by Alexa Davis
I dove under the water and came up with my arms around her waist. I lifted her and dumped her back into the water, laughing as she came up coughing and spluttering.
“Wow, Heidi. You really should have better coordination.”
She gasped and lunged at me. I caught her and held her up, grinning. “Don’t. You. Dare.”
I pretended to dunk her, then pulled her to me and kissed her instead. Instantly, she melted into me, and I tilted her upright so she could stand. Instead, she wrapped her legs around me. Even in the cold water, I could feel the heat from the “V” at the top of her thighs. She moaned and rocked against me with her arms around my neck and her fingers tangled in my hair. I ran my hands down her back to her ass, cupping it in my hands and dragging her harder over me as she moved.
My pants were pulled tight across me as my body reacted to her, and her rocking pressed my zipper painfully into my erection, but I couldn’t get enough of her. She whimpered and shuddered, squeezing tighter with her legs, and I knew if I took her now, she’d give herself to me without hesitation.
The realization brought me back to my senses. I gently disengaged her and held her upright in the water at my side while I caught my breath, the taste of her still sparking on my tongue.
“We should probably get out of the water before we make ourselves sick,” I suggested, and shakily, she nodded her head.
“Should I apologize?” she asked.
I scoffed. “Please do. Apologize for being sexy and sweet and making me want you. Because I sure as hell didn’t come out here looking to find a woman I could spend an entire week with and not get tired of her company.” I shook my head.
“You can really be an ass.”
“I’ve heard that before. Usually, it’s from my brothers or my pseudo-godmother. Oh, you’re going to love her. She will still grab me by the ear if she thinks I’ve been raiding the fridge between meals.”
“I like her already.”
I helped her climb out of the stream onto the algae-covered rocks at the waterline.
“What about your parents? You haven’t mentioned them, but I feel like I know your brothers.”
“I don’t know. Not much to say, really. They’re ranchers; they love each other even after everything life and kids have thrown at them. I don’t know them as well as I should, probably. But, I never had a good reason for leaving. Not good enough, anyway. George left, but he was at war, serving the country. Tucker left, but he was at Harvard getting a law degree, and he brought that right back to Texas. Jackson left, but he’s the baby. He can do no wrong, even when he’s breaking the law and hacking into the Department of Defense.”
We started walking toward camp, soggy and dripping water all along the way.
“I’m chafing. There has to be a better way to get back.” She giggled.
I nodded my agreement and undid my pants.
“What are you doing?” she gasped.
I tugged them down my legs. “Problem solved. Just leave your panties on.”
She gaped at me, then looked down at herself.
“You are wearing underwear, right?”
Her laugh was high-pitched and panicked, but she nodded. “Um, you can’t laugh, okay?”
My eyes got wide, and I started to grin. “Now I’m excited. Show me what you got, West.”
She hung her head while she undid the canvas belt on her pants and slid them down over her thighs. Underneath was a pair of cotton boxers in a teddy bear print. I snorted, and she glared at me. She slid her boots back on and took off, walking so fast I had to trot to catch up.
“I like them.”
“Shut up.” She laughed. “I have no reason to wear cutesy, lacy thongs. No one ever sees me without my clothes on.”
“I still like them.” I paused then had a thought. “Do you wear them to bed?”
“I don’t sleep naked, if that’s what you’re asking.”
“No. I’m serious. Do you wear that little tank top and boxers to bed as pajamas?”
She nodded, and I had to hold my pants over me to hide my instant hard-on. “I’m going to have to dial back the timeline then.”
“The timeline? Do I even want to know?”
“I was going to give you a month or four to warm up to sleeping with me. Now that I know that you sleep in those,” I pointed at the sag in her boxers at the back, “I might not make it past tonight.”
“Whew. You must feel really lucky that it isn’t up to you, huh?” she replied. She gasped from the chill as she stepped into the shallow spot in the river we’d been using as a shortcut back to my camp.
“You are cold as ice, lady,” I pretended to complain. “And to think, I was going to buy you a nice dinner first.”
She scoffed and looked back at me over her shoulder. “Well, then, you should go ahead and buy me dinner, Logan. It might just change my mind. I hear that works for a lot of guys.”
I laid my pants out in the afternoon sun and tugged my extra blanket free from my sleeping bag. I handed it to her, and she wrapped it around her shoulders and laughed.
“Thanks for making it easy,” she said as I broke down my tent and repacked my gear.
“Making what easy?”
She hugged her knees to her chest and wrapped the blanket tighter around her. Her lips were purpling, so I put the sleeping bag over her, too.
“Being around you. If we’d met in a big crowd of people, I’d have disappeared into a quiet corner, and we’d have never seen each other again. But, out here, one on one, I feel like I’m normal. Just a regular girl, hanging out with the ‘cool’ guy.”
“The cool guy, huh? That was my brother Danny. I was the… hmm. I don’t really know who I was, back then. Other than desperate to get out of Austin, out from under my older brothers’ shadows. Then when George joined the army, out from under my younger brother’s shadow, too.”
“And that’s when you went to California?”
“Sure. First, it was a degree at UC Davis. I might have come home then, but senior year was when Rebecca was diagnosed with cancer.” I shrugged. “She forced me to make it to graduation. After all, if she could do it while undergoing chemo, radiation, whatever it was they were doing to her body… Well, I had no excuse.”
“She was your true love.”
I paused and thought about it. I’d once called her my only love. Time had made me wiser. I scratched my jaw and chewed on my cheek while I tried to find the right words.
“She was my first love.” I shoved the tent into its bag, and Heidi fell silent, waiting for me to continue. I could feel the weight of her eyes on my back, until I faced her. “If we’d gotten married, we still would be. But, that wasn’t meant to be.” I motioned to her with my hands. “Now, I’m here with you, and my chest hasn’t had that ache, you know? That empty feeling like it’s just not all there.”
“You think you could love someone as much as her, ever again?”
I pursed my lips and shook my head.
Heidi nodded, and I moved to her side and sat tucked under the sleeping bag with her.
“I don’t think we loved each other as much as two people are capable of loving,” I confessed. “So much of it was hormones and being young and the newness of being adults and having an adult relationship. Not just lust, but…”
“Playing house?”
I glanced at her.
She flashed me a wan smile. “Maybe that’s not right. Out loud, it sounds less respectful than I meant it.”
“No. That’s okay. We were playing house. Then things got very real, and very hard.” I felt around under the blanket until I found her hand. “I know I said you remind me of her. I didn’t mean that I was trying to replace her with you. I meant that you were unique. Different. Special. In looks and personality? Polar opposites. She was gregarious. Such a social butterfly. I’d send her out with friends just to stay home alone.”
“And looks?”
“She was so short. And not athletic at all. She always co
mplained about her mystery fifteen pounds from freshman year that had never gone away. But she ate more greasy food and drank more beer than any guy I knew.”
“I don’t exercise to lose weight. I just want to stay strong. In case… you know.”
“Yes, I do. In case you ever have to fight for your life again.” She nodded, and I exhaled hard. It was the one thing that made me pause, thinking if I made her mine, tried playing house again, would I lose her to the disease that had stolen my happiness for so long?
“You don’t want to have to worry about me getting sick.” She made it a statement, instead of a question.
“It’s crossed my mind. But you can’t control everything. I’m not going to live without trying to have something good just because it could be taken away. We could both die in a car crash tonight, instantly dying with happy bellies full of steak and yeast rolls with cinnamon butter.”
“And baked sweet potatoes with marshmallow fluff,” she added gravely.
“Right? And, of course, fried pickles,” I finished.
She squeezed my fingers and pressed in close to my side. “Sometimes, you are my hero; you know that?”
I kissed her temple and rested my head against hers as her slender frame trembled slightly from the cold. I put my arms around her and surveyed what I had left to pack. We had time before the sun went down. So, I pulled her to the ground and tucked her back against me, resting her head on my arm for a pillow. Our body heat inside the blanket and under the sleeping bag warmed her until the trembling stopped and she sighed. The sound made my pulse speed. My heart beat solid and strong without regret for the first time in my memory. It beat in the soft curves and gentle kisses of the woman in my arms, who was too afraid to lose if she loved. But for now, this was enough. It was good, and honest, and more than I’d thought possible for a long time.
10. Heidi
I almost suggested we stay at the campsite for the night. But, he’d done so much of the work to break it down and pack it away that I chickened out. Once I stopped shaking and Logan said my lips were no longer blue from the cold, I helped him hike his gear back down to his truck.
He laughed about how much harder it was to get it all up to the campsite, but I thought he missed that feeling of when he first arrived with all the cameras and study equipment in tow. Those things must have come with a sense of purpose. Lugging his backpack out, now empty of food and toiletries that had been used up, felt a little lonely.
The ride back to my house was quiet. I wished I hadn’t pushed him to talk about Rebecca. Even her name was more sophisticated than “Heidi.” God, how I wished I was smarter about talking to people. If I’d known all the people I’d avoided were practice so I could talk to Logan, I would’ve made more of an effort to try. But, here we were. I wanted the man so badly, parts of my body were waking up that I hadn’t really considered before. Now, he wasn’t flirting. I didn’t think I’d miss the outrageous things he’d said that no one would believe. I did, though, and racked my brain for anything to say that would draw out the funny, sweet man I was getting so attached to.
“I still can’t believe this is your neighborhood,” Logan said as he looked all around him.
I slumped in my seat. “The homes are a little rundown, I know, but we’re right next to the industrial center. You can’t expect that I live like a queen.”
“You have a master’s degree.”
“I work for the government and spend $300 a month on gas to get out to my station.”
“I see.” I could see the gears working in his head, ticking off yet another basic life failure on my part. The list was ever growing in my head, and each new item sat in my stomach like pebbles, weighing me down. Virgin, check. Antisocial, check. Poor, check. High risk for cancer, check. As I went through the list, I realized if I were him, I wouldn’t want to date me, either.
“It’s nice on the inside, remember?”
He laughed. “It’s gorgeous on the inside. Your yard is nice, too.”
I smiled, but the sudden ache for Butterscotch tugged it off my face. “I kept it nice for Scotchie. She loved being outside, even after a day in the woods. She couldn’t get enough running around and playing.”
“That’s probably why you got to have her for so long. She was the best cared-for pup on the planet.”
“Thank you. I did my best, but it’s nice to hear that I did a good job.”
“When do you ever not do a great job? It’s one of the most intimidating things about you. You excel at everything you do. God. If I tried to count the number of times I’ve just flat out failed, I’d run out of fingers and toes, and I still would’ve missed something.” He rubbed his thumb over my knee as we pulled up to the house, and I hid my embarrassed flush by looking out the window.
Excels at responsibilities, check. I wasn’t sure if it was on the bad list or the start of a good list, but the thought floated around in my belly on butterfly wings. He held the door for me and walked me up to the front door as if it was the end of a date. I glanced up at him and wondered what he’d do if I kissed him, then scoffed at myself.
“Are you mocking me in your head?” he asked.
I chuckled. “As a matter-of-fact, I was mocking myself in my head. You’re off the hook, for now.”
He waited for me to unlock my door, and then held it open for me, too. He carried his clean luggage in and hefted it in his hand as he looked around. “The master’s over this way, right?” he asked and headed straight toward it. After a moment of shocked hesitation, I chased after him.
Please, God, let me stop him before he sees it. I hurried around the corner and crashed into his back. He stood in the middle of the doorway, staring up at the trio of enlarged photo prints above my bed.
“Wow,” he gasped.
I stammered, trying to explain that I’d bought them long before we’d met, but he held up a hand for me to be quiet.
“Those are some of my best work. I’m so humbled to see them like this.”
I opened and closed my mouth soundlessly.
“You really do want to see mountains, don’t you?” He glanced over at me.
I nodded. “I loved the stark lines of the sharp cliffs, and the goats, suspended up there, with no idea how any creature could do that.”
“I’m going to take you to the Rockies,” he declared, and I laughed.
“Is that before you take me on a date, make love to me, and marry me, or after?” I asked, ticking off his current list of promises on my fingers.
“Does it matter where it falls on the list? It’s added; that’s the important thing.” He slid his free hand down my back and leaned over to cup my butt in his palm. “If you’d like, we could knock love-making off the list, for the sake of efficiency. You need a shower. I need a shower. We could do right by the environment and get naked together.” He grinned at me, and I shoved his hand off me.
“Even if we shared a shower, what makes you think you’d get me to have sex with you?”
“Spoken like someone who’s never shared a shower before,” he teased.
I let him have the shower first, despite his protests that he was sure he’d die of dysentery if I wasn’t there to clean that hard to reach spot in the middle of his back.
I picked out clean underwear, a pair of jeans, and a clean button-down western shirt, and waited for Logan to finish. When he came out in nothing but the little bath towel I’d used for Butterscotch, I fled to the bathroom without my clothes. I could not be trusted not to throw myself at him if I was alone with him while he was undressed. Water had gleamed on his chest and trickled down to the top edge of the towel, and my stomach had jolted as I fantasized about dragging the towel off him completely and licking the water off his chiseled stomach
Instead, I started the shower, and as an afterthought, I locked the bathroom door as quietly as I could. After all, I didn’t think Logan would try to join me, but I’d still only known him a few days, and I’d already tried to start things I didn’t know ho
w to finish. The hot water beat down on me, and I imagined all the ways I wanted to touch him. I may not have had firsthand knowledge of how to please him. However, I was intelligent enough, and creative enough, that when the time came, I hoped he wouldn’t be disappointed.
My fingers traced all the paths I wanted him to take, and my body responded instantly with a rush of pleasure that had as much to do with the man waiting outside the door as it did with my fingers playing with that sensitive nub at the apex of my thighs. My free hand braced against the shower wall and pressed my forehead to the cool tile as my fingers stroked and flexed between my legs faster and harder.
I bit off a moan and panted quietly as my fingers slid over my wet, warm folds and the water beat down on my neck. My knees began to shake, and I turned so my back was to the wall. I wanted Logan, not a moment of pleasure that I didn’t share with anyone. I let the water flow over me as my heart slowed. Loneliness had been my life for so long, I was afraid of not being alone anymore. The water started to cool, and I washed and got out as quickly as I could. There was a hard body with a ready smile and enough confidence for both of us, waiting to take me to dinner.
I wrapped my hair up in a turban I wound out of a towel and tucked a larger bath sheet around my torso. The linen closet was a mess. It made me smile to see how hard Logan had worked to tempt me with his body. I snuck a peek around the edge of the door before stepping out into the bedroom. My intention was to grab my clothes and run straight back to the bathroom to change, but as I turned toward the bed, the clothes were gone.
“Oh, good, you’re done. Do you mind if I pick you out an outfit?”
I gripped the towel tight and gasped. “Yes, I mind very much. I picked out what I want to wear. Where did you put it?”
He rolled his eyes and compared two dresses, putting one away and holding out the other one for me to take. “I put it away, of course. It wouldn’t be any good to leave clothes out all over the place.”
“They weren’t all over the place, Logan, they were folded neatly on the…” I paused, finally noticing his nakedness once he wasn’t holding the dresses up in front of himself. I averted my eyes and he chuckled, a purely masculine sound that made my legs tremble. “You’re naked, Logan.” I stared at his eyes, afraid to look anywhere else.