”
She does, tightening impossibly around me, which sets me over the edge, too.
We cling to each other, riding out the waves of our pleasure, and when it’s over, there’s a split second in which we’re just together, breathing, nothing but the sounds of nature outside the cabin around us.
I can practically feel her brain starting up, thoughts whirring in her head, and I don’t like it. I don’t want her to start thinking about all the reasons why this is a terrible idea.
And, frankly, I don’t want to think about them, either.
So instead, I gather her up in my arms and lift her up off the couch.
“Rowan!” she laughs, throwing her arms around my neck. “What are you doing?”
I grin down at her. It feels good to hold her in my arms so easily. Out here, I’ve gotten strong, filled out my frame, grown five years older and five years of manual labor stronger. My reward is the feel of her arms around my neck, the admiration shining in her eyes.
Casually, I shrug one shoulder, and start walking toward the bathroom. “I thought you might like a shower.”
Her eyes darken, and she nuzzles her face into my chest, kissing and nipping at my skin.
“Yeah,” she says, her voice muffled, her hair wild around her face. “You read my mind.”