ite. Winter birds twittered in the trees, and the sounds of dripping water could be heard all around. She suddenly felt silly. The crisp air had made her feel better, helped her zinging emotions settle, and now she hesitated. What am I doing?
But as soon as the thought went through her mind, she spotted a rock sticking up out of the snow. Well . . . why the heck not? She took a deep breath and stepped up onto it, facing toward the blue-gray mountains in the distance. As if each and every sorrow demanded release, swirls of emotions rioted for first place in her mind. She cupped her hands around her mouth and yelled, “I’m so hurt and . . . and angry that no one in town wanted to take me in when my parents died! Sometimes I want to move far away from this damn town and never look back!”
She let out a huge heaving breath, watching the tips of those mountains, imagining she could see the vapor of her words—the long-held truth—floating away from her body to take residence in those dark peaks. She turned, stepping carefully off the rock where Jak stood looking at her thoughtfully.
“Better?” he asked.
She sucked in a big breath, her chest rising and falling. “Yes. I think so.” She paused. “Yes. You were right. It helps. I feel better al—”
“Keep going.”
She paused but then nodded once, climbed back up onto the rock, and turned toward the mountains. “Sometimes I hate God for taking my parents from me! I . . .” A sob came up her throat but she tried to stop it from escaping. “Sometimes I wish I’d died that night too.” Her throat felt tight, as she instinctively tried to resist more painful words spilling from her tired, love-famished soul, and simultaneously made the effort to force them out. “I’ve been so scared and alone.” And that was all she could do. The sob that escaped then was followed by a small hiccup as she tried desperately to get her emotions under control. She turned back toward Jak, but too quickly, slipping on the ice-covered rock, losing her footing and plunging forward.
Jak caught her, his arms wrapping around her waist as she wept. “You’re not alone,” he whispered. The whimper died on her lips as she opened her eyes to his face directly in front of hers, his mouth mere inches from her own. Her heart stuttered, swelled. For a suspended moment, their quickened breaths mingled in the air between them. She blinked in surprise, her body stilling. He glanced at her lips, his gaze heating and his arms squeezing her just a little tighter. Kiss me, she thought. Oh please, kiss me.
She could see the indecision on his face but knew he had to be the one to advance whatever it was between them. For a frozen moment, the entire forest stilled. The whole world waited. And then as quickly as that, their mouths were meeting, and Harper exhaled a breath of relief and joy over the sudden overwhelming pleasure of his mouth against hers. The knowledge that he had chosen her. And she had chosen him.
For a second, they were both still, then he let out a small sound, a combination between a grunt and a groan as he opened his mouth very slightly and rubbed it over hers. Despite the completely unpracticed nature of the kiss, sparks shot through her veins, her blood heating. She didn’t want to take control of the kiss. The waiting, the discovery of what he would do instinctively, was more arousing than anything she’d ever experienced.
He was holding her off the ground easily with his arms wrapped around her waist, and she sought even more closeness with him. She wrapped her legs around his body, bringing their cores together. He breathed out a harsh breath but didn’t disconnect his lips from hers. The meeting of their bodies seemed to give him more confidence in their kiss, and he tilted his head, his lips parted from the escaped breath. His tongue flicked hers and she couldn’t help it then, taking his face in her hands and meeting his tongue with her own, showing him what to do. What she was practically dying for him to do.
His breath stuttered again and then their tongues were twisting and dancing, and the moans that they were making echoed in the quiet of the ice-shrouded morning.
“Take me inside, Jak,” she managed to say.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
He kicked the door of his cabin open, his kick so strong the door banged against the wall, bouncing back and hitting him in the shoulder before he could carry Harper inside.
A grunt sounded somewhere. It must have been him because she answered with one of her own, wrapping her legs tighter around his waist.
She was everywhere. All around him, inside him. Her scent. Her heat. Her. He felt the wildness—the thing he’d tried so hard not to be—tearing at him from the inside, shouting for him to give in to it. “Jak,” she whispered between kisses. The sound of his name on her lips made his chest squeeze so hard he had to suck in a breath. He couldn’t believe this. She was here. With him. Letting him touch her and kiss her. Hot. Beautiful. His. The wildness moved forward, taking over.
He threw her on the bed, and she let out a surprised laugh as she bounced once, then twice. She stilled and her eyes went wide as she stared up at him, but not with the fear he thought he’d see. He wasn’t sure he was glad of that or not. He needed her to tell him if what he was doing was right or wrong, because he didn’t know how to do this. All he knew were his instincts—that wild wolf inside him—and his instincts wanted to take, wanted him to lose control, to feed the hunger pounding through his veins.
“You’re trembling,” she said, so soft he almost didn’t hear her for the blood whooshing in his head. She took his hand and pulled him down to her, bringing one hand to his cheek and tracing his cheekbone. He closed his eyes at the shocking happiness of this woman touching him with . . . sweetness. “Have you ever seen yourself in a mirror?” she asked, smoothing a long piece of hair back from his forehead.
He shook his head, unable to speak, his world turning back to only pictures, only feelings and smells, the way it’d started to become before he’d found the car, the words. The notebooks that had made him human again. Before her mother brought him from the darkness.
She smiled, a slow curving of her lips, the ones that were plump and pink from kissing him. He felt pride in his chest that he had made her look that way. Him. He had claimed her. He wished other males could see. Know that she was his. “You’re beautiful.”
“Beautiful?” He frowned. He thought that was a word used for females, and he didn’t know if it meant she thought of him as a woman. That was definitely not what he wanted.
Harper laughed, running a finger down his scar again. “Handsome. Sexy. Beautiful in a masculine way.” It was like she knew what he had thought, and it made him feel happy. The light from the window made her skin look golden and her eyes sparkled. She was the beautiful one. He leaned forward and kissed her because he could. That fire in his veins grew hotter again and when she let out a moan, it caused some of his control to slip. Hold on. Hold on.
He needed to smell her. Everywhere.
He moved his nose to her neck and inhaled, and in that spot he could smell her, not the things she wore on top of her smell, but the scent of her skin. Her, and only her. The scent that brought the whispers moving fast through his blood. “I like the way you smell,” he said against her throat. She let out a small sound that might be a laugh, but the good kind. And she put her fingers into his hair, her nails scraping over his scalp. He growled, low in his throat and then went lower, stopped by the top of her sweater.
“You can take it off,” she whispered.
He didn’t pause, sliding the material up her ribs and over her head, as she lifted for him. His blood spiked as he threw the piece of clothing aside, but then he frowned when he saw she was wearing something else underneath it—something white that covered her breasts. She laughed again, but as he looked up, her eyes were happy. She put her hands behind his head and brought him down to her.
They kissed for a while longer, him following her lead and quickly learning what she liked by the way she moaned and pressed her body into his. He loved the taste of her tongue. The way it was soft and wet and twisted with his. He loved the feel of her, so much smaller and more delicate than he was. It made him wa
nt to protect her and fight for her.
He wanted to do whatever she told him to do. From that moment until forever.