He rocked back on his heels and mesmerized
her with his coal-black eyes and the erection that strained against
his loincloth. She'd never had a man take care of her the way he
had. She'd never had a man look at her the way Ukiah was looking at
her, with a focus that claimed she was his everything.
She slid her hands along the muscles of his
thighs, watched through lowered eyelashes as his nostrils flared
and his jaw clenched.
In his stillness, she felt the silent
command to move higher, to free his cock and anticipation shivered
through her. She reached the suede-like material stretched tightly
over his erection.
Ukiah's fingers covered hers, guiding them,
explaining without words how to remove the loincloth.
The garment fell away, revealing his length
and thickness, his uncircumcised cock and heavy testicles.
She stared in fascination, licked her lips,
only barely aware of his groan. She stroked his foreskin, explored
what she'd only seen in studio models and finished art, untouchable
examples of man as he'd been created by nature or god, or maybe
both.
Desire became her heartbeat. Her sex
throbbed, inner muscles clenching and unclenching as arousal beaded
on the tip of his cock.
She curled her hand around his erection and
he hunched forward, burying his fingers in her hair as she'd done
earlier. Pulling her to him.
She rose from the shallow pool of steamy
water and kissed his chest. His nipples. And they became hard, tiny
peaks on a sculpted chest.
"Marisa," he whispered, and her name sounded
like a prayer on his lips.
Happiness filled her. Joy. Something more
than lust.
She brushed her mouth over his nipples
again, then kissed downward. One hand cupped his testicles, while
the other stroked up and down on his cock.
His hips moved to the rhythm she imposed on
him. His breath came in short pants, making her feel powerful even
as his fingers tightened on her hair and guided her mouth to his
cock.
She nuzzled it, her tongue darting out.
Tasting. Feeling. Learning him as he'd learned her.
Waves of jagged pleasure rippled through
Ukiah. Spikes of painful ecstasy streaked from his cock to his
heart like fractured bolts of lightning.
He was helpless in her hands. Unable to do
anything more than pant, and shake, and hold her to him as she
tortured him with her tongue, with her fingers and lips.
Beads of sweat rolled down his neck and
chest. Every muscle in his body strained to remain still, afraid
that any movement would shatter the last of his control and he
would come in her mouth.
Her soft lips left his shaft and his hands
tightened in her hair, intent on dragging her back. Only to stop
with the feel of her tongue against his sac. It was like the sun's
kiss, burning him with heat, then immersing him in a river of fiery
sensation as she sucked first one testicle and then the other.
Ukiah bucked against her, his body strung so
tightly that between one heartbeat and the next he'd reached his
limit. "No," he said, the word so guttural it was barely
recognizable. "No more."
He used the grip on Marisa's hair to pull
her away from him. The drumbeats which had faded began again, only
this time they were the thunder of his own heart.
He picked her up and carried her into the
other chamber, lay her on the hides and came down on top of her.
Pleasure gripped him in a savage fist.
His fingers intertwined with hers, holding
her hands against fur as his thighs roughly opened hers and his
cock found the slick wet heat of her opening.
He managed to hold himself at her entrance
rather than plunge into her in a single fast, hard stroke. He met
her gaze and then slowly, an inch at a time, gave himself to
her—just as slowly, an inch at a time, he claimed her for his
own.
"Ukiah," Marisa said, wrapping her legs
around him, her fingers tightening on his as he pushed deeper, his
name filling her soul as completely as his cock filled her
channel.
His coal-black gaze commanded that she keep
her eyes open, that she see the possessive way he gazed at her.
Acknowledge his ownership.
He covered her lips with his and thrust. In.
Out. In. Out.
Each stroke said
mine
.
Each stroke pushed her higher.
She moaned and whimpered and cried for him.
Came for him and he swallowed down her sob of release. Pistoned
harder, faster. And filled her with his semen.
The sound of their breathing was harsh and
ragged. Loud in the small cave. It drowned out the drip of water
and the crackling of the fire. Masked the far away droning, the
continuous undertone that made Marisa think of chanting but was
probably the sound of wind through rocks, or more ominous, deep
shifts in the mountain range.
He rolled to the side and gathered her in
his arms. And she'd never felt so safe, so cherished.
She cuddled against him, soaking in the
warmth that radiated from his skin. He rubbed his cheek against her
hair and she sighed in contentment.
Eventually she'd have to face reality,
return to civilization and press charges against Ethan and Kaitlyn.
It'd be her word against theirs. Except when it came to the money.
If he'd stolen from the trust…
Ukiah brushed his hand along her spine. "How
did you end up on these lands? When I was in Hohoq earlier today,
no one mentioned there were visitors staying in town."
Hohoq?
That was the name of the town
where they'd stopped for lunch. And after they'd left, it had taken
them hours to get to the campsite.
"We weren't staying in town."
"We?" A bronzed, muscled thigh covered her
thigh, the possessive gesture creating a ripple of heat that moved
through her stomach and then pooled in her sex.
"My brother and his girlfriend." She pressed
more tightly to Ukiah. "Are we close to Hohoq?"
"Fairly close. There's a wider trail near
the canyon rim. It leads there."
So she'd been heading in the right
direction. She'd have made it to help if Kaitlyn hadn't caught up
to her.
"So you were lost?" he asked, fingers
skimming over her backbone.
"Yes." She captured one of Ukiah's narrow
braids and found comfort in the feel of the smooth beads and soft
feathers. "I was trying to get somewhere safe."
The overheard conversation. Running. The
fall. It seemed like a nightmare now. Unreal. Unbelievable.
Something that had happened to someone else. While this…being here
with him… It felt like they'd always been together. Not in the same
way as people who've known each other for years, but in the way of
people whose souls were linked, who'd been together in another
life.
She shivered, her mind shying away from
thoughts of the thunderbird, from her torn, bloody clothing. From
the possibility that in reality she lay dying.
Her hand clenched on his braid. Her heart
stuttered.
No. This was real. This had to be real.
Ukiah released her and chill swept in as if
in doubting she'd broken the fantasy.
She made a sound of protest. His laugh and
the sunlight flash of his smile said
this is real, this is
completely real
.
He stood and once again scooped her into his
arms. "Back to the pool."
"How far are we from where you found
me?"
"A football field's length, maybe a little
more."
He carried her into the next chamber,
stepped into the heated water then sat, positioning her so she
straddled him. The water covered her legs and lapped at her lower
back. The pool was only barely large enough to hold the two of
them, but instead of feeling crowded, it felt intimate.
The soft caring in Ukiah's expression had
her heart fluttering. She cupped his biceps, slid her hands over
sleek muscle. "Tell me I'm not dreaming."
Masculine satisfaction flashed in his eyes.
"I'm real. This is real."
He leaned forward, took her lips gently, his
hands going to her breasts, cupping them, his thumbs teasing over
her nipples so they ached for the feel of his mouth on them. She
pressed against his erection, ground against his cock.
With a moan he ended the kiss. "Fantasy
would be my lifting you and filling you. Reality is my asking why
you left the path and tried to climb down the canyon wall."
"I was running from Ethan and Kaitlyn."
Ukiah's expression hardened. Eyes that'd
held heated need became a raptor's deadly stare. "Why?"
"They brought me here to kill me." The hands
on his biceps slid up and around his neck. She pressed her chest to
his and hugged him tightly. "I got back to camp earlier than they
expected and overheard them talking. I ran. I almost did the work
for them. If you hadn't found me…"
"Why do they want you dead?"
"Over money. I'll know more when I get back
home. But for the last couple of years Ethan has been managing the
money our father left me. At first I got a monthly allowance, but
as my art started to actually pay for my apartment and anything
else I needed… It was stupid not to pay attention, but Dad left
Ethan the business. He trusted him with that. So I trusted Ethan
too. I wanted to believe we were a family."
"You weren't close before?"
"Our father left his mother and married
mine—while she was pregnant with me. So no, we weren't close when
we were growing up. But after our father died…" She shrugged. "But
maybe that was all pretend, even if I'd like to think Ethan changed
because of Kaitlyn. That she somehow convinced him to do this for
her."
Marisa took a shuddering breath. "They were
planning on a rock-climbing accident. Only once we got here… There
were so many images I wanted to capture on paper. And then when I
saw where they wanted to climb… It made me feel scared. Maybe part
of me guessed what they intended."
She closed her eyes and Ukiah speared his
hands in her hair and tugged, the sharp little pain making her lift
her face so that once again he could cover her lips with his.
This time his tongue coaxed hers, tempted it
to enter his mouth so he could hold it, suck on it, a gentle offer
of sympathy as well as an acknowledgement of the rawness of her
emotions.
It was an offer of closeness and safe haven
she accepted with the softening of her body, with the opening of
her thighs and the press of her swollen lower lips against his
erection.
He abandoned her hair in favor of grasping
her hips and lifting her, settling her on his cock as he held her
tongue captive in his mouth.
She was helpless against Ukiah's sensual
assault. There was no protest in her mind. No thought other than to
invite him further into her body, their movements synchronized to
his sucking on her tongue, his thrusts so subtle that the water
barely rippled and yet each thrust sent shards of white-hot
pleasure through her clit. Each slide of his cock made her
desperately hungry for the next.
The connection she felt to him was so
intense that her release seemed ripped from the deepest part of
her. A place that had never responded to another man like it
responded to Ukiah. A place sealed closed until he came into her
life. And his frenzied pistoning and the hot splash of his semen
only made her feel more complete.
He rose from the pool with her in his arms.
She smiled against his throat. "Despite your having to carry me
here when you found me, I can walk now."
"I enjoy carrying you." He took her into the
other room, placed her on the hides so she was seated with her back
to the fire, then retrieved a comb and knelt behind her.
He gently untangled her hair, the teeth of
the comb lightly scraping over her back. She closed her eyes on a
sigh of pleasure.
"It was storming." A tremor went through
her. If he hadn't come, if he hadn't found her…
"It's still storming outside."
She listened intently but heard nothing. Her
heart beat a little harder, a little faster. She only remembered
seeing the thunderbird. "Was I hallucinating when you got to
me?"
He hesitated, a barely imperceptible pause.
"Yes."
She lost her nerve, regained it when he
leaned forward and one of his braids brushed against her arm.
"Before I blacked out I imagined a thunderbird swooping down on me.
He had eyes like yours." She stroked a bright feather with its
bands of red, white and black, its subtle splashes of blue and
yellow. "He had feathers that looked like this one."
Ukiah stopped combing her hair. He nuzzled
her ear then gave the lobe a quick suck. "You're on Thunderbird
land. Hohoq is another name for the thunderbird."
She let herself be distracted by his
nearness and thoughts of the totem poles she'd passed. Did it
really matter whether she'd seen Ukiah and imposed a thunderbird
form on him?
"Do you know anything about the totem
poles?"
Ukiah sucked her earlobe again and she
murmured appreciatively. His hand cupped and fondled her breast,
sending a rush of arousal to coat her inner thighs. "The poles near
the
No Trespassing
signs?"
She laughed softly. "Yes, those."
He gently bit her neck. "I made them."
She tried to turn but the hand on her breast
made it impossible. "They're beautiful. Is that what you do for a
living?"
"I carve in the winter, as a hobby."
"Do you sell your work?"
"Personally? Not often." He nibbled the side
of her neck then pressed a kiss to her skin and resumed combing her
hair. "But my family members manage to sneak some of my work from
the lodge and offer it for sale in town."
Marisa turned her head, grimaced as the comb
snagged and pulled her hair. "They sneak away with totem
poles?"
He laughed. "Most of my carvings are small
enough to fit on shelves. Animals and birds mostly, sometimes
reptiles and fish."