Chapter 6

Chapter Six

Lula

I didn’t come to the stream to clean off.

Well, I did. The s’mores are sticky little guys. But I also snuck away to do a little communicating with nature. Santana and Jess are well used to my spontaneous meditation sessions—they just aren’t aware of my preference to have them in my underwear.

With a smile curving my lips, I lift my face to the sun and hike to the waterfall. It’s my favorite spot, thanks to the grassy knoll on the other side. It’s a little hidey hole, away from the world. Quiet, dark, curtained by water. The white noise is perfect for blanking my mind, letting the beauty of my surroundings soak in.

All right, it’s going to be pretty hard to blank my brain today when I can’t seem to stop thinking of Vale—his eyes, his voice, his body—but I’m going to try. I can’t let myself get too carried away with this infatuation or I’m only going to be disappointed. Already, I’ve gone way too far by asking my friends specific questions about sex. They’re going to be relentless now. What would they say if they knew I’d hooked up with my stepbrother?

What would anyone say?

Maybe I won’t have to worry about it? Maybe it was a one-time thing?

When I ponder that possibility, my chest aches even worse.

Determined to enjoy the beautiful day, I look around on the off chance someone else is hiking through. Then I unfasten my jean shorts and drop them down to my ankles, groaning in delight over the warmth of sunshine on the backs of my thighs, my butt. Wanting to experience the heat everywhere, my tank top comes next. My bra. I’m in nothing but a pair of black bikini-cut panties now and I turn to the sun, raising my arms up so its rays can reach out and touch me. I focus on my breathing, inhaling the splendor of nature and releasing gratitude slowly—

A twig snaps.

My arms drop abruptly to cover my breasts, alarm prickling at the nape of my neck.

“Santana?” I call. “Jess?”

There’s no response.

It’s not totally unusual to hear twigs and branches and leaves falling from the trees. The forest floor is littered with debris from above, so it’s a common occurrence.

But the sudden electricity racing up my skin is not common.

I narrow my eyes and scan the trees, my gaze lingering on the shadows.

There is no one watching you. Don’t be paranoid.

Taking a deep breath, I wade into the stream toward the waterfall, concentrating on the water licking at my thighs, then eventually my panties. How the cool, crisp quality of it climbs my belly and refreshes my senses. When I reach the waterfall, I don’t hesitate to position myself beneath it, letting the water cascade down the front of my body, down my breasts, back, legs. My hair is gloriously drenched in seconds, the dull roar of falling water drowning out the forest sounds, leaving only my heartbeat—

And memories of Vale in the shower.

How water pooled in the valleys of his collarbone, how his hair sagged low on his forehead, dripping. How his harsh breathing echoed in the shower stall, mingling with mine.

I don’t realize my fingers have dipped into my panties until the pad of my middle one grazes my clit and I shudder, my moan absorbed by the waterfall’s rush. My toes curl into the smooth pebble floor of the stream, the waterfall caressing me everywhere—my nipples, the sensitive insides of my arms, my neck. But it’s not the waterfall I’m picturing in my head as I rub myself faster, using my middle and ring finger now. I’m thinking of my stepbrother in sweatpants trying to hide his erection from our parents.

There’s a slight chance of Santana and Jess following me here and I really don’t want to get caught masturbating. Although they would probably high five me and inquire about my technique. Truthfully, I don’t have one. I’ve never felt the pressing need for release until meeting Vale. Now my body is on edge. Sensitive and starved. And I have to appease it.

In the interest of privacy, I duck beneath the waterfall and walk on my knees to the center of the hidden grassy knoll, flopping down on my back. Letting out a long, low moan, knowing I’m the only one that can hear it. And that freedom makes me twice as hot, makes me tease the ring of my entrance and press a finger inside of me, my heels digging into the earth, hips lifting, my gasp loud in my ears—

There’s a break in the sound of water hitting the stream and my eyes fly open.

I see the outline of a man and terror grips me.

I open my mouth to scream, but I never get the chance.

He moves like lightning, springing forward, through the waterfall, landing heavily on top of me, his big hand covering my mouth, catching the sound before it escapes. I buck and twist, my instinct to fight kicking in immediately. But it becomes obvious right away that there is no point. His arms are made of steel and there’s a precision to his movements that tells me I’m not the first person he’s had to silence in a cave. Oh God oh God—

“Lula, it’s Vale. You’re safe,” he rasps in my ear. “You’re safe, princess.”

Shock renders me motionless beneath his muscled body, my breath racing in and out of my nose. There is still a scream lodged in my throat, my claws out, ready to scrape. But now…now I’m just confused. Vale is here? How? I’m a hundred miles from home.

What is going on?

Keeping his hand sealed over my mouth, he looks down at me with glittering eyes—and I feel it. His hard shaft against my inner thigh. He was watching me. He was watching and being turned on by me. That was him snapping a twig out in the forest. Wasn’t it?

I know one thing for sure.

I shouldn’t be feeling relief right now because this man is Vale and not a stranger.

It’s actually more alarming to think my stepbrother might have followed me all this way.

Right?

So why is my fear ebbing? Why do I have the urge to let my thighs fall open?

“Good girl,” he whispers, nuzzling my hair. Still covering my mouth. “You don’t want to fight me, do you?”

How am I supposed to answer that? I should be fighting him.

Right?

“If I let go of your pretty little mouth, are you going to scream?”

I shake my head no, because what would be the point? He’d have my mouth covered again in a split second. And no one who came to my rescue would be a match for my stepbrother, the ruthlessly trained Navy SEAL.

His lips skate down the side of my neck. “I can’t kiss you if you’re screaming, can I?”

My clit throbs in response to that barely breathed question, my eyelids fluttering, trying to stay open. But his tongue bathes my throat, his teeth grazing the edge of my jaw and clamping down on my ear and oh lord, there’s a rush of wetness between my thighs. I’m confused and aching and appalled at myself, but that last part is fading. Fading under the inundation of need for this man, no matter how he got here. Or why he came.

Vale takes his hand off my mouth, immediately replacing it with his lips.

His male groan fills my head, his taste coursing through me.

His urgency.

My hands are slowly manacled above my head, his powerful body settling more fully against mine, his hips in the cradle of my thighs, that long, hard part of my stepbrother pressed to my sex. Ready. Demanding placation. I’m trying to stay afloat. Trying to make sense of what is happening, but he won’t let me. Won’t allow me to think. His tongue invades my mouth over and over and over, fuzzing my thoughts and heightening my arousal until I’m fully participating.

As soon as my resolve slips, Vale grows more aggressive, angling his mouth right, left, raking his lips down my neck, then back up, capturing my mouth before I can breathe a word.

“I was only going to protect you, Lula,” he says hoarsely against my jaw. “I was only going to keep you safe. But you went and got naked, didn’t you? You went and fingered your virgin pussy. My virgin pussy. Didn’t you?”

“I thought I was alone,” I gasp, not even sure if I’m making sense.

“Oh, you’re never going to be alone again.” He rams his hips up into the juncture of my thighs, making me whimper. “Meet your permanent chaperone, princess.”

His mouth stamps back down on mine, his lips urging me to open so he can tangle our tongues together. He keeps my wrists imprisoned with his left hand, his right one stroking down the side of my face to my breast, squeezing, rubbing the knuckle of his index finger against my nipple until I start to whine into the kiss, his tongue muffling the sound.

“Nod your head if you understand I’m about to fuck you, Lula.” His tongue licks over my ear, his hips rolling roughly. “First with my mouth. Then it’s all dick.”

A finger of tension traves down my spine.

He’s going to put his mouth on me there?

I mean, I was going to meditate about it for a while. Get used to the idea before I ever let it become a possibility in my life. With anyone.

But it’s going to happen so soon? With this man?

As if I need a reminder that he’s a bronzed, battle-roughened god, Vale sits back enough to whip off his shirt, revealing a wall of rugged muscle. Scars. A dark forest of hair. He’s the definition of a man. Built for battle. And his blue gaze is fastened on my wet panties like they are earth’s greatest offense. A second later he’s ripped them clean off.

Because he’s going to perform oral on me.

Oh my God. I’m suddenly hyper aware of every dimple on my stomach and thighs. How I’m going to look from below. Everything. “I…I…”

“Goddamn, princess, look what you’ve done to me,” Vale grits out, unzipping his jeans, that long, hard appendage swinging up through the opening, curved and heavy. I bite my lip to keep from moaning when he fists it without gentleness, squeezing it up and down.

Still, I try to close my thighs, shield myself, some evil voice—that sounds an awful lot like my mother—whispering in the back of my mind that he must be mistaken. “Vale, I don’t think—”

I have no time to prepare before he lets go of his sex, flipping me over onto my stomach, a hard slap delivered to my bottom. So hard it makes me gasp. “This body of yours makes me stiffer than I’ve ever been in my life.” He comes down hard on top of me, his harsh breath in my ear. “I’ll take a fucking bite right out of this perfectly plump ass if you ever close your thighs to me again. The pussy belongs to Daddy. Do you understand me?”

My self-consciousness starts to take a knee, but I’m still not sure.

Is he? Really sure about me?

Before I can voice my concerns, I’m flipped back over and he gets in my face. Uses his knees to shove my legs open and slaps his shaft several times against my damp, feminine flesh.

Smack smack smack.

“You see this cock, Lula? Hurts so bad it’s dripping come, begging for what you’ve got between these sweet-ass thighs. But not until I eat every soft, juicy inch of you alive. Understand?” He kisses me hard, tunneling his tongue into my mouth, groaning jaggedly, breaking away to speak in a rush against my lips. “Just so we’re clear, I’d fight another hundred wars for a shot at this tight little cunt. You’re built like a fucking woman. You’re built like what I need. Now spread your legs and take this tongue. Daddy’s starved.”

Whatever reservations I had are swept away on a tide of need so forceful, I actually shove him downward by those rock-hard shoulders. Needing to be pleasured. Needing his mouth. I am staring up at the rock ceiling of the cave but seeing nothing. Sucking in air. And that’s before he even licks me the first time. Once the tip of his tongue wiggles open the sides of my flesh and mashes against my clit, rubbing it up and down, his groan vibrating my thighs, I start to sob and twist, my thighs falling wide, fingers clawing into the earth.

Oh Jesus.

Oh God.

Was I really going to pass on this?

Vale looks almost drugged, his pupils blacking out the blue, that incredible back rippling as his mouth works, tongue flashing pink in the cave. He pushes a long finger into me, twisting it, then drawing it in and out faster, faster, with more pressure. It’s a relentless assault. A thin layer of discomfort over a treasure trove of pleasure. Just have to get there. Get there. And it’s easy when his tongue continues to bathe my clit, loving it side to side, up and down, Suckling it lightly while he adds a second finger, fucking me now with them. Hard.

Something inside me gives way and I choke on a scream.

Because on the heels of that gentle rip, a new tide moves in. It’s huge and frothy and overwhelming and there’s no way to escape it. I look down into his wild eyes and see the animal hunger there. The encouragement to accept whatever is happening.

Pleasure that is so intense it’s almost painful careens through me, coiling every muscle I possess, squeezing my loins, and I watch through fevered eyes as moisture from my body lands on his face, leaving his mouth and cheeks and chin wet. Dripping. He licks it off with an expression of rapture, wiping his face off on my belly as he prowls upward. Up my body until we’re face to face, me gasping for air, him darkly satisfied with the outcome of what just happened.

“My little girl squirts just like I knew she would. And she’s fucking delicious.” He comes down on top of me hard, pressing me down into the earth, lips flush against mine. “Now. Are you ever going to close your legs to me again?”

“No,” I whimper, my fingers sliding into his hair. That’s where they belong. His breath catches at my touch and my confidence grows even more. More. He wants me to touch him. He’s dying for it. “N-no, Daddy.”

“I didn’t think so.”

With a roar, he buries his sex inside mine.

“Vale!”

“Ah fuuuuuck.” His eyes are delirious, jaw slack. “That’s tight as hell.”

I’m coherent enough to know he brought down the barrier of my virginity with his fingers and I’m grateful for that now. Oh God, I definitely am because there’s no time for acclimating. He ruts me like he’s dying. I was aware of his raw strength before, but it’s so much more obvious now when he doesn’t hold a single ounce of it back, grunting into my neck, his hips powering between mine in quick, brutal pumps, raking me up and back on the grass like a ragdoll. I’ve never felt more feminine in my life. Never felt so sexual or attractive or alive.

“Thought a girl was writing me those letters. Then you show up with these big, round titties and an ass that can take a good long pound. A fucking woman. That’s what I need.” He jerks my legs up around his waist and his pace turns bruising, his thickness squelching in and out of my channel, his balls loudly rebounding off my buttocks. “A woman who still needs a Daddy, though, doesn’t she? A Daddy. A brother. An obsessed stalker who watches you finger your little, wet pussy from the trees. I’m all of those things to you now. Hear?”

“Yes! Yes!”

“Going to protect you.” His voice is like gravel in my ear. “Going to keep what’s mine.”

A tingle chooses that moment to start beneath my belly button, sinking lower, lower and building in intensity, so I can’t speak, I can only nod unevenly.

“Couldn’t find any birth control pills in the bathroom cabinet. You hiding them somewhere else? Tell me now.”

What is he asking me? My tummy is starting to ripple, the sensation carrying to my mons now, and when that delicious throb starts in my clit, I know it won’t be long. It won’t be long before another orgasm hits me and I want it. With every cell in my body, I want to climax while he’s slapping in and out of me, our bodies slippery with sweat and stream water.

“Answer me. You on protection or fertile for me, princess?”

“I’m…I’m…” I whine, pushing up my hips to meet his thrusts, crying out when the thick base of his erection saws wetly against my clit, again and again and again. “No pill.”

A great shudder goes through him and he groans, flexing every one of his many muscles and he bears down, flattening me between his big body and the earth, my knees shoved open wide as possible in his hands. His drives are so forceful, so thorough, I scream from the sheer brute strength of them, the fact that I’m being unquestionably claimed.

“I found you, Lula. I found my woman. And I’m not fucking around.” He licks his thumb and brings it between our bodies, teasing my clit side to side, fast, jiggling it—and I come apart, screaming into his kiss, our teeth bumping because his hips are still rutting me at an unruly pace. I’m mid-orgasm, can’t see anything but sparks, my sex constricting violently around him and I can only picture what we’re doing. How it looks. This strapping soldier in the prime of his life on top of a curvy young girl, his stepsister, doing his best to nail her into the ground. And the image, the forbidden nature of it, takes me higher, makes me bite his mouth, makes my claws bury in his back, earning me a sound halfway between a gasp and a growl.

“Goddamn right I’ll get my little girl pregnant,” he grinds out, thrusting once more, the movement jagged. Grinding high and deep. “People will talk, but we know it’s right, don’t we?”

“Yes,” I moan, eager beyond belief to provide him with pleasure. Whatever he wants.

With a wince, he starts to shake, his warmth spilling inside of me.

He starts pumping again, but there’s no finesse to the movements. He’s just a desperate creature trying to get rid of the physical lust. It’s an animal all its own. His mouth finds mine and we wrap our arms around each other, my legs locking around his waist, anchoring him as he comes, that soldier’s body quaking, sticky heat overflowing my channel and sliding down the cheeks of my backside. He moans long and loud into my neck, his shaft flexing and jerking inside of me, until he loses all power in his muscles, falling on top of me, breathless.

“Mine,” he whispers reverently, licking salty sweat from my shoulder.

I move on autopilot, offering him solace because my soul commands it, dragging my nails up and down on his scalp, kissing the side of his face. I’m not sure when my insecurities start to pile up again, but they do. One by one. I wish I didn’t have them. I wish they didn’t exist. I’ve grown up with them, though, and they’re a part of me. They’ve gotten worse since my mother remarried and I live with two perfectionists who obviously don’t approve of anything about me.

There’s still a part of me that worries I’m just what Vale needs right now. Someone who will care for him unconditionally. Someone close and convenient while he gets used to civilian life again. What happens when he suddenly looks around and decides he can have someone different? Someone of his stature and swoony good looks?

Of course, he did drive a hundred miles to stalk me.

There is something to be said for that.

But he’s a protective man. A tracker by trade. Maybe following me was simply him remaining within his military comfort zone? Maybe—

“Lula.” Vale’s mouth slants over mine, his tongue invading my mouth for a long, thorough kiss. “You’re getting tense on me. Let my seed work, princess. Don’t fight it.”

“Your seed?” My eyes fly open and everything he said to me in the heat of the moment comes rushing back to the fore. “Oh my God, you…you didn’t use a condom!”

Vale raises an eyebrow. “We’ve established that.” He cups and kneads my breast, wetting his lips. “Condom? You might as well forget that word even exists.”

“But…”

Oh no. His need to establish roots, his need to carve himself out a safe place, runs more deeply than I thought. So deep he’s willing to get me pregnant over it. What if he regrets tying himself to me, though? He’s only been back one day.

“Vale,” I breathe, scooting out from beneath him and sitting up, covering my breasts with one arm. “You…are you sure you don’t want to explore your options?”

Blue eyes grow sharp. Even sharper than usual. “What does that mean?”

“I mean…you haven’t even started living your new life as a discharged SEAL. You can’t just…you shouldn’t just make hasty decisions—”

“Lula…” His tone holds a stark warning. “I don’t know what puts these doubts in your head, but I meant what I said. I found my woman and I’m not fucking around.”

There’s a clattering of hope in my chest, but I’m apprehensive about trusting it. To fling caution to the wind and believe this could be real. That this gorgeous hero wants me. Only me. The girl her mother calls a “chubby hippie” when she thinks no one can hear. “I just think you should take some time to make sure this is what you want. I don’t want you to regret settling down so fast—”

“I’ve lived a lot of life in my thirty-two years, Lula.” His voice is firm. “I’ve met all kinds of people. Women? Sure. I’ve been in a few short relationships that didn’t have a fucking speck of the magic we make. I know this is right. I know what I want and need—and it’s you. If I’m moving fast, it’s only because I’m worried someone will steal you out from under me.” He swallows. “Someone who doesn’t have panic attacks in the shower.”

I suck in a breath, caught off guard by his show of insecurity. I’m not the only one. “That doesn’t make you less. That makes you more. It means you have a heart and a conscience and the capacity to feel.”

“If you believe that, then trust what I feel.”

My hands wring together in front of me, my heart begging for me to take a chance.

Vale comes closer and threads his fingers through my hair, tipping my head back and devouring me whole with a groaning kiss, his shaft hardening once again between us—

“Lula!”

I freeze at the sound of Santana’s voice, followed by Jess’s. “You better not have gotten eaten by a fucking bear, dude.”

My eyes lock with Vale’s.

There’s a question in his. It’s very clear.

He’s letting me make the decision about what I want to do. Do we walk out of here together and own this thing between us? Or keep it hidden? More than anything, I want to step through the waterfall holding his hand, but once that cat is out of the bag, there’s no putting it back in. He’ll have no chance to think this over. To be sure about us. How can he make such life changing decisions when he doesn’t even know what his new life will look like yet?

“Go back to your friends,” he says gruffly, kissing me. Stroking my cheek with a knuckle. “I’ll be watching you through the night. And we’re going to talk when we get home. As soon as possible.” He lifts my chin with the tip of his index finger. “Do I make myself clear?”

“Yes, Daddy,” I breathe, as if it’s the most natural response in the world.

Maybe it is.

I just don’t know if it’s the best thing for Vale.

His eyes darken with pleasure, nearly impossible to walk away from. But I do.

With my heart in my throat, I slide into the water beneath the falls and wade out into the sunlight to a round of cat calls and whistles. “Lula! Where are your clothes?”

“What were you doing in there?”

“Naked yoga,” I breathe, flushing to my hairline and searching the ground for my clothes, heading in that direction. “It’s totally a thing.”

It takes every fiber of control not to glance back and search for Vale behind the waterfall as we return to camp. And every step of the way, I pray I made the right move.