Chapter 4 Storm Shelter #2
The thunder of the jungle goes silent, drowned out by the roar of the blood in my ears and the white noise in my head.
I don't make her wait for an answer.
I close the distance between us in one motion. After eighteen months of standing at a respectable distance, every meeting, every elevator ride, every hidden look, every moment of longing... I feel it all in my chest like a lock turning.
She's still kneeling, wet rope of hair wound around one fist, when I cup her jaw and tilt her face up to mine.
"Good question," I say, and kiss her.
It isn't gentle. I don't have gentle in me right now—not after all these months, not with the storm screaming twelve inches away and a man missing in the trees and every nerve in my body finally, finally getting what it's wanted since the first time she dismantled my own numbers in front of me in a conference room and I fell a little in love with how little she cared whose feelings that cost.
I am kissing Nora Valdez. My lips on hers. Her scent surrounds me. The lush curves of her body pressed against mine, igniting all my nerve endings.
She tastes like sunshine and the earth. She tastes like everything I ever imagined and more. A low growl reverberates low in my throat as I claim her, letting my tongue explore and play with hers. She meets me, stroke for stroke, and my whole body floods with adrenaline.
She makes a sound against my mouth that sends my head spinning, and her free hand fists in my soaked shirt and pulls. I go willingly, pressing her back until her shoulders meet rock and her gasp breaks against my lips.
Triumph doesn't begin to cover it. These years of careful, managed want, and she tastes like rain and adrenaline and every single thing I told myself I wasn't allowed to have.
"Fuck," I breathe, dragging my mouth along her jaw, down the line of her throat where the pulse is hammering under wet skin. "Nora—"
"Don't stop." Her voice is wrecked already, raw in a way I've never heard from her, not once, not in years of meetings and small talk and careful distance. "Don't you dare stop."
I have no intention of stopping. I don't think I could if I wanted to. My body is moving of its own accord, cupping her, mapping her, claiming her.
I squeeze her full breast in my palm, and she makes a heated sound of approval that makes my cock strain. My other hand slides between her legs, not wasting any time and snaking under the thin fabric of her shorts until I find the unmistakable, eager heat beneath.
A sharp cry escapes her lips, bouncing off the stone around us.
"There," I breathe out, my voice edged with satisfaction. "This is what you need, isn't it?"
My thumb circles the sensitive bundle of nerves atop her core, already swollen and sensitive. My cock is aching, and my balls feel tight. My whole body feels coiled and on the edge of oblivion.
All I can think of is her name on a loop, Nora, Nora, Nora. All I can taste is her lips. All I can feel is my need for her.
I deliberately trace widening spirals—forcing myself to go slow at first to tease her despite my desperation, then accelerating as her hips begin to shift helplessly against my hand. The damp heat eases my glide, sharpening every stroke and driving me to the brink of insanity.
Nora Valdez is wet for me.
Nora Valdez is going to come on my fingers.
Then my cock.
God...
I grind my teeth together to keep from tearing her shorts and fucking her in the dirt. I force myself to stay calm. To take things as slowly as I can. This might be my only chance, jungle fever driving her to insanity to think I might be worthy of her. I need to make every second count.
She stammers, her words breaking apart, breath ragged beneath me. I shift, sliding a knee between her thighs, spreading her wider.
My mouth returns to her neck—first the hollow base, then upward until I catch the edge of her shirt between my teeth. A frustrated growl escapes me; my free hand grabs the soaked fabric and tugs it down.
The neckline yields with a soft rip, exposing one breast, free to the humid air.
Time freezes for a moment.
The hunger flaring in her eyes, the way her pupils dilate, her total focus—it's like touching her soul.
"Beautiful," I say without hesitation, and her gaze softens slightly, her cheeks pink.
My mouth closes around her nipple, and all thought dissolves.
Burning heat shoots along my body from my tongue to my spine to the very tip of my cock where I ache for her.
I suck hard, flicking my tongue over the tight peak, teeth grazing enough to make her arch into the stone.
My fingers between her legs pick up pace, stroking with an urgency crafted perfectly for her.
The compartments where I store work, desire, fear—all shatter in a single, breathless moment.
"Santi—" she gasps desperately.
"Let go," I whisper. "This isn't a meeting. You don't have to hold back. Not with me."
That's the key, it seems.
The tension coiled beneath her skin snaps, sending pleasure crashing through her like a bolt of lightning as her climax hits.
Her hips jerk, thighs clamp hard around my hand, nails dig into my shoulders, leaving imprints I'll treasure, and somewhere deep inside, I feel a twisted satisfaction at the marks I'm about to leave on her, too.
Her climax rises swiftly, blinding and fierce, and I watch her eyes glaze as it steals both her breath and thought. A strangled cry breaks free, drowned instantly by the rain’s roar.
I don’t pause. I ease my touch to keep from overwhelming her, my thumb gentle, fingers gliding through the delicious heat I've drawn out, committing every sensation to memory. My mouth softens on her breast, kissing, coaxing her to tremble against me.
When her nerves cease their frantic sparks, her muscles relax. Her limbs melt, and though her heart still races, the sharp edge of panic has been replaced by an energy more wild, more unbound.
I lift my head, panting as heavily as she does. Our eyes lock, and I sense a change—restraint fading, raw desire taking its place.
"That," I say quietly, "is the real you."
A shaky, disbelieving laugh escapes her. "And the real you?" she asks.
A dark smile splits my lips, and my cock jerks in my shorts. "Let me show you."
My hand leaves her heat and finds my belt, working the buckle swiftly. I free myself from damp fabric.
She goes very still, and her gaze is drawn to my cock, which is now kissing the hot jungle air. She bites her lip the way she does when she's reading those smutty books, and my cock jerks involuntarily.
Seeing her hunger... seeing that she wants me...
"Last chance..." I say through gritted teeth. "If you want to stop here—"
She answers by wrapping her hand around me instead, hot and certain, and I go rigid, a sharp breath hissing through my teeth.
Nora's hand. Nora's hand on my cock. I can't think. I can't breathe.
"Do you want me to stop?" she asks, and I can hear that she already knows the answer. She simply wants to hear me say it.
"Never." My voice is ragged with the truth.
"Then stop talking," she says, low and rough, barely recognizable, "and finish what you started."
Whatever control I had left disintegrated entirely.
I drag her shorts off and haul her up against me, hands hard under her thighs, settling her more securely against the rock and hooking her leg over my hip in one motion that tells her, more honestly than anything I've said, exactly how much restraint I've been exercising up to this point.
I line up, drag the head of my cock once through the yielding heat that pulls a groan out of both of us, and then I look at her, needing to verify that this is real. That she is mine, at least for now. That she wants this as much as I do.
What I see in her eyes almost breaks me. "Nora." I sound as desperate as I feel.
Her fingers brush my jaw, searching my face with a small, secret smile. "Santi," she says affectionately.
I push in, slow, and the heat of her steals every coherent thought I have left. She's tight, almost too tight with the aftershocks of her orgasm, and I make myself go slow, watching her face for every flicker, easing forward in increments.
"Oh, fuck," she breathes out, raw. Her fingernails dig into my shoulders again, searching for purchase. "You—"
"Yeah," I groan as I sink all the way in, until my hips are flush with hers and there’s nowhere else to go. "You feel—god, Nora."
We stay like that for a moment, motionless, the only movement the pulse between us and the small involuntary clench of muscles around me. My breath is hot against her skin, my shoulders shaking faintly under her hands.
The world outside could be on fire. Inside the rock, there is only this impossible anchoring point where our bodies join.
Then I start to move.
The first stroke is slow, deliberate, a long drag almost all the way out and then back in, letting her feel every inch. The friction is intense, almost too much, but the way I roll my hips at the end, pressing deep, floods my limbs with fierce heat.
A helpless sound breaks from her throat, high and rough. I can't help the low laugh that escapes me.
"Again," she manages, barely.
My mouth curves against her neck, a dark flash of satisfaction, and then I obey. Move again. And again. Rhythm building, pace increasing as we both find the cadence that beckons us into oblivion.
The rock at her back scrapes against her skin. The blanket rustles around us with every thrust, a cocoon amplifying every sound we make. Her leg around my hip tightens, heel digging into the hard muscle of my ass to pull me closer, deeper.
"You're so… fucking tight," I grit out, jaw clenched. "Been… imagining this. You. Bent over that conference table. Against my office door. Here is… better."
Lust punches hot at the images, mixing with the irrational pleasure that this—here, now, in a jungle crisis—is where my fantasies landed.
"Conference table?" she breathes out, breathless, punctuated by my thrusts. "Risky. The board might object."