by Shayna Ryan
He moved his free hand long enough to check the water temperature, and satisfied that it was comfortable, he handed me the condom and moved us inside the tub. He pushed me against the wall, pinning me there, and resumed his torrid rhythm against me as the pressure within me built up some more.
I leaned my head against the wall and shivered with pleasure as the warm water beat down on us and Will added his fingers back into the mix, caressing that secret place along my inner wall that so few men could find. His thickness kept rubbing my external hotspot.
It was coming, rushing at me like an oncoming train, and I squeezed my legs around him with all my might as the sensation overcame me. His mouth found my nipple once more at just the right moment, and I moaned his name as my body let go and the sheer pleasure overcame me as I crested the wave.
Before I could recover completely, he grabbed the condom out of my hand, and released my throbbing nipple just long enough to rip the packet open with his teeth.
“Put it on me,” he practically begged, “put it on me before I can’t stand it anymore. I want you to come again, but this time while I’m inside of you.” I had the condom on him before he even finished his sentence.
I thought he was going to drive himself into me hard and fast again, like he had at the lake, but he had other things in mind for me. With a lecherous grin, he entered me slowly, pulling out again once just the tip of him had been inserted into me. I held my breath, waiting for the moment when I’d feel all of him, but it never came.
“Now,” I mewled, fighting to settle myself down his length, but he used his strong arms to keep me at bay.
“Now, now,” he mocked. “You drove me wild with that blow job on the way home, and I couldn’t have you, so now it’s time to repay the favor.” He teased me as he continued to caress my entrance with his meaty tip and I cried out lustfully.
“Will, just…just…” I was losing my mind here. All I wanted was him deep inside me yet he continued to deny me and only allowed me to sample the feel of him.
“Just what?” he grinned as he continued his torture. He leaned in close to me, right up to my ear. “I want to hear you beg for it, Calista. After what we’ve done together, I’d beg for you on hands and knees over broken glass, but do you feel the same about me, my pretty thing?”
“Yes,” I whispered honestly. My heart froze for a split second when I realized that I might be falling in love with this man. He was everything I’d ever dreamed of, and the fact that he had a dirty side to him only made him more appealing to me. With a gasp, I realized that it was true–I was falling for Will, and I couldn’t help myself. Something had changed today, out at the lake. That wasn’t part of the deal, part of the plan, but in my few days with him, I knew it to be true. I was falling for him–hard.
-10-
“Beg for me,” he whispered, “Tell me how badly you want it.”
I might have found it creepy, coming from any other guy. But it wasn’t demeaning or creepy with Will; it was hot and passionate. If he wanted to hear just how badly I needed to feel him inside of me, I was happy to oblige.
“I need you,” I whimpered, “inside of me.”
“Do you want me?” he whispered breathlessly in my ear, right before his teeth nipped at my ear lobe and sent threads of hot lust barreling through me anew.
“God, yes!”
“Do you need me?”
“Yes, Will, please!”
“Please what?”
I paused, just long enough to feel the pounding of my own heart within my chest. “Take me.” I whispered back.
And with that he released me and I slid down the length of him as I bit my lip almost hard enough to draw blood when my slickness and heat encompassed the length of him. He tensed, driving me into the wall, but I didn’t care. One of his hands supported my ass, and together we moved, faster and faster, until I bit his shoulder as the bliss overtook me once more. He bellowed as he found his release as well.
The water washed over us, warming us through. Will leaned his face into the hollow of my neck and the feel of his warm, moist breath comforted me as I struggled to find my center again.
“What’s happening to us?” I whispered. I scarcely dared form the words, but he had to feel the change, the shift in us. He just had to.
“I don’t know,” he admitted quietly. He raised his head to look me in the eye. “We can call it quits now, if you want to. I mean, before this gets any messier.” He looked back at me defiantly, as if daring me to disagree with him.
That would be for the best, I realized. This casual, quick affair was veering into the depths of an actual relationship of some sort at an alarming pace. It wasn’t supposed to be that way. This was dangerous territory we were heading into, and we both knew it. Bernie would fix my car, and sometime around the end of the week I’d be back on the road. Back on my way to Hartford, with Will, the Inn and this town in my rearview mirror. Breaking it off now would make the most sense, but the mere thought of it was unbearable. Will’s defiant look be damned.
“I don’t want to–do you?” My eyes searched his as I caressed his wet hair. He just felt so good beneath my fingers that I couldn’t keep my hands off him, even if we were done having sex for the time being.
“No, I don’t.” There was no heat in his eyes anymore when he told me that, only relief. He was being sincere, and he looked very vulnerable just then, propping me up against the wall with my legs wrapped around him as the warm spray of the shower cascaded down around us. His suggestion that we break it off before anything else progressed between us had been an act. He had been just trying to give me an out, or maybe trying to assess where I really stood.
“Then let’s not.” I cupped his face in both of my hands and drew him into a slow, soft kiss. His lips were pliable and warm beneath mine, and I marveled at just how quickly the two of us could go from passionate and steamy to soft and romantic.
He returned the kiss, initially, but suddenly he pulled back and gently untangled me from his waist.
“We need to get dressed and ready for dinner.” And with that, he turned away from me and grabbed a towel.
Tears filled my eyes while I remained in the shower as he dried off and then left the room. I didn’t understand the rapid shift in him, from hot and demanding to romantic and then to nothing, like someone had flipped a switch. It was confusing at best, and the tears finally fell while I struggled to figure out where I had gone wrong.
Maybe I had misread him, and he was disappointed to hear me say that I didn’t want to end our tryst. But I could tell he was being sincere when he told me the same. So what just happened?
I fought back my tears and grabbed the shampoo. It didn’t matter, really. I had spent one steamy weekend with a super sexy Maine game warden, nothing more and nothing less. There was something between us, something more than hot nights tangled up in the sheets, and if he wanted to deny that, then fine. Maybe he was doing me a favor by backing off all of the sudden, though an explanation would have been nice.
By the time I had showered, dressed and headed downstairs to see about dinner, Will was nowhere in sight but Dottie was at the stove, stirring a huge pot of soup.
“That smells wonderful, Dottie. Anything I can help with?”
“No, honey, you just have a seat. There is something else you might help me with, though.”
“Of course. What can I do?”
“Sit,” she instructed firmly, pointing a boney finger at the table. I obliged.
“Maybe you can tell me why my Will ran out of here in a huff, something about bringing a canoe back to Blue. Mind you, I know it’s not the canoe that’s upsetting him, and I’ve sensed the last day or two that something’s brewing between you two. So tell me, Calista, did that pot boil over already?”
My mouth hung open in surprise as I struggled to answer her. Oh, she was sharp, that one. Maybe she was old and her body was failing her, but she didn’t miss a beat.
“I’m sorry. I know you thi
nk it’s probably none of my business, but Will is my business. I still didn’t mean to come at you like a hellcat.” She smiled kindly at me and it cracked my defenses just the tiniest bit.
“Well, uh, we decided that we would, uh…” I struggled to find the right words.
“You two decided to have a little fling, at least while you’re here,” Dottie finished for me. One look at my blushing face and she knew she had it right.
“And now things aren’t going so well anymore,” she prompted.
“No. They were going well, really well, but then he just kind of…shut off, like he had stepped back from me all of the sudden.” It felt odd to say it out loud to Dottie, but good to have someone to talk about it with nonetheless.
“That Will,” she chuckled with a shake of her head. “For a bright guy he sometimes acts so stupid.”
I didn’t reply but instead watched her as she stirred the soup. I didn’t know quite what she meant or how to respond to that.
“Don’t you see it? Don’t tell me you’re as thick-headed as he is!” When I didn’t answer her once again she rolled her eyes in exasperation. “Haven’t you ever been in love?”
Now that was a loaded question. I had thought I was in love, a time or two, but once those relationships burned themselves out and faded away, I realized that it hadn’t really been love. I had only wanted to be in love, but wanting and being are two different things entirely when it comes to love.
“No, I guess not,” I finally admitted.
“Well, Will was, once. At least once that I knew about.”
“Theresa. Yes, he told me about her.”
“Maybe it’s hard for you to understand, having never been in love and all. But Will shut down when he lost Theresa. He shut down and never really came back, at least not like he used to be. Then you came along and knocked the poor boy right out of orbit.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean–Will was done with ladies and dating and that whole mess after Theresa, at least until you came along. And don’t think that we haven’t had other pretty young single ladies at the Inn from time to time when someone gets stuck around here.Don’t think for a minute that some of those other girls didn’t try to do the same. Some did, and he turned them down like a gentleman. But then you waltz in here and start some little meaningless dalliance with him. Something about you speaks to him, besides your beauty.”
My face must have shown how uncomfortable I felt that she said that to me, because she quickly tried to soothe me.
“Now, I’m not judging you two. I was young once, you know, and people did such things even in my day, though you’d never hear them admit to it. I just think that you two may have been mistaken, thinking your relationship could be physical and nothing else.”
She stated it matter-of-factly, but that did little to diminish my embarrassment that Will’s great aunt knew about our little fling. And we had thought we were being so discreet.
“So why you, where others have failed? I think there’s something about you that breaks through the walls he’s put up these last few years, something that calls to him. Besides the obvious, of course.” She shot me a pointed look and I blushed even harder.
“So you think that he’s in love with me?”
“Whoa, hold up there. I never said he was in love with you. But whatever’s going on between you two has him realizing that there’s more left for him in life then just shutting away his heart. Is it love? Only he knows that, but I don’t think even he can puzzle that out just yet. But it’s something, something no other woman’s brought out in him since Theresa, and it looks like it’s making him mighty uncomfortable. I just wanted to caution you to tread easy with Will. If you’re here just to play games with him, there’s the door.” She jerked her head towards the back door for emphasis.
“I’m not here to…I never would…”
“That’s enough, now. I’m sorry for putting you on the spot here, but I won’t stand idly by and watch Will get bulldozed by some pretty young thing. I don’t get the feeling that’s your intention, but one never knows, so I thought I’d mention it. Now let’s have some soup. I think Will is going to be a bit, if old Blue gets chatting, as he often does.”
The soup was ham and bean, and it was as good as it smelled. Dottie and I ate together at the table. Fortunately, she was done discussing my dealings with Will and was instead entertaining me with stories from her quilting club.
“…and I just know that Virginia had that pattern at home, but that bold-faced liar looked me right in the eye and told me that she didn’t! Some friend, I say!”
Just then the back door opened, and Will walked in. He said hello to Dottie and gave me a little nod on the way to the dining room to head upstairs.
My stomach dropped when I saw that yes, that was the only thing he was going to do to acknowledge me. Like I was some kind of acquaintance at best, and not the woman he made love to earlier that day. Twice.
“But don’t you want some soup?” Dottie called after him.
“I’ll get some a little bit later,” he called back as he climbed the stairs.
“See what I mean?” Dottie lowered her voice conspiratorially. “He’s an ornery one all of the sudden!” Then she went back to her quilting club stories. I tried to be polite and listen closely to her, but my mind kept wandering back to Will.
I wanted to run upstairs after him, take him in my arms, and beg him to talk to me, but I knew that wasn’t a good idea. The best thing I could do was give him his space. But I didn’t want to give him space; I wanted to figure this out, now. Patience had never been a virtue of mine, and we didn’t have much time to smooth this out, if we were to at all. We only had four or five days left together, unless Bernie got held up somehow. I could only hope that Will would come around sooner rather than later. Icy fear twisted my stomach when I considered that this could be the end for us, right now, regardless of when I was leaving.
I excused myself as soon as I could politely do so and headed upstairs. Will’s door was closed, and I didn’t knock on it. I wanted to, more than anything, but I had to respect his space. I didn’t want to, but I would. He hadn’t left me much other choice.
I played around on my phone, checking my messages and email. It wasn’t important, really, but it was something to do to pass the time. I held my breath for a moment when I heard Will’s bedroom door and open and close, but then I heard him move down the hall to go downstairs.
With a sigh, I grabbed my pajamas and got ready to go to the bathroom to get ready to turn in for the night. If Will wanted to act like there was nothing between us, there was nothing I could do about. I tried to convince myself that it didn’t really matter, since we had no shot at sharing something real together anyway, but I couldn’t convince myself that was true. There was more between us than just great sex, something real and tangible. But if he wanted to turn away from it, perhaps it was for the best. I was leaving at the end of the week anyway, and cutting this off now might save us a hard goodbye in the end. At least, that’s what I told myself.
It was still kind of early when I shut the light off and snuggled under the covers, but it had been a stressful, exciting day in many ways. Despite my agitation over the situation with Will, it didn’t take long for me to drift off into a fitful sleep.
-12-
Dimly, through the haze of my dreams, I heard my door open and shut quietly, and the sound of Will walking softly across the room, towards me.
“Calista?” he called quietly.
“What?”
Before I could answer, he slid into bed with me, just like the night before. I wanted to tell him to get lost and to leave me alone after what he had pulled earlier in the evening, but I couldn’t. My anger towards him melted away as he slung his arm around me and nestled his face in my hair.
“I’m sorry. I know I was a jerk tonight, and you didn’t deserve that.”
“No, I didn’t,” I agreed. I was wide awake now, waiting to hear
what he had to say.
He shifted beside me, drawing me closer. “You didn’t, and you deserve an explanation. I’m not sure what I’m doing here,” he confessed.
“What do you mean?”
“With you. We agreed it would be just casual, a no strings attached kind of thing, and I thought I could handle that. But when you flipped the canoe today, and it hit you in the head, I…it was terrifying for me, Calista.”
“I was fine. I had my life jacket on, and got nothing but a bump out of it.”
“I know, but before I knew that, in the one split second before I saw that you would be okay, I almost lost it. That’s not like me. I’ve seen plenty of accidents and dangerous situations, and I’m usually pretty detached. Not because I’m heartless, but because I need to be to keep my wits about me to take care of the problem. I’m a game warden. I have to keep my cool when others can’t.”
“So?”
“So when you were in the water and I thought you were hurt, I was anything but cool. I panicked for a moment. The mere thought of something happening to you…” His voice trailed off, leaving the thought unfinished.
So he did feel it too. This thing between us, blossoming and growing, taking on a life of its own.
“I know we’re supposed to just be having fun before you leave, and I know I shouldn’t be feeling for you what I do. It scares me, to be honest. It scares the hell out of me. I haven’t had feelings like this for anyone except Theresa, ever. It’s like you showed up here out of the blue, gave your body to me, and now you’re taking my heart, piece by piece, in return.”
It would have been the perfect time to tell him that I felt the same, like we had fallen through the looking glass and now we were on a slippery slope towards what, I didn’t know. But I couldn’t. Something held me back, and I lay silently as I waited for him to continue.
“So I’m sorry I was such a jerk tonight, but when you kissed me in the shower, right after we agreed that we wouldn’t stop, I got scared and I kind of lost it. I felt like I had to push away from you to try to keep myself sane.” He paused, and the dark silence around us seemed so large. “I already lost one woman that I loved deeply, and I’m afraid to care for another,” he whispered into my hair. “I think I could fall deeply in love with you, if I’m not careful here. But there’s no point to it, since you’re only here for a short time. If I fall for you, you’re just going to disappear out of my life, and I don’t think I can stand to go through that again.”