The Missing

her shorts and panties. He cupped her in his hand and pushed two fingers inside her. She keened out his name and rocked against his hand. Cullen wrapped an arm around her, lifting her against him, and she felt them moving. Opening her eyes, she saw that he’d moved them closer to the deck, and then he slid his hand out of her panties. When he wrapped his fingers around her wrist, she felt the heated moisture there. He guided her hands up, bracing them against the deck floor. Where they stood, the deck’s floor came up to her chest, and she leaned against it willingly, letting it support her a little as Cullen stepped back and stripped her panties and shorts away. They fell in a tangle around her ankles, and she went to kick them off. Cullen cupped her hips and leaned against her, muttering roughly, “Be still.”

    It was déjà vu; she felt like she was reliving that last time with him, and as desperate as she was for him, she almost pulled away. She had to deal with that pain in real life. Was she going to have to deal with it here, too? Was he going to walk away from her again?

    Her body was weak, though. Her sense of self-preservation might be telling her to run, but the rest of her was screaming, Stay! Taige remained motionless, leaning against the deck with her palms braced on the smooth, faded wood. She heard the harsh rasp of his zipper and caught her lower lip between her teeth, need and anticipation twining through her. She was so hot and shaky, so hungry and so desperate for him. When he pressed against her, she jolted as though she had been shocked. Her legs were pinned together by the shorts at her ankles, and he had to work his way inside, pushing through the tight tissues and forging his way in, deeper and deeper.

    She groaned at the sensations dancing through her. The line between pleasure and pain blurred. She arched back, trying to take more of him. He gripped her hips and pulled back. When he shoved in, hard and fast, the line between pleasure and pain disappeared altogether. She screamed, a startled cry. He did it again, and she whimpered. Again and she twisted against him, unsure if she wanted him to do it again or if she wanted to pull away. Again, and she erupted, crying out his name and coming with an intensity that stole her breath away.

    But he wasn’t done. He kept slamming into her. With her hands braced on the deck and his hands cupping her hips and holding her tight, she stood there, a willing vessel for him but too satisfied, too drained to feel anything beyond the pounding of her heart and the friction as he shafted her.

    The roaring in her ears subsided, and she heard him muttering under his breath. “You’re mine, damn it. I want you back. Never lose you again—mine . . .”

    Strange words, considering. But then he slid his hand around her hip, spearing through the curls between her thighs, seeking out the hard bud of her clit. She went from letting him ride her and thinking about the weirdness of her dreams and how her heart hurt just being with him like this to hot, hungry, and desperate, as desperate as he was. As though he had just been waiting for that response, he stopped touching her clit, left her hovering on the brink of orgasm. He trailed his fingers, wet from her, up over her hip, the small of her back, and up her spine. Then he bent over her, crowding her closer to the deck and bracing his hand by hers. “I love you,” he rasped in her ear. “You’re mine . . . aren’t you, Taige? Say you’re still mine.”

    “Yours,” she agreed, even though deep inside she wanted to scream in denial.

    Satisfied, he rode her hard, driving her to another climax before he came, and then he pulled back long enough to pull his jeans up. Taige leaned against the deck, panting for air and her knees wobbling. Then he pulled her into his arms and lifted, carrying her out of the warm summer sun and into the cool, quiet darkness of her house.

    IT wasn’t a weird way for him to wake up, but it sure as hell was unsettling. Not to mention a little bit embarrassing, Cullen mused as he climbed out of bed and stripped the sheets away. Wet dreams were supposed to stop after puberty . . . right? Whoever came up with that obviously hadn’t had dreams about Taige Branch.

    Bizarre dreams, dreams that seemed too real for them not to be true.

    Bizarre and powerful enough, unsettling enough, that one dream was enough to hurl him into a black mood that could last for weeks. It was a