Page 9 of Burning for the Mountain Man
I didn’t answer. I knew we were too far away, that we were just ghosts in the glass to the world below. It didn’t matter. My entire universe had shrunk to this room, to her.
Then, she reached back and undid her bra. It fell away, and she bared her breasts to the night, her skin glowing like pearl. She let out a soft, shuddering sigh. “I feel more alive right now than I ever have in my entire life,” she whispered. “And it’s all because I met you.”
“Why?” I managed to ask, my voice rough with want. “Why me?”
She turned her head, her gaze soft and certain. “Your scars. They tell me you’re brave. That you’ve lived. That you’ve donethings, survived things, most people would never have the courage to face.”
Her words didn’t just touch me. They slipped past all my defenses and healed a part of me I thought was forever broken. She saw a warrior where I only saw a casualty.
She turned and walked toward me, and the last of my resistance fell away, fueled by the need in her eyes. I met her halfway, my hands coming up to frame her face, and I kissed her.
It wasn’t gentle. It was deep and hungry, a claiming and a surrender all at once. My hands slid down, settling on the warm, smooth skin of her back, pulling her flush against me.
A small, desperate sound escaped her throat as her own hands slipped under my shirt. Her fingers roamed over my back, tracing the ridges of old scars and tense muscle, and I moaned into her mouth, the sensation almost too much to bear.
She pressed her body against mine, her softness a perfect contrast to my hardness, and I knew I was lost.
“Turn around,” I breathed against her lips, my voice barely recognizable. “Face the window.”
A shiver went through her, but she obeyed, turning to look out at the sea of stars below. I moved into place behind her, my body caging hers. I slid my hands over the exquisite curves of her waist and stomach, feeling the tremble that ran through her. Then I dropped my head, nuzzling the sensitive spot where her neck met her shoulder, and I felt her melt back against me.
Slowly, I trailed one hand lower, over the plain cotton of her briefs, feeling the damp heat that awaited me there. My fingers moved to the waistband and slid beneath.
The breath left my lungs in a rush.
She was slick, hot, ready. As my fingers found her moist, intimate heat, a staggering sense of rightness, of finality, settled deep in my soul. It was an end and a beginning. After years ofwandering in the dark, after building walls and living in silence, I was finally, unequivocally, home.
5
SAGE
Iwas doing this. I was really, finally doing this.
The thought spun on repeat in my head as I stood at the floor-to-ceiling window, the valley below stretched out like a star-scattered abyss. The glass was icy against my heated skin, a sharp counterpoint to the fire Wilder was stirring inside me.
I kept telling myself no one could see us, but the reassurance felt paper-thin. Looking down made me feel completely exposed, like I’d been pinned against the night—and somehow, it was the most exhilarating feeling I’d ever had.
My eyes drifted closed as his finger, rough and sure, slid inside me. The sensation was a blunt, stretching pressure that made me gasp. I was wet—I could feel the slick evidence—but my body was still tight, unyielding.
“Easy, Sage,” Wilder murmured, his voice a low rumble against my ear. His breath was hot, sending shivers down my spine. “Just breathe. Open for me.”
I let out a shaky exhale, and as my muscles relaxed, the initial sting subsided, replaced by a strange, full feeling. Then his fingers moved, finding the most exquisitely sensitive part ofme. My clit. I’d read about it, of course, but nothing could have prepared me for the reality—a live wire of pure sensation.
When his thumb moved in slow circles, the sensation hit me hard, stealing my balance. My knees gave out, and his other arm caught me, firm around my waist, keeping me upright against the rush he was creating.
“Just feel it, Sage,” he commanded, his lips grazing my ear. “Let go for me.”
A soft, whimpering sound escaped me, one of surprise and helpless pleasure. And I did. I let the sensation build, a coiling, tightening spring deep in my belly. The world narrowed to the rhythm of his hand, the rough rasp of his jeans against my bare thighs, the dizzying sight of our reflection—a tall, scarred man sheltering a trembling woman in a cocoon of moonlight.
The tension crested, then shattered. My body seized, convulsing around his fingers as a wave of pure, blinding pleasure crashed over me, wringing a guttural, “Oh!” from my lungs.
For a long moment, I hung in his arms, boneless and breathless, my forehead resting against the cool glass. He pressed a kiss to the juncture of my neck and shoulder, a gesture so tender it made my heart ache.
Then a surge of courage rushed through me. I turned in his arms, cupped his face in my hands, and kissed him with everything I had.
I could taste the faint salt of my skin on his lips. My fingers, clumsy with need, fumbled with the button of his jeans, then the zipper. The metallicrrrripwas shockingly loud in the quiet room. I shoved the rough denim and the softer cotton of his underwear down over his hips.
His erection sprang free, hot and heavy against my stomach. I wrapped my fingers around him, stroking his length, marvelingat the silken steel feel of him. A deep, ragged groan vibrated through his chest into mine.
