“No,” he said huskily. “No, let me look at you. Your skin.” He came closer and placed his lips on my shoulder, skirting the gauze. “Your skin is the color of rich tea with lots of sugar. I want to drink you right up. I think I might.”

His lips and tongue were startlingly hot against my bare body in the night air and the heat only grew, like cinnamon and flames, as he ran them down toward my breasts.

I stiffened as he reached my nipples but that soon melted away as his mouth encircled them. I moaned and closed my eyes, my head rolling back, as I felt my body spark, ready for ignition. Each lick and suck made a pressure build between my legs until it was too much and there was nothing more that could be done. I squirmed from his insistent mouth and groaned, trying to find some relief. I was afraid the feelings would consume me, all of me, from the inside out.

What was happening?

“You taste so good,” he whispered. His hands went from my breasts and down toward my pants, pulling at the buttons by the waist.

“Please don’t stop,” I cried out, no longer caring how I sounded to him. When he stopped, my nipples only hardened more and I was nearly begging him for the sensation to continue.

“I’m only getting started,” he said, his tongue flicking at them until my legs started moving restlessly. “This is just the beginning.”

“I don’t know how to make it stop, to stop what you started,” I said with a groan.

“I’ll take care of you,” he said thickly. “Just trust in me. Lie back.”

I did as he asked and he pulled my pants right off. I immediately shut my eyes to him, to the ceiling of the cave that danced with cobwebs and flickering shadows, to the fact that I was completely naked in front of him.

And yet the shivers had stopped. I was no longer cold. Or perhaps I was, but it took second place compared to what I wanted, needed. I never knew I had been missing out until now.

He squeezed my thighs and made an appreciative murmur before he ran his hand between them. My legs parted involuntarily, as if my body knew what to do before I even did. I had to trust in him and trust in that.

He would keep me safe.

His hand found the wet space between and gently pushed in. I cried out softly, from shock of the intrusion and then from a faint tinge of pleasure.

“Let me take care of you,” I heard him whisper.

He placed his finger at one spot and began to rub gently, back and forth. Everything tingled, radiating outward as the heat from my belly pooled downward. I started raising my hips into his hand, wanting more and not being able to handle it. My legs spread further and then it felt like everything else was too. My body yearned for something and yearned badly.

“Jake,” I moaned. “What is happening?”

“Shhh,” he said gently. With his hand still rubbing now, faster, slicker, he lay on top of me and kissed me. He kissed my mouth, my neck, my breasts, my nipples. He kissed me everywhere in places I’d never dreamed of, all while making me feel things I never thought were possible, that I never knew existed.

There was barely time to be afraid when all I wanted right then was him and all I got was him.

Finally, the relief came. The pressure was stacked and stacked and stacked between my legs until there was no place for it to go. I felt like my body was thrust into another world, another plane of existence, as waves of pleasure and tingling ice and fire tore through me.

I felt like I was being ripped open in the most pleasing way and all that was left after was just me. Bare-souled with a full heart.

“Oh,” I said breathlessly, my head lolling back and forth along the animal skin, trying to bring myself back to the cave. I’d been somewhere else, somewhere…beautiful. “I can’t even describe it.”

“Good thing, darlin’,” he said. “Because I can’t either. All I know is that it ain’t over yet. Are you ready for me?”

“There’s more?” I exclaimed. I lifted my head to see him sit back and start undoing his pants.

He shot me a sly grin. “There’s more. There’s a new world out there.”

“And meanwhile all this innocence has held me back.”

“Nah, Pine Nut,” he said. “It only made you what you are. I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

He yanked his boots and pants off until he was in his short long johns and then tugged those off too.

I immediately turned my head, completely unprepared for what I was going to see.

“You could have warned me,” I admonished him.

“If we’re going where my heart desires, well, let’s just say you’ll be seeing this a lot.”

I blinked, afraid to look again. I’d never see a man like…that. In that state. It was shocking and tantalizing all at once and I couldn’t imagine what we were about to do.

Well, now I could. My insides still throbbed and tingled, and as tense as I felt, part of me stayed willing.

“Just lie back,” Jake said again. “I promise I won’t hurt you much. It will only hurt the first time, and if I play my cards right, it shouldn’t be for long.” He paused. “The pain, that is.”

“Something about the first time being awkward,” I said remembering his metaphors for shooting the rifle.

“That went for everyone else,” he said, gently kissing my cheek. “Not for me. Now relax. And let me in.”

I gripped the edges of the hides, the opposite of relaxing, and held my breath as he went between my legs. I felt him, hard, stiff and large, and I couldn’t comprehend how he was even going to fit, how love-making even happened between a man and a woman. As I started to wonder about how it was possible for babies to even be born when the act seemed impossible, he pushed inside of me.

He was slow. He was gentle. He took his time. He asked after me. But it still hurt like nothing else, like I was being split in two. I cried out and tears teased at my eyes.

But I never asked him to stop. And he never let up his gradual ways. He just kept coming in, steadily, then back out. A slow rhythm began to build and his hands went back to the place they were before. Soon I was relaxing and his body was coming into mine, the hairs on his chest tickling against my bare breasts, his breathing heavy and labored. A thin sheen of sweat coated his forehead, settling in the lines where his face remained in throws of concentration and lust. If he was in any pain from his wound, he wasn’t showing it. He was only showing his need for me, his eyes flashing with it every time our gazes locked.

The feeling was incredible, his body so rough and ready and large and me so small beneath him. I felt like a woman—like his woman—something new to me. I felt my old life seep out of me as he poured his in.

Though the pressure had never relieved again on my end, it had on his. His thrusts became fast, feverish, his eyes burning into mine as if he was trying to capture my spirit with them.

“Eve,” he groaned into my mouth as his body began to shudder. “Oh, Eve.”

With a sigh he rested his sweaty body on top of mine. I put my hands on his wide back and moved my fingers up and down his spine. I held him close to me, feeling so very close to him, closer than I’d ever felt to anyone. He was inside of me still but I never wanted him to leave. I never wanted to be apart again.

Later, we lay beneath the hides and I was nestled in the crook of his arm, my hand on his chest. It was still pitch black outside, but the fire was roaring hot, and I was warmed inside and out. The intimacy I felt was unexpected, the connection between us had grown deeper and tangible. I felt like it added another level to my existence.

“How long have you been without your father?” Jake asked, his fingers playing with my hair.

I looked at him in surprise. I didn’t think he’d been listening when I had told Tim about him.

“For too long,” I answered. “I think because I don’t know if he’s alive or dead, it makes time even longer. Sometimes I’m afraid I might not remember him though I know it hasn’t been that long.”

Silence cloaked the cave. Finally he said, “I’m sorry.”

“So am I.”

“And your mother? Is she still alive?”

That was debatable. “She is. But…she’s not the same. She’s not really my mother anymore. I was always more of my father’s child than hers. After he died, she withdrew from me even more. She stopped speaking. She stopped looking after me. That’s when we had to move in with my aunt and uncle. They take care of my mother…”

“But they never really take care of you.”

“No. I took care of myself.”

He exhaled though his nose and held me closer to him. “When we get out of here, we can bring your mother along if you want.”

I turned my head to look at him. He had such a magnificent profile. “You mean that?”

He smiled softly. “I told you that I was going where my heart desires. It desires you. We’ve got gold and a reason. We can go anywhere you want, we can take anyone you want.”

I was touched at the sincerity in his voice. I wasn’t quite sure if my mother would ever leave her sister’s side, but it was nice to know that the option was there. As for me, I couldn’t comprehend having the means to leave and not leave River Bend. With Avery gone, I’d be at the mercy of Uncle Pat. He was my last saving grace after my father had left.

I studied Jake’s face, his gruff beard, the hard lines of his jaw and chin contrasted with the kindness in his eyes, the way he appraised me even as I was lying in his arms. Perhaps this funny beast of a man would be my saving grace as well.

*

“Eve, get up!” Jake’s haggard voice broke through my dreams. I groaned, feeling a sore ache between my legs, and rolled over. I had slept like a log. The light was grey; morning was here.

And all was not well.

“Eve!” he yelled again, and the hides were suddenly thrown off me. I yelped and scrambled for my long stays and quickly covered up my indecency.

I suppose I wasn’t moving fast enough though as Jake tried to get me up. He grabbed my arm and pulled.

“What is it?” I cried out, feeling the panic rolling off of him. When Jake panicked, I knew something was very wrong.

“We have to go. The horses are gone.”

My stomach sank. “What do you mean the horses are gone?”

“I mean they are gone,” he said. He grabbed the pack that was in the corner and shook it. “This is all we have left.” He rummaged through it and pulled out two bars of gold. “Thank the damn Lord we at least have this.”

“Did they take off in the night?” I asked. I had been too involved with him last night to have been paying the horses any attention. “Weren’t they hitched to a tree?”

“They certainly were. I made sure of that. I didn’t want to risk losing them to their free-roaming fancies when we’re all the way out here.” He paused. “There are tracks too.”

“What kind of tracks?” I asked slowly.

“Human tracks,” he answered grimly.

At that, I quickly shoved on my stays and dress—I wouldn’t have bothered with the corset even if he hadn’t destroyed it—and slipped on my boots. “I don’t understand,” I finally said, my heart racing. “If it was…them…why didn’t they take us too?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “Perhaps they knew we’d put up too much of a fight. They are weak without human meat, least that’s the way I reckon.”

“So they ate the horses instead?” I asked, horrified.

“Either that or they took them to ride them.”

“They couldn’t. You’ve seen them. They’re too much like animals to have that kind of thought.”

“True,” Jake said as he started folding up the hides and threw everything back into the pack. “But Isaac was still fairly human when we found him, probably because he hadn’t eaten all of the stew. Perhaps they go in and out depending on how much meat they’ve had, perhaps they have to resort to other sources of meat to stay alive. They’ve lived in these mountains for long enough, they have to be surviving on something. The animals probably give them another few days to live, just as they would to us.”

“Then they might be around here watching us,” I said, my stomach still sick over the idea of the monsters eating Trouble. Judging from the pained expression on Jake’s face, he felt the same way too. “Do you think the horses can turn? I saw what happened to our neighbor’s horse, Nero.”

“I don’t know what that was. Perhaps just an omen.”

An omen I should have paid attention to.

“What are we going to do?” I asked as I crawled out of the cave and surveyed the scene. Sure enough, the horses were gone. The smell of rotted flesh competed with the smoldering ashes of the fire. The tracks left in the snow were a mix of bare feet and boots. It was wishful thinking to imagine we were victims of ordinary horse thieves. In these bloody mountains, nothing was ordinary.

“We have no choice,” Jake said, placing the pack on his good shoulder. “We’ve got to walk and we have to walk soon.”

He walked over to me and kissed my forehead. The warmth of his lips on my skin gave me a boost of much needed strength.

He placed the rifle in my hands. That gave me strength, too.

We took off away from the cliff face, me with the rifle, him with his revolver and the infamous axe, and headed through the narrow path through the trees. It was obvious from the way the snow here was trodden up that we not only passed through here before but the monsters did too. If they did eat the horses, at least they didn’t do it at the camp. I had the terrible, terrible image of them leading Trouble back to a darkened wood where hundreds of the monsters sat on their haunches like gargoyles, waiting for their next meal.