Spirit Flight

CHAPTER 5

He remained on the porch. Stoic and unmoving. Making her close the distance between them.

«Why did you leave me?» he asked, the question so unexpected, the pain she saw flicker briefly across his face so shocking that for an instant she remained mute.

But then she hurtled herself at him just as she'd done to his brother. Trusting that his reflexes would do the rest. And they did. His arms went around her just as hers did to him. «I didn't leave you!» she said. Heat rushing to her cheeks as she added, «Nature called. Then I was too scared to climb back down to the cave!»

A kaleidoscope of emotions played over his face. From chagrin to happiness to grim resolve.

«I didn't think Ethan and Kaitlyn would be anywhere close,» she rushed to assure him, guessing at the path his thoughts had taken. «The truth is, I didn't even think about them at all until it was almost too late.»

She hugged Ukiah more tightly. «You saved me-again. Just like you did before. You were the thunderbird. I wasn't hallucinating.»

Ukiah relaxed his grip so he could cup Marisa's face. When he'd woken to find her gone he'd feared the worst. That she'd run after seeing the thunderbird's shadow when he'd taken her on her hands and knees. That she'd finally guessed the truth-not only guessed it, but had been terrified by it, preferring to risk death again rather than to stay with him.

He had never known such pain. And then when his spirit had shed the temporary form and he'd taken to the air, seen her once again under attack– Only the knowledge that it might make matters worse if he killed her brother had enabled him to rein in the thunderbird's fierce desire not only to protect its mate and unborn offspring, but to destroy any who threatened them.

«Marisa,» he said against her lips. The word holding all the tenderness he felt for her.

He licked along the seam of her mouth and she opened for him, readily accepted the thrust of his tongue. Greeted him with joy and passion and need.

Ukiah swooped her up in his arms and she laughed, disengaging from the kiss long enough to remind him. «I can walk.»

«But I enjoy carrying you.»

She thought he'd do something romantic like carry her over the threshold but instead he left the porch. Stopping every several steps to kiss her. Long, sensuous assaults that left her aching and needy. Wet. Swollen. Weakened so she wasn't sure she could actually do as she'd boasted and walk if he set her down.

He took her a short distance into the woods, to a tiny building surrounded by totem poles. «Is this a ceremonial sweat lodge?»

«No. Those who stay here during the months the lodge is open enjoy it as a sauna.»

He placed her on her feet. His hands going immediately to her clothing, unzipping the torn, bloody jacket and removing it, then dropping it to the ground. He was unbuttoning her shirt when the full impact of his words hit her.

Marisa grabbed his hands, stilling them, her nipples going tight as the heat from where they rested on her breasts reached her skin. She glanced around then and saw several cabins discreetly positioned among the trees. «I can't strip here!»

Ukiah laughed, enjoying her reaction. The way she grew flustered at the thought of someone other than him seeing her without clothing.

Complete satisfaction followed his amusement. Utter masculine contentment as he remembered how she'd been with him in the cave. How freely she'd given him access to her body, let him touch and kiss every inch of it. Let him keep her naked.

His cock pressed urgently against the front of his jeans. The throb of his heartbeat pounding through his shaft.

He leaned in and kissed her, nibbled on her lips because he couldn't stop himself. «There's no one here but us. The lodge is closed for the winter now.»

She loosened her grip on his hands and he finished removing her clothing, ushered her into the lodge before she grew chilled. Marisa laughed and tugged at one of his braids, sending a jolt of pure happiness straight to his heart. «I notice you didn't strip where someone might see you,» she teased.

He kissed her again, found that having her naked while he was fully clothed satisfied something deeply primal in him. «That's because my clothing isn't covered in dried blood and mud.»

Marisa's hand went to the buttons at the front of his shirt, slipping them. Stroking his bared chest, her fingers teasing over his nipple and making his cock jerk and leak in reaction. «Should I help you get undressed like you helped me,» she asked, her voice husky and aroused, curling around his erection and making him groan.

He let her play for long moments as his mouth reclaimed hers, his tongue thrusting and twining with hers as she toyed with his nipple and sent shards of ice-hot pleasure straight to his penis. He let her drive him to the point where it was painful to remain clothed before hastily getting undressed.

«A quick rinse and we'll go into the main room,» he said and Marisa forced her attention away from him long enough to take in her surroundings, to realize they were in a small tastefully done room which served as a place to shower. «This is the men's entrance,» he said, leading her to where the floor was tiled, lifting the hand-held shower wand from its wall mount before turning the water on and adjusting the temperature. «The women's entrance is on the other side.» He rinsed himself first, then turned the spray on her.

Marisa tried to take the shower wand from him, her face heating with memories of him bathing her in the cave. «I can take care of myself,» she said, wishing her voice didn't sound quite so breathless, but Ukiah's hand had swept down her body and now hovered directly over her cunt, sending a stream of water pounding against her clit and with it delicious waves of need up her spine.

«But I like to take care of you.» He closed the distance between the showerhead and her swollen flesh, intensifying the effect of the water. When she would have moved away, he crowded her against the wall, holding her there with the force of his will and the pleasure he was giving her. «Spread your legs wider,» he commanded and she had no thought to resist.

Ukiah's hand dropped to his cock, encircling it. He hadn't meant to linger in this room but whenever she was naked he lost his concentration.

Her gaze followed his hand to his penis and his balls pulled tight in reaction. In warning.

He was already so full, so tight, that he very nearly came when her tongue peeked out of her mouth and he remembered the feel of those lips on his cock. When her hand joined his, covering it, brushing over the exposed head of him with her thumb, a quick pass and then a lingering rub against the slit, Ukiah's buttocks clenched and he began pumping into their joined hands.

She'd bested him and they both knew it. Just as they both knew that if they didn't stop now he'd spew his seed on naked flesh before he could drive her to orgasm with the shower wand.

With a groan he put the wand away and turned off the water. Nearly lost control completely when Marisa started to go to her knees.

«No,» he gasped, forcing his hand away from his cock, and with it, hers. Pulling her against his chest and holding her there.

She gave him a mischievous look through lowered eyelashes. «Turnabout is fair play, Ukiah. What's good for you, is good for me too.»

«Marisa,» he groaned, wavering for a moment. Hot need and the desire to feel her mouth on his cock very nearly overwhelming him. But he tightened his grip when she would have slid down his body. «Later,» he promised. «You can do anything you want to me later, when we get back to the lodge.»

«Promise,» she teased, turning her head and licking over a rigid male nipple.

«Promise,» he said, his voice the breathless one this time as he led her into the main chamber, afraid to delay any longer.

Marisa's breath caught in her throat when they stopped next to the fur-covered pallet and she saw the restraints, two strips of leather attached to the floor at the upper corners of the mat. «I don't think this is standard equipment for a sauna,» she managed to say, even as something darkly erotic uncoiled in her womb and spread outward.

Ukiah cupped her face in his and forced her to meet his eyes. The dark, dark eyes of the thunderbird. «You are mine,» he said, and she felt the words all the way to her soul. Felt them echoing from the past and had a fleeting image of standing naked, her wrists bound in front of her as these same words were once spoken in a language she didn't know. Their meaning translated by the way her captor's gaze roamed possessively over her body.

«I'm yours,» she whispered, feeling arousal trickle down the inside of her thighs.

She allowed him to guide her to the bedding, to tether her wrists and make her helpless. A symbolic gesture because bound or freed, she trusted him completely and would never willingly leave him.

Ukiah knelt above her, his balls huge, heavy weights underneath a thick, flushed erection. Her beauty, inside and out, nearly undid him. And even though Marisa was the one in restraints, he knew he was equally helpless when it came to her.

He lowered himself, groaned as his sac settled on her warm belly. His mouth covered hers, captured, claimed, lingered before moving to her ear, her neck, and finally to her breast.

She began whimpering and writhing when he took her nipple between his teeth. Bit down on it, flicked it with his tongue. Sucked it. Her movements beneath him, her rubbing against his cock and testicles sending bursts of near painful ecstasy through him.

Liquid heat escaped, coating the head of his penis, marking her in the places where their bodies touched. It was primitive, raw. And Ukiah had to fight the urge to take himself in hand, to bring himself to orgasm and cover her cunt and abdomen with his seed.

«Please,» she cried out, arching into him, driving all thought from his mind so that for long moments he suckled hungrily. Aware of only her breast. The wild beat of her heart. Her slick skin and fevered pleas.

It was the heady scent of her arousal that finally drew him away from her nipple. Had him kissing and biting and laving his way downward, parting her thighs and holding her open so he could look at her, taste her, drive her to orgasm by swirling his tongue over her clit, plunging it into her slit.

Over and over again he took her. Made her cry out in release. Her pleas turning to screams. Her body bowing, arms fighting the restraints until finally she went lax. And even then Ukiah couldn't get enough of her.

He nuzzled her swollen folds, sucked on them. Dragged his tongue along her creamy opening until she was whimpering again, her hips undulating. His name a ragged whisper on her lips.

Only the demands of the thunderbird gave him the strength to lift his face from her cunt and move to position himself above her, his hands going to hers, fingers entwining though he didn't free her wrists. He impaled her with a single hard thrust, forced open a channel that still seemed barely able to contain him.

Thunder rumbled as she wrapped her legs around him. Welcomed him completely. Held him deep in her body as if she would never let him go. «Fly with me,» he said, his coal-black eyes mesmerizing as their bodies began moving in a timeless rhythm. An ancient dance.

There was no fire in this room as there had been in the cave, but at the corner of Marisa's vision shadows formed and flickered on the walls. Blending and merging in time to Ukiah's thrusts, to the drums and chants edging into her consciousness, filling her, building in intensity when Ukiah became more forceful, more frenzied as another orgasm built. This one a tidal wave compared the others. Arriving in a great sparkling wash of red and black and white with hints of blue and yellow. Crashing over and through her, taking her with it as the chants and drums reached a crescendo.

There was a wrenching sensation, followed by gray cold nothingness, and then by awareness. Of immense energy and power gathering and rolling through a body that was huge, feathered. The wings outstretched, riding the thermals.

She faltered and immediately felt talons on her back, a gentle grasp meant to reassure and guide her. Ukiah. She flapped the magnificent wings to communicate that she was okay and felt him lift away from her.

She flapped again, more forcefully this time. Reveling in the increased speed, the feel of the air against her as she mentally explored every inch of the thunderbird. Found the spark of life in her womb and nearly dropped from the sky. But once again Ukiah's talons on her back steadied her focus.

With a fleeting thought she was aware of her human form in the building below. Her wrists freed, her back curled against Ukiah's chest, their breathing synchronized and deep as their spirits flew free.

Emotion surged through her. Raw and fierce. Rumbling out in front of her as thunder. A shout of triumph. Of joy. Of love. Of two souls united again.