“I wasn’t sure; I hoped. Actually,” he said with smug satisfaction, “I put it in my pack with my ID and worried the whole way through the gear check that the judges would find it.”
“That would have been awkward.” She pressed her lips to his chest and smiled. He wore his thermal against the cold but she could feel the warm, steady beat of his heart through the cotton.
“Maybe, but that’s not what I was worried about.”
“What then?”
“I was afraid Gabe would find out and kill me.”
He sounded so earnest; she couldn’t hold back her laughter.
“Seriously, your brother’s a little scary.”
She couldn’t be sure if he was serious or not, but she didn’t bother disputing his claim. He was right. Under certain circumstances, Gabe could be very scary, and she could only imagine what he kept hidden from her. For a few moments, they lay quietly in each other’s arms, but even the steady beat of his heart and his rhythmic breathing wasn’t enough to lull her to sleep.
“Enough. You’re thinking so loud, I can’t get any peace,” he said.
She laughed but tempered it. It wouldn’t do any good to have him think he knew her as well as he actually did. He already wore the smug, satisfied grin of a man who was really pleased with himself. And in all fairness, she might have called him God when he had his mouth on her. There was a moment when he did that thing with his tongue that she thought she might lose consciousness.
“I was just thinking about how different it felt watching the stars wrapped in your arms.” She wasn’t trying to hide from him. She just didn’t want to bring Ethan into the sleeping bag with them. That line of thinking had no place between them.
“Different good or different bad?” he asked, pressing a kiss to the top of her head.
“Like you don’t know.” She bit him gently, scraping her teeth over the muscle of his chest.
He tightened his grip on her and she felt him start to swell against her thigh. She loved that he let her be a little rough with him. That he was a little rough with her. Making love with Michael was too powerful to be conventional and too raw to be civilized. She wanted him in a primal way because she needed him, not because she’d considered every angle and decided being with him was expedient.
“Definitely good then.”
She didn’t need to look at his face to know he was smiling.
“Don’t let it go to your head,” she said, giving his chest a playful smack.
“Too late.” Grabbing her tight, he rolled her underneath him and pinned her with his hips between her legs.
Without a thought, she raised her hips, riding the long, hard length of his erection. He met her thrust with his own and she sucked in a breath as he rocked against her clit. Her body responded so completely to him. She was already halfway gone, and he wasn’t even inside her. Which brought another thought in its wake.
“We only had one condom.” She gasped out the words as he slid his cock between her slick folds, so close but nowhere near close enough to the place she needed him most.
He kissed her, stealing her breath before catching her bottom lip between his teeth and tugging. “Then I’m just going to figure out all the other ways I can make you come.”
––––––––
MICHAEL WOKE UP with Amanda curled warm and soft in his arms and a light drizzle of rain on his face. The light was still a dim glow on the horizon with just the barest promise of dawn, but he couldn’t tell if it was the early hour or the overcast sky. Either way, they were probably well within the rules to start hiking again.
He didn’t want to. Damp or not, he wanted to curl up inside the down bag and hold Amanda for as long as she’d let him. She’d melted against him as they slept, her bare leg wrapped around his hips in a way that proved increasingly distracting. Her hair tickled under his chin and with her bare breasts mashed against his chest, they were slightly sweaty and stuck together. She draped over him like an octopus and it still wasn’t close enough.
He’d never been a big fan of sleeping with someone. He liked having his own space to stretch out and sprawl. Sleeping in a sleeping bag alone should have made him slightly claustrophobic. Even though Amanda showed him how to zip their bags together, there was barely enough room for both of them inside and no way for them to sleep without touching each other, let alone turn around. He didn’t care. He shifted the bag to keep the rain off Amanda’s face and tightened his arms around her, drifting for a moment before he felt her hand stroke over his chest.
“Morning.” She pressed a kiss against his neck, moving his morning firmly into thebest evercategory. Poking her head out from under the covers, she glanced around and groaned. “I don’t remember rain in the forecast. We should probably get going,” she said, but she didn’t make a move to get up, so he nibbled along her jawline and used his lips to try to convince her to stay snuggled under the covers with him.
The lack of condoms gave him good practice for figuring out what Amanda liked and how she liked to be touched. He wouldn’t mind spending the rest of the day working on his skills.What was the worst thing that would happen if they didn’t show up at the extraction point on Sunday?And then he remembered who her brothers were and what they did for a living. He’d take the chance if she offered it, but he had no doubt he’d pay for it in blood and bruises later if he did. She shifted her leg and her thigh brushed against his thickening cock.It would be worth it.
“Damn it,” she said as the rain picked up from a mist to a drizzle. “We really do need to get going. There’s some climbing on the schedule today and we don’t want to push it if the rock’s wet.”
She climbed out of the bag, letting in the cool air in her place, dampening his libido a fraction. There was no reason to bother with a fire or spend much time on breakfast. As soon as she made the decision to get out of the sleeping bag, it was as if a switch had been flipped and they both slipped into efficient hiker mode, munching on power bars as they packed up the gear. They’d finished their morning rituals and were ready to sling the packs on their backs before full light.
He took a moment to pull her in for a kiss before they started down the trail again. Now that they’d made love and he knew exactly what it felt like to have her come apart under his hands and mouth, it made it harder not to touch her. Somewhere he’d gotten it into his head that it should be easier. It wasn’t.
