Natural Instincts (6 page)

Fear brushed me, memory of the last time I’d been kissed and what had befallen me. It had been a tremendous betrayal of trust. As though he sensed my fear, he pulled back. I looked into his eyes as his fingers slid down my cheek, leaving a trace like a tear. But I had made my decision—I had become his, and what I saw in his steady, deep gaze assured me it was all right.

Jon
, I remembered. His brother had called him Jon. The name fit him.

With one hand still on the gunwale, Jon began to swim, pulling the canoe up to the island. The bow fit into his little path. He stood in waist-deep water and steadied me as I stiffly climbed onto land. My knees were killing me as I straightened. Before I could even take a step, he swept me into his arms—I only had time for a confused second to appreciate that he was taller than I was, and much stronger, and very nude—and then he was carrying me to a little clearing between two of the pine trees, carpeted with a bed of fallen needles and screened from all angles by tall, bending grass. He’d brought my towel and somehow spread it before he laid me on it and sat down next to me.

He groaned. “Damn, Kyle, you have no idea how hard I fought this!”

I knew then that this relationship would be different in every possible way. And yet I understood perfectly what he meant, and I would not have had him feel any other way. I’d had my fill of people who went after what they wanted without a thought for the consequences.

“And you have no idea how badly I wanted to hold you yesterday while you were alone and hurting,” he added.

I could feel myself trembling a little. Jon took my breath away. How wonderful it would have been yesterday to have spent the spell safe in his arms. It even would have been wonderful to have had help pitching the tent when the rainbow was flashing. I’d been taking care of myself for so long…. I refused to acknowledge the little tendril of logic asking what a relationship with a man who was also a loon was going to look like. We’d figure that out as we went.

Had I ever been willing to do that before? I, who always needed everything organized well ahead of time?

Jon spoke again. “I had a feeling you heard my brother and me talking. You came back for your ice, didn’t you?”

I nodded.

He touched a strand of my hair, played with it between his fingers as though he couldn’t quite help himself. He was very tactile. Despite how I usually didn’t like to be touched, I felt myself relaxing more and more as I gazed up at him, lying where he’d put me.

“I’m sorry you had to learn about things that way. I didn’t realize you were there until you ran away. I felt a terrible loss.” Jon drew a breath, his fingers still in my hair. “I meant to leave the state, I really did. But I’d just lost something I’d never known I wanted. It was a horrible feeling. Besides, how could I leave when you were in pain? Kyle, does that happen to you often?”

I was having trouble keeping up with him and my own emotions at the same time. His gaze never wavered from me. He sat very still. Even his hair didn’t move. It was very long, down to his shoulders. Like mine. I expected his would be full and thick when it was dry. Despite the sense of age I was getting from him, I also got the feeling he was very young. Experience and innocence at once? When I first saw him, he’d been so angry and I’d been afraid. But now he was different. In a good way.

I shrugged in response to his question. When I was stressed, spells came often. Which I was, most of the time.

Jon nodded as though he’d understood and kept talking.

“I’m sorry this happened without your consent. But you’re taking it incredibly well. You must have a thousand questions, and I’ll try not to drive you insane, all right?”

I hadn’t expected him to be so—outgoing? It was endearing and reinforced how young he seemed. Since I hadn’t considered myself sane for years, I wasn’t too worried about that. Yeah, I had questions, lots of them, but my only issue right now was that he’d stopped stroking my hair, and I wanted him to keep doing it. All the details and explanations could be worked out later. After being alone so long, now that I’d decided to trust, my body was making its needs known in a big way. The rigid controls I’d held my emotions under had burst wide open, and there was no reining them back in until they got what they needed.

My heart was pounding. I pulled off my shirt.

Jon stared down at me, looking a little startled. He had self-restraint. Likely he wanted to get to know me better before…. We were moving pretty fast. Way faster than I’d ever dreamed I would. The very strangeness of this situation should have made all kinds of flags go up in my mind. I’d never believed in love at first sight, or even in love at all, at least when it applied to me. Not after what had happened the last time.

And yet…. This was different. He was different. This was
right
. And that was the best I knew how to explain it.

My swimming trunks weren’t hiding what I was feeling at all. I felt my face get hot. Never in my wildest dreams had I acted this way. But this new me was holding nothing back, and I wasn’t about to get in its way. I kicked off my sandals, in case he wasn’t getting the message.

He was. As he turned fully toward me, lowering the leg he’d had raised between us, I saw where his mind had gone too. Some last, tenuous shred of self-control fled, and I shed my swimming trunks. Gloriously naked, I stretched to my fullest, letting my arms fall above my head, tipping my chin up. I saw the sky for a moment, all misty and soft, and then Jon’s body blocked my view. I arched my hips up to him as he let his weight down on me.

I felt myself melt.

He gasped at my complete and instant submission. Did he understand what I was seeking? His hands slid up my arms to my wrists. I saw him register the rope scars there, and I saw him glance swiftly at the one around my neck, invisible unless seen up close. Then he took my wrists and drew them together above my head. Oh yes. He understood!

“Kyle?” he breathed. “Is this…?”

I nodded, boneless. He held my hands in place with one hand and reached down with the other to find my right nipple. For a second he rolled it between his fingers, and then he pinched harder and harder until I was writhing in silent ecstasy beneath him.

“Oh, Kyle,” he whispered. “Oh, how are you so perfect?”

My brain was going to a place that made it impossible to think clearly. It frightened me, but I pushed past it, coming quickly to the place where I could let go, relinquish control. And how I wanted to!

A second later Jon grabbed my discarded shirt and tied my wrists with it. For a briefest instant, I was afraid my fear of being confined was going to return, but then I knew with an overwhelming sense of security that there was no way Jon would ever forget me. A moment later my rolled-up trunks became a blindfold. I almost came right then.

“Listen, if it’s too much, you kick me twice, okay?” he said, and I think I nodded, but my world was narrowing down to what his incredible hands and lips were doing to both my nipples at once. Then his mouth went lower and lower. I gasped when he took me in his hands, pulling and stroking me into an erection like none I’d ever had before. The touch of his tongue on my tip almost made me lose it again.

“Not yet, not yet,” he said. And I could not disobey him. This was so much more than sex. This was a whole other world.

He worked back and downward.

There wasn’t enough air to breathe as he spread me and slipped a finger inside. It burned and hurt, in a wonderful way.
He’s inside me
, I thought.
A man is inside me.

Someone cares enough to want to be inside
me
.

It was an intense realization.

Before I could savor it, the finger slid out. It returned very soon, much moister than before. Since he hadn’t touched me again with that hand, I knew where the moisture had to have come from. The thought that he was being that aroused by me made such a wave of desire sweep through my body that I rammed myself down over his finger, so hard he cried out, but there was no stopping me. I was like something possessed, wanting more and more and wanting it
now
! I struggled against my bonds until his hands spread me. Warm and moist, opening me. His pulsing, hot cock filled me in one solid push. Pain, but so much more. I lay still, my legs spread, utterly claimed. He lay over me, so heavy, his hair falling about my face. We were motionless.

The knowledge that loons mate for life pulsed though my mind.

He waited until I went boneless again. Then his fingers went for my nipples, and fire spread outward through me again. His mouth covered mine. When I was breathing only when he let me, he began to thrust. With each one, everything I’d ever thought I knew spiraled away into blissful oblivion.

When we came, I finally understood in one stupendous, lightning-bright flash: all the knowledge in the world was nothing in comparison to sharing love with someone else.

U
TTERLY
EXHAUSTED
,
I fell asleep afterward, or passed into some dreamlike state where I rested. The last thing I remembered was him gently freeing me, and that was all it took to let me fade, deeply aware of a sense of security stronger than anything I’d ever felt before. Perhaps urging this to happen so quickly had been my way of testing him. I’d needed to know up front if I could trust him. Now I could relax and get to know him. Backward, perhaps, but it worked for me.

I woke hungry when it started to get dark. Jon sat beside me in human form, gazing at me as if I were some kind of work of art instead of the other way around. I’d never imagined being so appreciated. He was stroking my hair.

I smiled. Then I arched my back slightly, offering myself to him again.

He smiled back but shook his head. “I’m sorry, but I really should get some food into me. Before tonight. Worrying about you has wreaked havoc with my schedule lately.”

Immediately I felt concern. Tonight, when he needed to—what did he do? I still didn’t know. And Hal had implied it was dangerous. By all means, he needed strength.

Jon saw the alarm on my face. Quickly he bent and gave me a very thorough kiss. “Don’t worry. I know what I’m doing. I’ll be fine.”

So it
was
dangerous! I whimpered a little, sitting up and touching his cheek with my palm, wishing desperately there was some way to protect him. If anything happened to him…. Already I understood what mating for life meant.

He groaned and clutched me to him, and I pressed into his strength as tightly as I could, wanting to blend myself with him, truly become part of him in ways I’d never imagined I could feel. “Oh, Kyle,” he moaned. “You don’t understand what you’re offering me!”

I thought I had a pretty good idea, actually. I wanted to become part of whatever he did and share it, make it easier for him. Before I could try to make him understand, someone blew a car horn on shore. Three times, loudly.

“Shit,” Jon said. “That’s my brother. Hal takes his role of protecting me very seriously. He wants me to come and eat.”

I pulled away, stood up, and began to dress immediately. Hal and I had a lot in common if we both wanted to protect Jon.

He smiled wryly as he stood up too. “I can see I’m going to be outnumbered now. Very well, we’ll go and eat before we talk. Don’t worry. There’s plenty of time before midnight, and the world will go on turning until then.”

I stared after him as he started toward the canoe. Jon kept the world turning? Did he mean that literally?

He didn’t explain. I wondered if he was going to change form—part of me wanted to see him do it, part of me wanted him to stay in human form so I could kiss him as often as possible. Did he need to hunt in loon form for food? I had no idea.

Jon stayed in human form and pushed the canoe back into the water. He held it and gestured for me to get into the stern. “If that was your first time, you did an excellent job steering,” he said. “Carry on.”

Feeling a little proud, I got in. He wrapped my towel around his hips and took the bow. Clearly he was a master with the paddle, but he was very encouraging despite me running him into two separate overhanging branches before I managed to get us into open water. It was amazing how much easier it was to make headway with someone strong providing the forward momentum.

I’d been aiming for the beach, but he told me to go directly to my site. “We can keep the canoe there,” he said, “so we can go out again early in the morning. I’m not exactly worried about you stealing it, and since I’m the co-owner of the campground, I get my way.”

I headed for the little bit of sand next to my rock. As we got closer, I saw that the other co-owner of the campground was waiting to catch the bow and pull us in.

“Well, look at this,” Hal said, grinning.

“Just shut up,” Jon said, getting out with perfect coordination. I followed with much less coordination. Jon might think we were going to be back on the water at sunrise, but we weren’t if my knees weren’t feeling any better. To say nothing about the set of blisters I now had on each hand. Ever solicitous, Jon made sure I got out okay. I let him and Hal pull the canoe up onto the edge of the site and roll it over while I hobbled to the picnic table and sat. I was sore in many, many places in ways I didn’t think had come from the canoe. And I didn’t care a bit.

Hal had brought dinner. The table was spread with a real cloth tablecloth. Arranged on it was a vase of daisies, a candle inside a clear globe, a bottle of champagne, two glasses, a large covered bowl that smelled really good, a salad, a loaf of bread, butter, and a plate of brownies.

“Damn you,” Jon said.

Hal chuckled. “We need to celebrate what we can.” He handed his brother a small duffle bag. “Some clothes,” he added, shaking the bag a little until Jon took it. “Not that you probably care, but this campground can only survive so much nudity. Enjoy, gentlemen. I’ll pick up the dishes when I drive around the next time.”

“I’m not going to thank you,” Jon said.