Words whispered past her ear, chocolaty smooth, dark and even. “Grab the headboard.”
Anything to get him to actually move. Becki reached overhead, tilting back to look for something to clasp. Perfect vertical bars waited—the solid sections of tree limbs that made up the headboard the right size to wrap her fingers around and hold on tight.
He took advantage of her slightly arched position, wetness closing over her breast as he sucked hard on one nipple. The sensitive tip stung as he tugged, electric pulses zinging through to her sex.
“Marcus, please,” she begged.
“Please what?” He caught her earlobe in his teeth and bit lightly seconds before licking the sensitive spot behind her ear, still not moving from his position as he put his lips to her skin.
She wasn’t sure what she wanted. For him to go fast and drive her over quickly as he had in the shower, or to keep torturing her. Her mind had turned into a pile of mush, and sensory overload strummed along her nerves.
“Let your legs down, Becki. Open yourself to me.”
Releasing her grip and pulling her knees farther to the side made his cock all the more apparent. He pulled back, and she felt every single inch, as if her insides had grown hypersensitive while waiting for him to move. The flared head of his shaft slipped free of her pussy so gradually she had ample time to enjoy the tease.
Hands wrapped into wood-filled fists, she stretched under him and anticipated.
Slowly again he filled her, exquisitely slow. Stretching, running over sensitive nerves, driving her upward. Less of a powering forward, more a deliberate joining together, followed by a retreat. There was nowhere for her to go, nothing for her to do but accept his cock possessing her body again and again.
She closed her eyes as he paused, the tip of his cock taunting her. Rocking in and out until she gasped, so hair-triggered she was ready to break with one more surge.
“Becki.” A whisper-soft kiss pressed against her lips. “Is it good?”
“Oh, yes.”
“You ready?”
She squeezed tight, holding on to what little control she still had. Stretched out, nothing but him over her, and she was ready to explode.
He thrust. Hard. Fully burying himself in one motion. Her breath escaped in a gasp, forced from her lungs. She had no time to inhale before he pulled out and plunged in again. One after another his thrusts possessed her. Pushing into her like he was claiming her. Becki clung to the headboard for dear life, her body rocking with the power of his drives. He wasn’t delicate as he took her to the limit. Thrusting again. Again. Until everything tightened and she screamed, her pussy wrapping around him and trying to hold him in place as her orgasm raged.
He pressed her thigh to the side and changed the angle, completing three more strokes, each one as urgent as the ones that had come before. He froze deep in her body as he came. Shoulders tight, muscles clenched as his cock jerked within her.
Becki lay there and savoured it all—the rush of blood through her veins, the lingering aftershocks as her sex reacted to the slightest change in his position, the slick of sweat on both their bodies as he moved over her, his breath fanning past her cheek.
He kissed her. “Sleep. I don’t want to move yet, so tell me you’ll sleep and let me take care of you.”
His cock still stretched her, the sensation strangely comforting. To have him touching her so intimately was like an anchor. After her long sexual hiatus she should have felt sorer, but there was nothing filtering through her but deep contentment. Adding all the orgasms she’d experienced that day to the fatigue caused by the past night’s restlessness, exhaustion hovered.
“I could sleep. You don’t mind if I snore, do you?” The words trickled out like a slumberous yawn.
The soft rumble of his laughter wrapped her as tightly as his body. “Sleep. I’ve got you.”
I’ve got you. The words echoed in her mind. How many times had she heard that phrase? How often had she said it herself? At the climbing wall. During years of working ropes. A simple expression, but one that meant so much more than it seemed on the surface. There had to be trust involved—complete trust. I’ve got you wasn’t just a nice sentiment, it was life and death in her world.
The fact that she trusted Marcus to the full extent of the meaning made something inside her glow a little warmer.
CHAPTER 19
Icy cold fingers trickled along the back of her neck. She opened her eyes to see the cliff face slowly rotate past a few feet away from her as she dangled on the end of a rope. Everything else remained shrouded behind a veil of cloud. She stretched out a hand to stop herself from spinning, bloody knuckles shaking as she tried to touch the rock. It remained out of reach. Too far for her arms to span.
How long had she hung there?
She clutched the rope and peered below her, still revolving in circles as the wind caught her. Zero visibility. Two feet below her to safety, or a death drop?
Becki sat up with a gasp, heart pumping wildly.
Marcus pressed his arm around her farther as he sat as well, naked chest warming her back. He surrounded her as he made soft shushing noises, rubbing his chin against her shoulder. “It’s okay. I’ve got you.”
She rotated in his arms, not caring that she was being a total wimp. Every inch of her was cold with dread, and she buried her face against his neck, hiding in his arms.
He wiggled upright and pulled her into his lap, leaning them both on the headboard as he stroked her hair. “I got you,” he repeated. “You’re safe.”
She drew a shaky breath. “Nightmare.”
“I figured. No worries.”
He kept touching her, dragging his hand through her hair, his left arm wrapped around her as far as it would go. She was plastered skin to skin with him, and it was barely enough. His heat remained a faint whisper—barely making a cut into the frigid stench of her fear.
Take back control. Refuse to give up. I am the master of my soul. . . .
She forced out the words, fighting to find something to focus on other than her fright. “If I shake much harder, you can pretend this is one of those vibrating beds they show in cheap B movie hotel rooms.”
Marcus tucked his fingers under her chin, tilting her head back far enough so he could press a kiss to her forehead. “Do those things exist anymore?”
He knew what she was doing, or he was at least willing to play along. “I don’t know why. Can’t imagine they add anything to the experience more than what you bring.”
“Flattery will get you everything,” he promised. “You want a drink?”
She nodded. Staying in bed was out. She itched to run. To do something to wear herself out until the nightmares stayed away.
They separated, crawling off the mattress. Marcus handed her a robe, his dark gaze meeting hers until she looked away, too ashamed of bringing her fears into their situation. It was too soon for this to be considered a relationship, and she’d already tossed a great big enormous wrench into the works.
Go her.
He dragged on a pair of sweatpants, then held out his hand. It might have been pathetic, but she accepted his clasp like a lifeline, linking her fingers with his and holding on as they walked back through the dimly lit rooms to the kitchen.
“Tea? Something stronger?”
She shook her head. “Tea is enough.”
She sat on one of the tall bar stools at the breakfast counter while he filled the kettle, a thought nagging her.
“It was different.”