I would, but I couldn’t. I didn’t have that power. But I possessed other powers. The power of compassion and laughter and… I sighed. The power of love too. I’d only known him less than twenty-four hours, and I knew intellectually that what I felt for him couldn’t be love, not in the true sense of the word. Book reviewers would call it insta-love, and they would write scathing reviews of how that wasn’t possible.
But if it wasn’t possible, then why did my chest ache at the thought of losing him? Why did this sense of tenderness make me so protective?
It was crazy. Why can a mother look into the eyes of her child for the first time and feel insta-love, but that same woman would be shamed for feeling the same for a man?
Maybe it was my youth and inexperience that made it difficult to answer the question. Maybe after my heart was broken a few times, I’d see the naysayers’ points.
But no one was here but the two of us right now, and I knew that what I felt was powerful and real. It might not last. After a few days, months, or years, these feelings might not stand the test of time. But now…
I brought my pendant to my lips. Own luck. Own love. Own life. Own legacy.
My decision was made.
Sitting up, I swung my legs from the bed, ignoring the edge of dizziness, the pounding that still hadn’t eased away. I walked behind him and wrapped my arms around his waist. And as I pressed my lips and breasts to his back, inhaled his scent, I let the sense of love wash over from me and to him.
Gray turned to face me, torment still written over his beautiful face. He looked lost, like hope had escaped him, and I remembered how I felt just yesterday as the Jeep attempted to suck me to my death.
I remembered the hand extended to mine. I remembered latching on to it for dear life.
It was my turn.
“Here,” I said softly, reaching into the space between us. “Take my hand.”
In his eyes, I could see that he remembered too. The tiniest of smiles played at his lips as his fingers linked with mine. Walking backward, I led him to the bed. Led him to a different type of safety. The safety of me.
When his weight was on me again, his throbbing cock between us, his lips only inches from mine, he hesitated.
“Use me, Gray,” I whispered. “Use me to help you heal just as I’m using you. You said before… of all the mountains in all the world, I showed up on yours. Yes, I did, and I think there’s a powerful reason for that. A reason outside both of our control.”
He pushed my hair back from my face, and with one flex of his hips, he was inside me. I was the lock, and he the key. Separate, both were useless. Together, something incredible was unlocked.
“My goddess.”
Fully connected, he kissed me, our tongues merging as completely as our sexes. Wrapping my arms and legs around him, I was lost in wonder at how my body could completely absorb his.
“Feel me,” he whispered against my lips, flexing his hips again.
I was in awe at how my body stretched around him, accommodating his width and length. “I feel you,” I promised. “I feel everything. I want to feel it all.”
His hands on the sides of my face, he pulled out slowly, inch by beautiful inch. “Feel.”
I did, crying out as he thrust into me hard, reaching the end of me, the very foundation of my existence.
As our bodies came together to a rhythm as old as the mountain on which we now lived, I didn’t think. I only felt him pushing me to a brink of no return.
Even as I knew I’d never be the same after this. If, after this blizzard melted, I never saw him again, I’d be grateful to him for all the rest of my life.
In and out, his hands sank into my hair, pulling my head back to expose my throat. In and out, his hands linking into mine, kissing me passionately, thrusting his tongue to the rhythm of his hips.
I was building, climbing, rushing to the mountain top of my orgasm, and I tightened all around him.
“Zoe. My goddess.”
I came, violently, shockingly, my cry transforming into a wail as he continued to thrust into me hard. Then he was coming too, pulling out of me, roaring as his semen pulsed in long ropes over my stomach.
After a while, the only sounds were our breathing, then the noises of our mouths coming together in a gentle kiss.
He pushed my hair back from my face. “Thank you, Zoe.”
I pulled his lips back to mine, no words necessary.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Gray
I found myself humming again as I took Maggie outside to do her business. The storm had stopped the day before, leaving nearly four feet of the white stuff piled in its wake. Looking up at the sky, blue could be seen between sections of clouds, indicating the end of this mess.
No. Not this mess. This gift. This blizzard had turned into a gift of epic proportions. I couldn’t believe that four days had already passed.
After covering up her mess, Maggie became a puppy again, jumping and bounding through the snow, snapping at the snowballs I tossed at her. I hadn’t been giving her the attention she deserved the past few days, instead focusing on how often I could make Zoe come. I’d lost count. I just knew I wasn’t finished yet.
Behind me, the door opened and Zoe appeared, the kitten at her side. In addition to something changing inside me, the little fluffball had also changed. He still acted bipolar, but he was calming down. Well, so I thought. As I watched, a gust of wind hit, and the kitten turned into a Tasmanian devil, whipping around in rapid circles before darting back into the house.
Zoe laughed and closed the door before stepping farther onto the porch. Damn, she looked good. I’d turned on the generator long enough for her to wash her clothes, and I was glad we’d made the effort. Those jeans looked made for her, and I remembered slipping them off her body the night of the accident. Her sweater was clean too, but her hat couldn’t be saved. She wore one of mine instead, one of my scarves around her neck. With her cheeks growing pink from the cold, she looked adorable. And when she smiled, I was certain I could look up and find that a rainbow had appeared.
Unbidden, I thought back to Jessica and those first few days of knowing her. Of the rightness I felt when she was close. I’d been floating, like being in love had caused me to be weightless, allowing me to explore the previously unknown territories of the universe.
When I lost that love, it was like the bubble around me broke, and I reentered Earth’s atmosphere at meteoric speed. At the time, I’d hoped I’d burn to death, break apart under the pressure of that reentry.
I didn’t. And that pissed me off just as much. How could I continue to breathe in and out when my wife, my child, couldn’t?
When I’d walked back into my house that fateful Halloween night to find that man standing over her still body, I’d gone crazy. Even while staring down the barrel of his gun, I charged him, rage fueling my every move.
Bam.
I hadn’t felt the bullet enter my shoulder. Hadn’t felt my fists turn raw as they battered into his face over and over. Hadn’t felt the police pulling me off him as paramedics tried to save my wife.