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“Princess?” He kept his voice crooning
and low, and he saw how her tense shoulders relaxed at his tone. He
also saw how she was shuddering under the downpour and he stepped
forward, deliberately crowding her space so that she was forced to
step out of the opening and back under shelter.

When she was out of the rain her tongue
seemed to loosen.

“I was worried about you.” She blushed
and he watched as the blood beneath her skin turned her a delicate
pink. Not just her face either but along the curve of her neck and
across the smooth expanse of skin revealed by the chemise’s dipped
bodice. His eyes caressed her breasts with an intensity he longed
to mimic with his hands and tongue. Something in the set of his
jaw, in the clenching of his fists seemed to alert her, and she
crossed her arms over her chest, suddenly shy.

He cleared his throat and took a step
back.

“There’s no need to worry on my
account. A little rain never killed anyone.”

She got that stubborn tilt to her chin.
“I don’t feel safe here by myself. I want you with me.” There was a
note of command in her voice, and he raised his brows at her and
gave a low whistle, enjoying when her cheeks reddened.

“If it’s all the same to you, Miss
Holbrooke,” he said with as straight a face as possible, “I’d
rather not. It won’t be long before I can build another shelter and
in the meantime....” He shrugged and began to turn away. “In the
meantime, I’m a big boy and I can live with a cold or two. My nurse
always said a running nose built character.”

She made an odd sound in the back of
her throat, part exasperation part amusement before her hand
clamped around his upper arm. He could have pulled away from her
but her touch, soft and warm against his wet clothes, restrained
him as thoroughly as if she’d cut him off at the knees.

“Damon, you’re being ridiculous.
There’s no reason why you should stay out in this weather when
there’s enough room inside. We were as close or closer when we were
in the longboat last night. Besides, you may not mind a runny nose
but it doesn’t exactly inspire confidence when my only protector is
sniffling and dripping like a child.” He had a mental image of
himself hunting through the forest with his man-made spear and a
nose dripping snot.

He shuddered.

It wasn’t a pretty picture.

Rubbing a weary hand through his hair,
he nodded and followed her into the lean-to. She was right, the
space was tight but it was cozy whereas the longboat had felt
cramped. If he could keep his mind off of her and simply try and
sleep then there shouldn’t be accidents.

He’d done fine the night before hadn’t
he?

No reason he couldn’t do it
again.

But even as these thoughts were calming
him enough so that he could lie beside Jocelyn, he began to doubt
the truth of them.

They had to spoon so he wouldn’t be
pushed back out into the rain again. For a moment he was unsure
what to do with his hand until Jocelyn reached for him and wrapped
herself in his arms. She fit perfectly against him, the top of her
head resting beneath his chin and her legs intertwining with his
own. Soft where he was hard, curved where he was solid, it was if
she were his other half. A creature made just for him. He found
himself sinking into her almost automatically as if his body would
do what it wanted without waiting for him to analyze everything to
death. He pulled her tight against him and buried his face into the
curve of her neck. Her hair tickled his face and he breathed her in
as if he could drown in her. Her curls were like the sun on his
face, so bright and pretty. He lay like that for a long time,
feeling himself sinking deeper and deeper into relaxation. He was
almost asleep, almost past the danger zone.

Then she moved and he knew he was
lost.

* * * *

She wanted him again, wanted to feel
the length of him growing against the cleft of her backside. His
kisses, his touches, his fingers, and his tongue, she wanted all of
him and she wondered what she would have to do to make him lose
control again and give her what she craved. So she moved against
him, thrust her hips back in a slow sensuous roll of need and blind
curiosity and shivered when he groaned against her neck. He shifted
and reclined on one arm so that he could loom over her.

His face was just another shadow in the
dark.

Not that she would have had a chance to
examine him too closely had there been any light, because just as
she realized that he had finally given in, he swooped in and
captured the curve of her throat between his teeth. He bit down and
electricity shot through her nerves. She jumped, gasped, and
instantly greedy, rolled herself along the front of his body. He
made an inarticulate sound and Jocelyn felt fingers in her hair,
tightening as he pulled her head back to expose her throat and keep
it vulnerable under his ministrations. She panted as his teeth
moved, by terms gentle and rough but always moving. He soothed the
sting on her neck with his tongue, edged his teeth across the
underside of her jaw until she trembled and then moved lower still
to tongue the gentle rise of her collarbone.

He brought up a hand and cupped her
breast and Jocelyn’s legs parted. A soft cry filled the tiny space
as he began to roll her beaded nipple between thumb and forefinger.
She arched and convulsed under his hand and his grip on her hair
released to massage the back of her skull. She relaxed against the
touch with a sigh; drunk off the things he made her feel. His lips
were white hot heat against her chilled skin and with each tug of
his finger and swipe of his tongue circling lazily along the plump
flesh of her breast, another jolt shot from the point of contact,
through her belly, to pool between her legs.

She felt herself go slippery with want,
her cleft tingling with his nearness.

When he was done with her right breast
he moved on to her left, this time jerking down her chemise with an
impatient snarl. He kept tugging at it even as his mouth descended
on her naked skin. The pleasure was sharper now, more pronounced,
the feel of him on her bare body tightened every muscle and stole
her breath. She clutched his head against her body, arched into the
cave of his mouth and when her arms got in the way of the descent
of the chemise he growled low in his throat and she convulsed under
his tongue.

His hand was running up her thighs now,
abandoning the top half of her chemise to attack the bottom, his
touch determined but gentle. There was something … something
indefinable about the way he stroked and kissed her that hinted at
some strong emotion. Jocelyn was unsure what the emotion that drove
him was, but it made her thighs dewy and wet as much as or more
than all the other things he was doing to her.

She was whimpering now, the hand that
had been in her hair and against her skull now wrapped securely
around her waist, holding her tight against his mouth as he feasted
on her. She was curled in on him, half reclining, and her bowed
head hid his actions beneath the blond curtain of her hair. The
hoarse sounds coming out of her throat slowed him down rather than
spurred him on and she bucked and twisted in his grip as the once
brutal assault became gentle and loving. She was too sensitive now;
his teeth had prepared her too well, so that even the delicate
licks and flicks of his tongue sent her mind spiraling in white
bliss.

She didn’t notice when his searching
fingers found their goal so she jumped, probably more than she
would have had she been expecting it, when his thumb brushed across
the hard little nub hidden between the lips of her sex. She buried
her face in Damon’s hair, breathed him in and clutched him against
her writhing body as she spread her legs and lifted her hips for
his delicious fingers. His fingers slid up and down the opening of
her body, delicate and sweet. A sharp contrast to the steady
pressure of his thumb as he pressed down on her clit. He set up a
rhythm; two fingers teased the opening of her body while he worked
against that concentrated bundle of nerves. She met his hand thrust
for thrust, sobbing against the crown of his head from the pleasure
of it.

It was too much, something was building
in the pit of her stomach, curling her toes and making her scalp
tingle. She was so lost, floundering in the pleasure but straining
blindly for it.

Then, one of the fingers that had only
teased up until this point, pushed past the folds of her sex and
sunk into her body just as Damon raised his head from her breast
and kissed her.

The world slowed, her ears began to
ring, and she sucked on Damon’s tongue with a ferocity that took
his breath. His finger moved in her, shifted experimentally and she
arched, her breathless moan swallowed inside his mouth. His lips
were cool and firm against hers and the inside of his mouth tasted
of rainwater and Damon.

Ah, so good. So right. She should never
have to move from this spot.

His invasion didn’t hurt so much as it
felt very strange and she was eagerly getting used to the feel of
him inside of her. As he continued to work her, continued to stroke
and tease in gentle moves that rocked her hips, she relaxed on him
and opened her thighs still further when she felt him position his
hips between them. She was enjoying his fingers now, thrusting down
on them and moaning with each surge and he took that as a sign to
increase the pace.

“This is what it’ll feel like Jocelyn.”
His mouth traveled along her cheeks and she clutched his hair with
one hand and his shoulder with the other to keep herself from
falling.

“When we’re together, when I push my
cock inside of you this is the rhythm we’ll dance to, Princess.”
The sound of the endearment had more moisture slicking her sex and
his finger slid deeper and bent at the knuckle.

She stiffened.

He made a come hither gesture inside of
the tight muscles of her sex and he was so deep that she clenched
around him even as tears gathered in her eyes from how good it
felt. He began to work a second finger inside along with the first
and she tried to close herself instinctively. Since he was between
them now the motion accomplished nothing and Jocelyn’s breath
escaped her in short bursts as she tried to get used to the strange
fullness. It stung now, on that fine edge between pain and
pleasure, and she buried her face against Damon’s neck as he
rotated his wrist and continued to thrust and work his way inside
of her tight canal.

“Da-mon.” His name was a breathless
moan, almost a prayer. “So strange. Feels so strange.”

“Do you want me to stop?”

She shuddered when he began to withdraw
his hand and this time when her thighs tightened they did so to
keep him in rather than to keep him out. He chuckled at her
response and it was a dark, throaty sound that sent a new surge of
heat to soak his fingers.

He took her mouth again and Jocelyn was
dimly aware of him rising off of her, the arm around her waist
slipping away and leaving her cold. She reached for him, followed
him blindly without bothering to break the kiss.

He was back the next instant and her
sigh of relief ended in a moan of pure feminine satisfaction. He
laughed against her mouth and it was charming how there was an edge
to it, a sudden lack of confidence. He was nervous and her lips
curved under his as she felt the blunt head of his sex replacing
his fingers. He was so hot, so bloody hot he seemed to burn her.
The hand that had stroked her so expertly rose to brush down her
cheek and along her jaw, and she realized with a jolt that it
shook.

The knowledge made her sigh and her
body relaxed into him before she could even think of tensing up. He
was wide, thick, and curved. Just the sight of only the head of his
shaft cradled in her body made her mouth water. And though she
lifted herself for him, begged him with clenching hands, and
wordless murmurs of pleasure, he pushed no further.

The tip of him, his sex, his shaft, his
‘cock’, stretched the entrance of her body more thoroughly than
anything she could have imagined and she felt herself clench around
him instinctively.

Empty.

That was the only clear thought in her
mind. She was empty and Damon could make that emptiness go away.
That loneliness. One hand rested by her hip to lever himself above
her, the other reached blindly for and found the nape of her neck.
Pulled her close so that he could press his forehead against hers.
They sat that way, breath mingling and eyes locked until Jocelyn
bit her lip and shifted her hips. Damon’s face tightened, in pain,
in pleasure, either was possible and at the moment irrelevant. His
eyes shut and he kissed her again. No tongue, simply the steady
pressure and movement of his mouth on hers.

Then he too moved.

He didn’t push forward, didn’t sink
into her as she wished; rather he shifted his hips and slipped
completely out of her. She would have protested, would have cursed,
but he silenced her with a warning nip at her bottom lip. Her
fingers dug into his shoulder, clawed him, and his entire body
trembled but he didn’t return to where Jocelyn was convinced was
his rightful place and no one else’s.

Instead he rubbed himself back and
forth along her slick folds until the length of him was covered in
her need. Then he pressed forward and slid up. Quick, short thrusts
had him hitting her clit with each pass. She tried to angle her
body so that each time he slid down he was in danger of once more
pressing into her, but he grabbed her hip in an iron grip and held
her still as he worked. His body was thrumming with tension; each
and every muscle as hard as iron and tightly contained. The
friction and heat between her legs began to grow. She felt that
dangerous tingling along her skull travel down her spine and
groaned open mouthed and wanton. It felt good, so good to have him
slide across her opening. Back and forth, harder and harder until
she fell on her back with a short cry. He let her go and gripped
her hips with both hands, moving her carefully so that her pelvis
rested in his hands like an offering, her buttocks completely off
the ground. He could thrust along her more completely now, no
longer in danger of taking her should he shift and make a
mistake.