Chapter 26 #2
His shirt finally hangs open. I slide my hands over his ribs, his abs tight and flexed from how he sits, propped up. I break away from his kiss, my lips tingling, and bend to lick his chest, his skin warm despite the chill in the air. His hands tangle in my hair.
Cord doesn’t give me a chance to breathe.
Knowing fingers cup my breasts, squeezing at the perfect pressure to draw a sigh from my lips.
He traces my nipples, rolling the tight buds between the pads of his fingers, alternating sharp pinches and gentle tugs.
My head tilts back. I moan, leaning into his touch.
Hot lips replace his fingers, his tongue teasing the sensitive points while his hands journey south.
I brace my hands on his shoulders, pulling away from him a little. “Cord, you don’t have to do this. It must be—”
He silences my protests with his mouth. Every time I try to pull back, his tongue thrusts deeper, stealing my breath until I submit to his teasing.
Cord rewards me with swirls of his fingertips over my clit.
My hips buck involuntarily the moment he touches me.
His other hand glides between us, coating his fingers in my copious display of arousal.
My cheeks burning, I squeeze his shoulders tight.
“Lanie, I need your help.” He pins my wrists in one hand, still flicking my clit lightly with his thumb.
I whimper, trying to lean back, but jolts of pleasure rip through me, hunching my body forward. “What do you need?” I gasp, rocking against his hand, desperate for more friction.
In a silent answer, he guides my hand to his belt buckle.
I fumble over his instruction, managing to undo it on my third try, and slide his cock free of his jeans.
His length presses hard and full against my hand as I slide my fingers along him, reveling in every sound he makes.
Cord’s finger flicks my clit slower, bringing me back to the edge.
“I can’t keep doing this,” I whisper, working his cock as my thighs shake.
“Breathe, Lanie,” he murmurs, his steady gaze holding me captive.
I close my eyes and inhale, counting down, and let the breath out.
He doesn’t seem to want me to lose it right now, and so I do my best to hold back like he wants from me.
But he’s intent on derailing that simple instruction as his thumb flicks faster and faster.
Pushing up, a mewling sound filling my throat, I rise onto my knees over him.
“Come for me, Lanie,” he rasps, pinning my hands behind my back. His cock stands tall and proud as I rub against him. His hands find my thighs as he lifts me and notches his cock at my entrance.
Then he lets go.
I sink onto the full length of him, my thighs sliding against his. A muted cry lodges in my throat. I bow my head, breathing fast and hard as I get used to the stretch at this angle.
“Oh, wow,” I whisper, digging my nails into his stomach. Breath burns my throat as I struggle to stay upright, guided by his hands. “Take this off?” I beg. “I need to touch you.”
Cord grips his shirt. “You might need to help, beautiful,” he murmurs, stroking my slicked flesh.
Every touch makes the job that much harder. I moan as I struggle and he watches me, his eyes dark and luminous as I clench on him but finally pull his shirt open, sliding my hands across the expanse of his chest.
“Take it off,” Cord orders, his voice a harsh rasp as he flicks my clit roughly.
A cry ruptures from my lips. I get the hint, hurrying the process, and strip the cotton from his body. I remember his last command just as the heel of his hand presses hard to my clit. He rubs in a quick circle, bringing me back way too fast.
“Cord—” I gasp. “Too fast—”
The throb there bursts as I cry out, echoes bouncing back at us. I fall forward, my walls fluttering around his cock where he impales me.
I lick his chest. The fullness of him inside me brings pleasure crashing through me, wave after rolling wave.
“Lanie?” he murmurs. “Come here.” He scoops me tight to him, rocking his hips, moving inside me. A deep groan slides from his throat, rumbling in his chest. “I love you,” he whispers into my hair.
I moan, sliding along him, letting his hands cup my hips as I undulate over him. “I love you, too,” I gasp, pressing my forehead to his.
“You like coming like that?” he asks softly, his eyes intense on my face.
I nod and he smiles, pushing me down hard onto him, again and again, until my throat rasps raw. Cord doesn’t guide me away, letting me cling to his shoulders. His own roar fills my existence, his body taut beneath me, holding me to him as the waves of pure pleasure break over us again.
The water’s constant fall should lull me into sleep. I’m sore between my legs, and Cord’s warmth wrapped around behind me is all the comfort I need to sink deeper.
And yet I’m awake.
The sounds of the forest at night ripple around me. Coyote Falls is a change from Alaska. Different animals, different sounds. But none of that is what stops me from closing my exhausted eyes and letting myself drift away in the safety of Cord’s embrace.
I stare into the darkness, watching the shadows between trees I can’t pick out any longer.
Everything blends into each other. The water’s flow never ceases.
There’s something soothing in that, a constant hush.
I doze, staring not at anything, but rather away from everything, to the spaces between the shadows.
And something stares back.
Something yellow, luminous like a fallen star. A hint of green tinges the edges. Two things that resemble eyes.
“Cord.” I swallow, reaching back beneath the blanket to grip his side, uncaring for the first time if I hurt him. Because right now he needs to wake. “Cord.”
“Mmm?” He nuzzles my nape. “You may have too much faith in me if you think I can go again an hour after I last fucked you, beautiful, but I can try.”
“Not that, you horny thing. Wolves.”
“What?” Cord jerks awake.
I pinch his side to keep him in place. “Be still. There.” I look toward the forest beyond the pool over Coyote Falls, and the eyes that watch us back.
Just watch, nothing else.
And suddenly I know why I haven’t been able to sleep. Cord puts my thoughts into words first.
“Jesus, fuck. That’s huge.”
“It’s—” My brain jams. “It’s real.” All the rumors. All the hints.
What I saw that day when Cord took me on our walk up Valiant Peak. The day we saw Jenkins’s house of mutilated horrors. The con artist and his tricks.
But this is no trick.
The wolf steps out of the forest, resplendent and silver beneath the dappled moonlight, twice the size of anything I’ve ever seen or studied. He lowers his head to lap at the pool of water, still watching us. Neither Cord nor I move. We don’t breathe. I don’t think either of us can.
The dire wolf is real.
“Christ. Jenkins wasn’t full of shit for once. You need to wish for smaller things,” Cord mutters, sliding his arm around me. He pulls me backward, rising slowly. A pained sound comes from him and the enormous creature’s head rises.
“Don’t move,” I breathe, watching the dire wolf.
He watches me.
And I’m… not afraid.
“Move, Lanie,” Cord mutters through his teeth.
“It isn’t going to hurt us. I think it’s been here for a long time.”
Cord stiffens as green-and-gold eyes survey us with the distant gaze one might use to watch something of minor interest. The beast lowers his head, continues to drink, observing us curiously all the while, and then turns and lopes back into the forest, blending with the shadows like he’s one of them.
“Are you going to draw all sorts of mythical creatures out of my mountains, Lanie?” Cord murmurs in my ear.
“I think you’ve been screwing with me this whole time.
” He strokes my stomach gently beneath my stretchy top as I pull the wolf blanket around my shoulders.
“Let me take you home in case he gets snackish.”
I smile and lean my head back onto his shoulder. “Didn’t you say you used to sleep out here alone before you built the house? I’m pretty sure he’s been here all that time, Cord. You were never alone. He’s seen you.”
“That’s… comforting.”
“It should be.” I finally sink into his arms as he holds me to him.
And I don’t object when Cord presses kisses along my shoulder, sliding my pajama bottoms down and pushing his knee between mine. He slides inside me, moving gently until I bury my face in the wolf blanket to muffle my cries.
Scarred hands lace around mine as he leans his weight over my body, driving deeper into me, moving with a primal grace I can’t deny. Pleasure shoots through me as I raise my head and his mouth claims mine, stifling my soft scream edged with brilliant bliss.
Cord fills me as his arms around me tight. I welcome the pressure of him pressed hard against me as he calls out my name even as the falling water washes it away.
Another secret this place steals. A part of us.