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CHAPTER TWENTY

Violet

I woke up damp with mist from the waterfall, but warm in Wick’s arms.

“Where are you going?” Wick asked, reaching for me when I tried to slide off his lap.

“It’s light enough to clean up and change,” I said, waving out beyond the waterfall. “I still feel gross,” I added.

“Yeah, same,” he agreed, rummaging in his bag to grab soap as I got my toothbrush and paste.

We each crept out of the cave, stretching and enjoying the warm sun as we headed off in opposite directions, disappearing into the woods for a few moments before making our way back to the water, brushing our teeth, rinsing with water bottles, then each staring at each other as we started to peel off our crusty, muddy clothes.

While my growing desire was more discreet, Wick’s was a lot more demanding of attention, his cock growing thick with each layer of clothing I removed.

And if I wasn’t feeling so gross, I might have reached out, to touch, to tease, to demand the same in turn.

As it was, we both clearly wanted to get clean, dropping down on the green at the edge of the water, slipping our legs in and scrubbing.

“What are the risks of going in this water?” I asked, feeling like I needed the pressure of the water from the falls to get fully clean.

“Moving water is safer, especially waterfalls. There’s still risk, though.”

“What kind of risk are we talking? Are things burrowing up inside me? Am I losing a limb? Or might I just need a course of antibiotics?”

“If you’re just bathing under the falls, keeping it out of your eyes and nose, probably just possible antibiotics.”

“I think I’m taking that risk,” I declared.

“Wait,” he said, going back to get the first aid kit out of his pack. “Let me just smear some petroleum jelly over any cuts you might have. So long as you don’t scrub those areas too much, you should be protected from any nasties getting in through the cuts.”

So then we took turns smearing on the barrier on any tiny scratches or scrapes from head to toe. Which, yeah, wasn’t doing much to help the growing need spreading through my body.

But, all lubed up, we didn’t want to waste the jelly. So we both carefully padded into the water with our soap, sudsed up, then moved under the falls to finally, fully get clean.

My hair and skin were squeaking when I made my way back out of the water, spreading out on the ground to dry off in the sunshine.

Wick came with me, using one of his few clean shirts left to wipe the leftover jelly off my spots, then did the same with his own before leaning back and exhaling hard.

“This has been nice,” he declared, eyes closed.

It had been.

But it could be a lot better.

And the aching between my thighs had only grown with each passing moment.

So I didn’t even think twice about rolling over, then climbing on top of him, his hard length against my belly as my lips pressed into his neck, smelling of the tropical coconut soap that we’d both scrubbed all over ourselves.

A deep rumble moved through Wick at the feel of me.

His hands went around me, sliding down my back to sink into my ass as I teased with my tongue and lips, moving down his neck, then his chest.

His muscles tensed as my tongue traced them on my path downward.

Wick’s hands gathered my wet hair, moving it out of the way so he could watch as I took him into my mouth, sucking down his length as his hips rocked up, making me take him deeper.

“Fuck, baby,” he groaned, fingers tightening in my hair as I moved up and down his length. “Get up here,” he demanded after a few minutes as I moaned at the taste of his desire in my mouth. “I need to be inside you,” he added, pulling my hair harder.

His words, the promise within them, had me moaning around his cock before it slid out of my mouth.

As soon as I was above him again, he leaned up, sucking one of my nipples into his mouth, making me throw my head back and whimper.

He worked me with lips, tongue, and teeth before moving across my chest and continuing the sweet torment.

My hips shifted so his cock could press against my cleft. And then I was rocking against him as he continued to tease me with his mouth.

It wasn’t long before we were both aching for more.

Wick sat back, his arms braced behind him, his molten gaze on me.

“I need you to fuck me,” he said, his voice a rough caress.

There was no hesitation.

I rose up, shifted back, and felt the head of him pressing against me.

Sucking in a deep breath, I lowered down.

A whimper escaped me as he filled me, and my hips wiggled a bit when he was settled deep.

“Fuck, baby,” he groaned, hips bucking up, creating a delicious little pinch as he surged deeper.

His hands drifted up my sides, teased over my breasts as I started to ride him.

It wasn’t long before he lay back, watching the show.

“I wish you could see what I’m seeing,” he murmured, fingers sinking into my hips as I rode him.

I wanted to go soft and slow, to really soak up the beauty—the greenery, the sun on our skin, the waterfall, the man beneath me—but the desire was too demanding.

I rode him hard and fast, my whole body tensing as I got driven right to that edge, then crashed over, crying out.

Wick rocked up into me, coming on the tail end of my orgasm with a long groan.

I lowered down onto him afterward, resting my head against his heartbeat as we both came back down.

“You’re gonna get sunburn on your ass,” Wick said, giving my butt a squeeze.

I grumbled as I slid away from him, sitting on my butt on the lush greenery for a long second before I remembered, well, the bugs.

I rushed to my feet, grabbed my last fresh clothes, and set to cleaning up and getting dressed.

Between the deep sleep of safety, some food, lots of water, a great shower, and some toe-curling sex, I was actually feeling happy and floaty, despite still being, you know, stranded in the rainforest.

“So, are we—“ I started.

And it was right then we heard their voices.

Close.

Dangerously close.

Close enough that it was entirely possible they’d heard me.

We didn’t stop to think or try to run.

We scooped up our bags and rushed behind the waterfall.

Unfortunately, not fast enough, though.

Bullets lodged into the rocks just behind me, missing my back by inches.

“Fuck,” Wick hissed, pulling me with him, getting us past the waterfall just before bullets flew through it.

“No,” I said when Wick started toward the hole in the cave.

“It’s this or die,” he said. “I’ll go first.”

Then, throwing his pack through, he climbed into the claustrophobic hole and started to move through.

My stomach twisted, my palms sweated, and I felt dizzy with how hard my pulse was pounding in my ears.

“Violet, now,” Wick yelled from the hole.

He was right.

The shooting had stopped.

Footsteps were approaching.

It was the only choice.

With a whimper, I pushed my pack through, then climbed in, the cave gritty on my hands and legs as the hole narrowed and I had to wiggle on my belly instead of crawl.

My chest was tight.

Even gasping for breath, I couldn’t breathe.

Then a hand closed around my foot and pulled.

A scream I couldn’t have known I was capable of escaped me.

“Vi!” Wick reached into the hole from wherever he was, grabbing my wrists, and dragging me with every bit of strength in his body.

My body rushed forward.

And behind my feet, rocks crumbled, falling on my back as I was pulled through.

“Shit,” Wick hissed as more, larger rocks started to fall.

And more.

I was half-crushed by them as Wick desperately tried to pull me into the alcove he’d found.

“No,” I gasped as, once I was pulled free, more and more rocks fell.

The cave itself rumbled as the cave-in continued.

Little by little, the rush of the waterfall silenced. The light disappeared.

“No,” I cried, breaking free from Wick and trying to pull the rocks out of the hole.

“Duchess, no,” Wick said, grabbing me around the waist and pulling me back. “You could make it worse.”

“Worse? Worse than this? We’re trapped!”

“Yes, worse. We could be crushed. And die slowly from injuries.”

“Might be better than dying of dehydration or, like, lack of oxygen. Oh, God. I can’t breathe.”

“Hey, okay, look at me,” Wick demanded, framing my face, forcing my face up. “Breathe with me.”

He sucked in a deep breath, and I tried to do the same. Failed. Then tried again.

Little by little, the tightness in my chest eased, and the fuzziness in my brain moved away.

“I don’t want to die in here,” I said, my voice quavering.

“We’re not giving up,” Wick said, pressing his forehead to mine. “But for a little while, we are going to pretend to.”

“Why?” I squeezed my eyes closed, trying to focus on the feel of Wick instead of my own panic.

“So they think we’re dead and move on.”

“But we’ll run out of air.”

“Violet, focus,” Wick demanded, reaching down for my hand, then raising it up in the air. “Feel that?”

I didn’t at first, too focused on my inner world than the exterior one.

But suddenly, I did feel it.

A small gust of wind.

“We won’t suffocate in here,” he said. “We have water and food. And slowly but surely, I will get us out of here. Either from where that wind is coming from, or pulling the rocks out of that hole. We are not going to die here.”

“I want to believe that,” I said.

“You don’t need to believe me. I’ll show you. But for right now, let’s sit, breathe, try to focus.”

This little alcove was even smaller than the cave we’d slept in the night before.

When we moved to sit, Wick couldn’t stretch his legs all the way out.

He pulled me up at his side, then over his lap.

His fingers slid through my still-wet hair, sometimes stopping to rub my scalp.

Slowly but surely, the touch had some of my anxiety slipping away.

It was a disorienting kind of dark in our alcove, so that even as my eyes adjusted, I could barely make out Wick. Or anything else for that matter.

That low vision seemed to make time slow. And with nothing to do but sit there and overthink, I seemed to think myself to sleep.

But my rest was fraught with equally terrifying nightmares—falling into sinkholes, sinking into quicksand, being mauled by a jaguar—and I shocked awake still in Wick’s arms.

“You’re okay. I got you,” Wick said, arms squeezing me.

We did have that.

Each other.

Even if we were trapped in a cave.

Likely where we would die.

From a cave-in.

From dehydration.

From some weird virus from our careless waterfall bathing.

“Vi?” Wick asked as I suddenly moved my legs off of him, body wiggling as I struggled out of my shorts and panties.

I slid back over him, reaching down between us to work his button and zipper down.

By the time I reached inside, he was already getting hard for me, almost as wet as I was for him.

Wick’s hand moved outward, feeling around in the dark until his fingers moved between my thighs.

“You’re so wet for me already,” he murmured, his lips going to my neck, making shivers course through me.

His fingers slid inside me as mine stroked his cock. Both of us were unhurried, enjoying the teasing, the build-up.

“There you go,” Wick said, breath rushing over my skin, sending goosebumps prickling in its wake as his palm pressed against my cleft, engaging my clit as the orgasm started, then rolled through me, leaving me moaning against his shoulder as my whole body shuddered.

“Turn for me, baby,” Wick said, teeth nipping my earlobe as I came back down.

There was no hesitation as I turned on his lap, leaning back against his chest as his hand went around me, teasing my clit again as I rocked myself against his hard length.

“Fuck, baby, take me in,” Wick demanded a while later as I rocked and whimpered.

I lifted up as Wick fisted his cock to hold it for me to slide down on.

I did, my moan rising in the alcove as he filled me. The new angle had my thighs shaking and my sex clenching hard.

I leaned back against Wick’s chest, sucking in a slow, deep breath.

I was in no hurry to move, for this to eventually come to an end.

Despite what Wick said, I got the feeling that this might very well be the end for us.

And maybe it was crazy, but if I was going to die, I wanted to do it with him inside of me, with his hands around me, with his breath in my ear telling me how good I felt.

Eventually, though, we had to give in to the clawing needs in our bodies.

I rode him slowly up and through one orgasm before Wick shifted up, moving me onto all fours, then taking over, fucking me hard and deep, the sounds of our bodies tangling with our moans as we drove upward together. Before coming with cries of pleasure, bodies tensing and shaking.

Wick pulled me back on his lap afterward, wrapping me up tight, and pressing a kiss to my forehead.

Eventually, satisfied with this possibly being the end, I drifted off to sleep in the arms of a man that—yes, at this point I could admit—I had fallen for.