Lights out

Was I? Even when we’d been fighting? Damn, I really needed to work on my poker face.

Another thrust and Josh was hilt deep. It felt like he was close to hitting the back of my teeth. I loved it. Loved being so filled that I could barely breathe, barely think past the initial sting of discomfort and the way my body had to work to take all of him.

“You’re soaked, Aly,” he said, his voice rough with lust. “Did you like being hunted?”

“Yes,” I moaned.

“You liked getting run down like prey.”

It wasn’t a question, but I answered him anyway. “Yes.”

“Spread those legs for me, then. Show me how much you like getting caught.”

“Make me,” I told him.

He froze for half a second, but I could tell from the way his dick twitched inside me that he liked the idea. The hand pi

And then he was moving, driving into me deeper, harder. The angle made me feel every inch of him thrusting inside. My pussy quivered, a tremor wracking my spine. The way he pi

His hips snapped against my ass. We knelt at the stream's edge, water rushing over our lower legs, mud squelching beneath our knees. The smell of the forest filled my nose, the scent of pine mingled with dirt and fallen leaves. My back heated where the sun beat down on me.

Yes. This was what I wanted. To be pi

“Harder,” I said.

Josh grabbed my hair and hauled me up by it, his fingers tangled in my strands as his thrusts turned punishing. My mouth fell open as I stared wide-eyed at the woods around us. Sunlight fell in dappled shafts along the gulley floor. Moss clung to nearby rocks. The sound of our ragged breathing filled the air.

There was something so primal about it, so right.

I thought I wanted this because of things I’d read in paranormal romances involving werewolves, but now I wondered if my desires went deeper than that, were more instinctual. This was how our ancestors fucked, rough and desperate in stolen moments between hunting and being hunted, giving it everything they had because they didn’t know if they would live to see the next sunrise.

It made a strange sense that I craved it, and I felt like the luckiest woman in the world to have a boyfriend willing to play into my every fantasy.

“I love you,” I said, punching my hips backward.

Josh groaned, his fingers tightening in my hair. “I love you, too, but don’t say it again, or I’ll come.”

I gri

He thrust into me so hard that I slid an inch forward in the mud. “I’m serious, Aly.”

“I love –” Another ruthless thrust had me gasping. Words of praise and devotion started pouring from my mouth as he fucked me closer and closer to the edge. “I love you so much. I love being your prey. I love how easily you overpowered me. I love that your cock is almost too big. I love feeling it get even bigger inside me right before you come.”

Josh’s thrusts became frenzied. I moaned, almost senseless with need as my pussy spasmed around him. Tremors wracked my whole body. I clawed at the mud, trying to find purchase, desperate to ground myself through the pleasure that was building inside me. Usually, I needed more than this, clitoral stimulation or nipple play to push me over the edge, but Josh was fucking into me so deeply that he was about to trigger my favorite kind of orgasm: the brain-melting, spine-buckling, knees-shaking, titties-bouncing, pussy-soaking cervical orgasm.

And then he yanked my head up higher and bit my neck.

I hadn’t been expecting it, and the brief flash of pain paired with the thrill of feeling teeth sink into me sent me to new heights, frantic, needy sounds falling from my lips. My mind blanked. My ears filled with a buzzing noise as I slammed my hips backward. I was coming. I was coming so hard that all I could do was writhe, my pussy clenched so tightly Josh could barely move.

And then he was coming too, his cock lengthening, stiffening, warmth flooding into me as he unloaded deep inside. The feel of it prolonged my orgasm, or maybe it triggered a second. All I knew was that I’d never felt so good for so long, and I never wanted it to end.

We came down slowly, together, breathing like we were still ru

I’d never felt so co

“Marry me,” I said.

Josh stiffened. “What?”

Panic punched into me, chasing away the afterglow of sex hormones and dumping me straight back into reality. Oh, fuck. Oh, fuck, fuck, fuck.

Josh pulled out of me, the warmth of our climaxes slipping down my thighs. This was why people shouldn’t speak right after they came. They overshared or said foolish things their partners weren’t ready to hear.

“I’m sorry,” I said, scrambling up and trying to tug my ruined pants back into place. My fingers were slick with mud, and I was shaking so badly that I could barely grip the wet fabric.

Josh was quiet behind me.

Shit! What had I done?

I spun toward him, expecting the worst, and found him kneeling on the forest floor. One hand lifted, something in it catching the sunlight and sparkling.

I clapped a hand over my mouth and took a disbelieving step toward him. It was a ring. Josh was holding a ring. A stu

“Alyssa Cappellucci,” he said. “Will you marry me so I can spend the rest of my life chasing you?”

I lowered my hand, gri

He shook his head, his expression serious for what felt like the first time in our entire relationship. “Not me.”

“Not me either,” I said, reaching him in two strides and dropping down to throw my arms around his neck. “Yes, I’ll marry you.”

Ten minutes later, we were cleaned up and heading out of the forest. I’d taken us so far off the beaten path that we had to use GPS to find our Airbnb.

As frenzied as my race through the woods had been, I’d missed a lot of the beauty surrounding me, and as we meandered back to the main trail, I took my time drinking it in. This land was part of a state park that hadn’t been logged in at least fifty years. The trees were giant, their limbs spreading far overhead to blot out the blue sky with the canopy they formed. Streams like the one we’d flailed around in dotted the woods, some bare trickles, others deep enough that there were footbridges over them.

I sent a silent prayer of thanks to anyone who might be listening that I got to experience this. That I was free and not behind bars. The police had never come to interview me, though they had asked Erica questions. As Nico promised, Brad sightings continued until a few weeks ago, ending near a private airport outside Quebec. The reigning theory was that the Bluhms had chartered a jet and flown their son to a country that didn’t extradite to the US.

They were getting dragged over the coals in the media, and the city’s sentiment had long since turned against them, making them little more than prisoners inside their house. I might have felt bad if not for the fact that a) their house was a 20,000-square-foot mansion and b) while they might be i

I didn’t think I would ever stop worrying that what we’d done would catch up to us one day, but I no longer let it rule my thoughts. I was free. I was in love. And I was determined to enjoy those things for as long as possible.

Taking a deep breath, I turned my face toward the sky. As stifling as the heat had been during my run, I was grateful for it now because it helped dry our soaking clothes.

“Next time we do this, we should wear backpacks,” I said.

Josh cocked his head sideways at me. “For sex toys?”

“For spare clothes and a first aid kit.”

He lifted his brows.

I rolled my eyes. “And fine, yes, for sex toys.”

He gri

“I need a shower first,” I said. “I have river sand in unmentionable places.”

He chuckled. “Same. And you should probably look at this cut. I think it might be serious.” He lifted his other arm and curled his fist inward like he was posing. There was a tiny scratch on the inside of his bicep. “See? Right here.” He flexed, making his muscles pop. “Do you see it?” He flexed again.

It was my turn to laugh. “Yes. It looks like it might be life-threatening. We better hurry.”

He slapped my ass.

I reached out and ran a hand down his crotch.

By the time we made it back to our Airbnb, we were groping each other like a couple of teenagers on their first date. Somehow, in between kisses, Josh managed to get the door unlocked.

I pushed it open and dropped my hands to the hem of my shirt, more than ready to get out of my damp clothes.

We froze at the sight that greeted us.

The cabin was small, just a single, wide-open space with a living room on one side and a mini kitchen on the other. The bathroom was tucked further back behind a door, and the queen-sized bed that Josh could barely fit on was overhead in the loft.

Someone had toilet-papered the entire place.

What the hell? Was this some sort of prank?

Oh, God.

Josh and I shared a panicked look.

“The cats!” he said, dashing inside.

My pulse skyrocketed as fear slammed into me. If anything had happened to them, I was going to join Josh in killing someone.

He came to a stop in front of me so fast that I bounced off his back. I shook my head to clear the spots from my eyes and glanced around him to see what had pulled him up short. There, sitting in a nest of toilet paper, was Maud, our twelve-week-old problem child. She chirruped in greeting, grabbed a mouthful of paper, and took off toward the bathroom, trailing a long line of it behind her.

I stepped beside Josh, watching her go. “We’ll get a little girl kitten, he said. She’ll be super cute, he said. Fred needs someone to play with so he doesn’t get lonely.”