I don’t realize my fingers have dipped into my panties until the pad of my middle one grazes my clit and I shudder, my moan absorbed by the waterfall’s rush. My toes curl into the smooth pebble floor of the stream, the waterfall caressing me everywhere—my nipples, the sensitive insides of my arms, my neck. But it’s not the waterfall I’m picturing in my head as I rub myself faster, using my middle and ring finger now. I’m thinking of my stepbrother in sweatpants trying to hide his erection from our parents.
There’s a slight chance of Santana and Jess following me here and I really don’t want to get caught masturbating. Although they would probably high five me and inquire about my technique. Truthfully, I don’t have one. I’ve never felt the pressing need for release until meeting Vale. Now my body is on edge. Sensitive and starved. And I have to appease it.
In the interest of privacy, I duck beneath the waterfall and walk on my knees to the center of the hidden grassy knoll, flopping down on my back. Letting out a long, low moan, knowing I’m the only one that can hear it. And that freedom makes me twice as hot, makes me tease the ring of my entrance and press a finger inside of me, my heels digging into the earth, hips lifting, my gasp loud in my ears—
There’s a break in the sound of water hitting the stream and my eyes fly open.
I see the outline of a man and terror grips me.
I open my mouth to scream, but I never get the chance.
He moves like lightning, springing forward, through the waterfall, landing heavily on top of me, his big hand covering my mouth, catching the sound before it escapes. I buck and twist, my instinct to fight kicking in immediately. But it becomes obvious right away that there is no point. His arms are made of steel and there’s a precision to his movements that tells me I’m not the first person he’s had to silence in a cave. Oh God oh God—
“Lula, it’s Vale. You’re safe,” he rasps in my ear. “You’re safe, princess.”
Shock renders me motionless beneath his muscled body, my breath racing in and out of my nose. There is still a scream lodged in my throat, my claws out, ready to scrape. But now…now I’m just confused. Vale is here? How? I’m a hundred miles from home.
What is going on?
Keeping his hand sealed over my mouth, he looks down at me with glittering eyes—and I feel it. His hard shaft against my inner thigh. He was watching me. He was watching and being turned on by me. That was him snapping a twig out in the forest. Wasn’t it?
I know one thing for sure.
I shouldn’t be feeling relief right now because this man is Vale and not a stranger.
It’s actually more alarming to think my stepbrother might have followed me all this way.
Right?
So why is my fear ebbing? Why do I have the urge to let my thighs fall open?
“Good girl,” he whispers, nuzzling my hair. Still covering my mouth. “You don’t want to fight me, do you?”
How am I supposed to answer that? I should be fighting him.
Right?
“If I let go of your pretty little mouth, are you going to scream?”
I shake my head no, because what would be the point? He’d have my mouth covered again in a split second. And no one who came to my rescue would be a match for my stepbrother, the ruthlessly trained Navy SEAL.
His lips skate down the side of my neck. “I can’t kiss you if you’re screaming, can I?”
My clit throbs in response to that barely breathed question, my eyelids fluttering, trying to stay open. But his tongue bathes my throat, his teeth grazing the edge of my jaw and clamping down on my ear and oh lord, there’s a rush of wetness between my thighs. I’m confused and aching and appalled at myself, but that last part is fading. Fading under the inundation of need for this man, no matter how he got here. Or why he came.
Vale takes his hand off my mouth, immediately replacing it with his lips.
His male groan fills my head, his taste coursing through me.
His urgency.
My hands are slowly manacled above my head, his powerful body settling more fully against mine, his hips in the cradle of my thighs, that long, hard part of my stepbrother pressed to my sex. Ready. Demanding placation. I’m trying to stay afloat. Trying to make sense of what is happening, but he won’t let me. Won’t allow me to think. His tongue invades my mouth over and over and over, fuzzing my thoughts and heightening my arousal until I’m fully participating.
As soon as my resolve slips, Vale grows more aggressive, angling his mouth right, left, raking his lips down my neck, then back up, capturing my mouth before I can breathe a word.
“I was only going to protect you, Lula,” he says hoarsely against my jaw. “I was only going to keep you safe. But you went and got naked, didn’t you? You went and fingered your virgin pussy. My virgin pussy. Didn’t you?”
“I thought I was alone,” I gasp, not even sure if I’m making sense.
“Oh, you’re never going to be alone again.” He rams his hips up into the juncture of my thighs, making me whimper. “Meet your permanent chaperone, princess.”
His mouth stamps back down on mine, his lips urging me to open so he can tangle our tongues together. He keeps my wrists imprisoned with his left hand, his right one stroking down the side of my face to my breast, squeezing, rubbing the knuckle of his index finger against my nipple until I start to whine into the kiss, his tongue muffling the sound.
“Nod your head if you understand I’m about to fuck you, Lula.” His tongue licks over my ear, his hips rolling roughly. “First with my mouth. Then it’s all dick.”
A finger of tension traves down my spine.
He’s going to put his mouth on me there?
I mean, I was going to meditate about it for a while. Get used to the idea before I ever let it become a possibility in my life. With anyone.
But it’s going to happen so soon? With this man?
As if I need a reminder that he’s a bronzed, battle-roughened god, Vale sits back enough to whip off his shirt, revealing a wall of rugged muscle. Scars. A dark forest of hair. He’s the definition of a man. Built for battle. And his blue gaze is fastened on my wet panties like they are earth’s greatest offense. A second later he’s ripped them clean off.
Because he’s going to perform oral on me.
Oh my God. I’m suddenly hyper aware of every dimple on my stomach and thighs. How I’m going to look from below. Everything. “I…I…”
“Goddamn, princess, look what you’ve done to me,” Vale grits out, unzipping his jeans, that long, hard appendage swinging up through the opening, curved and heavy. I bite my lip to keep from moaning when he fists it without gentleness, squeezing it up and down.
Still, I try to close my thighs, shield myself, some evil voice—that sounds an awful lot like my mother—whispering in the back of my mind that he must be mistaken. “Vale, I don’t think—”
I have no time to prepare before he lets go of his sex, flipping me over onto my stomach, a hard slap delivered to my bottom. So hard it makes me gasp. “This body of yours makes me stiffer than I’ve ever been in my life.” He comes down hard on top of me, his harsh breath in my ear. “I’ll take a fucking bite right out of this perfectly plump ass if you ever close your thighs to me again. The pussy belongs to Daddy. Do you understand me?”