“You good, darlin'?” he asked. I nodded weakly, then my eyes widened as I watched his hand pump up and down his rampant erection. “Got plans for you.”
“I’m game,” I said. “But I’ve got to tell you that I came so hard that I think I’ve lost all sensation in my lower body. I doubt that I’ll even feel it.”
Ripper shook his head, thunderstruck by the very suggestion. He flipped me face-down onto the mattress, then sprawled atop my back. “You trying to tell me that you won’t feel it when I do this?” He shoved my legs apart, positioned his cock at my opening, then rammed it in.
Fatigue fled and my benumbed nerves awoke, shocked into sentience by the undeniable presence of Ripper’s cock. “Lord have mercy,” I gasped.
“Lord might, but don’t look for mercy from me.”
He slowly drew his cock almost all the way out before slamming back into me, underscoring his point. Warm lips caressed my shoulders while his right hand slid down the length of my arm. Twining his fingers through mine, he held my right arm fast. His left hand claimed mine in a similar fashion. I bent my elbow and pulled his hand to my mouth. My lips seized his thumb, sucking it in and out of my mouth, mimicking the rhythm of his thrusts.
Heat consumed me. The sweat of our exertions, trapped between our bodies, pooled until it trickled down my sides and soaked the sheets. Hot and slick, our bodies glided together on a sea of sweat as he pounded into me.
So hot and so deep. In this position every stab of his penis battered my core and drove my hips into the mattress. Instead of shrinking from the bruising sensation, I gloried in it, grunting as I arched my pelvis to meet each thumping thrust. There was nothing gentle or sentimental about this. It wasn't making love; it was fucking, an act driven by the most primitive biological imperatives. Feral. Almost brutal.
An image flashed before my eyes. When I was a child, my aunt and uncle gave me a black-and-white tuxedo kitten for my birthday. Years later, Abby slipped out one night. I tracked her down in the side yard, and found my princess writhing in ecstasy beneath a rangy tomcat, immobilized by his jaw’s death grip on the back of her neck. Intending to rescue my darling from the thuggish interloper, I’d turned the hose on him. Abby turned on me, hissing in frustration.
I hadn’t understood then the bliss that came with being seized and mounted by the alpha male, pinned helplessly beneath him while he exercised his natural prerogatives. I was no pampered princess, but Ripper would make a convincing tomcat, streetwise, battle scarred, possessed of a swaggering virility.
I twisted my right hand from Ripper’s grip and brushed aside my sweat-drenched hair, exposing my neck and shoulders. Ripper kissed my shoulder. No. Not what I wanted. Frustrated, I sank my teeth deep into the pad of this thumb. He took the hint and bit the side of my neck, gently at first, then harder as I moaned and writhed against his mouth. A growl, low and bestial, erupted from Ripper’s throat as his teeth dug into my skin. It hurt, a stinging pain that brought tears to my eyes, but which only fed my sense of urgency. I thrashed beneath him, held fast by his teeth and my need, unwilling and unable to escape until he was finished with me.
Ripper panted against my skin, his thrusts increasingly hard and fast. A buzzing sound filled my ears and I blinked, trying in vain to clear the spots from my field of vision. My hands convulsed in Ripper’s fists, and I opened my mouth in a soundless scream as an orgasm rolled through me, consuming me. I trembled so violently that Ripper, his own climax come, flipped me over and touched my tear-streaked face, concern in his eyes.
“Shit, Mac, you all right?” I nodded, too dazed and breathless to speak. Ripper turned my head to one side and fingered the bite mark he’d left on my neck. “That’s gonna bruise. You want me to see if there’s some ice for that?”
“No.” I fingered the spot. “I like it.”
He arched his brows, clearly puzzled. “You like it, huh? What got into you?”
I rolled my eyes, sparing him the obvious rejoinder. Ripper groaned, pulling me against his chest. I yawned and despite our sweat-slicked skin, I snuggled against him. We lay in silence for a few minutes.
“Missed you so fucking much,” he said. “I fought like hell to get back to you and to Miles.”
I pressed a finger against his lips, cutting off his words. “I can’t...I’m sorry, but I can’t talk about Miles. Not right now. I just want to feel happy right now. I don’t want to think about anything else. Okay?”
He nodded. “It’s all right, darlin’. I understand.” He stroked my hair while the sweat dried on our bodies and my eyes grew heavy.
I jerked awake in a dark room, my heart racing and panic constricting my throat. “Ripper?”
Silence.
How many times during his absence had I dreamed that he’d come back to me, only to wake up the next morning to discover that my mind had played a cruel trick, granting my heart’s desire only to rip it away?
“Ripper?” Our reunion on a smoke-clogged Portland street. Our desperate flight from the burning city. The explosion at the dam and our race against the rising waters. I couldn’t possibly have dreamed all of that, could I?
My fingers flew to my neck and palpated the bite mark. I almost sobbed with relief when the spot stung beneath my fingers. Not a dream, then. I sucked in a calming breath, and it finally occurred to me to try the lamp on the nightstand. The light clicked on, confirming that I was in a guestroom at the Cherry Blossom Bed & Breakfast.
Everything was all right, except where was Ripper?
FOUR
Kenzie
The bathroom light was off; still, I stumbled from the bed to the bathroom.
Please be there.
Silence greeted my knock, and the door swung open to an empty room. I hovered in the doorway, torn by conflicting impulses. I didn’t want to overreact to Ripper’s disappearance, didn’t want to act clingy or desperate. But our separation was so recent and my panic so fresh that I couldn’t help seeking him out, just to set my mind at ease.
I shrugged on the robe, tiptoed past the other guest rooms and down the flight of stairs to the front landing. Moonlight revealed the empty living room and front hall. Pushing aside a curtain on the front door, I scanned the yard. Back home, Ripper sometimes disappeared at night, riding his Harley through the dark streets, or pacing back and forth across his yard. A solitary man, despite the ties that bound him to his club, he always needed time alone to think and make plans.
Following my intuition, I walked to the kitchen, peered out the back window, and saw Ripper’s broad back bent over some task. I frowned at the tarp spread on the ground beside him and the dark form stretched out across it. Moonlight bleached color from the tableau, rendering the images in black and white and silvery gray. Barechested, wearing only jeans and boots, Ripper was digging a hole. The muscles in his arms and shoulders flexed as he threw shovels full of dirt onto a pile.
Alone and in the middle of the night, Ripper was burying Frank next to Evelyn. One more gruesome task he took on his shoulders. Responsibility and authority came naturally to him. Bossiness, too, if I was being honest. Still, he never allowed his innate sense of responsibility to hold me back. He taught me how to shoot and how to fight, insisted that I be able to look after myself in the new world. Yet here he was, in the middle of the night, shouldering this burden alone.