Exposed (26 page)

“June …,” Ivan warned.

But too late. June leapt over the water toward the rock. Her foot caught just the front edge of the rock, and she toed hard for purchase. But her other foot swung forward and landed hard right in the center. She’d made it! Laughter bubbled up and out of June and she spun around in triumph to face Ivan.

And promptly fell over backward into the water.

If it’d felt cold before, now it seemed downright glacial. June landed in water up to her stomach, but the shock of the fall made her tumble backward until her head dunked under the frigid water and her glasses slipped off her face. She exploded from the water in a splutter and a gasp, only to find Ivan perched on the rock she’d just fallen from, the concern in his eyes turning to laughter.

“I told you.”

“You did no such thing! You dared me to.”

Ivan crouched down onto the balls of his feet and splashed a bit of water against June’s chest. “June Powell, I don’t think you’re remembering things just right.”

June stood up, but the air felt colder than the water. She huffed and hovered low so only her head bobbed on the water. “I lost my sunglasses,” she pouted.

Ivan searched the water around June.

June lifted one hand and pointed somewhere off to Ivan’s left. “Over there.”

Ivan steadied himself with his hand and leaned out over the water. “Where?” He craned his neck to look.

“Just,” June said, inching closer to Ivan—dry, warm Ivan. “Over.” Closer still, she could reach up and grab the band of his trousers. 

“There!” She shouted it at the same moment she pulled him into the water.

He fell face first into the pool and emerged with a roar. June shrieked with laughter and spurted a stream of water at his head. Ivan lunged for June, and she pushed off from the sandy bottom to swim away from him. She’d made it nearly to the center of the pool when his arms clasped around her legs and dragged her back toward him. It was deeper out in the middle of the pool, the water cresting June’s chin and bobbing past her lips with any movement. 

“Look what I caught,” he said, one eyebrow raised. His hands crawled up her calf, rounded behind her knee and up her thigh. “It’s some new species of fish,” he said, still straight-faced. 

June giggled and let his hands work their way up. He smoothed one palm over her bottom and paused to give it a quick pinch that made June splash more water onto his face.

“Oh,” Ivan said in mock dismay. “It’s a feisty fish.” His hands roamed higher, up along the curve of her hip and the dip of her waist, curving around the swell of her breasts. He walked the fingers of one hand up June’s neck and across her lips. 

“Ivan,” June said, biting at his fingers. “Be quiet.” 

And she pressed her mouth against his. 

His breath was warm, his lips, his tongue heating up her cold mouth. He slid his arms down her back and cupped her bottom then hoisted her up so she floated higher in the water.

Without thinking, June opened her legs wide to wrap around Ivan’s hips. He was hard, his arousal pressing against the pulsing heat of her center. June slid her arms under his and hooked her hands over his shoulders. The motion rubbed his erection against her—against that place where June’s own arousal shuddered. Electricity rolled through her, careened, alternating sharp and a deep, low ache. June buried her head into Ivan’s neck to hide how close he could draw her to the edge with just that little motion.

Ivan thrust his hips against her, barely at first, then again. And again. Until June was rocking her hips so his shaft rubbed at just the right spot, until she thought she would burst from the feeling of it all. Flooding her, making her dizzy, until fireworks of arousal exploded in her vision.

Then he slowed again, when she was just at the brink. June couldn’t help but groan into Ivan’s neck, practically begging him to continue. Her teeth chattered, whether from the cold of the water or the flush of desire, she didn’t know.

With his arms still around her, Ivan walked them out of the water and gently set June onto one of the deliciously warm rocks at the edge of the pool. It was flat and wide and tall green reeds enclosed them in a nearly private nest. 

June lay back with her eyes closed and her heart open. Ivan pulled himself out of the water, and June pressed up to her elbows to take him in. Her Ivan.

He stood, water beading at the ends of his dark hair and each charcoal eyelash. Ivan toed out of his heavy boots and kicked them into the grass along the edge of the pond. His wet clothes clung to his slim stomach, the bulge of his arms, the mound of his manhood. 

With sure fingers, he unbuttoned his plaid shirt and shucked it off his shoulders. Water ran in rivulets down his chest, his ridged stomach, and disappeared into the shadow of dark hair leading in a trail from his navel into his trousers. His shoulders were wide and tan from working in the sun. His lean arms corded with muscle with each tiny movement, and his skin puckered with cold. June stared at one trickle of water that coursed down his chest, around his nipple. She longed to run her tongue along that course, follow the dripping water down, down, down to finally see all of Ivan.

But she didn’t move, couldn’t move. She was frozen, waiting to see more. See all the parts of this man who’d been chasing her through dreams and making her wake covered in perspiration and wetness in her center.

Ivan worked his fingers over the buttons of his trousers and had to shimmy out of them, stuck as they were against his legs. His underpants clung to his body, over the long, thick shaft and the bulge underneath that. His thighs curved with strong muscles, and dark hair peppered his legs to his ankles. June reached out a languid hand and wrapped it around Ivan’s ankle. He looked down at her, his eyes half-lidded and his lips wet. Hair hung over his forehead, and he pressed it back before kneeling in front of June.

His fingers fumbled at the tie in her shirt then found the bottom button. He slipped it open, then the next. 

With feather light touches, he walked his fingers up her stomach, dragging a circle around her navel before pressing on. The next button came undone, then the next. Each little bit exposing June to Ivan and the trees and the sun above. She wanted him to see it all, see who she really was. She laid her arms out to her side and watched him reach for the final button. It slipped through the hole, and he spread her shirt open.

His hands reached higher and tugged the silk scarf from her hair. The two flowers he’d picked for June fell onto her collarbone, and Ivan plucked them up. 

With the flower pinched between his fingers, he dragged the velvety petals over her nipples, over her ribs, down the curve of her stomach, and up around the shape of her breasts. The sensation tickled and left goosebumps in its wake. 

June watched each movement through eyes heavy with desire until she couldn’t stand it anymore. She needed his touch, his skin touching hers. She knocked the flowers from his grasp and molded his large hard over her breast. Ivan’s eyes opened wide at the bold gesture, but that just made June want more and more and more. 

She lifted her own arm and reached out to mirror his motions. He traced a finger up from her navel to her sternum, and she did the same on him. He circled her nipple, drawing in closer and closer, and she did the same. He pinched the peak, rolling it between his thumb and forefinger, and she copied. They both moaned together and locked their gaze.

June stared up at Ivan and trailed her hand down until she played at the band of his underwear, running her fingers just inside the edge of cotton. Ivan raised his eyebrows, asking silently for permission, then did the same to June. She let her hand fall lower, until she cupped his length, but Ivan gently pushed her hand away.

“No,” he said through heavy breaths. “Not yet. Let me see you first.”

Ivan struggled with the button of her pants, and June covered his fingers with her own, steadied him. 

Slower now, he tried again, and pulled her pants open so the top of her light pink panties peeked up. He grasped the band of her pants and peeled them down, until she was laying on the rock in nothing but her underthings. His hands caressed up her thighs, curling over her legs so his fingers worked in toward her center. 

Ivan stretched out on his side next to June and rubbed his fingers in tiny circles closer and closer to the wet heat at her core. Ivan paused, his eyes searching her face. In answer, June stroked Ivan’s face and let her knees fall open. Giving him permission, asking him for more.

June’s heart was a staccato drumbeat in her chest, her stomach flipping with anticipation. Every limb felt heavy and light at the same time, floating on this rock in Ivan’s arms and waiting, waiting, waiting for him to claim her.

Two fingers slipped past the edge of her panties and stroked gently up her opening. June opened her mouth in a sigh that shuddered with arousal at the end. Ivan stopped again, looked to June. 

A wavering laugh escaped her. “Please,” she managed past her shaking breath. “Please, Ivan.”

“Close your eyes,” he whispered.

Her eyelids fluttered closed, the warm, yellow sun painting the back of her eyelids in creamy orange. 

Ivan’s fingers moved again, so slowly she wanted to arch toward him, urge him faster, deeper. But she took a long, slow breath and let herself succumb to him completely.

His fingers tickled at her opening, not yet cresting her lips to explore deeper. He moved higher and circled the nub—the heat of her arousal—until he rubbed at the very center of her. She squirmed and bit back a moan that made him flick at that most sensitive spot faster and faster. 

Her breath shuddered through her, fizziness popping from her fingers down to her toes. She moaned again, being brought to the very brink, to the edge of the cliff. She wanted to let go, to tumble down, down, down into a pool of bliss, but just at the ledge, Ivan slowed.

“Are your eyes still closed?” His breath was warm on her face, his voice as labored as her breathing.

June didn’t trust herself to speak, so she just felt up Ivan’s leg and clasped her hand around his hard shaft.

He stroked lower, plunged his fingers into the wetness between her legs. She felt his chest lean across her shoulder, then his other hand tugged down her bra and suddenly his hot, wet mouth was on her breast. His tongue flicked at her nipple, making it stiffen instantly. He sucked her, lustily lapping at the peak of her breast while his hand worked the depths of her.

“June,” he rumbled. “June.”

“Ivan,” she breathed.

“Open your eyes.”

So June blinked open her eyes, and what she saw made them go round with astonishment.

They were in the trees. No, atop the trees. A nest of soft, strong vines cradled them in their own natural bed at the very tops of the forest. Mountains encircled them in a rocky embrace, windswept, bare peaks giving way to great swaths of forest. Up here, she could see the fall of the mountains, where rivers carved through them and led to the lush, verdant valley below. Their little nest swayed in the cool breezes, and June wrapped her arms around Ivan and drew him to her in a deep kiss.

“It’s beautiful,” she whispered against his mouth. “So beautiful.”

Ivan pulled back for a moment, stared down at June with an openness in his features he hid from others. “
You’re
beautiful,” he said. “I want you just like this. Always.”

“Always,” June promised back to him.

Then without even a second of hesitation, she tugged at the last bit of material hiding her body from him. She shimmied her panties down her legs and kicked them off. Ivan looked at her with unmasked hunger, his mouth open and his chest heaving. He licked his lips and flicked his eyes over her naked body, from her wet hair, down her breasts, to the soft down of light hair at the juncture of her thighs. 

June smiled, reveled in the way he looked at her—all of her. She felt herself, she felt beautiful. There was no hiding like this, no pretending she was anything other than who she was.

She wanted to see him the same way. Needed to. June reached out and pulled his underwear down so she could curl her hand around his large cock. 

It was warm and smooth under her palm, and hard. So hard. She slid her hand down the length of him and loved the way his shaft shuddered at her touch. She stroked him like he was stroking her, until each of them had dropped their eyes closed and opened their mouths in a fervor of arousal and delirium. 

Ivan climbed on top of June, his knees gently pushing her thighs wide. Just as gently, he spread her lips apart with his fingers and hovered, his hard cock just inches from her opening. 

“Ivan, I want this,” she reassured him. “I want you.”

Ivan groaned with desire. He pushed his hips forward until just the tip of his silky smooth head pressed against her sensitive bud. Then he guided his cock lower, so it dipped between her folds.

“Are you sure?” he whispered.

“God, yes,” June moaned. She planted her hands on both of Ivan’s hips and pulled him inside of her. 

Deeper, deeper. He filled her up, fit into her like they were made for each other. Just the thought of it, the thought of how they were connected nearly made her spasm around him.

But she breathed slowly and he pressed himself all the way into her, until she could take no more of him. It was a feeling on the very edge of pain, the way his huge cock spread her open and pushed deep. But the most wonderful pain she could imagine, the sort of ache that made her flush with warmth and wet with desire. God, she’d never known she could feel like this. 

Ivan looked into her eyes and slowly—so agonizingly slow—drew his cock out of her. Then he dipped back into her, rubbing deep inside of her so that she tightened around him, her body pulsing with anticipation. 

They thrust together again, arching their hips until there was no space between where June’s body ended and Ivan’s began. Ivan held himself up on his forearms on either side of June’s shoulders and pressed his mouth to hers. Their bodies found a sweet, slow rhythm, each plunge of his cock into her matching the speed of their kisses.