“Fuck, that’s it, Lara. Let me in,” I growled, burying into her clenching muscles.
It was hard to concentrate on anything except the squeeze of her tight, wet, hot pussy. Hard to concentrate on anything except the most destructive pleasure I’d ever known, ripping and thrashing its way through me. But even as my own orgasm clawed at the inside of my stomach, I managed to focus on her. The trembling of her limbs, the bucking of her hips. The way her arms thrashed against my grip, but I wouldn’t release her.
“You wanted me like this. Wild and fucking you,” I bit out roughly. I wouldn’t let her run from the pleasure that was coming.
“Please . . .” she panted breathlessly.
I knew every thrust brushed her throbbing clit against the rough rock face. Every pulse brushed me against her G-spot. Her incoherentcries spilled like a landslide from her lips, begging for something she couldn’t put words to.
“And I want you like this. Trembling and writhing because you don’t think you can take more of me.” I forced the words out, feeling every contraction, every wet, hot wring of her body milking me. “I want you like this, knowing I’ll always take care of you.”
Almost instantly, she went over the edge into another climax. I pinned her to the boulder and fucked her as she split and shattered around me.
She screamed, a sound of pure anguish and ache, and came again from the invasion of my cock. Her rippling muscles spasmed tighter, the waves of pleasure rendering her limbless under me.
Lara sagged against the rock, her legs giving way and impaling me even deeper inside her. A place that made me see stars and that made her—
“Fuck.” I released her limp arms and grabbed her hips, and I lost it.
My grip tightened and angled her higher for me. The only instinct I had now was primal. A mindless, wild urge to fuck her until we left marks in the stone, just as indelibly as she’d left a mark on me.
“Fuck, Lara,” I chanted, driving into the soaking wet depths of her, my hips smacking against her ass with each thrust. Once. Twice.
Head tipped back, my groan rocketed into the night sky as I came. Pulse after wet, hot pulse, I filled her until there was nothing left of me, either. Nothing except the way I wanted her. The way I—
Carefully, I slid out of her. Peeling her jelly limbs off the rock, she whimpered and sagged against me. I carried her under the shelter and cleaned us both before making sure she was settled under the blanket. I checked once more to make sure the fire had gone out and then slid onto the bed beside her, pulling her to my chest.
“I’ve got you,” I murmured against her hair, listening to the soft sound of her sleeping breaths in return.
I couldn’t take her pain or her worries or her weights from her, and I wouldn’t want to. For all the same reasons I wouldn’t let Colby beatme on our climbs. We don’t learn to survive in life by being spared its hardships. But I would hold her while she held them. Protect her while she fought her fears and soothe her while her worries cast her adrift.
I had one last confession for her. This time, I wasn’t going to wait twelve years to tell her how I felt, but I was going to wait until we found her sister. Until no other emotion or situation could make her question my love for her.
Chapter 33
Lara
“Damn.”
I lifted my head, pausing mid-tie on my left boot. “What is it?”
Calder stared intently at the sat phone, the hard lines of his face sharpening. I rose and went to him, careful of my loose lace.
“Calder—”
“Callum got a hold of the private investigator hired by Hannah’s parents. Apparently, he found two other women who were in relationships with Braun that transformed into a threesome with Maxwell. They said he was very controlling, though not usually violent. Things ended when he wanted them to move to Wyoming with him on a property he’d just purchased.”
Eden’s Children.I banded my arms. “Why didn’t they come forward?”
“There was nothing to accuse him of. The relationships were consensual.”
“So he started targeting Dr. Julia’s clients.”Women who were more vulnerable and easier prey to his coercion.
“Hannah’s boyfriend, Jack, told the PI that he thought Braun might have letters Hannah wrote to him. Before he could find any proof of what happened, Maxwell and Braun disappeared.”
“I wonder if they wanted Hannah to come out here with them and she refused.”
I could only imagine what it would be like for someone yearning for attention, to receive it from a man who captivated like Braun—likeEdenhad captivated his crowd yesterday, only for him to take that twisted love away. Or threaten to if she wouldn’t leave.
