Page 53 of Screwed

He led me off the trail and straight into the dense, tangled underbrush, lifting heavy, water-logged sword ferns out of my path so I wouldn’t get whacked in the face. Just as the rain intensified yet again, he stopped before a solid wall of greenery, parted a thick curtain of dripping salal bushes and ducked, gently pulling me down and inside the low opening just before the worst of the storm hit.

We found ourselves in a little natural alcove carved straight into a towering wall of dark, fractured basalt rock. Despite my frantic heartbeat, my brain still registered the ceiling’s low, cantilevered arch. It felt like a brutalist concrete bunker, raw and heavy but perfectly secure against the storm. And I’d never felt safer.

The atmosphere was tense, but Nate didn’t rush for me outright. He looked around instead, ignoring the mud and soaked ground, and reached up, snapping brittle, dead lower branches hidden beneath the thick canopy of a massive cedar. He used his pocketknife to shave away the outer bark, exposing the dry, pale wood underneath. He then scraped off a handful of inner cedar bark, rolled it between his palms until it looked like a fluffy bird’s nest.

I had no idea why seeing him start a fire to keep us warm only amplified my arousal. Worse, it drew it out, my gaze fixed on his competent hands as he worked. He laid down a flat platform of thick bark first to act as a barrier against the moisture, then set up his makeshift hearth and lit the cedar nest with a lighter from his pocket. It caught instantly, casting a sudden, warm amber glow across the cave’s dark stone walls.

He laid the blanket down on the ground, pulling me to sit with him. Everything in that moment seemed to slow down. His hands didn’t leave my wrists. They traveled, raising goosebumps as they moved up my forearms. One hand tangled in my wet hair, wrapping the strands around his fist, and the other tilted my chin up. I had a moment to stutter a breath, to look into those warm dark eyes before our lips met again and I melted against him.

The fire between us from outside had tempered to a slow, patient smolder. Nate was so tender that for a second, I forgot this was the same man whom I’d just chased down a treacherous mountain pass. I almost forgot about the way he was so intimidating and commanding that on site all he had to do was look at the crew and they’d fall in line. There was a slight tremor in his steady hands.

“Ava,” he whispered my name, pulling away from me. His forehead rested against mine. I was struggling to even out my breathing, my hands bunching up the front of his shirt. “If you don’t want to—”

I laughed softly and pressed my mouth to his again. The indistinct sound he made betrayed his own desire. I wanted this more than anything. In fact, I needed this: the reassurance of his body that he wasn’t going anywhere. I needed the hunger of his kisses to promise me I wasn’t alone in wanting to cross this line. Nate always played it safe and made the responsible choice. I needed him to break, just for me, at least just once.

My hands slipped under his shirt, and the coldness of my palms made him hiss. But when my tongue slid into his mouth, his whole body caved around my hands. The fist in my hair tugged a little harder, more insistent as the heat between us grew out of control. I whined a little and climbed onto his lap, pressing myself against him and rocking my hips slightly.

He popped his mouth off mine with a small gasp and dug his fingers into my hips. “Easy,” he groaned. “I’m trying to be gentle here.”

“I don’t want you gentle, Nate,” I mumbled and buried my face in his neck. “I want you to let go for once in your life. I want you to prove to me that I wasn’t the only one craving you for weeks now. Months, really. I want you to help us both forget everything else outside of this cave.”

It was as if all he needed was that bit of permission. Nate pulled back and looked at me, and I shuddered, seeing the shift in his eyes. He grabbed my waist and rocked his hips violently up once, hard enough to buck me and elicit a little yelp of surprise.

“You sure that’s what you want?” he growled. “I’m asking you this one last time.”

“Yes,” I gasped, squirming against him. “Yes, I want this. I want you.”

His gaze softened, and his thumb traced my cheekbone. Then he listened.

His mouth crashed back onto mine, his body coming alive with a desire I could feel in the wild beating of his heart and the deepening breaths that came hot against my neck as he started kissing my throat. His hands started drifting, exploring me. His fingers slipped under my wet cotton shirt, and I expected him to take it off, but he just unclipped my bra and helped me shrug it down, sliding it out from under my shirt.

He leaned my body back so that he could start trailing kisses from my collarbones to my chest. I gripped his shoulders, panting as his lips closed around one of my nipples through the wet material. I groaned out loud, arching my back and pressing my chest against his mouth. A hand supported me, drawing me even closer as his teeth nibbled at the sensitive nub.

“Shit, Nate,” I moaned, dragging a hand to the back of his head and gripping his hair. He swapped from one breast to the other with an appreciative groan, his eyes still fixed on mine with a heat that had me shift my hips against his lap again, desperate for friction. But it seemed I was on his timeline.

Every touch was intentional. His hot tongue through the material of my top was driving me crazy and distracting me so much that I didn’t notice his hands inching their way up my back. Strong fingers caressed my skin, kneading into my muscles with a gentle strength that felt chaste compared to what his mouth was doing to my chest.

“Please,” I whispered, practically begging. “Please take this off me.”

Nate hummed, then lifted my shirt over my head in one fluid movement before diving his mouth straight back to my bare breasts again. He kept moving me against his lap, finally giving me the friction I’d been dying for. I didn’t know how many delicious minutes passed like this before his hand finally slipped into my pants and when he felt how wet I was, he actually moaned against me.

His fingers teased along the material of my panties before he couldn’t wait any longer and slowly eased two fingers inside me. I groaned out loud, dipping my head back. His mouth captured my throat again, his fingers slowly pulling out and making slow, tortuous circles over my clit before dipping slightly inside again.

“You feel,” he ground out, the words barely audible. “Oh, Ava, you feel so perfect.”

“Yeah?” I asked, lowering my head to kiss him as I tried rolling my hips against his hand. Sparks of pleasure ignited behind my eyes, low moans swallowed up by the kiss we shared. Those fingers… he read my body like my reactions were a set of blueprints, teasing out the map of my desire until I was trembling against him, my body hot despite the freezing wind and rain outside.

“Yeah,” he repeated, curling his fingers and, oh my God.

I cried out, my grip on his shoulders tightening as I felt myself start to lose control.

“That’s it,” he encouraged, biting down on my shoulder. “Almost there.”

It was as if those same fireworks from earlier were let loose inside my body. Nate held me tight against him as my orgasm tore through me, breathing hard with his fingers still inside. He pulled them out, lowered me down, and licked them clean right in front of my face.

“That’s one,” he said without further context before he started moving down my body. I didn’t have time to register what he was doing before he had my ass cupped in his hands and his tongue between my thighs. My mouth fell open in a silent scream of ecstasy, my hands tangling in his hair.

If I was embarrassed by how fast I came with Ethan, then this was humiliating. I was still riding the aftershocks of my first climax when I could feel the buildup of a second lighting up my body. I looked down, breathless and too sensitive. Nate was looking up at me, his mouth still dragging me to a second peak.