"Regan, wait! Come back!"
I don't slow my mad dash through the Dawley National Forest. Where I'm going, I have no fucking idea. But as long as it's nowhere near the rental, that's all that matters.
"Regan!"
I dart around a tree, but before I can take another step, Jackson has hold of me by my arms and he's got me pinned against the tree.
God, that has to be the millionth time and I'm sick of it.
Immediately, I start struggling. "Let me go."
In response, he steps into my body, so I'm trapped with the tree at my back and Jackson's muscled form in front. "No. Not until we talk."
I glare up at him, looking into his face for the first time. "Talk? About what? You fucking me when you already had a mate? A redhead with green eyes!"
"It's not as simple as that," he says.
"You mean she was lying?"
He shakes his head.
At least he doesn't deny it, which I'm glad about, because if he'd tried to lie, I think I would've hated him.
It kills me to ask because not only do I already know what the answer will be, but although I have no intention of staying, I liked Jackson. "She's your fated mate?"
He heaves a sigh. "Yes."
For a second, I just stare at him, struggling under the unexpectedly sharp pain that his words have caused. Then, I go back to struggling. "Let me go."
"She was." Jackson regards me without expression. "Before she rejected the bond. Rejected me."
I stop struggling. "What?" my question emerges as a whisper because what he's saying is impossible.
For a shifter to even discover their fated mate is a rarity in itself, but then to have that mate reject you? I can't comprehend what that must be like to have your soul mate cast you aside like that.
The anguish, Regan. You wondered at the anguish, and now you have the answer to your question.
As if Jackson realizes I'm not about to run, he releases his grip on my arms and takes a step away from me. "Lara rejected me as her mate. She believed she could do better than a packless shifter." His voice is so bitter, and the pain I feel in him so sharp that I'm moving even before I'm aware of it.
I step into his body and lift my hand to cover his heart, drawn to do it by some inner need that compels me.
Jackson freezes under my touch, and his eyes return to mine.
"She doesn't deserve you, and she never did if she thought that." I don't hide the fury in my voice. "So, she can take that kid-size designer suitcase and go back to the something better she believes she's so deserving of."
Under my hand, I feel Jackson's anguish ease, as a faint smile touches his lips. "Kid size?"
Relief surges at seeing that smile, and at knowing I'm helping to dull his pain. I nod. "Suitcases that big wouldn't even fit adult size shoes, let alone clothes. I guess she could have fancy lingerie in there that doesn't take up all that much room."
I'm babbling-rambling in the distant hope that the longer I keep on, the faint smile on Jackson's lips turns into a real one. A grin. I think I'd be happy with that.
But it doesn't.
Turn into a grin, that is.
Not because he's stopped smiling because the pain has returned, but because he's crushed his lips against mine and he's kissing me with a desperation that makes smiling or grinning impossible.
I curve my arms and legs around him and kiss him back. Trying to tell him with my kiss that while Lara thought nothing of throwing him away, he means the world to me.
He breaks the kiss once, and I see through his golden-eyed stare his wolf peering back at me.
"Oh, hey," I say. "Pretty eyes."
Jackson barks out a laugh and then he's back to kissing me again with an intensity that leads me to believe things can only end one way.
It's my turn to break the kiss. "Uh, Jackson?"
He fixes his gaze on my lips. "Regan?"
"We're not going to be humping on the forest floor, are we?"
"No."
I let out a sigh because we're still in a public forest, which means hikers or campers could stumble on us at any time. "Well, that's a relief."
"Because I'm going to rip your panties off you and take you against this tree."
At his husky growl, arousal spikes even as alarm shoots through me.
Before I can voice any of my concerns about shocking a passing tourist with public sex, which I'm sure is a crime, his lips are back on mine and his hand is caressing my bare thigh.
I put my hand on his chest and push. "Jackson, come on. Be reasonable here, it's daytime," I say, my breath coming out in a series of pants between his heated kisses.
His hand inches up toward my panties. "I am being reasonable. It's either the tree or humping on the forest floor." The amusement is so clear in his voice, I'm both relieved to hear it, at the same time, I'm alarmed at how serious he's being about this. "Or I could put you on your hands and knees and slide into you that way."
At the thought of him doing just that, I stop working out how to convince him not to go through with this because I know it'd be good.
Good? It sounds better than good.
"Regan?"
"Shhh, I'm thinking about it."
I can't believe I'm seriously weighing this up.
Seconds later, I realize that there's not going to be a hope in hell of me staying quiet if we go through with the last option. And the last thing I need is to be making enough noise to attract a bear, or even worse, tourists.
"Regan?" Jackson sounds as if he's barely holding back his laughter.
I focus on him. "How hard and fast would option three be? I'm trying to figure out if it's liable to make me scream."
His eyes darken as he leans me against the tree, so I feel even more of his rock-hard erection settling in the vee of my thighs. "Oh, you'd be screaming. No doubt about it, darlin'."
I gulp. "Oh, righty then. The tree it is," I say cheerfully.
Although I'm expecting Jackson to resume kissing me, for several seconds he studies me with the amusement slowly fading from his eyes. "Magic," he murmurs. "I'm certain of it."
While I'm still trying to work out what he means, he dips his head and kisses me with such utter focus that I'm sure he's determined to drive me crazy with need. It works so well that in approximately two seconds, I'm moaning into his mouth as I fumble for his pants fastening because I need them off and I need him inside me.
I feel his brief smile against my lips before his hand finally reaches its destination, and one hard jerk sees him tearing my panties off me.
Jackson lifts me away to take over my failed attempt at undoing his pants, something he manages with brutal efficiency.
I make a pleased sound in his mouth as he continues to kiss my brains out, and I feel his lips curve in a smile against my lips in response. After taking a second to shove his pants out of the way, he brings my body back to his.
With talk of the hard and fast on my knees, I'm fully expecting to be fucked just as hard and fast against the tree, but I'm pleasantly surprised. Jackson drives into me hard enough that I feel every inch of him fill me, making us groan loudly.
But after a long moment of us standing unmoving, as my body adjusts to having him inside me, he starts thrusting. There's a tenderness to his smooth strokes that has me thinking he's wanting to draw this out longer than when we had sex in the kitchen.
With my arms curved around his shoulders, Jackson works himself inside me at a pace that makes me wish he'd never stop. We swallow each other's moans and low groans as our hips meet with a harmony that has me wondering how we got so good at this so fast.
But a self-indulgent screw against the tree can't last forever, no matter how much I might want it to. Soon, urgency takes over.
Without us needing to say a single word, our pace increases as Jackson's fingers tighten around my hips and his driving thrusts become more insistent.
My moans get louder despite his kisses silencing most. I rock harder against him, my nails digging into his skin as I struggle to hold back my release for just a little longer because this feels too good for me to want it to end yet.
Jackson tilts my hips a little, changing the angle of his penetration. I gasp, clamping my legs even tighter around his hips as my release rocks through me.
He swears harshly in my mouth, and with one last thrust, he stills. A second later, he resumes moving again. At first, his movements are jerky, and his kiss hungry, but as his kiss turns tender, so does the glide of his hips against me.
He doesn't penetrate me as deeply, but this new rhythm has me sighing against him as all the tension slips from my body.
I don't know how long Jackson pins me to that tree in the middle of the forest, slowly thrusting his softening cock inside me, but however long it is, it doesn't come close to being long enough.