He moans along with the rumble of thunder. “Make it hail, and I’ll take you right now. I owe you a good fuck against a tree.”
“You’ll do it either way.”
“Maybe.” He raises me higher, a hand still on my ass to hold me up while his other hand lifts one side of my shirt and bra, my treasures tucked safely on the other side. He runs his finger down the center line where my impression is cut in half, passing through my birthmark. Then swirls his tongue over my nipple. ’Round and ’round. “Look how hard it is for me.” He sucks it into his mouth.
I throw my head back, banging it into the tree and not caring. As long as my chest is closer to him. The ground shakes. And I feel him smile around my nipple.
“It’s not me!” I yell, holding his head against me as he rolls it back and forth, up and down, following the motions of his tongue. The tree jumps this time, as if yelling back at me.
“What’s happening?” I gasp. My need for him sparks through every cell. I pull my necklace over my head and shove it into my pocket. For Ametrine’s sake.
He licks my nipple twice and rubs his rain-dotted nose over it as he speaks, peering up at me. “You’re getting stronger. But it’s not consistent. Weather, elements, plants—it’s all nature. You just don’t have control yet.”
I whimper when he takes my breast back into his mouth, his tongue kneading my sensitive skin. “Control. Is not. My thing.”
He releases me again, pushing back against my firm grip on his head, and I regret distracting him. “I have some experience with control. And I’m going to find out what happens when you come.”
With that, he drops me to my feet and yanks my underwear and pants the rest of the way down. My bare feet slip out of them. He lowers his own pants enough to free himself. His length springs upward between us, immediately wet by the rain.
“Do you know how often I think about you?” he asks as his cold hands lift me up again, positioning my back against the rough, wet bark of the tree. I wrap my legs around his waist and hook my ankles, my arms gripping his biceps.
The ground trembles again. The tree roots writhe under our feet. “About as often as you lie?”
“Fuck.” He exhales. “Way more than that.”
Rain batters our heads, dumping down in heavy dollops from the trees above.
He positions himself at my entrance, a hand at my throat. “Show me how much you love me inside you. I want a foot of rain for every inch you take so well.”
His words open up new pockets of pleasure all over me. I smirk. “You’ll drown again.” My limbs are weak, my mind saturated with arousal. I’d doanythingto feel more of this. He’s hazardous. I push against him, taking his entire length with one thrust of my hips.
He groans, taken off guard, then pulls back and slams into me, filling me so thoroughly it hurts deep in my core. The bark digs into my back. I moan, and the tree creaks behind me, the rolling gray sky threatening to drop to the ground. He puts his face in mine, cold water pouring down our cheeks. I wrap my arms around him, savoring the feel of him filling me, of this closeness.
“More.” He repeats that same all-consuming movement, holding still once he’s deep inside me.
The tree lets out a long whine along with me. “Don’t stop,” I command. I try to force movement between us, but he has me pinned. Waiting. Shaking with need.
Then finally, he drives in and out, finding a slow, torturous rhythm.I lose myself with this man. His harsh touch. The addictive way he takes me. That spell in his eyes.
He bends to bite my neck, pinching harder and harder, until I’m not sure he has any intention of releasing me. I squeal and slap his cheek. It does nothing. His teeth clamp down with renewed force, his breath like steam on my skin. A branch cracks above us and adds to the assault, smacking him in the face.
He laughs as it tumbles to the ground beside us. “You did that.”
“Did not. I would have picked a bigger one.” I wave my arm over my head, mocking his accusation, and another branch as thick as my arm splits and falls.
He dodges it, a grin twisting his lips upward. “Now you’re just misbehaving.”
“What happened to shut the fuck up? Isn’t that how this started?”
He growls and pulls the tender skin of my neck into his mouth, sucking and sliding and never letting go. I roll my head to the side. I need more. I need every part of me devoured by him.
But he pulls his lips away. “I hear something.” He seems caught in a far away thought, but it doesn’t stop his hips from crashing into me with every deep thrust.
“What?” I ask, sluggish and dazed with pleasure. He grabs my throat again, holding me against the tree, and slips his other hand between my legs, still looped around his waist. His thumb finds my clit, and the wind howls. And when he rubs in a circle all the way around it, every leaf on the tree goes flying, leaving it as bare as my ass. The rain has no trouble reaching us now.
My body tenses from head to toe, my breathing frantic, pressure exploding at my core, needing release. And when I think I can’t possibly feel another lick of pleasure, he tightens his hold on my throat and kisses me. And the feel of his tongue gliding over mine, of his hand controlling my air, of the endless slippery touch of his thumb, him inside me, it’s more than enough. I rupture from the inside out. Pleasure everywhere. Inside, outside—damn, even the tree. It’s all one. And none. Everything and nothing.
I scream his name as I come, my hips slamming into him faster than my violent heart beats against my ribcage. And with the final jolt of ecstasy that blasts through me, Eli is torn from my body and thrownbackward. He flies through the air. A deafeningcrackstrikes. Then echoes. I feel it in my spine, as if I were divided in two.
