Forest Whispers (5 page)

If he was wrong and they got off track,
they’d lose even more time.

Dismissing it, she surveyed the one room
cabin critically, realizing it was actually in fairly good shape.
It couldn’t have been abandoned long. Moving to the bunk that had
been built against one wall, she tested the mattress, cautiously at
first. When nothing crawled out, she dragged the mattress from the
frame and took it outside to beat the dust from it.

Corin was building a fire on the small
hearth when she returned. The light from it chased the deepening
shadows from the room, reminding Lana that there was very little
natural light left to take advantage of.

Tossing the mattress back on the bunk, she
set her pack on top and dug through it for her toiletries then went
outside to look for a well. A cylindrical stone wall defined the
top of the well. Setting her bathing supplies aside, she leaned
over the well and looked down. A crude crank and pulley mechanism
had been devised to lift the water. She caught hold of the handle
and began turning it and was rewarded a few minutes later by the
arrival of a bucket filled with water. Letting out a little slack,
she pulled the bucket to the side of the well and set it on the lip
of the wall.

She’d dabbed at her grime the night before
in the little creek she’d camped beside, but it had been barely a
trickle of water, not enough to do much more than dabble in it.
Stripping, she set her clothes aside, grasped the bucket, and
upended it over her head. The douche of chilly water took her
breath. Gasping, she dropped the bucket down the shaft once more
and filled it before she began lathering her hair. When she’d
finished scrubbing her scalp, she squeezed as much soap and water
out of her hair as she could. She was about to reach for the bucket
to rinse her hair when a sound close by sent a rush of adrenaline
through her.

She grabbed her knife even as she whirled to
face the possible threat.

Corin, she saw, was standing only a few
yards away, either drawn by the sound of splashing water, or merely
curious to know why she’d been gone so long. Relaxing, she dropped
the knife atop her belongings once more and reached for the bucket
again. Corin forestalled her. Striding toward her, he took the pail
of water from her hands and held it up, tipping it so that the
water poured over her slowly.

“
Thanks.” She turned her back to him,
working the soap from her hair. When he’d emptied it, she took the
container from him and brought up another bucket of water. Corin,
she saw when she glanced around for her soap and washcloth, was
stripping down, as well. When she’d lathered the cloth, she handed
the soap to him wordlessly and returned her attention to her own
bath.

It occurred to her as she finished lathering
herself that she hadn’t noticed that Corin had had a washcloth.
Turning to him, she held hers out, smiling faintly. “This’ll
probably make bathing a little easier if you’d like to use it.”

His face was taut as he glanced down at her
hand. Slowly, he lifted his gaze to hers once more and reached for
the cloth without even glancing down. Instead of grasping the
cloth, however, he caught her hand, giving her arm a jerk that
brought her toward him even as he stepped closer, meeting her. She
collided with him, her wet, soapy skin sliding along his, creating
a friction of slick flesh against flesh that sent a surge of heady
desire through her. Even as her head came up in surprise, he caught
her hair at the base of her skull, tugging her head back with one
hand, slipping his other arm around her and tightening it, bringing
her lower body firmly against his.

His engorged cock dug into her belly as he
settled his mouth over her slightly parted lips possessively, with
full fledged, ravenous hunger. Lana sucked in a breath of surprise
as his tongue plowed past the sensitive barrier of her lips, raking
across hers in heated demand.

The slight tension of astonishment vanished,
replaced almost instantaneously with the drugging fire of passion
as he filled her senses with his essence, wrapped her in heated
flesh and taut muscle.

Doubt flickered through the clouded turmoil
of her mind. He’d objected before to casual sex and moreover she
knew very well that intimacy was a very bad idea considering her
situation.

She dismissed both warnings, already too
caught up in the fervor of desire to pay anything else much heed,
comforting herself with the thought that they’d established the
boundaries and that she would merely guard herself against the
possible threat intimacy could create.

Lifting her arms, she skated her palms over
the bulging muscles of his upper arms, along his shoulders and
finally looped her arms around his neck. Enthralled by the
sensations created by their soap slick bodies skating against each
other, clinging, slipping in stimulating contact that brought a
flush of heat to her flesh at every point where they touched, Lana
moved restlessly against him. Her nipples stood erect, sending
shards of pleasure through her as she rubbed them against the hard
mound of his male breasts. Scalding fluids bathed the throat of her
sex, the muscles rippling as they tightened and released all along
the length of her passage as if she could feel his turgid flesh in
her grip already.

She rose up on her tiptoes, reaching down to
push his cock between her thighs and clamping them around his
throbbing member. He ground his hips against hers, sliding his cock
along her cleft and gathering the moisture of her desire, sending
hot need through her as he massaged her clit. His kiss became more
fervent, more desperate with longing.

Skating his hand downward from her hips to
her buttock, he clenched it a moment and then leaned down, catching
her leg beneath her knee and lifting her thigh. She swayed
backwards, coming up against the wall of the well. The chill and
roughness of the stone brought forth a dim of awareness of her
surroundings. In the next moment, however, it was submerged beneath
an onslaught of hot desire as he thrust against her cleft once
more.

Reaching down, she caught his cock and
angled her hips to receive him, pressing against his thrust until
she felt the head of his cock embedded in her flesh. Reaching up,
she grasped his shoulders and lifted herself up, wrapping both legs
around his waist.

Wrenching his mouth from hers, he caught her
buttocks in his hands. Briefly, they struggled with slippery flesh
and resistant muscles, heaving against one another until his cock
was fully embedded inside of her. She groaned at the pleasure of
such intimate contact, at the tremors of pleasing sensation that
built tension inside of her as he began thrusting fiercely, driving
deeply inside of her.

A faint tremor went through him, growing
rapidly to hard shudders as his body swiftly scaled the ladder of
passion toward release. His escalating passion built her own until
she felt the first gentle quakes of culmination. She groaned,
hovering near the edge for several moments. She cried out as she
felt herself catapulted abruptly into an intense explosion of
rapture that spread outward from their joined bodies through every
molecule of her flesh.

A rasping groan escaped him. His arms
tightened almost bruisingly around her as his own body began to
convulse with release. Swaying slightly as the spasms began to
subside, he caught the edge of the well with one hand to brace
himself.

Lana lifted away from him, shivering as she
felt his expended cock slip from her body. Weakly, she released her
grip on his waist and dropped her feet to the ground. Her thighs
trembled as she settled her weight on her legs. Leaning against the
wall behind her, she released her grip on his neck, bracing her
palms behind her on the low wall as she caught her breath.

The air cooled the moisture that remained on
her skin, drying the soap bubbles and making her feel sticky. With
an effort, she turned away from Corin, wondering if she had enough
strength in her arms to lift the bucket and rinse herself. Deciding
she didn’t, she scooped water from the bucket and splashed it over
her cooling body.

Corin reached around her and lifted the
bucket, tilting it and allowing the water to run over her slowly.
Grateful for the assistance, she rubbed her hands along her body,
sloughing both soap and water from her skin. When he’d emptied it,
he dropped the pail down the well once more and Lana moved away
from him. Grabbing her towel, she dried herself quickly as Corin
rinsed himself off, then tossed the towel to him, gathered her
belongings, and headed back to the cabin.

He caught up to her in the cabin. Pulling
her pack from her hands, he dropped it to the floor and dragged her
into his embrace, kissing her with a hunger that belied their
recent appeasement. Lana made a sound of objection in her throat
but found as he pushed her back onto the bed and followed her down
that her own body was already humming once more with need.

Ignoring her protest for what it was—no more
than a token resistance—he familiarized himself with the taste and
texture of her skin, lavishing kisses along her neck and the tops
of her breasts with his mouth and tongue before moving downward,
between her breasts and down the center of her body to her lower
belly. By the time he’d worked his way upward once more, grasping a
breast in one hand and teasing the nipple with the flick of his
thumb as he sucked the nipple of her other breast into his mouth,
Lana felt as if she was on fire. She could scarcely catch her
breath, could not be still.

Parting her thighs, she positioned herself
beneath him, arching her hips upward so that his cock nudged
against her clit. He caught her hands, lacing his fingers through
hers and pinning her arms to the bed as she tried to reach between
them to align their bodies. Before she could protest, he covered
her mouth with his own, penetrating the sensitive cavern with his
thrusting tongue in an imitation of the mating ritual that teased
rather than fulfilled her needs.

Dizzying heat swept through her. She sank
more deeply into the chaotic chasm of carnality, unable to focus
beyond the need he continued to build inside of her with each
stroke of his tongue along her own. She moved feverishly beneath
him, arching against him and shuddering as his cock slid tauntingly
along her cleft, stirring a craving that demanded appeasement.

When he broke the kiss, she was gasping
hoarsely, her heart thundering with anticipation as he shifted
above her. Instead of thrusting inside of her, however, he lowered
his head and began to tease the sensitive buds of her breasts.

“
Damn it, Corin!” she gasped. “Stop
teasing me! Give me what I need.”

He lifted his head, his eyes glimmering with
heated desire, his lips curled faintly, teasingly. He arched
against her so that his cock slipped between her thighs once more,
along her cleft and nudged against her opening. “This?”

She looked up at him with a mixture of
desperation and dawning anger.

Frowning at the accusation in her gaze, he
shook his head slightly, thrusting steadily and sinking more deeply
inside of her. She gasped, arching up to meet him as he withdrew
and thrust again.

A shudder went through him as he sank to the
root of his cock inside of her. He went still, gathering himself,
struggling for control. Impatient, Lana clenched and unclenched her
vaginal muscles around him, squeezing his cock in a milking motion
that drew a hoarse groan from him.

He ground his teeth as he pulled slowly out
and thrust again, shaking with the effort to pace himself. When he
was buried deep inside of her again, she lifted her legs, locking
them around his waist and thrusting up to meet him, fisting the
muscles of the walls of her sex around him tightly again.

It pushed him beyond his limits. Shaking, he
released her hands at last and shoved his hands beneath her hips,
thrusting and retreating in an aggressive rhythm that drew hoarse
cries of satisfaction from her as his movements jolted her over the
edge and into an explosive release. Her convulsing muscles dragged
him over the edge with her.

With obvious effort, he held his weight off
her with his arms, his head drooping forward on his shoulders next
to hers. Moments passed, finally he lifted slightly away from her.
Catching her jaw in his hand, he forced her to look up at him. “I
only meant to savor the pleasure a little longer. It was not as you
thought.”

Lana studied him through heavy lidded eyes,
uncertain of whether she believed him or not. At the moment, she
didn’t particularly care one way or the other, however. She felt
supremely satisfied, completely devoid of energy, and so drowsy all
she really wanted to do was sleep. “The bed’s not big enough for
two,” she murmured irritably.

He sighed, settling beside her on his side
and staring down at her. After a moment, however, he seemed to come
to a decision. Scooping an arm beneath her head, he dragged her
halfway across his chest and held her there until oblivion reached
up and snatched consciousness away from her.

The darkness of night had only begun to lift
when Lana woke. Yawning, she stretched—and rolled off the narrow
bed. The jolt of slamming into the floor brought her wide awake.
When she managed to turn over and look up, Corin was peering down
at her over the edge of the bed, a mixture of wariness and firmly
tamped amusement gleaming in his eyes.

She glared at him. “I told you the damn bed
wasn’t big enough for two.”

His amusement vanished. “You are an ill
tempered female most of the time. In the morning, you are
worse.”

“
I feel better when I’ve slept,” she
pointed out irritably.

“
You
slept
like the dead,” he retorted.