“I’m sort of thirsty,” she croaked.
John chuckled. “Me, too.” He leaned toward her and sucked her bottom lip into his mouth, kissed her hard. Then he dismounted.
He left her with her eyes closed, resting her cheek against her sandwiched hands. In the kitchen, he poured a tall glass of water, then ran warm water from the spigot on a clean cloth and wrung it out.
Meg blinked up at him serenely as he proffered the glass, then sat up to gulp greedily from it. She tugged the sheet up to cover her chest.
John eased his hand between her legs, nudging them apart. She eyed him uncertainly but didn’t resist as he swiped the damp cloth over her folds, cleaning her.
He settled back beside her, tucking his arm beneath his head and resting his hand on her sheeted hip. He would have rather seen her naked, but if this was her preference, he wouldn’t push the issue.
“When are you leaving?” he asked, stroking his thumb over her hipbone. It was a question he wasn’t sure he wanted to know the answer to.
“Leaving... Tonight, you mean?”
He shook his head. “No. I mean to go back home.” He kissed the back of her hand. “Tonight I hope you’ll stay.”
She smiled, but then sighed. “Saturday is when I leave. The fourteenth.”
A barb of something icy and sharp penetrated his chest. “Six days,” he mused. It might as well have been six minutes, for all the crushing disillusion he felt. Not nearly long enough.
Her eyebrows sloped downward in an inverted V of sadness. “I wish I could stay longer,” she whispered.
He reined her in with his hand at her back, drawing her soft curves up against his hard angles before planting a lingering kiss on her forehead.
“When will your friends be back?” he asked as he pulled away.
“Sometime tomorrow. I’m not sure when.”
He frowned a little, gave a faint nod.
“What is it?” she asked.
He exhaled his frustration. “I just... I suppose I’ll have to share you, that’s all.” The left side of his mouth drew up in a rueful smile. “I’ll confess I don’t relish the thought, but—”
Meg pressed her fingers over his lips, silencing him. “I’d rather spend time with you.”
He pulled her hand away from his mouth and shook his head. “Meg, you came here to be with your friends, not some stranger. I couldn’t think of monopolizing your time that way.”
She rolled her eyes. “You’re not some stranger. In fact, I think you know me better than any of the people I came here with.” She paused, contemplating her words. “Before I met you, I wasn’t sure why I even came to begin with.”
He couldn’t help the flutter of joy that warmed his stomach as she spoke.
Then another thought occurred to him, and again his forehead puckered in a frown. “Meg, you should know... You” - he swallowed - “you’re brilliant. And I would never in a million years trade what just happened between us. But I don’t want you to think that has anything to do with my wanting to spend time with you.”
She leered mockingly at him. “Really? It has nothing to do with your wanting to spend time with me?”
He chuckled at the teasing lilt in her voice. “Christ, you beautiful woman, you know what I mean.” Pointing to himself, he said, “Do you see? This is what you do to me. I’m tongue-tied.”
Giggling, Meg propelled herself forward and kissed the corner of his mouth. “Uh huh,” she said.
He sighed, composing himself. “Honestly, though. I couldn’t bear it if you thought I only suggested spending more time together because I expect anything more from you. We can just...talk. If that’s what you want.”
She bit her lip, still smiling. “That’s not what I want, John,” she said softly after a moment. The sheet slipped down as she wiggled closer to him; he could feel her hardened nipples pressed against his chest. A shuddering tremor touched off from the base of his spine and cavorted up the center of his back. He slid his hand around her waist to grip her bottom and gave it a light squeeze. Meanwhile, a sizable portion of his systemic blood flow was deflected into the region just south of his waist.
She continued to tease him with half-formed kisses, seemingly blind to the way his blood ignited at the merest of her touches. Tonight, he knew, would be a long night.
Chapter 6
A warm billow of steam nipped at John’s heels as he opened the bathroom door. He tread lightly across the floor. His chest swelled with a substance lighter than air the closer he came to the sleeping girl in his bed.
Meg lay on her side facing away from him, the sheet wound loosely around her naked limbs. John sat softly on the edge of the bed. He was unable to look away from the dip of her waist and the bell curve of her hip, the sheet wrapped around her thigh while baring the top of the crevice in her bottom. His fingers touched the ends of her hair, spread in cinnamon tangles across the pillowcase.
When his fingertips moved to trace the edge of her shoulder, she stirred and slowly turned.
“Good morning,” he whispered.
“G’morning.”
She twisted onto her opposite side, facing him. He sucked in a breath at the sight of her: the sheet crisscrossing her body, baring part of her stomach and one of her breasts, the V between her legs. The effect was possibly even more startling that it would have been if she were completely nude.
Having caught his staring, she smiled, still a bit shy. John leaned closer so she could hear him speaking softly.
“I was thinking about you while I was in the shower. I missed you.”
Her cheeks flamed. “What were you thinking of, exactly?”
He leaned back long enough to flip a brazen glance down at her body. “Making love to you,” he replied.
She cleared her throat. “Did you, ah...touch yourself?”
“Yes.”
She leaned up onto one elbow, bringing her mouth close to the side of his face; her moving lips tickled the fine hairs just outside his ear. “Did you come?” she asked in a faint whisper.
John pushed the damp towel off his lap and wrapped his hand around the base of his erection, a feeble attempt to relieve its uncomfortable throbbing. “I wanted to wait for you,” he replied in as even a voice as he could muster.
Without speaking she lay back and slid down the mattress. Her back cambered and her knees fell open, an invitation. John’s mouth flooded with saliva as he levered his body over hers. He touched her, groaned at the slick fluid that coated his fingers. He rubbed in concentric circles, modifying the pressure in his hand until Meg threw her head back and bit down on her lip to suppress her cries.
“Please,” she said, grabbing his wrist to still his hand. “John, please. I’m ready.”
He winced a little, not wanting to stop until she’d been completely sated. “I want you with me,” she pressed.
He nodded once, then positioned himself at her opening before sliding forward.
Pure heaven. Elysium. Shangri-La.
He was mid-thrust, inches of him buried inside her, when a knock sounded at the door. John sank the rest of the way in, but his arms remained tremblingly straight, his elbows locked. He peered into Meg’s eyes, now widened with alarm.
“Shit,” he murmured. He was just where he wanted to be: pulling out to answer the door was tantamount to forfeiting a fortune he’d only recently inherited.
“Do you have to go?” asked Meg. She moaned lowly when he continued to move, sliding in and out in tiny increments as he contemplated his options. He couldn’t be still, even though the friction was making it very difficult to think.
Again the knock.
“Goddammit.” He crumpled on top of her, the strength in his taut muscles sapped along with his resolve to ignore it.
He treated her to a deliberately unhurried kiss before rolling off of her.
“I’ll be right back.” He scooped his towel off the floor and wound it around his waist.
* * *
It didn’t
occur to Meg to snatch the cover up over her body until John’s hand was on the doorknob. He opened the door only far enough to peer around it, obscuring her view of their unwelcome caller. She was surprised when he greeted the person on the stoop in fluent Spanish.
She sat up and curled her legs beneath her as she listened, her heart drumming. A moment later she heard “Gracias, Señor.” John stepped away from the door and let it click softly shut before turning to face her. His expression held sorrow and defeat, neither of which did her escalating anxiety any favors.
“We have to go,” he said, crossing the room to stand over the bed again. “That was Humberto, one of the staff.” He laced his fingers behind his neck, his desire to stay clearly at odds with his determination to go. “I completely forgot it’s Sunday - it’s the day he comes to clean.” His mouth shaped into a doleful smile. “I have a way of forgetting everything when you’re here, it seems.”
“Can’t he come back?” Meg asked, only mildly ashamed of the whiny timbre of her voice. “Or...I could help you clean.”
“I tried that argument,” John replied. “Trust me: if it were up to me, we wouldn’t leave this bed until Thursday.” The mattress dipped as he lowered his weight onto its edge. He scooped Meg’s hand up off the bed and kissed the back of it. “I promise I’ll make it up to you.”
She shimmied free of the sheet and swung her legs around to touch the cool floor with the balls of her feet. “Yes, you will.” She provided him a coy smile before standing and strolling with a purposeful sway to the haphazard heap of her clothing.
“Just so I’m prepared, exactly how long are you going to keep me waiting?” she asked over her shoulder as she stepped into her underwear and let the elastic snap against her stomach.
“That depends.” His voice was deep and labored. “Can we go to your place?”
Meg turned and let his eyes roam over her as she fastened her bra behind her back. “I’m just not sure when everyone is getting back,” she said tentatively, not at all sure whether this answer was the right one for either of them.
Leaning forward so his elbows rested on his knees, John nodded. He buried his face in his hands, scrubbed his fingers back through his hair.
He stood quickly then, letting the towel drop around his feet, and walked over to his dresser. She watched, bewildered by the suddenness of his movements, as he yanked on a shirt and a pair of pants. “Come on,” he said, grabbing his sketchbook with one hand and her hand with his other.
Meg trotted along behind him as his long legs strode toward the door. “What are we doing?” she asked.
He turned then and held her face in both his hands, stepping close enough that she could smell his aftershave. “My first choice, obviously, would be fucking you.” His confession and the spiciness of his language made her shiver. It felt like a slap - one that left a pleasant tingle instead of a painful sting.
He exhaled sharply, and his lips curled in a thin smirk. “Second would be a cold shower. But since neither of those are possibilities at the moment, my only option is to take you someplace very public, where I’ll be forced to act like the gentleman I am and keep my hands to myself.”
They walked to the saloon-cum-coffee bar housed next to the lodge, where John paid for a coffee for himself and a chamomile tea for Meg. They sat at a round table in the corner, next to the painted brick wall, beneath framed photographs chronicling the lodge’s construction.
Meg watched the people entering and exiting: men and women, young and old. Once in a while one of them would catch her eye and look from her to John. Meg wondered what they saw. Did the two of them blend in as seamlessly as the other couples, or did they exude some aura that made them more conspicuous?
She picked up her book, began to read. Sometime later she glanced up at John. His hand was poised over his sketchpad, the tip of his pencil hovering above its clean, white surface. His attention, however, was directed at her.
Meg smiled. “Trouble concentrating?”
He smirked. “You might say that.” He shoved his sketchbook away. “Have you got any more books in that bag of yours? Something that will distract me better than this blank sheet of paper?”
She rummaged in her bag and removed a chunky anthology of contemporary American poetry. John accepted it gratefully; he opened it up to the middle and began to read.
Sometime later, he said her name. When Meg glanced up, he slid the book across the table toward her, his finger pointing to a stanza from Ezra Pound’s “Francesca.”
I who have seen you amid the primal things
Was angry when they spoke your name
In ordinary places.
I would that the cool waves might flow over my mind...
So that I might find you again,
Alone.
With her head tilted downward, she lifted her eyes and let her smile spread to their corners.
John lifted his pencil and pressed it vertically against his lips, meditative. He pulled his sketchbook back from the far corner of the table and bowed his head to jot something in the top corner of the blank page. Meg looked back at her book, but where concentration was concerned, her curiosity was nearly disabling.
She heard the ripping of paper. John proffered a triangular strip of it, crowded with his blocky, unembroidered scrawl.
Go somewhere with me.
Where? she mouthed.
“Point Sublime,” said John. “We could camp.” Leaning closer to her, he added in a lower octave, “I want to take you somewhere we can’t be bothered.”
A daft grin crept over her face. “I’d better go pack,” she said.
John sat back and regarded her carefully from behind steepled fingers. Finally he nodded. “I will, too, then.” Meg stood while he remained seated; she looked down in surprise when his hand shot out to curve around her hip. “Will a half hour be enough time?”
She nodded.
“I’ll pick you up.”
* * *
Humberto was just finishing up when John reached his cottage. He waved to the man, thanked him, then let himself inside to stuff some clothing and camping and sketching supplies in a backpack.
He couldn’t slow down with her. It frightened him, how little control he had. Six days (really, now closer to five and a half) didn’t come close to being enough time. What would become of him after she left?
* * *
According to John, only seventeen miles of rutted road stood between the lodge and the remote backcountry camping spot he’d chosen for them. The drive, however, took close to two hours.
When it came to sex, Meg had always grasped the concept of delayed gratification, and she thought she understood its usefulness - at least to a certain extent. This, though. This was taking it to a new level. By the time they reached the turnoff for Point Sublime, she felt like a piece of overripe fruit, festering in her own saccharine juices.
As soon as they parked, John adopted a surprisingly businesslike demeanor. Meg stood aside, dismayed, as he unloaded the Jeep and led the way to a spot near the rim, shielded from the road by an unkempt scruff of brush and piñon trees. She tried to enjoy the view, whose magnificence was, truthfully, of a caliber that stole her breath. Still, she couldn’t very well deny the ease with which John inadvertently diverted her attention as he focused on other tasks.
Watching him unsheathe the collapsed makings of a tent, Meg felt her longing almost as acutely as she had the painful assault on her abdomen when her appendix burst as a young teenager. Suddenly the splendor of her surroundings wasn’t the only reason she couldn’t breathe.
He was on his knees, fitting together tent poles, when she resolved to take matters into her own hands. She approached from behind, unbuttoning her shirt as she walked. She paused to unfasten her bra and slide the straps down her arms beneath the sleeves of her shirt, then discarded it on the ground before pressing forward. Her nipples stiffened in anticipation as a wafting puff of a breeze rippled across her skin.
Meg dropped
to her knees beside John. “Can I help?” she asked.
When he looked at her, he seemed not to notice her partial nudity right away. It wasn’t until seconds later, when his gaze fell, that his grin showed signs of weakening.
He groaned as he leaned toward her, but Meg scrambled away before he could touch her. “I could get this end,” she offered, walking a few steps and reaching for the opposite end of the tent pole. “Just show me where to put it.”
John didn’t answer immediately. His expression morphed from bemused frustration to a mask of vindictive glee that seemed to scream, Two can play at that game.
“Shove it down in that hole, will you?” he said. She obeyed his command while John rose to his feet and pushed down his sleeves before unbuttoning his own shirt. He kept his gaze averted as he shrugged out of it altogether. Meg fought the urge to go to him, to run her hands over the hard, sculpted planes of his chest.
“Now we connect these two at the top,” he said, gesturing to the other pole. “I’ll hold this one.”
Meg bent at the waist to gather the pole he’d indicated, which was already anchored in two of the tent’s metal eyelets. The breeze surged again as she stood, as if to underscore her point. She could feel the weight of John’s stare as one side of her shirt flapped open. “Jesus Christ,” she heard him mutter. She divulged in a guilty smile as she lifted the pole, not bothering to cover herself.
John lashed together the two poles, forming a dome shaped scaffold for the tent. Meg helped him hook loops to hang the heavy sheet of nylon on the frame. She was bending to grab up the rainfly when she felt strong arms wrap around her middle. “The rest can wait,” he said gruffly in her ear.
Meg stood slowly, her back against John’s chest. She gasped when he cupped her breasts beneath her shirt, felt the weight of them in his palms. Her shirt fell from one shoulder, and he pressed a kiss there as he slowly massaged.
Further events unfolded as if they’d been carefully choreographed: a lissome ballet of squeezing and pulling, blankets snapping open, bodies colliding and entwining.
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