at her in the dark. “I realize I’ve given you very little reason to have a decent opinion of me, but I have my standards. I don’t cheat on women-ever. If I’m in a relationship, then I’m loyal to it. End of discussion.”
She reached up to stroke his stubble-roughened cheek. “You’re a good man, John Hollister.”
He closed his eyes and she thought he leaned into her touch for a moment.
She continued, “Why aren’t you married, or at least involved with someone? You must have women chasing you all over the place.”
He chuckled quietly. “Funny, but I’ve thought the same thing about you. Why hasn’t some guy snapped you up long before now?”
She shrugged. “They see a hot chick that’ll look good on their arm and hopefully be wild in the sack. They don’t ever see
He nodded sympathetically and replied deadpan, “I know exactly what you mean. Guys pick me up left and right and try to treat me like a trophy girlfriend. I get sick of men just wanting me for my looks.”
She burst out laughing and swatted his arm. He continued more soberly, “Seriously, my job forces me to travel so much that I can’t see asking any woman to wait for me through it all.”
“Do you plan to do this courier work forever?” she asked.
“Nah. I’m getting too old for the wear and tear of it all.”
“Do you hope to settle down and have a family when you retire?” She asked the question lightly, smoothly, hoping to slip it past him, disguised in the flow of their banter. But, of course, he was far too smart for that.
“You misunderstand me, Melina. I have no plans for a future past the next few days. Once we’ve got this mess with your family sorted out, I’m hanging it up for good.”
She flinched. Apparently, he meant that literally. The idea of him hanging himself caused her tangible pain. Desperation coursed through her. It wasn’t like she could take him by the shoulders and shake some sense into him-he was twice as big and ten times as strong as she was. But there was something she could do to figuratively smack him upside the head.
She looped her arms around his neck. “Then why are you wasting all this time talking when you could be making love with me?”
“That, my dear, is a hell of a good question.”
Their mouths merged until the kiss stole her breath away. Their shelter was slightly roomier than the back of the Land Rover, and they were able to stretch out at full length, hence, it was a much easier affair to strip each other of their clothes. The air was cold on her skin, a biting chill that made her tingle even before John’s mouth and hands closed upon her.
The air smelled wet and organic, mixing with the musk of their bodies. Normally, she’d be appalled at smelling like she’d just come out of the gym, but it seemed appropriate out here. John rolled onto his back and pulled her on top of him, no doubt cushioning her body from the hard, cold ground. She captured his erection between her thighs, rubbing herself up and down the smooth shaft. He reached up, grasping both of her breasts in his big hands, rolling the nipples beneath his thumbs suggestively.
“Harder,” she gasped, squeezing his male flesh between the apex of her thighs.
“Ahh. The lady wants it wild tonight, does she?”
She lifted herself up, poising the tip of him at her feminine opening. “Any complaints?”
His hands skimmed down her belly to grasp her hips firmly. He jerked down, hard, impaling her on him in a single forceful movement. She cried out, just on the verge of pain from the fullness of him deep, deep inside her, pressing tightly against her cervix. He lifted her up and pulled her down again, and she leaned back as much as she could under the low roof, driving herself even further down onto him.
His big hands curled around her buttocks, his fingertips opening the crevice between her cheeks and driving her down and forward onto him. Holding her in place with effortless strength, this time he surged up to meet her. Only by relaxing her internal muscles completely was she able to absorb all of his size without pain. He completely filled her, massive and throbbing deep within her very core.
Thus completely opened to him, he drove up into her relentlessly, pounding into her until she thought he would split her in two. But what a glorious, stretching fullness, on a shaft of velvet-covered steel, burning her up from the inside out. A liquid, languorous shower of pleasure drenched her as her body responded to him. She felt swollen, growing tighter and tighter around him. Or maybe that was her muscles clenching as he steadily drove her out of her mind. A tingling started low, building and building, spreading outward from the point of his penetration. Her breath caught and she gasped for air as the building orgasm climbed her throat, her entire body clenching in anticipation of the moment of release.
And then it broke over her in an electric explosion that zinged all the way to her fingertips and toenails and teeth. She gasped as her entire body spasmed around his, shivering as wave after wave of sensation ripped through her.
He gave her just a moment to catch her breath, and then he was moving again, demanding more from her, sliding already wildly stimulated nerve endings against his slick heat. All of a sudden, another orgasm clawed its way through her, bursting upon her without warning, making her cry aloud with the power of it.
He slapped a hand over her mouth and rolled over abruptly, without breaking his rhythm. Her flesh throbbed around him, milking him of more and yet more pleasure. He matched her rhythm, meeting each of her hip thrusts with one of his own, a collision of desire that rode them both mercilessly.
Gripped by instincts far beyond either of them to fight, let alone control, they mated wildly in the forest with the animals of the night for a serenade, and the earth for a bed, the smell of crushed moss rising around them to mix with the scent of their sex.
Just when she thought she couldn’t bear any more, the rhythm of their lovemaking accelerated, and one more orgasm exploded behind her eyes. John’s hoarse, muffled shout matched hers and for an instant, she spun out of herself, into the blackness of the night. It wasn’t quite a faint, but it was close.
Panting, John collapsed on her, and they struggled together to catch their breath. After a minute, he pressed up onto his elbows with a muttered apology for crushing her. By way of reply, she wrapped a leg around his hips to keep him from going anywhere.
When she could finally speak, she murmured, “There now. Wasn’t that a more productive use of your remaining time than talking?”
His forehead dropped to touch hers and he laughed under his breath. “Madam, I concede the point.”
Her palms slid across his back, kneading and massaging randomly. He felt utterly relaxed beneath her fingertips, a lion at indolent rest. But then, she was feeling pretty boneless herself at the moment.
He murmured, “Think you can sleep now?”
She smiled up at him. “I could sleep a week with you inside me like this.”
He made to draw out of her, but she tightened her leg across his buttocks.
“Honey, if I don’t move soon, I’m gonna deprive you of even more sleep tonight.”
“And that would be the point, Einstein.”
He laughed. “You’re going to kill me.”
It was as if a bucket of ice water fell over both of them. Finally she replied, “It’s a better way to go then what you have planned for yourself.”
His rueful chuckle curled around her heart, breaking it a little. “It is at that. Making love to the death it is. Last one breathing wins.”
She whispered, “If you play this game right, we both win, John.”
“Ahh, sweet Melina. You’re everything a woman should be. I could love you so easily.”
“Show me how you’d love me.”
And somehow she thought he knew she wasn’t talking about sex.
Chapter 11
When John opened his eyes the next morning, he was immediately aware that something had changed. He took stock quickly. Tarp intact overhead. Trip wires at the entrance to their shelter intact. No sounds out of place in the morning chorus of creatures busily going about their day. Melina peacefully asleep against
