With her body still pulsing and shaking, she pushed up to look at his face. She’d half-expected to see a smug grin, but Ewan looked fierce and dark, his mouth glistening but pressed into a thin line. When his gaze met hers, his expression softened, becoming almost incredulous.
“You’re amazing,” he said.
She laughed, still breathless. “I think you’re the one who’s amazing, I mean, wow. That was . . . spot on.”
A grin tugged the corner of his lips. “Thank you.”
“Stand up,” she told him in a rough voice, her breath still hitching. “Get inside me.”
He obeyed at once. His loose pajama bottoms were around his ankles in the next few seconds, and he gripped his cock in his fist, guiding it inside her with a careful, steady thrust that seated him to the hilt in one smooth stroke. They both cried out. Grabbing the front of his shirt, Nina pulled herself up a bit to get at his mouth. Kissing hard, she let him fill her mouth with his tongue. She sucked it in time to his thrusts, making him moan.
She’d come so hard a few minutes ago that she’d been certain she wasn’t going to be able to get there again, but something in the way his cock hit her on the inside was sending spears of delirious pleasure through her. They fucked hard. Fast. The next time he gave her his tongue, she took it between her teeth and bit.
She actually felt his cock stiffen even harder inside her. Ewan gasped a cry and gave her his tongue immediately again as he fucked faster and deeper inside her. Nina grabbed his face, holding him to her while she once more savaged his mouth with a brutal kiss that ended with a nip of his tongue, then his lips.
“Yeah,” Ewan muttered into her mouth. “Oh, fuck. Yes. Please. That.”
The clear delight in his voice, much the same as when he’d been between her thighs, tipped her closer to the edge. A few more thrusts, his pelvis grinding her in just the right spot, and she was about to go over. Surprised, since it was never this easy for her, certainly not a second time, Nina’s eyes opened. She looked directly into his.
Ewan was close, she could tell. Furrowed brow, grim line of a mouth, sweat beading his brow. His thrusts stuttered for a second as she cried out, and then he bent to kiss her again. Again. Again.
Her nails, blunt and serviceable as they were, nevertheless raked at his back. His cock got impossibly harder inside her. They moved together, climbing and climbing and climbing, getting ready to jump.
Climax exploded inside her. She could only ride it. Rushing. Pounding. Crying out his name.
Ewan was right there with her. He shuddered. Kissed her again, softer this time. Slowed. Stopped.
She opened her eyes to lick away the taste of him, salt and sweetness and the faintest, barest bitter tang that might have been blood. She hadn’t noticed the way their limbs had tangled, arms entwined, her legs hooked behind his thighs. Neither of them moved at first.
“Wow,” she said finally, surprised to find she had a voice. “High-five. That was beyond the telling.”
Ewan burst into laughter and still inside her, lifted off her enough to slap her palm with his. “I’ve never been high-fived after sex before.”
“When it’s that good,” Nina said, “it’s worth a high five. Hell, I think maybe you deserve a trophy.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
“There’s something about watching a man putter in the kitchen,” Nina said as she sipped at a glass of fresh spring water and gave a happy sigh. She lifted the class to look at the clear liquid. “You know what, this is probably teeming with bacteria, and I don’t even care. It tastes so good.”
Ewan looked over his shoulder at her. He had a towel slung over the other one and an apron tied around his waist. He smiled. “Not like city water.”
“Nope. Reminds me of where I grew up. We had a well. City water tastes flatter, somehow.” Nina looked up from the plate of sliced apples, cheese, crackers, and a few smears of mustard they’d found in the cupboard. She licked some off her finger now and eyed him. “This mustard is amazing. It’s the real stuff. Grainy and tart and tangy, an explosion of flavors on my tongue. Sometimes things taste so good I can hard stand it. A lot of the time, food is sort of bland. But every once in a while there’s some combination of something that triggers my tongue. And it’s out of this world. Try it.”
He wiped his hands on the towel and took the slice of apple and mustard from her fingers with his mouth. She giggled at the nip of his teeth on her fingertips. Ewan moved back to the chopping board to cube some onions. “I love your appetites. All of them.”
They’d spent the past couple of days in a sensual splendor. Even though every morning and every night and several times during the day Nina made sure to inspect the cabin and the yard for any signs of danger, they’d still had plenty of time for exploring each other in bed. And on the couch. And on the floor. And in the hammock in the backyard, although that one had left them chilly and bug-bitten.
“Oh, do you? Well, I have to say I am quite enamored myself of my current view.” When he wiggled his hips back and forth, she giggled. “More, please.”
“This?” Turning, knife still in one hand, Ewan rolled his pelvis. He moved side to side, one step at a time, doing what he hoped was a sexy bump and grind.
Nina drew her feet up onto the chair. “More. Yes. That. But maybe after you finish cooking me dinner.”
“Right. Yes.” He made a show of getting back to business. “How many calories a day do you need to consume?”
“A lot. I don’t have an exact number. I eat until I’m not hungry anymore. Right after I woke up from the surgeries, I was ravenous all the time. I felt like I could never get full. It was all the work my body was learning how to do. Now I can get away with a few good-sized meals a day, if I get enough protein. But of course I can run longer on less than someone who’s not enhanced.”
Ewan snagged another apple slice from her plate and crunched it. “I like watching you eat.”
“Wow. All right, so that’s only the smallest bit creepy. Are you going to put me in a cage and ask me to stick out my finger every day to see if I’m fat enough before you put me in the oven?” she teased.
Ewan snorted laughter. “There’s an obscure reference.”
“Well, so far, it seems like all we’ve done here is eat and fuck. What am I supposed to think?”
“We took a hike. We read some books. Shiny fine, you read some books,” he corrected himself at her look and brushed a kiss across her lips. “And there was the time you tried to drown me.”
“You deserved it,” Nina said serenely.
Ewan chuckled against her mouth. “Besides, I can’t think of any two activities I’d rather do than eat and make love to you.”
When he tried to pull away, Nina captured his face with her hands and kept him in place so she could kiss him again. He waited, thickness already beginning in his cock at the anticipation of her nipping his tongue. He couldn’t stop the groan of pleasure at the tiny sting. She kissed him again, then let him go.
“Food. Now.” She rapped the table with her knuckles and gave him a stern look.
The knife clattered onto the counter when he tossed it, then he slid across the wooden floor to grab her hand. Nina yelped in surprise as Ewan pulled her to her feet. His bare chest and the thin material of his pants did nothing to shield the length of his growing erection.
“Oh, my,” she said. “What’s that? Is this something for me to . . . eat?”
“Why don’t you reach down there and see?” he offered nonchalantly even as he slid her hand over his skin, over the fuzzy, furry patch on his lower belly, and then . . .
“Oh,” Nina breathed. “What. Is. This?”
Ewan’s grin twisted when he groaned at the stroke of her fingers along him. “It’s for you.”
“I like it.” She nuzzled at his throat with a soft intake of breath. She pulled away far enough to look into his eyes as she let her fingers move along him. He grew harder beneath her touch. She let her other hand drift up along h
is side, then to his chest. Her fingers tweaked a nipple.
Ewan shivered. She pinched harder; his cock followed suit. Burying her face in the side of his neck, Nina pressed her teeth to his skin. She teased him with the offer of a nibble but did not bite until he tilted his head to offer her complete access. The sound of his hungry moan urged an answering one from her lips. She looked up at him again.
“I love it when you make that noise,” she said.
Ewan licked his lips and ground his erection into her hand. “I love it when you make me make that noise.”
“Hooray for both of us.” Her voice rasped as she bent to lick his skin.
At the next nip of her teeth on him, Ewan put a hand on the small of her back to press her closer to him. He whirled them both until the back of her legs hit the kitchen table, and she sat on it. When he pushed her firmly backward, nudging her legs apart so he could stand between them, Nina let him.
“Want to taste you,” Ewan said as he hooked his thumbs into the sides of her leggings and eased them over her hips.
She was bare for him in seconds. His hands slid up the insides of her thighs. When he reached her center, he used his thumbs to open her gently. He bent to swipe his tongue along her folds in one long swoop. Then again, this time focusing on the tight knot of her pleasure. His lips worked it, suckling softly until she cried out with a subtle pumping of her hips.
Her fingers fisted in his hair, holding him in place. Lost in her flavor and the encouraging whisper of her moans, Ewan reveled in the way she used her handful of hair to direct him exactly where she wanted his mouth to move. He could feel every tremble and tremor. He was so hard he ached, but unlike times with past lovers, when he would have abandoned his spot between her thighs to get his cock inside her, Ewan happily continued to pleasure her.
She arched beneath him, shaking, then tugged his hair sharply. “Oh . . . yes. There. Right. Fucking. There.”
She flooded his tongue with sweetness. He held her close while she shuddered and cried out his name. Then he pressed a soft kiss on her still throbbing flesh and moved up her body to kiss her mouth.
Nina opened her eyes. “You are so good at that.”
“Thank you.” He kissed her again then straightened to adjust himself. When he pulled away, Nina made a sound of protest.
“Hey!”
Ewan grinned. “That’s just the appetizer. Let me finish this up to get it in the oven, or else it won’t ever cook. And you’ll go hungry. And I can’t have that.”
“You’re something else, Ewan. You know that?” She sat up to adjust her clothes, then watched him finish up the synthbeef and onion loaf that he put in the oven.
He washed his hands and wiped them on the apron, then tossed it off to take the seat across from her. “Trust me, the food might be terrible.”
“That’s not what I’m talking about.” Nina scraped the last slice of apple through the mustard, topped it with the cheese, and handed it to him. “I mean just . . . everything. Giving me an orgasm and then not immediately trying to get one for yourself? I have to say, that’s not the usual experience.”
Ewan frowned, not wanting to think of her with other men. “I know you need to eat regularly. I didn’t want you to have to keep snacking, not when I had a meal ready to go. If I’d made love to you for as long as I want to before I put it in the oven, it would be breakfast by the time we could eat it.”
He stared, surprised at Nina’s frown. “What? What, baby? What did I say that was wrong?”
“Nothing wrong.” Nina got up from the table to straddle him. She took his face in her hands and then his mouth with hers. She kissed him long and hard and deep, breaking it when he groaned low in his throat. “In fact, I don’t think anything’s ever been so right.”
A pleasure rushed through him that wasn’t solely sexual. “Yeah? I done good?” His fingers crawled up her back on either side of her spine, over the strap of her harness, until they settled just below the sharp creases of her shoulder blades.
“You done good,” she said with a laugh, mimicking his folksy, put-upon accent. Nina kissed him lingeringly, then looked into his eyes with what seemed like wonder. “You’re such a surprise.”
He settled her more firmly on his lap. His erection had softened while he finished putting dinner in the oven, but her weight was nudging him back to full hardness. “Explain.”
“First of all, ‘baby’?” She teased the tip of her tongue over his lips but withdrew with a laugh when he tried to kiss her. “I did not think you were the sort of bro to call his woman ‘baby.’”
“First of all,” Ewan countered, “I just want to point out that you called yourself my woman—”
“Gah. Hush.” She interrupted him by pressing her mouth fully to his.
“ . . . And furthermore,” Ewan said into the kiss, “I’ve never been the sort to use the term ‘baby.’ I’m as surprised as you are.”
“I never thought of myself as the sort of woman who’d be into that.” She wriggled on his lap, taunting his thickening cock with the pressure of her body. “But guess what? I am.”
“Baby,” Ewan murmured.
“Second, you’re so thoughtful.”
He broke from kissing her to frown. “What do you mean?”
“Making sure dinner is cooked on time so I don’t have to wait. Putting aside your own pleasure to make sure I’m taken care of. It’s thoughtful. And I appreciate it.”
“But it surprises you?”
A shadow passed over Nina’s face. She looked solemn. “It makes me feel very cared for, and so yes . . . I’m not sure how to take it.”
“I told you, I’m all in.” He ran his hand down her back. “Just like you told me that when I’m yours, I’m yours all the way. I’m in this, Nina. All the way. For however long it lasts, risking all the regrets. I meant what I said. I’m in.”
“Thank you. For dinner. For taking risks. For being you.”
A glib response rose, but Ewan stopped it. Instead, he kissed her. “You’re welcome.”
“How long until dinner’s ready?”
“Maybe another thirty minutes,” he said.
Nina grinned and got off his lap, taking his hand. She tugged him toward the door. “Good. That’s plenty of time for you to get your own appetizer.”
CHAPTER TWENTY
She would get used to waking up next to Ewan, maybe, if they had time for her to become accustomed to it. For now, it had been a surprise every morning for the past week or so. Nina stretched, naked, enjoying the silence of dawn. Ewan snored lightly, and she rolled onto her side to study his face in the first rays of sun slanting through the attic window.
Nina had been in places others had called paradise. Idyllic beaches, serene landscapes. She’d never been as content as she was right now. This meant something, this rough and rasping thing between them.
Without waking him, she slipped from the bed and went downstairs, still naked but carrying her harness and gear in one hand. Naked, she went outside into the cool late autumn air and went through her daily workout of stretches. She breathed in, breathed out; she gave herself up to the flow of the universe inside and through her. When she’d finished, her muscles ached deliciously, and her upper lip tasted of sweat when she licked it.
She sensed him before he said anything. Ewan lounged in the back doorway clad in only the pair of low-slung pajama bottoms that had become as much his uniform while here in the cabin as her black leggings and long-sleeved shirt. His hair had grown a little too long and fell over his eyes as he watched her.
“God, you’re beautiful.”
She looked down at herself. Thick thighs. Strong calves. Her belly was curved but tight with muscle. Her arms, lean and strong. Nina had spent a lot of years thinking of her body as useful, but not so many believing it was also beautiful.
“Thank you, baby.” She had never been one for endearments, but they’d fallen into the habit of it out here in the wilderness, far away from everyone else. Whe
n they returned to the real world, things would change. So for now, she’d done what Ewan said he was doing. Going all-in. Full throttle.
Risking regrets.
“I made the last of the real coffee,” Ewan told her. “After this it’s synthbrew. Sorry.”
“It’s all right. Just means we’ll have to make the best of it this morning. Right?” She bent to grab her harness and padded to him across frostbitten grass, her bare feet stinging at the cold. She kissed him in the doorway. “I’m starving.”
“I made toast already. Got some kind of synthmeat turnover heating up, too. No guarantees on how good it is,” Ewan said.
“Considering that you made it for me, lover, I’m sure it’s going to taste delicious.” She paused with a small, exaggerated look of horror. “Oh, onegod, will you listen to me? Disgusting. We are disgusting. We are that couple at the party that everyone wishes would just find a private room, already.”
Ewan kissed her and pulled her against him. “Uh-huh. So. We’re a couple?”
“A couple of sappy saps,” Nina replied and kissed him back. “Mmm. You taste so good to me. I can’t get enough.”
She kissed him again, urging his mouth to open for her and sucking his tongue when he did. Between them, his cock rose. She stroked it, getting him harder, then ducking around him with a laugh and heading for the stairs.
“Need a shower,” she said over her shoulder. “Then, breakfast.”
“And after that?” Ewan called after her. “Maybe some umm . . . other stuff?”
His desire for her was a delight. Nina had been hit on plenty of times. Courted a few less than that. But this . . . this thing . . . was like nothing she’d ever had before. With a happy sigh she felt all the way to her toes, she got into the shower and washed herself quickly but thoroughly, before the water could turn cold. She even washed her hair, finger-combing it until it fanned over her shoulders and down her back. For a moment she allowed herself to close her eyes and lean into the spray.