Redemption FinalWPF6 7 (5 page)

With a deep sigh, she shuddered beneath his hands, then her
hesitation seemed to melt away. He lifted her as she turned, until she was
sitting between his outstretched legs, her back to his chest, both of them
facing Gabe. A very naked, very hard Gabe.

Uriah wrapped his arms around Diane and took a breast in
each hand, hefted the solid feel of them, massaged. Then he pressed her breasts
together and lifted them slightly, as if in offering to Gabe. The nipples
puckered and tightened into hard little pebbles. She dropped her head back onto
his shoulder and moaned with pleasure.

He kept his eyes locked on Gabe’s face, even as he stroked
lower, feathering his fingers over her skin, through the silky triangle at the
apex of her thighs. Uriah’s senses were overwhelmed. He was touching Diane, but
watching Gabe mirror his every movement. Gabe’s hand traced across his chest
and pinched his own nipple. Long, slender fingers followed the sweet, soft
brown trail of hair to the thick bush at the base of his cock, then lower to
squeeze his own balls.

Diane moaned when Uriah draped her legs over his thighs, and
exposed her to Gabe. She writhed under the ministrations of his thick fingers
as he gathered her moisture and rubbed against her clit. Her hips bucked
against his hand as he slipped in one, then two fingers, slick and hot, until
he felt her spasm around him.

Gabe spit into his hand and grabbed his cock. Then he
moistened his lips, gaze fixed on Diane’s pussy, on Uriah’s hands, and he began
to stroke.

“I want in you now, Diane,” Uriah said. He used one hand
around her waist to lift, even as the other snaked between them and he guided
the fat head of his cock to the mouth of her pussy. She helped by propping
herself on her haunches. Then, with a gentle rocking motion, Uriah slowly
worked himself inside. He closed his eyes at the sensation. Tight, sweet silky
heaven. 

He wanted to savor the moment, make this night last,
memories for a lifetime. It would never happen again,
could never
, but
for tonight Diane was his. Molded so tight to her body that he could feel the
beat of her racing heart, his hands traced along her thighs, skimmed breasts,
tortured her clit. He was surrounding her…surrounded by her. Everywhere but
where he most wanted to be…her heart.

“Shit.”

Uriah’s eyes snapped open at the other man’s oath. Gabe was
watching them, his knees spread wide, his cock heavy with need. Uriah blinked
as Gabe began to stroke faster. 

Slide, glide, rub
. Uriah thrust faster, Diane’s
breathing was harsh, Gabe’s hand quickened.

“Feels so good, feels so good…oh
…
so close.” Diane’s nails dug into his thighs,
as she met him, thrust for thrust.

Gabe pushed his legs out in front of him, the muscles looked
like chiseled marble in the moonlight. He dropped his head back, the tendons in
his neck standing out in stark relief. His hand moved faster.
Slide. Stroke.
Twist.
Hips pumped. Then Gabe shifted so Uriah could see his face. Even in
the filtered moonlight, he could see the dark brows, scruff of beard, the strong
jaw, and he knew…fucking knew…the bastard would taste so damn good. He held the
woman of his dreams and watched another man jerk off. This time, when their
gazes locked, he couldn’t look away. Gabe’s mouth curved in sinful smile and
his tongue sneaked out to moisten his lips again. In a whisper that caressed
like a lover’s touch, Gabe said, “Now, Uriah. Come for me. Now.”

“Fuuuck,” Uriah cried. The word was torn from his throat,
all semblance of control stripped away. Diane spasmed around his cock. Her
shuddering orgasm, his pulsing heat, and Gabe’s hand full of his own jizz.

It seemed much later when Diane shakily climbed free of his
lap to collapse beside him on the mattress. “Jesus,” she said. Her breath was
still coming fast, her voice low and sultry in the moonlight. She draped an arm
over her eyes, and he wondered if she was already regretting what they’d done.

Still watching Uriah, Gabe plucked his T-shirt from the pile
of clothes by his feet and wiped his hands. “You’re so beautiful together.”

Uriah gave a noncommittal grunt and found his shorts.
Dressing quickly, driven by a need to put some distance between himself and the
others, he tore his gaze away from Gabe’s.

“Uriah, you don’t need to leave. I’m not going to…you and
your wife were—“

“She’s not my goddamn wife,” he interrupted. Self-loathing
poured through him.
What the fuck did I just do? Oh Jesus.
He thought he
might be sick. He stood, slipped his feet into his flip-flops, and stumbled to
the door.

“She’s my brother’s wife. His widow. And I killed him.” Then
Uriah walked into the night.

Chapter Five

You had to hike early in the day or late into the evening to
stay alive when hiking in the Grand Canyon in the summer. So Gabe had tucked
himself into a small patch of shade near the canyon wall and dozed while he
waited for the bitch to burn herself out. She’d be back tomorrow, but he wasn’t
worried. He was bone tired and the heat of the day pressing down was
oppressive, close to one hundred and twenty-five degrees, but he wasn’t far
from his destination. Another two or three hours of hiking, at most. He’d
pressed hard and turned his planned two-day hike into one long-assed day. He
wanted to put as much distance between himself and other people as possible. He
would wait until the evening shadows from the canyon walls covered more of the
trail. Meanwhile he would eat and replenish his body’s fuel.

He shifted his pack and moaned at the stiff muscles in his
legs and back. The combination of long hike, late night sex, and too little
sleep the night before had him wincing and downing four ibuprofen with his
water. That had been some sex. Not that he’d gotten to do everything he wanted
to, but there was something so fucking hot about watching two beautiful people
make love. Still…he’d have liked to bend the goddamned sexy Uriah over and tap
that fine ass. Especially if he could be balls deep while Uriah’s heavy cock
filled Diane. He could just imagine her long, lovely legs wrapped around the
two of them, her low, sultry voice whispering a sweet
fuck-me
.

Shit.
It was time to start walking before he had to
whack himself off just thinking about the two of them. Gabe lifted his pack,
shifted it around until it was as comfortable as it was going to get on his
tender shoulders, and started out. He allowed himself to wonder where the other
two were. He knew they had backcountry permits, but not where they were hiking.
He’d planned to ask them, but when he heard them whispering in the dark this
morning, he’d remained quiet.

“Diane, get up. We need to go.”

“Time is it?” she’d mumbled.

“Two-thirty. Let’s go.”

Gabe had opened his mouth to speak when Uriah’s next
words stopped him.

“The packs are already outside. I want to get out of here
before Gabe wakes up. I don’t want to see him. I can’t—”

Uriah’s whispered voice had hidden any trace of emotion, but
his words cut.

“Jesus Diane. I’m sorry. I fucked up again. I’m
sorry…sorry. I’ll be…I’ll wait outside.”

The door had closed quietly then, as Uriah stepped into the
dark. Gabe had remained silent, unmoving in the dark, and listened to the
rustles as Diane finished dressing. When the door snicked closed behind her,
Gabe felt as alone as he’d ever been.

Now, he took a long drink, then readjusted his straps and
lengthened his stride. To hell with slow and easy in the heat. He suddenly just
wanted to be at his base camp. He pushed all thoughts about the sexy duo from
his mind, and focused on the vast expanse of the canyon. Nothing quite like
being alone in the bottom of a ten-mile wide, one-mile deep, and two hundred
seventy-seven mile long canyon to make a man realize that his hurt pride was
pretty damn insignificant in the overall scheme of the world.

Two hours and many checks of his GPS later, Gabe was within
a quarter mile of his destination. He navigated a little more to the southeast,
his mind filled with nothing more complex than moving one foot in front of the
other. He let the pounding rhythm of the Colorado River set his pace, driving
him to where he could finally shed his pack and settle. Four days of complete solitude,
of time to get his head on straight, to decide the direction his life needed to
take. Four days of complete peace and relaxation.

Craaaaaaaaaaaaaaack!

Jesus! That sounded like gunfire
… Muscles that had
been too tired to move just a moment before were suddenly re-energized. Gabe
ran in a zigzag motion toward the red rock cliff wall that was the last barrier
between him and his destination. He didn’t know if the shot was from someone
just screwing around or an illegal hunting expedition, but he didn’t want to
get hit by a stray bullet from some crackpot.

Another shot echoed through the canyon, followed closely by
the short, sharp scream of a woman. Sounds in the canyon were hard to track,
but he thought he heard a muffled curse and the scrabble of boots against
stone, but the noise seemed to come from somewhere above him.

The Colorado River roared by, cold, fast, and completely
impervious to his plight as he pressed against the canyon wall. Should he go
around the outcropping? It was his planned destination. If he did, was there
someone with a gun waiting one the other side? He sure as hell couldn’t go
back. Even if he was willing to risk walking back across the open trail, it
would be dangerous to keep going after his twenty-mile hike in the heat. There
was supposed to be a sandy beach, a sheer cliff, and a small cave just on the
other side of the outcropping. Patti had helped him select the spot for its
isolation. Too small of a beach and too close to the rapids for the river
runners to bother with, it was a great location for those who were adventurous
enough to hike well off the beaten trail. Help might be a long time coming, but
as long as he stayed in this vicinity at least one ranger knew where to find
him.

The sound of a woman’s curses mixed with choked sobs brought
his attention back into focus. That scream—fuck, he was a doctor. It really
didn’t matter what his gut wanted to do, he had to see if someone needed help.
Gabe tried to move from boulder to stone, skirting the currents of the river. Water
slapped cold against his skin, as his boots slid and skidded against the river
rock. The current was swift, but he wasn’t in the whitewater, just along the
bank of a damn big river. A river that had been carving her path across the
surface of the earth and claiming the edges as her own for millennia.

“Hello? Can you hear me? Is everyone okay?”

“No, help…someone’s been hurt.” A woman’s voice, high and
tight. Stress, shock, injury.
Jesus. This was turning into some vacation
.

Gabe stood on a boulder, just above the rushing water, only
a few feet from the sandy flat shoreline. With a small leap, his left foot
landed on the flat smooth stone that was his final step in the river. Then the
stone tilted and Gabe went down hard, cracking his knee on something hidden
under the roiling water. He grasped at the rocks, and they tumbled free from
the sandy bottom. The cold stole his breath and made it nearly impossible to
move. Water swirled, pulling him under, rolling him over, until he was as
helpless as any rag doll. The Colorado River was tossing him with a careless
implacability that left no doubt about his unimportance in the grand scheme of
the world. Nature was a force that would not be denied her sacrifice.

He threw his arms wide, grasping desperately for any
purchase, his hands clutching, grabbing nothing but water and sand. Polished
stones tumbled under his palms, smashed his fingers. Each a false promise of
stability that gave way at the first test of strength. When his head met a
submerged boulder, Gabe had a moment to wonder if this was his time, his place.
With a wrenching sideways lunge, he wedged his ankle between one boulder and
its neighbor.

Slowly he pushed himself up, fighting his sodden pack,
ignoring the screaming pain in his knee. He scouted each foothold before he
left the last, unwilling to surrender another inch to river.
Not this time,
bitch.

****

“God, move,” Diane begged the unconscious Uriah, even as her
hands scrabbled over his face, brushing at the strands of black hair that clung
to his blood-streaked and sweat-dampened skin.
No time, no time, no time
…the
phrase played in her head, and she forced herself to stop fussing over the head
injury. However bad it was—it would wait. Had to wait. She needed to get them
out of the line of fire. With a grunt that was suspiciously close to a sob,
Diane pushed at the massive shoulders, trying to move the big man the last two
feet she needed in order to get him completely under the overhang in the cliff
wall that created a protective shelter. Maybe not quite deep enough to call it
a cave, but it should work.

“Wake up and move. Jesus, Uriah…come on, honey.” Diane
swiped at the hair on her sweaty forehead with her arm and shifted to push at
his legs and hips. The fact that he’d gone down so fast and so hard at the
sound of the second shot scared her to death.
Oh god…to death. Not that. He's
alive, he's breathing. But damn the blood. So much blood.

Even as she continued to try to move the two of them into
the protective shelter of the cave, thoughts raced through her mind. Where the
hell was the man who’d offered help? She could really use a good strong back
right about now. Unless he was the one with the gun…no, the shot had come from
above them. Uriah had definitely been looking up when he’d shouted the first
warning, just before he’d grabbed her around the waist and started running
toward the shelter. She looked toward the river again, but no help appeared.
Maybe the gunman had already found the good Samaritan.