Page 15

My heart was racing like it never had before. I’d been in some dangerous situations, but that was a whole other level. It was so dumb, I knew it was dumb when I took off running, but I used to do track in high school, and had hiked just about every trail in the Angeles Crest with my mother before she got sick.

I was used to rough terrain but had always been on mapped trails. Dima had warned me that this could be dangerous. Still, I saw an opportunity and took it, certain I could lose him in, make it over the mountain to another village, and disappear. Finally, be on my own for the first time in my life, with no one to answer to.

Less than a minute after my break for that heady freedom, I went straight over a cliff.

My life flashed before my eyes, and there wasn’t much there. Even in despair, even not knowing what lay ahead for me, I didn’t want to die. Especially not in a crushed mess at the bottom of a ravine.

Then, just as my sweaty hand was about to lose its grip on the sandy root, Dima appeared, looking like a god of thunderous rage as he gripped my hand and risked his own damn life to save me.

My heart kept pounding, the moment I was sure we were both about to crash to our deaths, refusing to leave my mind. He’d been slipping, inches from falling, and he still hadn’t let go.

I was tangled up on top of him, his chest heaving from the exertion, and I let my head fall to his shoulder, finally accepting that we were both alive. Without a moment to enjoy that revelation, he sat up, bringing me with him to clamp his hands onto my shoulders. It looked like it took him a supreme effort not to give me a shake, which, to be fair, I would have deserved.

But it seemed like he wasn’t actually pissed off at all. The look of terror in his eyes as he raked his gaze over my face shook me almost as much as nearly plummeting to my death.

“You’d rather risk your damn life than be with me?”

His voice shook with anguish that rocked me to my core. The feel of his hands sliding down my arms to grip my waist had me tipping over another kind of cliff. Without any thought at all, just instinct, I wrapped my arms around his neck and yanked him closer.

“Dima,” I managed to choke out before our lips crashed together.

His mouth captured mine with all the pent-up fury of relief that our hearts still beat in our chests. I returned every bit of it, clinging to him and spearing my fingers through his hair. Damp with sweat, his mouth hard on mine, his hands burning up through my shirt, all I could do was grip tight and moan against his lips.

An overwhelming need coursed through me. There was no negotiating myself out of this. Not even the rocks under my knees could break through to the last bit of sanity, because it was gone, all gone. There was only Dima and every exquisite feeling he was unleashing in my body.

Sighing with rapture as he slid his hands under my shirt, I released my grip on his hair to push at his shoulders. With a chuckle against my mouth that had shockwaves running through me, he eased backward so that I lay on top of him again.

His hands moved down to grip my backside, then his fingers teased lower to stroke along the edges of my shorts. My insides felt like liquid heat as I ground against the stiff rod pushing against my belly. He groaned, smiling as he swiftly ran his hands up my sides to take my face in his hands.

“Do that again,” he commanded, his hips rising slightly beneath me.

My eyes fluttered shut at the feel of him, the sound of his voice like rich, smooth honey. The fierce lust in his eyes made me hungry in a way I never experienced, and it was all too much. Then he gripped my ass again, his fingers finding their way between my thighs. With a sigh, I let my legs open to straddle his hips.

Now his thick shaft was nestled just where he could drive me the most crazy, and with no permission from my brain, I rubbed against him. More. I needed so much more. His kisses grew deeper as I moved, both of us becoming frenzied. I nipped at his lower lip, sucking it between mine, finally breaking free with a sharp gasp to rise up.

My hands firmly planted on his strong chest; I tried to focus my gaze on his face. So freaking handsome, all chiseled and bronze. Those eyes, dark blue and putting the sky above us to shame with their intense color, just about seared a path straight through me as they dropped from my face.

His hands slid from my waist up the sides of my body to cup my breasts, and I watched with a profound sense of power as his eyes drifted shut. When his thumbs brushed over my nipples to make them rise to hard peaks, my own eyes slammed shut to take in the sensation.

“Touch me,” I moaned. “Really touch me, Dima. Please.”

A second later, my shirt was over my head, my bra straps shoved down my shoulders. With a growl of frustration, he reached around and tugged hard, snapping it off completely. My breasts burst free into his waiting hands, and my head dropped back at the feel of his hot palms encasing them.

“You’re so fucking beautiful, Olivia,” he said.

My eyes shot open at the sound of wonder in his voice. He meant it. This god of a man really thought I was beautiful, and there was no way I didn’t believe him. I’d been called cute a thousand times, but rarely even pretty.

Never beautiful.

But Dima said it was true, and the way his hands worshiped my body, I believed him. He’d somehow achieved the miracle of not letting me be self-conscious when I was nearly naked in front of him.

The way he stroked and tweaked my nipples while feasting his eyes on me made me want to be all the way naked. I was wild, out in the middle of a jungle, with an absolute beast of a man who was not just encouraging this side of me, but driving it on.

I pressed myself down onto the pulsing rod between my legs, digging my fingernails into his shoulders when he groaned. Pulling away from him, I slid down to fumble at the button on his pants. When I had them open, his giant cock sprang out, and I gulped, suddenly not quite so bold.

Dima’s fingers twined in my hair, and he tugged me back to him to claim my mouth once more. When I melted against him, he rolled me onto my back, then began kissing his way down my throat. When his tongue swiped my nipple, I arched my back and hissed in a breath.

“Like that?” he asked and I didn’t need to look down to know he was grinning.

“Just do it again,” I demanded.

He chuckled. “I like this side of you.”

“Near-death brings it out of me, I guess.”

His mouth stopped its sinuous journey down my belly, and his fingers tightened at my sides. “Don’t joke about that. You scared the hell out of me.”

Before I could answer, he was at the waistband of my shorts, licking a slow path as he tugged them down my hips. I raised up on my elbows and watched as they ended up around my ankles, then as he tossed them aside with a look of triumph. Our eyes locked, and I could see how serious he was. About giving me every ounce of pleasure I craved, about claiming me, and most of all, the relief that I hadn’t ended up as a stain at the bottom of the ravine that was only a few feet away from where we lay.

I nodded, barely dipping my chin, and he pushed my legs wider, moving between them and nuzzling the inside of my thigh. My whole body tensed, waiting, craving, aching . Was he going to make me beg?

I was about to do just that, dying to see what came next, but he couldn’t wait any longer, as full of the same need that tormented me, and plunged his face between my thighs.

Oh. My. God.

My senses lit up, all over my body, making me lift my hips off the ground. His hands were there to hold me tight as his tongue worked absolute magic over the most sensitive parts of me.

Then he stopped, and I jerked my chin up to see him looking at me, eyes more intense than when he’d first saved me. “Has anyone ever licked your sweet little pussy before?”

“No,” I gasped, reaching for his head. “I—I’m a virgin. You’re the only man to see me like this, the only man who's ever put his mouth on me this way. And I need you to keep doing it!”

His dark eyes widened with merriment, and he chuckled as he went back to giving me what I needed. This had to be heaven on earth, and it only got better, the feeling coiling tightly like a snake about to strike.

“I want to taste you while you come, Olivia,” he growled against my slick folds.

He lifted his eyes to mine as he circled my swollen nub with the flat of his tongue, making the coil unwind inch by decadent inch. It became overwhelming, and I let my arms collapse so that my back hit the ground. Reaching for his hair, I pushed him deeper, moaning and gasping out his name.

His tongue pushed deep inside me, hard and swift, then he returned his attention to my clit. One swipe and I was fighting his firm grasp to rise up off the ground, shouting so loud that birds a hundred yards away fluttered out of their trees.

And he still kept going. I thrashed beneath him, fighting his hold, fighting for more of what his tongue was giving me. The coil released, and I screamed at the top of my lungs, my legs slamming together around Dima’s head, as if to keep him there forever.

For a moment, I was lost in sensation, hot and heady and so, so good, then I felt him ease away, pushing my leg up toward my chest as he drew close to kiss me. I tasted my own juices as he ravaged my mouth, his fingers delving inside me.

“Your pussy is so tight,” he groaned. “And so damn wet for me. I need to be inside you, Liv.”

The nickname had me wrapping my arms around his neck and kissing him hard. I lifted my hips as he pushed deeper, spreading my legs wide and stretching me.

“I’m ready,” I gasped. “Please, I’m so ready.”

It had only been moments since that cosmic release he gave me, but I was already straining for more. Keeping one arm locked around his neck, I tunneled my other hand between our slick bodies and found his cock. Smiling as he groaned, I wrapped my fingers around the silky, hot skin and stroked until my thumb ran through the moisture at the tip. He was huge, and my heart began to pound with anticipation.

“Hurry,” I said, but my voice wavered.

His fingers stilled inside me, and he leaned back, barely holding on as I continued to run my hand up and down his shaft. “I’m going to make you feel good,” he promised. “As much as I can’t wait to fuck this perfect body of yours until you’re screaming again, I will never rush you or hurt you, Olivia. You can count on that.”

I nodded. In this, at least, I believed him. And I damn well needed that giant thing to do what it was supposed to do already.

“Please fuck me until I’m screaming again,” I whispered raggedly, out of patience.

In the next second, he was slowly driving inside me. Agonizingly slowly, his thick cock stretching me to my limits. I winced, squeezing my eyes shut tight, but a kiss placed tenderly on the side of my neck had me wrapping my legs around his hips and pulling him all the way home.

We both made feral noises as he held himself still, until I ground my body against his, digging my fingers into his ass to get him to move.

“I need…” I started, not sure what I needed. Him.

“Oh, my angel, I know just what you need. Because I need the same damn thing.”

After the initial, tiny spurt of discomfort passed, I loved every second, holding on and letting him claim me as his own. The sense of power and freedom I felt, even though my legs were splayed around him, his body pounded into mine while his arms caged me beneath him, was extraordinary. The best I ever felt.

Until that sweet ache built up again, and I held him tighter, moaning into his ear to go faster, harder, never stop.

“Not until you come again,” he said, nipping at my earlobe as he did just what I begged for. “Not until your tight little pussy chokes the life out of my cock.”

“Oh my God,” I cried out, his words tossing me over the edge.

And straight into perfect oblivion. I still felt him pounding into me, and his roar reached my ears even though I was a thousand miles away. Seconds later, his big body collapsed onto mine. Our hearts thudded so hard it was a wonder we didn’t crack each other’s ribs, and all I could do was use the last of my strength to hold on tight.

After a few moments of gasping, he rolled to his side, pulling me on top of him and swiping his hands gently down my back to brush away some of the dirt and pebbles that clung to me. It was a sweet gesture, something the Dima I thought I knew would do.

Don’t start , I warned my brain. Not now.

The feel of Dima’s fingers running up and down my back overrode any unpleasant thoughts from breaking through the haze of pleasure I was still happily residing under. And the way he tipped his head to smile down at me kept out any thoughts at all.