When he withdrew from her, she gave a cry in protest. His fingers skimmed over her back in a soothing gesture. “I’ll be back inside you soon.” The words were a threat and a promise all rolled into one.
She heard a rustle and a zipper before his arms came around her and he sank to the ground, arranging her on his lap so they could catch their breaths—a good thing, since her legs wouldn’t hold her. She buried her head against him, inhaling the scent of sex and Jacob, combined with the rich loaminess of the soil and the fresh scent of the grass.
Suddenly, being one with nature wasn’t quite so terrible. She would trade glamping for camping if it meant she got fucked like this. By this man.
She closed her eyes, attempting to regain some semblance of rational thought.
His chest rumbled. “Are you okay?”
Okay? What a tepid word. She might never be okay, thanks to him.
At her silence, his fingers trailed over her shoulder, over the tender spot where he’d nipped her. “I bit you.”
“It’s fine.” It was perfect.
“You’re scraped up. I’ve been shaving every day, in the hopes you might show up. Of course you pick the day I don’t.”
“I like your beard,” she said, too bemused to utter anything else.
His rough palm slid lower over her arm, moving her ruined shirt. In a flash, he stiffened against her. “Akira.”
She sighed, resigned to not having the opportunity to quietly contemplate the momentous fact her entire world had shifted. “What?”
“Did I do this to you?”
She leaned into his touch, somewhat hating her instinctive need to absorb his warmth but loving the fact he was there for her to leach it off. He’d always been a part of her life, but now he had twined himself through her soul.
“Akira. Answer me.”
Already conditioned to respond to the stern demand in that sexy voice, she blinked at him, some of her orgasm-induced dreaminess fading. Too sated to move, Akira barely managed to glance at her upper arm, where Jacob’s fingers were delicately tracing the skin. A dark bruise had formed there, in the shape of a man’s hand.
Her father, when he had grabbed her. It didn’t hurt much. She always had been prone to bruising easily. “Not a big deal.”
But he wasn’t listening, having discovered her hands, which were scraped from the bark of the tree, some of her nails broken and ragged. His lips pinched together, and he launched to his feet, gathering her up in his arms.
Startled, she stiffened. “What are you doing? Put me down,” she demanded.
That only garnered her a severe frown.
“My hands are scraped, not my legs,” Akira said dryly.
“Shut. Up.”
She was about to argue further when she realized she was cradled against a more than fine, naked, muscular chest, and why the fuck was she protesting that?
She’d never been carried like this. She was too tall, too sharp, too intimidating for any man to ever attempt it. She supposed she could have ordered one to do it, but that wouldn’t be the same.
So she shut up. She laid her head against his shoulder, pressing her cheek to his skin. She twined her arms around his neck and scratched her fingernail through the fine hairs there, appreciating the slight shudder he gave.
He glanced at her, eyes narrowed, as he shouldered through the front door of his cabin. “Quit that. You’ll hurt your hands more.”
Always eager to misbehave, Akira traced a lazy pattern over his neck.
Jacob didn’t bother to close the door behind them. He placed her gently in one of the mismatched chairs in the kitchen and leaned over her, bracing one hand on the table. Her shirt was in pieces, her breasts still exposed, but he was far more concerned with the hands he held in his, with frequent worried glances at her upper arm and shoulder.
She would be insulted on behalf of her breasts, but she was too busy melting into a puddle of tenderness over the fierce, protective frown he was bestowing upon her.
“Stay here.” He paced to the sink and removed an old first-aid kit, coming back to crouch in front of her a second later. As abrupt as his manner was, his touch was infinitely gentle as he cleaned her palms with antiseptic. She winced from the sting, and his lips turned white at the corners. “There are a couple of splinters. Hang on.”
