"Thirty-something isn't exactly three thousand, and I think it's obvious which one of us needs to spend some time in the gym. Spoiler alert-it isn't the guy with the perfect a.s.s who hasn't even broken a sweat."

He chuckled again, and let his gaze sweep over me from the messy pink topknot to the dusty tips of my combat boots. "I like you just the way you are."

They were simple words, but they mattered so much. The only other person in my entire life that had liked me just the way I happened to be was my dad. I didn't even like me just the way I was most of the time.

"Thank you."

He c.o.c.ked his head a little to the side and we stared at each other for a long moment before he nodded sharply and muttered, "You're welcome."

We walked in silence for a few more minutes until the trees thinned out and we were suddenly in a clearing at the top of a soaring embankment. The rocks were stacked on top of one another as rushing water spilled over the natural sculpture. It was beautiful, majestic, and so stunning that the last of the breath I had in my lungs was sucked away in awe.

The sound of the water falling and splashing into the pool below was so loud I could hardly hear Quaid as he told me, "This is it. This was my favorite place in the whole world to spend time when I was growing up. When I was deployed and I spent day after day seeing nothing but sand and desert, I used to dream about this spot at night."

He grabbed my hand and tugged me towards the edge of the rocks that jutted out over the crystal clear mountain water. It was probably a forty-to fifty-foot drop and the water was so clear I could see all the way to the bottom of the pond.

"It's beautiful here. I can see why you kept the memories of this place with you when you were trying to forget the rest of this life."

When he turned his head to look at me, he was frowning and his jaw was hard. I wanted to lift my fingers and stroke them across the dark blond scruff but he turned his face back towards the impressive vista and muttered, "I forgot. I spend so much time pretending this life never happened and denying that I was ever the kid that came from here that I forgot that there was this kind of good here, too."

I moved so that I was standing next to his side and inhaled so deeply that it felt like there wasn't any room left inside of me for the guilt and shame that I always breathed in and out, because the clean mountain air invaded every part of me that it touched. It was cleansing and startlingly eye-opening.

I moved to the edge of the rocks and looked down. "Did you ever jump off of here? It looks like a long ways down." A whisper of an idea and the spark of a challenge started to skirt across my skin, and it made my blood pump harder and faster through my veins.

Quaid put his arm around my midsection and pulled me back so that I was pressed against his chest and not leaning precariously over the edge.

"Yeah, my brother, Harrison, and I used to dare each other to jump. Most of the time it's fine if you hit the water right but when the weather changes the surface ices up pretty fast and the runoff is always really f.u.c.king cold. Harrison leaped without looking once when we were teenagers and ended up with a broken arm." I felt him stiffen behind me and his arm locked like a vice across my stomach. "My folks refused to take him to the hospital. My dad tried to set the break himself and my mom made a sling out of aspen branches and a torn sheet. It never healed right and Harrison never had full use of his hand again."

I put my hand over his and rubbed my fingers over the tension-laden fingers that were digging into my side. "Harrison and Quaid. You guys ended up with some pretty uppity names for kids that grew up off the land in the middle of nowhere." I was trying to ease some of the rigidity that was coursing through the big body hovering behind mine, but he stiffened even more and laughed without an ounce of humor. In fact, the noise that escaped him almost made him sound like he was in soul-deep pain.

"Quaid isn't even my actual first name. My mom had a thing for '80s movie stars and her two favorites were Harrison Ford and Dennis Quaid." His tenor dropped a little. "I never really felt like a Dennis, so I've always been a Quaid."

I could tell he was struggling with the past and the way it was piling on top of his present, but I couldn't hold back the giggle that bubbled up when he told me how he had ended up with his unusual moniker. "Dennis? You don't really look like a Dennis, but I can be persuaded to try it out the next time we're in bed."

He cut me a hard look and didn't respond at all to my gentle teasing. "I don't know what a Dennis is supposed to look like, but I know that a Quaid is a lot harder to forget. It was always about trying to be more than I was, even with my name."

I leaned back into him and wiggled my backside against the front of his jeans. "Well, regardless if you're a Dennis or a Quaid, I like you just the way you are, too." I felt him exhale a deep breath behind me and his iron grip finally loosened around my middle. Once I had room to squirm free, I moved back to the edge of the rocks and turned to look at Quaid expectantly over my shoulder. "I think we should jump." The idea floated around with all the clarity and lightness the brisk outside air brought with it. I started to pull off my borrowed leather jacket as I looked at Quaid expectantly.

His pale eyes widened and his mouth dropped open as he shook his head firmly in the negative. "No way. It's been too long since the last time I did that. Who knows if the water is deep enough? If something goes wrong we're out in the middle of nowhere, with no help. It's too risky, and I brought you here to keep you safe."

I dropped the leather jacket on the rocks by my feet and bent to pull the laces on my boots. "I want to jump. You wanted to come back for a reason, to remember the good with the bad, and I want to give you that." I wanted to give us both that, because somewhere deep inside of me, I knew that I was a lot like this place and his memories of it. With me, there was also a lot of good, somewhere in there buried under piles and piles of bad. If I could give him this good back, maybe he would remember the good in me the same way when the storm that raged between us pa.s.sed.

I hopped around on one foot as I got one boot off and went to work on the other. He watched me with disbelief stamped clearly all over his handsome face. "I can have the memories without risking my neck. Stop pulling your clothes off, Avett. This is ridiculous." I was popping the b.u.t.ton on my jeans and wiggling the denim down my legs when his hands landed heavily on my shoulders. "You need to stop. This is foolish and unbelievably reckless. I'm not that kid anymore."

I unb.u.t.toned my shirt and let it fall open so that I was exposed to both his probing gaze and the wilderness that surrounded us. "No, you're not, but no matter how hard you try and deny him, that kid is somewhere down deep inside of you and he wants to jump with me." I c.o.c.ked an eyebrow at him and told him matter-of-factly, "You're also not the guy that needs all the things in order to prove his worth. You are someone spectacular, with or without the things, Quaid."

His brow furrowed, and before he could argue with me further, I slipped out of my shirt so that I was clad in only my underwear and a lot of bl.u.s.ter. His eyes dropped to my practically naked chest and then dipped lower. I saw his Adam's apple bob up and down as his hands curled into loose fists at his sides.

"And you're someone beyond all the careless moves you make, Avett." Was I? Had I finally outgrown the girl that was always trying to punish herself? Had the girl that felt like she had to suffer endlessly for her poor choices made it to a place where forgiveness seemed possible and obtainable? Had I finally, after mistake upon mistake, learned that redemption was possible if you allowed yourself to be forgiven? Had I reached the point where instead of doing nothing or the wrong thing, I could do the right thing without thought, because even though he looked like he wanted to strangle me, I knew taking this leap was the right thing for me to do. It wasn't a leap of faith; it was a leap of life. I was taking my life back from blame and guilt, one step at a time. This step just happened to be off the edge of the cliff where young Quaid had lived wild and rough.

I shifted my gaze from his burning blue one to the serene azure below. I took a deep breath and looked back at the man staring at me like I had lost my ever-loving mind. I smiled at him with every ounce of lucidity and illumination that was now alive and viable inside of me. I felt like I had woken up from a deep slumber and for the first time in a long time was seeing things the way they really were, without the taint of all my faults and failure coloring them.

"Those risks have led to the worst and the best stories, Quaid. And right at this moment, I'm kind of in love with the fact that I'm here to tell them, because they're mine and I earned every single one of them." I wriggled my fingers at him in a little wave before I turned and hurled myself off the side of the ledge. My name ripped from his lungs, echoed across the hills, and slammed against my own shriek as the wind rushed around and out of me as I dropped towards the water. Everything whirled around me in a green and blue blur as I plummeted faster and faster through the air. It was a thrill unlike any other. The weightlessness, the freedom, the rush of the water in my ears, and the sting of the breeze against my bare skin was exhilarating in a way that I could only compare to the best s.e.x I'd ever had. That would be the s.e.x I had with the man standing at the edge of the rocks, watching me as I fell. I could hear him cursing me and the pounding of my heart as the water got closer and closer. I barely had time to suck in a breath and clamp my nose closed with my fingers before I hit.

I went instantly numb the second my skin made contact with the gla.s.slike surface of the water. It was so cold that my muscles locked up and my blood froze still in my veins. The impact was jarring and enough to rattle every single one of my bones; for a second I panicked, and because I was so cold, I wasn't sure I was going to get my paralyzed limbs to work in order to push myself back up to the surface. I flailed wildly until I realized that even though it was frigid and my body was p.i.s.sed off about it, I still had control of my arms and legs. I calmed down and pushed hard at the glacial liquid that surrounded me. It only took a couple of strokes to break the surface and, once I did, I couldn't pull air into my lungs fast enough.

"You're certifiable, do you know that?" Quaid's booming voice bounced through the ravine. I had to crane my neck back so I could see where he was scrambling down from the high point where I had jumped to a lower outcropping that I was going to have to swim to in order to get out of the water.

I raked my shivering hands over my wet hair so it was out of my eyes as I started to make my way towards him with the icy water coating my skin and impeding my progress.

"Weren't you the one that told me that crazy has it's time and place?" I was trembling so hard that I really had to concentrate on what I was doing so that the water and its arctic grip didn't suck me back under.

"I don't think that miles from civilization and hours away from any kind of medical help is the place to pull the crazy out of retirement." He reached the rocks and put down a bundle that I a.s.sumed was my discarded clothes. I watched as he lowered himself to his stomach and reached one of his arms down over the side so that I could grab it and he could pull me up.

I was freezing. Colder than I had ever been in my life, and I wasn't sure I was going to have the dexterity to reach for his offered hand when I got to him. I looked up at his too-pretty face set in concerned and annoyed lines and it hit me like a bolt of lightning what Asa meant when he said he always saw Royal at the top so he never stopped trying to climb up from the bottom.

With Quaid looking down at me, worried about me after I made yet another questionable decision, I knew that I wanted to not only keep swimming no matter how cold I was or how hard it got, but that I also wanted to reach for him. I wanted to make my way from the bottom to the top, or as close to it as I could come after years and years of purposely failing and falling.

I finally reached the lower outcropping; all I had to do was lift a hand out of the water, and Quaid had me. He pulled me up and out of the water like I weighed nothing and like I wasn't a quivering ma.s.s of uncooperative limbs that couldn't and wouldn't move. My teeth were chattering together so loudly that I didn't try to protest when he took his own leather jacket off and wrapped it around my quaking shoulders. The leather was warm from his body heat and I huddled into it as he ran a hand over my dripping hair and shook off the excess water that was still coursing over my skin.

"I can't believe you used to do that for fun." The words tripped over themselves as he pushed his hands under the opening of the jacket and began to rub them vigorously over my chilly sides. I was covered in goose b.u.mps and I was pretty sure my lips were an attractive shade of blue.

"I outgrew the need to pursue danger for a thrill, and now only chase after it when it serves a purpose or a greater good. The rush lost its appeal when Harrison snapped his arm in half. We need to get you back to the cabin and in front of the fire before you start forming icicles on your eyelashes."

I jerked my head from side to side and leaned into him. "Too cold to walk."

He swore under his breath and pulled me closer to him. I snuggled into his much warmer body and sighed in contentment as his heat started to soak into my frozen skin.

"Was it worth it, Avett? You're ice cold and you're lucky you didn't get hurt. Was the risk worth it?"

He sounded p.i.s.sed off, so I tilted my head back so I could meet that wintry gaze. I pressed into him further and let out a tiny gasp as one of his big hands worked its way under the clingy lace of the bra I still had on and smoothed over my breast. My skin instantly warmed where he touched, and my already tight nipple pulled even tighter as pleasure pushed past the chill that engulfed me.

"Ask me after."

His eyebrows danced upwards on his forehead as his fingers started to play with the velvety peak that was begging for attention.

"After what?"

I lifted an arm up around his shoulders so that I could get my hand on the back of his neck and couldn't hold back a grin as my icy touch made him squirm. "Just after."

I pulled him towards me so that I could get my mouth on his. The sensation of my icy lips melting against the warmth of his had me shivering for a reason other than the cold. His tongue tangled artfully around mine and his long finger moved to trap the peak of my breast between them. He rolled the sensitive nub back and forth, creating heat and friction that I felt between my legs. One of his hands smoothed down my still-shivering spine and cupped me under the curve of my a.s.s so that he could pull me more fully into the length of his big body. I groaned into his mouth when I felt the press of his stiff erection against my stomach. My underwear was still soaking wet but the skin under it was getting tingly and hot as Quaid worked his big, rough hand under the delicate lace.

"They do say the quickest way to get warm is to share body heat." The dry humor in his deep voice did wonders on its own to warm up my sluggish blood.

I moved a hand to his waistband so that I could start pulling his dark gray Henley out of the waistband of his pants. "Well, sharing is caring, so let's get to it."

He helped me get both layers of his shirts off over his tawny head and when his taut, burnished skin pebbled up in reaction to the chilly outside air I pulled my mouth away from the invasion of his and started chasing over those b.u.mps with my tongue. That majestic eagle once it was revealed looked like it belonged here, like it was a part of his very essence that had been waiting for years and years to be returned to its rightful place. I rubbed my fingers over the impressive design and lost my breath as the hand that he had wrapped around my backside began to move.

It was a very short trip for his questing fingers to reach their destination, the soft and slowly melting point between my legs that lately felt like it was created only for him, but I was surprised and jolted a little when one of those wandering digits disappeared into the creva.s.se that I had never had anyone venture into before. It was barely the brush of a fingertip, the barest hint of a caress, but his blue eyes radiated with pa.s.sion and curiosity and his unexpected touch on that hidden place made me vault up on my toes and cling even tighter to him. He always seemed to find a new way to test me, to spark my curiosity about things I didn't ever think about before he came into my life, be they things related to s.e.x or things related to something deeper and more meaningful, like whether or not I was the only one solely to blame for everything that happened the night everything changed. I didn't know I had those kinds of boundaries and I reveled in the fact that he pushed me to cross them and to redefine them.

His mouth moved across my cheek and I could feel the tip of his tongue chasing water droplets that still clung to my skin. The sensation of hot and cold did wonders to spark arousal in my still-chilly and sluggish blood. His lips skimmed my ear and my legs went weak when his skilled fingers found their way to the one part of me that was most definitely not cold. In fact, it was scalding, burning, and melting into a liquid puddle of desire, all for him. "I've wanted a lot of things in my life, Avett, and I've spent more time and money than I care to think about trying to get them."

I muttered a useless noise into the side of his neck because he had dipped a finger inside of me and was busy swirling the scorching heat he generated around the stiff point of my c.l.i.t. The slickness of my own pleasure contrasting with the rough, damp, and chilly fabric of my underwear was enough to have my entire body feeling like it had received an electric charge. I whimpered his name and clung to his broad shoulders uselessly as his fingers moved between my legs, owning and playing with my wanting body while his words worked at fully possessing my head and making their way inside my difficult heart.

"Of all the things I've wanted most, none of them have made me feel as possessive or as desperate as you do. I want to have you every way I can think of, and then I want to invent some new ways to have you so that there is never any question about who you should be with. I want every single part of you to have some part of me inside of it, so that you won't go a single second without thinking about me and about how much I want you." I wondered if that included my heart because even though I knew this wasn't meant to be, there was a pretty big chunk of him in there already, and I didn't really want to pry him out of it.

I tunneled my fingers into his hair as he put his mouth back over mine and leaned heavily into him as he grabbed the back of my thigh, hoisting one of my legs up over his hip so that he had better access to that sweet spot that seemed all too eager to pulse in happy little flutters as he worked his thick digits in and out of the weeping opening. He made me so wet and that wetness was trailing a molten and heated path along the bend in my leg as he hiked me farther up onto his hard body and clamped me in a tight grasp as he started to lower himself to his knees on the uneven surface of the rock we were perched on.

I let out a cry of pleasure as the new position had me straddling his strong thighs and the distended metal of his zipper hit me right in my most tender of places. The sc.r.a.pe of his zipper against the lace that still covered me and the chill of it against the hot bundle of nerves, mixed with the sensations caused by his plundering fingers, took me to the edge of release in almost no time. I heard a bird squawk in irritation overhead but I was too busy trying to get my shaking fingers around his belt buckle to be distracted by the wildlife that were about to get one h.e.l.l of a show.

I wiggled so that the front of his jacket I still had on was open enough that I could get my b.r.e.a.s.t.s up against his bare chest. My nipples stabbed happily into his inked skin and I sighed into his kiss as I dragged the achy tips across his rapidly cooling skin. He growled at the feel of velvet and lace as it dragged across his flesh in one of the most intense and erotic caresses I had ever given to anyone. As soon as I had his pants open and his zipper carefully down around that always impressive package that was waiting for me behind it, he shifted his scissoring fingers from where they were working inside of me to where the fully exposed center of my pleasure was practically begging for their attention. My c.l.i.t knew his touch, perked up under the rough pads of his fingers, and quivered with so much delight and tightly coiled pleasure I was pretty sure I was going to die from it.

I moaned low and loud and was startled as the s.e.xy sound reverberated around us as the ravine we were in echoed our pleasure and the sounds of our delight as we ravaged each other. I helped him wiggle his jeans down far enough that I could get at the goods, but not far enough that his knees were going to get torn up on the rough surface he was kneeling on. One of his hands found its way beneath the jacket and curled possessively around one of my bouncing b.r.e.a.s.t.s as I ground myself against his quick fingers and the hard ridge that was toying with my eager opening. Quaid knew exactly what I was chasing down as I moved on him wantonly and without shame, unafraid of the cold or the nothingness that surrounded our heaving bodies. He worked my c.l.i.t until I was a blubbering and incoherent mess of need and want on top of him, his touch getting rougher and more firm the more wildly I moved and rocked on top of him.

I grabbed his pulsating c.o.c.k from where it was hovering right beyond the point I wanted it most, and lifted up barely enough so that I could drag the bulbous and leaking tip through my soaked folds. We both let out a strangled sound at the sensation and his leisurely teasing of my c.l.i.t intensified to the point that I thought I was going to lose my mind if I didn't come soon. The sensation of his air-chilled skin sliding through our combined warmth had Quaid swearing and me whimpering in desperation.

I dug the fingers of my free hand into the side of his neck and was gratified to see his muscles straining and his veins popping as I continued to rub him through my wetness and tease him with my opening. The tip of his c.o.c.k was more than wet; it was shiny and covered in both of our excitement. Personally, I thought I'd never seen any man or any man's d.i.c.k look better. Quaid looked s.e.xy as h.e.l.l covered in what he did to me. It made me moan out loud and did a lot to chase away the last of the chill lingering inside my bones. My body was doing its best to pull him inside, my inner walls quaking and clenching like they had been waiting for his c.o.c.k and only his c.o.c.k forever, like they were bereft and lonely without his powerful shaft to clamp down onto. I lifted up just a little so he was holding me to his chest and let that glistening and slippery rod coast through the creva.s.se where his curious fingers had been playing earlier. He could tease new and unexpected things, but so could I.

I watched his eyes widen and darken to almost navy blue as I wiggled my hips and rode him with a different, untried part of my body. We both started breathing harder and I could see the speculation and curiosity in his gaze. I liked the way he felt back there, liked the way I felt with him back there, so I made a mental note that executive s.e.x had some really interesting things to offer that I was definitely missing with intern s.e.x. Done with the heated and suggestive manipulation, Quaid tweaked the nipple he was playing with hard enough that it sent a jolt of pain shooting through my nerve endings. I jerked back from trying to eat his mouth with my own and gave him a scowl. His eyes had shifted from denim blue to a stormy slate and I could tell he was as done with the teasing as I was. His nimble fingers abandoned my desperate c.l.i.t and shifted to the side of the panties that were once again soaking, only this time it was from desire and need and not the mountain water.

"You need to get one of the condoms I put in the pocket of my jacket and put it on me, right now." I heard the sound of fabric tearing and a pop of elastic as the side of my panties gave way to the force of impatient hands and the slide of a chilly blade against my skin. I'd read about men ripping their women's underwear off in the heat of the moment a million and one times, but I never thought I would be on the receiving end of the action or that the man doing the ripping would be someone like Quaid. He was a Boy Scout, always prepared, but I doubted getting women naked in the heat of pa.s.sion was one of the uses that young scouts were taught when they were handed their Swiss Army knives. I admired in ingenuity and shivered at the thought that I was the one to make him let loose his uncivilized side, that I was the one that brought him back to his most primal self, almost had me coming all over the very rigid erection that I still had trapped between my legs.

My heart was kicking hard and fast in my chest as I stuck a hand in the pocket of his jacket that I still had on. "You brought condoms hiking?" I couldn't help the laugh that escaped with the question.

He grunted a noise at me and put a hand in the center of my back so that I could shimmy out of the tattered remnants of the underwear, and so that I could get a grip on his throbbing c.o.c.k. I angled his erection away from where I wanted it most, enough to get the condom on him. His feathery eyelashes lowered as my fingers rolled the latex down over the stretched and silky skin.

"I went hiking with you, so of course I brought condoms. I would bring them with me if we were going to the grocery store, or to the post office. I would grab a handful of them if I was taking you to church. I told you ..." My mouth fell open and my head fell backwards as he pushed against my hand and finally entered the opening in my body that was begging and weeping to be filled by him and him alone. "You make me desperate and needy. The time and place doesn't seem to matter. The only thing that does is that you let me in."

I was sitting on his lap, stretched wide open before G.o.d and country, and all I could think about was how sweet his words were as they drifted across my now flushed and rosy skin. He said all the right things as his body invaded and took me hard and fast. He spoke sweetly as he f.u.c.ked me wild, and there wasn't anything I could do to stop him from working his way even deeper into all those places inside of me he said he wanted to fill.

I was perched up on his legs in a way that kept my knees from dragging across the rough terrain he was kneeling on, so all I could do was hold on to his shoulders with one hand as he lifted me up and down on the straining shaft between us. I watched his thick c.o.c.k, shiny and glistening with our combined pleasure, as it hammered in and out of my body. The deeper he pushed in, the darker the blue in his eyes got, and the wetter I became. It was more than f.u.c.king rough and uninhibited. It was a joining, a connection between us that went beyond the way my lower lips parted so prettily for him as he dragged almost all the way out and then used the leverage he had on me to haul me back down so that it was almost impossible to tell where either of us started or stopped. We were one being, intent on bringing each other pleasure. We were one essence, focused on taking what the other person was offering and giving it back to them a hundredfold. We were intent on undoing each other with pa.s.sion and pleasure, and it really felt like we could mend the holes each of us had within us with the parts the other was leaving behind.

Quaid's other hand held me in the middle of my back, between my now-sweat-slicked skin and the heavy jacket, so I could lean backwards, the ends of my still-wet hair touching the ground. He growled at me to move the front of the coat out of his way as he continued to rock me up and down on his c.o.c.k like a piston. I felt used and manipulated in the best way possible. He was taking his pleasure and giving me mine and all I had to do was leave myself in his steady hands. As soon as my lace-covered b.r.e.a.s.t.s were revealed, his blond head swooped down and engulfed one pert nipple into the scalding heat of his mouth. His teeth sc.r.a.ped none too gently across the soft skin and it made me gasp in a mixture of pleasure and pain. I was lifting a hand to tug at his golden hair when his raspy voice ordered me to "Put your hands on yourself."

Since his mouth was busy licking and sucking its way across my heaving chest, I figured he wanted my hands in only one place. The place that was spread wide around his c.o.c.k, which pulsed and pounded in a rapid entry and retreat from my quaking core. Every time he pulled out just so, the hint of his swollen tip touched my folds and the frosty mountain air hit the wetness pooled between us, which made me catch my breath at the stunning sensation. Then when he plunged back inside of me, chasing the internal chill with his molten arousal, the sensation from the temperature change on such sensitive tissue was enough to have me screaming so loudly I was surprised flocks of birds didn't scatter from the nearby trees.

He chuckled at my response and repeated the action a couple more times until I got my uncoordinated fingers to obey his repet.i.tive command to touch myself. I loosened my death grip on his corded neck and skimmed my fingers over the nipple he wasn't loving on with his tongue and teeth, then that hand danced across the curve on my belly until I reached the place where we were connected.

The place that was all the best of all the things in this moment. Me and him. Him and me. Hard and soft as it collided with hot and cold. I shivered and my touch tripped through the evidence of how well we were working each other over, and when I got my fingers on that little point of pleasure, it practically vibrated at the first gentle swipe of my fingertip on the sensitive bundle of nerves. I groaned and slammed my eyes shut as pleasure, more powerful than any of the purposeful pain I filled myself up with could ever be, took over.

I felt it move through each of my limbs. I felt it pulse under the bite of Quaid's teeth where they were anch.o.r.ed into the side of my neck. I felt it in the way my nipples hardened to points so hard they physically hurt and I felt it in the way my body locked down on Quaid's surging d.i.c.k to try and keep him in place. My inner walls milked him, my channel spasmed around him, and every last bit of desire and satisfaction I had left inside of me rushed out and consumed us both. I wanted him with me, forever.

I panted through the o.r.g.a.s.m as it ripped me apart on the inside. I was pretty sure the intensity of it had turned my heart upside down and all the garbage that was usually inside of it was now dumped out. I could barely breathe, couldn't think past the fact that this man did things to me and for me that I wasn't sure I would ever deserve, but then he whispered my name against my neck and I realized he was still chasing down his completion. He was always giving to me before he took for himself.

I shifted on his lap, rocked myself up and forward so that I could get some leverage on the ground and began to ride him-hard. I plowed my fingers in the soft hair at the base of his neck, put the other on the side of his face so he couldn't move as I lowered my head to devour his mouth with wet, aggressive kisses. It was my turn to speak to him sweetly while I f.u.c.ked him wild.

I rocked my hips back and forth and kissed his cheek so that I could get my lips next to his ear. I licked the outer edge and then whispered softly, "You can have me any of the ways you want me, Quaid. I'm happy to let you in, as long as you know what's waiting for you once you're inside."

I wasn't sure if it was the words or the image that went along with them, because even though I'd never let anyone touch me in the places he had hinted at, the thought was intriguing and almost dangerous, so it had my spent and sated nether regions perking up with renewed interest as his hips bucked up hard to meet my final downward thrust. He roared into the wilderness like the primitive, animalistic man he was here, in this place with me, and I felt his entire, big body shake as his o.r.g.a.s.m rolled over him. I could feel his c.o.c.k kick and jerk inside of me as his hips stopped moving and as his eyes quit burning.

His chest was billowing in and out like he had run a mile, so I grinned up at him as he slowly lowered me the rest of the way to the rocks, making sure the heavy material of his jacket protected me as he settled into the cradle of my hips where we were still joined.

He lifted a hand and used it to push my now hopelessly tangled and snarled hair off of my face. He brushed the pad of his thumb over the crest of my flushed cheek and breathed, "My mountains are still standing after my hurricane blew through them."

I shivered and felt my heart squeeze tight at the possession in his tone. I lifted my arms up so that I could hold him to me. "At least, this time, there was minimal destruction." We both knew I was capable of so much more.

When he lifted his head to look at me, his eyes had shifted back to the unusual grayish-blue and there was an emotion in them that I didn't recognize.

"Don't be so sure about that, Avett."

Not liking the seriousness on his face after what had been some of the most astounding s.e.x in the world, I kissed him softly and rubbed the end of my nose against his.

"For the record"-I lifted an eyebrow at him and used my body to squeeze him where we were still connected on the inside- "I'm always going to jump and think the risk is worth it. That's part of who I am."

I couldn't tell by his expression if he agreed with me or not about the risk, but when I mentioned that I was on the pill and had gotten myself checked out as soon as I realized how deep into his addiction Jared was, his head jerked up and he seemed a whole lot more interested in the different kinds of risks we could take that involved having no kind of protection between us at all.

CHAPTER 14.

Quaid

I was surprised how easily I slipped back into the role of the guy that knew how to do without and how to make the most out of very little. The two days spent in the tiny cabin with nothing more than a roaring fire and Avett for entertainment were some of the most peaceful, relaxing, recharging days I'd had in ... I couldn't remember how long. I thought she was the one that needed escape from the commotion of her life but it turned out I was the one that really benefited from the forced unplugging and isolation. The quiet used to haunt me and taunt me with the emptiness and memories; now it soothed all kinds of ragged edges that I thought I had ruthlessly polished off. Plus, the way my name sounded when Avett screamed it or whispered it was so much better with nothing around for it to get lost in.

I felt like two parts of my soul that had always been ripped apart were slowly being st.i.tched back together, but Avett seemed no different than she was deep in the heart of the city. She went fishing with me without complaint and didn't even balk when we had to clean and cook our own dinner. She tromped through the woods with me, her pink hair getting tangled with pine needles and bark as the trees reached out to touch her like I felt compelled to do. I took her out to the makeshift firing range that had been an integral part of my youth and was shocked and, admittedly, impressed that she handled my firearm almost as well as I did. She laughed and told me that when you were the daughter of a bada.s.s, things like spot-on aim and not being squeamish at the sight of blood came with the territory. The only thing she complained about was having to use the bathroom in the middle of the night and it wasn't even that she had to use the rickety outhouse; it was the fact that she was afraid of mountain lions and bears that made her grumble. All we had with us was what we packed into the backpacks the Ducati forced us to use and still she didn't seem to be missing a thing. She was content with me and the woods for company and that did something fundamental to all the truths I had been holding up as my reality for so long.

I wanted possessions to matter because I'd had so few of them growing up. I wanted stuff to make me important and to fill all the empty voids my childhood, the fallout with my folks, and the sham of my marriage had left in my life. I wanted to have so many things and obvious material objects so that no one could ever doubt my success or my worth because I lived in a constant state of fear that someone, like my ex-wife, would decide I wasn't enough. I was smart enough to know it was a deep-rooted fear that came from growing with parents that were more interested in teaching me how to survive than they were in teaching me how to love or how to be a good man. Because I wanted an education, because I wanted a way out, because I wanted more than they thought I needed, they always considered me the weakest member of the family. I wasn't strong enough. I wasn't resilient enough. I wasn't solid enough or brave enough to be the man they wanted me to be. So I chased after a girl that I knew would never settle for the kind of life I came from. I threw myself into a fight for a government my family abjectly disapproved of. I went into a career that was all about rules and order and I took up on the side that was guaranteed to put me in the press and in the crosshairs of ethics and morality. And I got the stuff. Submerged myself in the things because I had something to prove.

Only now, I wasn't sure who in the h.e.l.l I was trying to prove any of it to.

The girl that currently had every single piece of me tied in knots and broken me down to my most basic, my most pure self, apparently didn't care about any of the shiny and opulent things I was surrounded with. She was happy with me wherever I happened to be, so there was no need to kill myself trying to show her the finer things in life.

My parents hadn't bothered to reach out to me since I let them know I bought back their land for them, and even then, other than to let me know that they weren't coming back to the lower forty-eight. Harrison and I used to be close, but when he left and my parents followed, I lumped them all into the category of what was. I never gave my little brother the benefit of the doubt. He might not know about my marriage ending, but I didn't have a single clue what he was up to, and how his life was going either. I felt like my folks abandoned me, but I'd never done anything to bridge the gap as I got older and maybe not so wiser.

If Lottie had been impressed, maybe she wouldn't have cheated or been so callous about how she treated the life we built together. I'd wanted to give her everything, and had tried, but there was always more, so I knew that no matter how much I worked or spent I was never going to have her look at me like I had done a good job. To her, I was always going to be the kid from nothing, doing his best to hold on to the girl that was out of his league.

There was Orsen and the guys at the firm. I worked my a.s.s off, took cases other lawyers were scared of, and I won far more often than I lost. I made them money. I fit the mold that was set out for me to crawl right into when I was hired, and I did it all with determination and my eyes set firmly on the big picture. But the reality of the situation was that no matter how nice my home was or how expensive my suits were, they still hadn't made me a partner, and I had more than earned the right to have my name on the sign. I don't know if it was because I didn't have an Ivy League law degree like the rest of the partners did, or if it was because my messy divorce had made the news, or if it was simply that they knew underneath the veneer I was a guy playing at being civilized and refined. I wondered if those jagged edges that were so apparent here in the wild and with this girl were blatantly obvious to people that hadn't been born with them. I wondered if who I had been born to be was keeping me from being the man I was so sure I wanted to be.

After waking up with dawn in my face and pink hair tangled in my hands, I woke Avett up by kissing her, and touching her, and warming her up in front of the fire. I hated that I had to take her back to a place that wasn't safe and hated even more that I was going to have to put her into the hands of other men to keep her protected and out of the trouble that so effortlessly found her. I could tell she was nervous when we stopped for a late lunch, and I tried to rea.s.sure her that once her ex went to trial and saw that his lawyer had a bigger interest than his at play, Jared would do whatever he could to cover his own a.s.s. I had a feeling his first night in jail without Acosta's protection would have him singing a new tune.