Page 25 of Beneath the Mountain Sky (McBride Brother Lumberjacks #1)
I shake my head. “No, I don’t think it was any kind of ominous warning that our future was going to be complicated, if that’s what you’re asking. Just a freak summer storm.”
Willow doesn’t appear convinced. “That lightning and thunder came right after you kissed me.”
I grin at her, but it’s filled with a deep sadness that has seeped into my bones. “Maybe it was a sign that we’re so electric nothing would be able to keep us apart…”
If only that had been true.
Instead of looking sad like she should, given the fact that we aren’t together anymore, her eyes heat in a way I recognize that both terrifies me and reignites that flame that could never completely stop burning for her.
“Don’t look at me like that, Honeybee…”
“Why not?”
“Because you can’t.”
Her dark brows draw low over conflicted eyes. “Why can’t I?”
“Because you still don’t know the truth. In your head, we’re still…” I release a long, heavy sigh, taking her face in my hands as she looks down at me. “In your head, we’re still on solid ground, and in reality, we’re far from it.”
It’s more like quicksand slowly sucking us down…
“You’ve always been my rock, Killian. Don’t tell me you’re not solid ground.”
“I’m not, Honeybee.”
She shifts slightly against my cock, making it spring to life, remembering what it feels like to be deep inside her. Her slick cunt wrapped around me. Squeezing, pulsing. Accepting me no matter how I took her.
And God…
I want to take her now.
I want to wipe away any awful memories with better ones. Ones centered on the pleasure I can give her. Ones rooted in the connection we’ve always shared. I want to take control so she can stop searching for it when she can’t find it in this impossible situation.
“Even if things were different, you’re hurt. We can’t?—”
Willow leans down and kisses me, silencing my protest. Her lips move over mine. Heavy. Hot. Desperate.
There’s nothing tentative in the way she kisses, nor in the way her hips roll with mine, fully hardening my cock between us.
“Fuck.” I tear my mouth from hers, even though all I want is to keep going. “Your ribs?—”
“I’ll be fine.”
I shake my head. “I’m not going to risk hurting you. Not again.”
“Please, Killian.” Her eyes glisten with unshed tears, desperation in her wavering voice, and trembling body pressed to mine. “I need this. I need you. I need things to feel normal. I need to feel alive again.”
Fuck.
This is wrong.
The wrong time.
The wrong place.
The wrong circumstances.
Wrong.
Wrong.
Wrong.
But I can’t say no when she needs something from me.
* * *
WILLOW
Killian battles with himself.
That part of him that wants to protect warring against the other half that has always tried to rule him. The primal part. The part that binds him to this wild mountain.
His eyes darken to an almost navy, his desire as molten as my own.
He releases a frustrated growl before he fists a hand in my hair and rolls me onto my back, keeping one arm around me in an attempt to absorb any potential jostling that might cause me pain in my ribs.
But any discomfort is immediately swept away by his mouth crashing down on mine, hard and insistent, his tongue demanding entry in the way I hope his cock will be soon.
God, yes.
My body hums in anticipation, heat simmering low in my belly, moisture pooling between my legs.
This.
This is what I needed.
It’s been torture for the last two weeks.
Not only because I still can’t remember what happened to me, but because being around him and not being able to act on the way I feel, on the fact that, to me, this is how we should still be, was so wrong .
He tears his mouth from mine and brushes his thumb across my cheek reverently. “I know what you want, Honeybee, and you know I would never deny you anything…”
His other hand slides down and slips beneath the waistband of my pants to cup me between my legs. My body bucks under him at the brush of his palm at the apex of my thighs, and the twinge of pain in my side is well worth it for the flare of heat that courses through me.
He dips his head low, kissing his way across my cheek until his warm breath tickles my ear, making me squirm.
Killian supports his body on one elbow, ensuring the pressure doesn’t hurt me, even as his other hand shifts until the meaty part of his palm rubs against my clit.
The slightest touch makes me twitch.
“I’m going to help you relax.” His lips feather across my earlobe. “And warm up.” He nips gently, the flash of pain so fucking good. “Because you need to do both. But that’s all that’s going to happen, Honeybee. Do you understand me?”
I whimper, a devastated, pathetic sound that I wish hadn’t just come from my mouth.
He isn’t going to give me what I want.
He isn’t going to give me all of him.
I try to pull my head back to see his eyes, but he keeps his face buried along my neck and then shifts his hand to slip my panties to the side and glide his fingers through my wet core.
“Fuck.” His chest rumbles with his approval. “I’ve missed the feel of you.”
Fingertips play in my heat, barely touching, gentle strokes and feather-light brushes.
I gasp at the sensation, heat flaming up and tension swelling so easily with the simplest of touches from those familiar calloused hands.
It isn’t enough.
Not nearly enough.
Those light stroking fingers will be the death of me.
“Please, I need…”
He finally draws his head back, his eyes meeting mine, and I see the icy determination there. Killian wants me. I can feel the evidence of it pressed to my thigh and witness it in the way he looks at me. But there will be no convincing him tonight.
It’s too soon.
There’s still too much standing between us, too many things unspoken.
I won’t get all of him tonight, even if it’s what I so desperately want.
But Killian would never leave me hanging.
He will always give me exactly what I need—most of the time knowing what that is even before I do.
He slides one finger into me easily, and I groan, my eyes rolling back at the sensation as I clasp around it. Not enough. He thrusts in and out of me slowly a few times, still grinding his palm against my clit to increase the pleasure before he slides a second finger in, spreading me wider.
“Oh, fuck.”
With a slight shift of his position, his hard cock presses into my belly, assuring me he isn’t unaffected by what’s happening between us, even if he is going to deny me that .
He would deny himself rather than risk doing something I’m not ready for.
Fuck, I love this man…
And I want to scream it.
I want him to know it.
But Killian’s hand moves against me, those long, strong fingers stroking the perfect spot deep inside, stealing my ability to speak. His breath hitches near my ear. “Christ, you’re so beautiful like this, Honeybee. Do you know that?”
I nod, knowing that’s what he wants, what he needs—the validation that what he’s doing is working me up, that his praise is only going to build me up higher faster.
It’s always been a rush, knowing Killian McBride wants me .
That I can do this to him—have him hard and wanting when I haven’t even touched him.
But something about tonight, being in this tent on a desolate part of the mountain, makes each stroke, each glide, each touch ten times more powerful.
He tilts his head and ghosts his lips over mine as he starts a slow, grinding rhythm with his thumb against my clit and his two thick, rough, calloused fingers thrusting in and out of me, curling deep inside and dragging along my G-spot with each retreat. “You know I dream about how you taste…”
“What?”
I let my eyes open to meet his and find absolute burning sincerity there.
The blue that shifts from warm and inviting to sharp and icy with his emotions now swirls like molten flame.
He nods, his tongue snaking out across his lips. “I still remember it vividly. Think about it every time I take my cock in my hand at night. I can’t wait to lick it off when I’m done touching you, once you’ve come all over my fingers.”
Fuck.
Killian. Fucking. McBride.
This man always had a way with words.
A skill to make me unravel in his arms so damn easily.
Other people are intimidated by his bluntness, by his aggressive and demanding nature.
But not me.
Never me.
He uses it to command me when we’re like this, and it’s exactly what I need. For him to take control, for him to pull away all the uncertainty that surrounds me.
In the beginning, it was the lack of stability in my life—Mom’s addiction issues, uncertainty about whether I had a safe place to land—that led me to the McBrides’ door and eventually Killian’s arms as a safe haven.
Now, this mystery about why I left and where I’ve been has me lost. But his strong hands, commanding words, and the praise that lifts my heart also stir every fiber of my being and bring me home.
His lips move over mine, capturing another gasp as he increases his pace. “Are you going to be a good girl and come on my hand, Honeybee, so I can get a taste of that sweetness I crave?”
Fuck, yes.
That’s what I want.
What I need.
I whimper and nod, and he increases his pace as I grip his shirt in my fists, clinging to him like the lifeline he has become for me.
And not just in the last two weeks, but always.
My body starts to tremble uncontrollably, and not from the chilly air.
Each breath I take comes harsher.
Heat centers on where he moves his hand inside me.
I’m about to unravel.
And he knows it.
Killian grins against my lips, kissing me softly at each corner, then slowly flicking his tongue across them.
“I want to hear you when you come. There’s no one else up here for countless miles.
It’ll just be for me. So that I can hear it again, to have another memory that I can store away for when I need it. ”
“Fuck…”
Is that what he’s been doing for the last year?
Thinking about me?
Thinking about us?
And this?
That coiling low in my belly borders on painful as my release builds and builds.
Each expert glide of his fingers draws me tighter.
What the fuck happened between us?
That question drifts away as my orgasm finally hits me.
He swirls his thumb rapidly, pushing down on my clit, and I jerk against his hand, my pussy clasping around his fingers as he thrusts into me. Dragging it out. Catching my gasp with another kiss before I let out another long, slow scream of relief that seems to echo across the mountain.
Not just in our tent, but everywhere .
It consumes me the same way the fiery rush of the orgasm does, my release ebbing and flowing, rolling through me like the rapids do in the river a few yards from us.
The rapids that brought me back to Killian.
By the time I finally come down and sag onto the sleeping bag, a low rumble of approval vibrates his chest against mine, and he kisses each cheek, my nose, my eyelids, my lips.
“Fucking stunning. Every time, Honeybee.”
He pulls his hand from between my legs and out of my pants, and I let my lids flicker open in time to watch him slide his glistening fingers into his mouth.
Good God.
I’ve seen him do it hundreds of times, but watching him now might be the most erotic thing I’ve ever seen. His blond hair, disheveled from the hike today, hangs around his shoulders. His eyes sharp blue and wild, reckless, like he knows that what we did is going to have consequences.
He licks his fingers clean, groaning, and then grins at me just like I remember him always doing after getting me off—smug and satisfied. Then he leans in and drops his lips to my forehead, letting them linger there, his eyes closed, his body pressed to mine.
Time seems to stop as I live in the post-orgasmic haze.
Until he pulls away and rolls onto his back, tugging me into his side and settling my head on his shoulder. Several minutes pass in comfortable silence as I try to catch my breath.
His fingers stroke up and down my arm, a soothing, consistent rhythm that helps me drift back to reality slowly.
“Now, go to sleep, Honeybee.” He kisses my forehead. “You need the rest, and we have a lot to cover tomorrow.”
He means the hike down the mountain to the cabin.
A return to that limbo I’ve been living in for weeks.
No.
The thought of doing that makes me shiver.
Something is drawing me farther up the mountain, the opposite direction…
Another flash of towering stone walls flickers through my head.
“Will you take me to the gorge?”
He releases a long, heavy sigh that I think will lead to a “no” that I don’t want to hear, and continues to drag his fingers down my arm.
I can practically hear him considering my request, the cogs turning in his head.
The internal debate between not wanting to push me too hard and needing answers. “Do you think it’ll help?”
It has to.
I nod, giving my heart a few moments to calm to a more normal beat before I even attempt to explain it to him. “I have to know why I keep seeing it.”
It’s too clear.
Too real .
I must have been there at some point.
And I need to know why.
Even if I pay for it—one way or another—later, I can’t pass up this chance when I’m so close to another potential memory.
Killian buries his face in my hair, breathing deeply and tightening his hold on me for several minutes. Considering all the options. Debating with himself rather than arguing with me. “Then we’ll do it, Honeybee.”