of his arms encircled her and picked her up. “Not so fast.”
Before she had time to object, he carried her behind the boulder to hide them from view. She gasped at the speed with which he’d done that, how easily he’d managed her body. She was no petite little thing. Like her mom and grandmother, Ali came from voluptuous stock. She had never been one of those waif types, nor did she want to be, but never had a man lifted her with one arm before. It made her feel tiny. She liked that feeling a little too much from the ache that now pulsated between her thighs.
He seemed to be listening for something, and suddenly fear replaced excitement. He’d hid them because he’d heard something nearby. Maybe a predator. Ali listened, too, her heart hammering in her chest for two reasons now. She cast her eyes to the distance and whispered, “Is it a bear? Oh God, please don’t let it be a bear, because you don’t look like you’re hiding a gun anywhere.”
His head craned to the right, lips parted, mind focused. She couldn’t help but steal a glance at him. There was a faded scar down the side of his face that looked like a knife or claw had cut him. She stared at the pale jagged line, the close proximity of his tall, naked body driving her to distraction. She breathed against his skin and watched as he turned and slowly met her eyes. “We are alone.”
“Okay. Well,” she mumbled, glancing away so as not to accidentally nibble on his shoulder, “I should be going. Now that it’s safe.” She trailed off as she locked eyes with him again. She didn’t want to go. He was right. How often would something like this happen to her? She wanted desperately to flirt with him, give him a signal she wanted him to kiss her and maybe more, but Ali had never been the flirtatious type. Joking, yes. Flirtatious? Not so much.
He stared at her thoughtfully and then his nostrils flared and his eyes darkened with what looked to her like lust. Could she be imagining that? But then he did the strangest thing: he leaned in and smelled her by sniffing down the sensitive skin on her neck. He closed his eyes and inhaled deeply, leaning into the soft curve. Mirroring him reflexively, she breathed him in, too, and loved his masculine scent. It had an aggressive effect on her psyche, ripping away all of her reason. Standing between a pale gray boulder and a man who’s generously endowed body was growing by the second, Ali realized that she was not going anywhere until she felt him inside her. It didn’t matter that they were in the forest, had never met before, and he was inexplicably nude, some people you just have to fuck.
“You want me,” he murmured, as though reading her mind.
“I don’t want you,” she lied as his lips brushed hers.
Before she knew what was happening, his hand slipped into the front of her jeans and snaked beneath the soft cotton of her panties. She gasped, but didn’t move to stop him, her eyelids fluttering.
“So wet,” he murmured lazily as his fingers slipped lower. He cocked his chin to the side, the muscles of his neck flexing.
As his fingers stroked the secret folds of Ali, the throbbing ache between her thighs became acute. When he bent in again and this time nuzzled her neck and kissed it, she moaned. He ran his tongue down to her collarbone as Ali heard a voice inside her head telling her that what she was doing was crazy; that she should run. But that voice was ignored. The truth was the desire to scream for help had vanished as soon as she had seen this exquisite stranger. His dark features, great size, and incredibly unusual eyes were something she’d never imagined could be real. If he’d sprung wings and told her he was her guardian angel sent to fetch her and bring her back to civilization, she would have believed him. Although she would have thought him a very, very naughty angel.
As he caressed and stroked her, he breathed into the sensitive hollow of her ear, “So wet.”
“Yes,”