Raw: The Ultimate Mc Collection (52 page)

“Slade! You aren’t listening to me!”  I yelled, a little too loudly.

“No? You’re right, I’m not.  I guess I’m not that skilled of a listener, then.  I’m not good at all this relationship shit, Diana!” He was yelling back at me now, his voice echoing through the trees, his eyes thrashing with some unspoken pain.  “I am, however, skilled at protecting you, whether you believe that or not.”

“Are we arguing?” I asked, attempting to return my voice to its normal level.

“Yeah, and that’s fucking great,” he replied, his eyes raging with anger and lust. “Because I’m also skilled at ending arguments.”

His lips crashed onto mine and he pulled me against him, his cock hard and ready between us, throbbing quietly, a steady and constant reminder of our primal instinctive desire.

He groaned as he kissed me and pressed against me.  He led me two steps backwards and my legs hit a large boulder.  Gently he pushed me down, his body hovering over me, his lips still kissing me as he guided me until I was laying back on the rock.  The sound of his moans mingled with the sounds of the rushing creek behind us, and as his kisses began trailing down my neck and then my chest, I arched up against him, my pleading cries adding to the sweet music we were making with the forest around us.

When he reached my belly, after pushing up my tank top, he began working at the button of my shorts with his teeth.  Shocks of desire ricocheted into my pussy as he deftly worked the button free, and then smiled up at me, pulling the zipper down with his free hand and holding the shorts taught with his teeth.

I smiled down at him, shaking my head.

“Lift,” he demanded, that sexy-as-fuck half grin spreading across his face again.  I’d have done anything this man asked me to.

My hips raised as if they had a mind of their own, and he tugged the shorts swiftly over my hips and thighs.  I kicked them off, and Slade wasted no time in diving right between my legs, his mouth hitting its target with delicious precision.

I writhed up against his hungry mouth, sinking into the rock beneath me, sliding into the pure, decadent wave of pleasure that washed through every inch of my yearning soul.

“Oh, baby, I’ve missed you,” I said, reaching down, my fingers sinking into his soft hair, feeling his head move as he worked his mouth against me, pulling my pleasure out of me with the relentless energy of a thousand ocean waves, pushing and pulling, retreating and caressing, bombarding me with the full force of his energy and then pulling back, teasing me, until I was ravaged by my need for release, a release only he could provide, only Slade, my Slade, my love.

He knew it.  I knew it.  I was his, I was all his, my body was his, my soul, in that moment, was his to do as he pleased with.

Through my submissive haze, I heard the distinct sound of his zipper and then his mouth was gone, replaced by the pure delicious rawness of his throbbing strength slicing through me, into me, becoming one with me, as he rocked against me, holding me close with his good arm, his body pulsing and pounding into me, his breath quickening and gasping, until he stilled, his cock pressed as deeply as it could possibly reach as he exploded, his warmth spilling into me with wild abandon.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

SLADE

Fuck,
I thought, as soon as I pulled out of Diana’s sweet center.   I had gotten carried away, and I was usually so careful not to forget the condom.  There was something about Diana that made me throw all caution to the wind.  And the feeling of her against me, with nothing between us, had put me over the edge so fast, I had come as quickly as a teenaged boy.

I would make it up to her later.  But the condom thing couldn’t happen again.  I might be able to get away with it once, but that was the last thing I needed to be taking my chances with.

I shook it off, and with a vow to be better next time, I pulled Diana up and kissed her again.

“You taste like me,” she said, kissing me back.

“Yep,” I said, kissing her again, “peaches.”

She laughed, and it was like music to my ears.

“Right, like on your phone.”

“Oh, yeah!” I said, remembering when I had added her phone number to my cell phone right before she had left that first night.  It seemed like so long ago now, so much had happened.

I led Diana back through the woods towards the clubhouse.  The sun was setting and it was getting dark.  I didn’t mind being in the forest in the dark, in fact, I preferred it, but I didn’t want to freak Diana out anymore than she already was.

When I saw Oliver and Olivia up ahead, I stopped her.

“I want you to meet some friends of mine,” I whispered to her.

“What?” she asked, looking around me.

“Not what - ‘who’!” I said, laughing at my own joke.

“I don’t understand,” she said, peering into the darkness.

“They’re camouflaged.  Look - over there!” I said pointing to them just as Oliver turned his head towards us.  He and Olivia were sitting in a tall branch overlooking the creek.

“Oh!  They’re gorgeous!” Diana said.

“They hang around the clubhouse. Ryder swears he’s known them for years….or, well Oliver at least.  He showed up a while back with Olivia in tow and I’ve never seen them apart.”

“That’s beautiful!”

“I’ve done a bunch of research on them.  They’re Great Horned Owls.  The Pima Tribe believed they are the reincarnated spirits of ancient warriors.  Some other Native Americans believe they bring good luck in matters of the heart, and still others believe they are a symbol of fertility - oh, fuck.”

“What?” Diana asked.

“Nothing.  Nevermind.  Anyway, yeah, that’s them.  They visit the clubhouse often.”

“I love them!” Diana said, her eyes lighting up, even in the darkness.  She was so fucking beautiful.

“Do you have any idea how beautiful you are to me?” I asked her, cupping her chin, and drinking in her moonlit beauty.  She was making me soft, and at this point I didn’t give a fuck.

“Oh, Slade,” she said softly, leaning into me. 

We stood there for a while, holding each other in the silence of the darkening forest, surrounded by a million other species performing their own mating rituals around us.

***

Olivia and Oliver followed us out of the forest, flying along behind us, stopping every couple of trees and resting on the branches as we caught up with them.

“Do they always do this?” Diana asked.

“Yeah, they always seem to be watching out.  It’s pretty cool,” I said.

“That is cool,” she agreed.

“I bet you’re hungry,” I said. “You didn’t eat much at dinner.”

“It was a lot to take in,” she replied.  And it was.  All the God’s family all in one house.  You couldn’t hear yourself think with all those loud mouths in there.

“I understand, believe me! It should be pretty mellow by now.  Let’s go raid the fridge?”

“Sounds perfect,” she replied.  I could still taste her on my lips, and I couldn’t wait to get her in my bed again later.

We were just breaking through the tree line and stepping onto the dirt road that led back to the clubhouse when we heard a commotion in the trees a few hundred yards away.

“Stay here!” I shouted, pushing Diana behind me.  I ran back through the trees, and peered through the darkness.  A figure was yelling and thrashing around in the dark.  As I ran towards him, I saw the reason he was thrashing. Oliver was on top of his head, his huge, sharp talons squeezing the man’s head, his pointed beak stabbing into his flesh.

The man threw his arms up and Oliver broke loose, his body flying threw the air, and slamming into a tree before landing in a heavy thump on the ground.  Olivia was howling above me, the sounds coming from her unlike anything I had ever heard - a loud, angry yelping that was incessant and ear-ringing.

The figure disappeared into the dark, and my eyes landed on Oliver’s crumpled body.

“Mother fucker!” I yelled, barreling through the forest.  It was dark and dense, a part of the property that led away from the creek, a part I didn’t frequent often.

I ran awkwardly, my restricted arm hindering my speed.  I spotted movement ahead of me, and a flash of a bloody hand in the moonlight.  I closed the space between us and reached out with my left hand to grab his black shirt, my fingers closing around his bicep.  He turned toward me, and with a fling of his arm, he was free and steps away from me before I caught my balance and began chasing after him again.

He was agile - jumping over fallen logs and random rocks and plants.  He was headed towards the road, where I figured he probably had a car parked.  I was determined not to let him get away.  Whoever he was, he had no fucking business in these woods.

My arm wasn’t doing me any favors in what was turning out to be a distance run through the woods.  He was a little faster than me, but only because he wasn’t handicapped the way I was, but just a small advantage was all he needed to stay just ahead of me and out of reach.

We reached a small clearing, an open meadow where the trees cleared and a field of tall grass stretched before us.

Finally, I could gain some traction.  I was within inches of him, my arm reaching out to grab him, when my foot hit a rock on the ground.  I couldn’t see it through the tall grass.  My body flailed through the air, landing in the grass with a huge, resounding thud. 

My arm screamed in pain as I landed directly on the cast.  The man disappeared through the grass and I lay panting and gasping for breath through the pain, defeated and broken, the sorriest excuse for a man that ever lived.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Diana

Doc worked on Oliver all night long.  Methodically and gently, he placed him in a small box so he wouldn’t thrash around, and he called a friend, an old army buddy that just happened to run a wildlife rescue.   Chet was older than Doc, but thinner and taller, but just as gentle.

He knew exactly what to do to help Oliver, and after spending a few hours with him at the clubhouse and stabilizing him, he took him to his sanctuary for him to heal and rehabilitate.

Oliver was so good, barely making a sound through it all, watching Doc the whole time with such trusting and calm eyes.

It was heart wrenching.

And it was all my fault.

“If I had never made that phone call to you!” I wailed to Slade later, when we were alone in his room.  He had taken twice the amount of painkillers he was allowed, and he refused to go back to the hospital to get his arm checked out.  He was a little groggy, which was good, because his anger was finally fading a little.  He had been like a rage-filled monster after everything went down.  I couldn’t talk to him, I could hardly look at him.

“If I hadn’t called you, none of this would have happened!” I continued. “Look at you, Slade!  Look what I’ve done!  I’ve disrupted your life, I’ve caused you to get hurt, I’ve caused that sweet owl to get hurt!”

“Stop it, Diana!” he said, his explosive demeanor from earlier replaced by a drug-induced calm.  “You don’t know that the guy in the woods was here because of you.”

“No, but how often do you get people sniffing around down here?  Someone is following me, someone wants to get near me.  They proved that with the fucking snake!”

“Not often, that’s true, but you know what?  It doesn’t fucking matter, baby.  None of it, it just doesn’t.”

“How can you say that, Slade? I’ve changed your life, I’ve changed Oliver’s life…if he even survives!”

“Look, babe.  What I mean is…hell, we’re all gonna end up with broken wings eventually anyway.  The ‘when’ doesn’t matter.”

“What are you talking about?”

His eyes darkened, and his grin faded.

“I look at it like this.  Every creature is born with wings.  And every creature learns how to use them.  Sometimes, the world, or if you’re lucky, your parents, show you how to use them to fly high, to reach unimaginable heights. Or, they can break ‘em.  They can either encourage you, love you, teach you how to get up and fly again when you crash, because you’re always gonna crash…or they can beat you down, insult you, neglect you, make you feel like a burden, a worthless piece of shit…until you forget you even had the ability to fly in the first place.”

“And you, Slade?”  I asked, beginning to understand him a little better after all.  “Were you broken?”