by Bourne, Lena
Rustling in the woods makes an owl hoot before it translates into footsteps. He stops at the edge of the trees, barely illuminated by the porch light, staring me down, holding all the fire I lost and more.
“Why did you leave?” I finally get to ask the question that’s been playing on repeat in my mind, since he broke away from the kiss and left the cabin.
“Because we shouldn’t kiss,” he says.
I walk off the porch and approach him, keeping eye-contact because the fire in his eyes is bright enough to guide my way even in the worst darkness.
He stays completely still, waiting for me. I take his hand once I reach him, and look deeper into the flames in his eyes, hoping they’ll bring the fire inside me to life too.
“I’ve been living like a ghost for years now,” I say. “But not when we rode on your bike this afternoon. And not when we kissed. In those moments, I was the woman I used to be again. So hearing that we shouldn’t have kissed makes no sense to me. None at all.”
His lips are slightly parted, glistening in the faint moonlight, and this scene feels like a dream again, but a good one, one I wouldn’t mind dreaming forever.
“I’m not the kind of man you can count on,” he says coarsely.
I chuckle. “You’ve already done so much for me. How can you say that?”
“Materially, sure,” he says. “But any other way, I can’t be trusted. I’m angry, I like to be alone, and most times I prefer not to talk.”
I think maybe that’s what life made him, not who he is, just like my life made me a flimsy ghost. But I don’t say it because I have no way of knowing if it’s true. Just a feeling.
“I’m not asking for forever, Matt,” I say. “All I know right now is that I’m panicky and lost when you’re not around, but when you are, all that disappears, all the bad things in my past lose their thorns. I see the path ahead and it’s clear and sunlit. Before it was just darkness and fear.”
He scoffs, or maybe it’s just a chuckle, but I think I know what he’s thinking.
“I know it’s not logical,” I say and watch him nod. “I know it could be me having a nervous breakdown, or the result of my head trauma, but it still feels true and real. I’d like you to kiss me again.”
It’s dark and I can’t see his face very clearly, which is probably why I was able to say all those things that now thicken this silence between us. Maybe I shouldn’t have spoken, but this evening has been like a dream anyway, and dreams are easily dismissed and forgotten once they’re over. I don’t want this dream to end though. Not ever.
The whoosh of warmth and the seething, charged energy that erupts as he grabs the back of my head and kisses me is not something you can feel in a dream. Nor something that’s easily forgotten. It’s too strong, too real, too powerful.
I’ve forgotten what a good kiss felt like. Or maybe I never really knew it. Until right now.
I don’t remember us walking back to the cabin, but here I am, lying on the rug next to the fire place, the heat licking my bare arms, the coarse woolen rug prickling my bare back as his kisses take in all of me. They’re on my neck, then on my nipples, my belly, and thighs, flittering this way and that, but always deep, always finding the perfect spot.
I’m trying to grab hold of him, run my fingers through his hair, dig my nails into his back, but he’s moving too fast. My body is tingling inside and out, and the feelings he’s waking in me don’t leave much room for any desire other than to have more of the pleasure he’s giving me.
By the time his lips and his tongue find my clit, I’m no longer sure my name is Anne. All I’m sure of is that I’ve craved this kind of wild abandon and pleasure all my life, but have never really had it. Certainly not with Benji, and not before either. I convinced myself it was just a fantasy, something only possible in your imagination, but here it is, more real than anything I’ve ever felt before.
And then I forget even that, as my brain fills with the fog of pleasure so intense, I can’t see anything past it. I know nothing except this slowly building fire of bliss his skilled lips are stoking inside me. Nothing except this pleasure exists.
I’m almost there, at the heart of the thick fog of pleasure, the place where it’s born. But the fog thickens even more as his lips leave my pussy and travel back up across my navel and heaving breast. They finally stop on my own, tingling lips.
He’s on top of me now, his weight pushing me down onto the rug, but the prickly pain only intensifies the pleasure coursing through my veins, gives it the contrast it needs to truly bloom. His cock is rock hard and pulsing against my clit, keeping time with my heartbeat.
“You ready?” he asks, looking into my eyes, but I don’t see his very clearly, I only see the gorgeous, warming flames in them.
“Yes,” I whisper.
I jolt and gasp, my vision suddenly clearing as he enters me, first giving me just the fat head of his cock, which is soon followed by an equally fat shaft. But my sudden lucidity doesn’t last, because an orgasm so powerful I see only shades of black and orange rips through me. I can’t draw breath, I can’t move, I can’t feel my heart beat. I can only dig my nails into his hard biceps as gust after gust of pleasure slams against me.
He stopped pushing his cock in, is letting me ride this storm of pleasure. But as soon as I open my eyes again to look into his, he starts thrusting into me again, filling me with fast and shallow strokes, then deep and slow ones, mixing the pleasure once again building inside me into a boiling crescendo of bliss, belonging, enjoyment and rightness. Soon he’s giving me all of himself, making me open up, making me accept him, even though he’s too big, too soon, offering me too much pleasure, much, much more than my body can take, because I’ve been starved of it for so long.
I’ve been a ghost and now I’m pure flame. Searing hot flame—destructive, devastating, yet the source of all life and light at the same time. Right before my second orgasm explodes inside me, I’m certain I won’t survive this fire, that nothing but ash will remain of my mind and my body once it burns out. But I wouldn’t want it any other way.
* * *
I was wrong, I did survive, I realize with a smile as I wake up. The flames in the fireplace have died down to a pile of glowing embers, and the coarseness of the rug prickling my back has been replaced by the pleasant tickling of his chest hair as he holds me tight. His cock is soft against my lower back, and he’s asleep, his even breaths caressing my neck, feeling like tiny, soft kisses.
I can sleep now too, because I know I won’t wake up into a nightmare tomorrow.
10
Doc
I led her up to bed in the middle of the night. She walked, but I don’t think she really woke up. I did. And I couldn’t get to sleep afterwards.
Is it good or bad that we fucked? Should I apologize and never let it happen again? Or what?
She tasted so good and she felt amazing. Like taking a ride on a hot summer day, the wind cool and refreshing. Or walking deep into the woods, where nothing but silence and peace exists. Like not having to think or remember, like having nothing to think about or remember. I don’t have moments like that, ever. All of it—all of her—was perfect last night. Especially when she fell asleep in my arms. She fit there like she was made just for me, and I never woke up after fucking a woman and felt that. Not once.
But I know myself. I always get bored in relationships, no matter how good the sex is or how pleasant the lady. I can’t—won’t—do that to Anne.
Then again, I never felt like I do with her with any other woman, so comparing her to the ones that came before her is pointless. Right?
With Anne it’s a mixture of wanting to save her, a pervasive desire to claim her, and a smoldering wish to keep her forever, all rolled into a package that’s bigger than the sum of its parts, bigger than anything I can wrap my sensible, logical mind around. So why am I even trying to?
She gives me the peace and silence I’ve been unsuccessfully searching for. And I’ll do my damn
best to give her the peace she needs too. Knowing that should be enough.
I realize that just as I hear her stirring upstairs. Of all the things I’ve spent this whole night thinking about, that’s the only thing that makes complete sense.
Whatever else happens, it also means something must be done about her husband.
The time for wishing and waiting where that problem’s concerned is done.
* * *
Anne
His side of the bed is messed up, but cold, and for some reason I have the feeling that he didn’t sleep by my side. I hope he hasn’t gone back to thinking we shouldn’t have made love last night, and that he’ll still want to kiss me this morning, because that was my first wish the moment I woke up and it’s still burning strong now that I’m fully awake. I can’t remember the last time I woke up with such hope and anticipation of good things to come in the day before me. But it’s all I can feel as I throw the covers off me and go in search of Matt.
The smell of coffee greets me as I descend the stairs wearing just one of his t-shirts I found neatly folded, but moldy-smelling in the closet. The wooden boards are chilly against my bare feet, but I’m not cold, especially not as he turns from the counter and fixes me with that fiery gaze of his.
He’s holding a mug of coffee out to me, black with a picture of the sun on it.
“How do you take your coffee?” he asks. “Milk and sugar?”
I smile and glide over to him. “Good morning to you too.”
The cup makes a lot of noise as he sets it on the counter without looking, and about half the coffee spilt in the process of him doing so. But that’s just a fact I notice, inconsequential against the sweet, soft warmth filling me as he grabs the back of my head, tangling his fingers in my already messy hair, and pulls my lips to his. He kisses me deeply and thoroughly, with even more passion than last night, and certainly with more knee-melting desire I’ve ever felt directed at me before.
My hands are gliding across his bare stomach and sides, bumping against the hard ridges and valleys of his muscles. He feels so solid, so present, so strong, like a pillar, one that I could climb and then I’d be safe again, be myself again, or hide behind until I can do that.
It could be noon or next week by the time we stop kissing, both breathless, his lips a bright fiery red, as I know mine must be too, because they’re pulsing and tingling, begging for more. Which I get a split second after our eyes meet. This kiss lasts and lasts too, until I don’t know what’s up and what’s down, let alone what day of the week it is, or any other such mundane detail.
“We could go for a walk in the woods today,” I say later, sitting next to him at the table with my bare legs across his lap. “Let’s pack a lunch and make a day of it.”
He’s stroking my legs gently. It feels like thousands of tiny butterflies are fluttering their wings right next to me, tickling my skin and filling me with lightness like I’ve never felt before. But he doesn’t reply.
“So?” I ask. “What do you think?”
He looks into my eyes, but says nothing. The moments start to drag, the soft, blissful elation in my chest turning to worry. He’s probably thinking about the elephant in the room—my husband. I see it too, but I don’t want to talk about Benji, or even think about the mess he’s put me in. Not this morning. Not on this perfect, sunny morning that feels like a long forgotten dream come true.
“I think we should do whatever you want,” he finally says with a grin, and I know he’s come to the same conclusion I just did.
It feels good hearing that, even if it’s too soon for it to be real, for him to be completely serious when he says it.
“I know the perfect spot for a picnic,” he adds. “We’ll take the bike to the top of the hill and then walk, if you’re up for it.”
I grin too. “Yes to the bike ride, and yes to the walk.
I get up, my legs feeling very bare and lonely without his soft fingertips on them. But I’ll get more of that, much more, and soon, if his glazed eyes and that permanent smile on his lips is anything to go by.
“I’ll make sandwiches,” I say and walk to the fridge. “You get ready.”
“How about I help you and then we take a shower together?” he says, walking over to me, wrapping his arm around my waist and pulling me close.
I look up at him over my shoulder and grin. “I don’t think it’s going to happen in that tiny bathroom.”
He frowns and nods. “Yeah, you’re right.”
“It’s been known to happen,” I shoot back and grin even wider.
I love how easy he is to talk to, how smooth us being together is. No friction, no errant thoughts, just this connection that shouldn’t exist yet, because it’s too soon for it, but it does anyway and there’s no denying it.
I can’t wait for us to spend the whole day together, and tomorrow too. For the first time since Benji showed me his real face, he’s just a bad memory, someone who’s behind me and no longer frightens me.
That’s another thing I shouldn’t be thinking yet, because it’s too soon, but I don’t think I’m wrong thinking it either. Whatever else happens, I’ve left Benji behind for good. After all these years, I finally feel free again, and I mean to make the most of it.
* * *
The sun is setting in the distance, the sky a wonderful blend of orange, white and pink and the winds picking up are warm and soft. I don’t want this day to end.
Matt lived up to his word. He took me to the perfect picnic spot, at the top of a hill that’s taller than the others around it. You can see for miles and miles from the place where we spent the day, the world stretched out before us, yet there’s no living thing anywhere near. We’re the only two people in the world up here and I love that thought.
“We should head back,” Matt says, running his hands down my arms. I’m leaning against his chest, and he’s holding me. I want to stay right where I am.
We spent the day kissing and talking, enjoying each other’s closeness and not discussing anything very important at all. Just random things. Easy things. The way it was meant to be. And I want to go on doing that for a long time.
“Do we have to?” I ask, leaning back so I can look into his eyes. That fire burning in them will always be the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.
He smiles. “Not unless you want to make that walk back in pitch darkness. I forgot to bring a flashlight.”
It took us an hour to reach this spot from where we parked the bike and the trees were very dense all the way. I know he’s talking sense, but that doesn’t make me want to leave.
“How does that happen to a military man like you?” I chide.
He just chuckles. “Easy. I was distracted.”
He means by me and I heard that very clearly, even though he didn’t say it.
“Now I’m distracted again, because I wouldn’t mind spending another evening by the fire with you, and that’s all I can think about,” he adds, chuckling again. “But the cabin’s a long way off.”
“Yeah, I’d like that too,” I whisper and lean my head further back so he can kiss me, which is what both of us really want.
All the serenity of this quiet place is in that kiss, as is all the anticipation of returning to his cozy cabin and what will happen once we do.
My mind is soft and fuzzy as we make our way through the trees back to his bike, yet I’m perfectly alert. This brain fog is nothing like the one that kept me a prisoner in Benji’s home for all those years. That one was corrosive and it ate away at my soul until there was barely any of it left. This one gives me hope for the future, the kind where days are good and I’m happy, content, and glad to be living. It heals my soul with every hour I spend in it.
Though long, the walk back to his bike seems to pass in a moment. The sky is dark and the world has lost its color while we walked, but it didn’t really. Because Matt was right next to me the whole time.
The rumbling of his bike as he turns it on, the vibrations coursing t
hrough me as we ride from our hidden spot, will always remind me of the day I truly left my past behind.
I’m shaky, but not unsteady once we reach the cabin, windswept, but whole, present in a way I haven’t been present in a very long time. He takes my hand and leads me across the grass to the door.
It’s chilly inside the cabin, but he has the fire lit in a flash, and I love the feeling as the first wisps of warmth come through the cold air, licking and caressing my bare skin as he undresses me. The flames are battling the cold and winning. They’re bringing me back to life.
He kisses my neck and my nipple, and my stomach and legs after he lays me down on the rug. Those kisses are bringing a whole different kind of warmth into me, working better and faster than the real fire is. He’s rekindling things inside me I didn’t know had the power to burn anymore. But they are burning, destroying all the cobwebs that tied me down for so long, dissipating the fog that turned me into a ghost and made me an empty shell of my true self.
I’m nude and he’s still fully dressed. That won’t do. I need him to join me in my nakedness, so we can share this warmth that’s freeing me so well and so true. And most of all, I need to taste him. All of him.
So I sit up, kneel before him and smile at his questioning look when I pull away from more kisses. I tug at his t-shirt to help him take it off. His jeans and his boxers follow swiftly.
I stand up too, and give him a quick kiss on the lips before tasting his neck. Road dust and clean air, petrol, steel, summer grass and sunshine—that’s what he tastes like, the perfect blend of soft and hard, sweet and harsh. He feels like he was carved from stone, his muscles taut, coiled, yet covered by skin so very warm and velvety soft.