by Julia Kent
He certainly didn’t want too many questions thrown his way, so…
“Did he play guitar?”
Pete nodded. “And piano, drums—you name it. He loved it. So did Claire.”
“Claire?”
“Our daughter-in-law.” That was the first Mike had heard of a wife for Luke. Hadn’t met her. Wondered what the backstory was, but again…didn’t want to pry.
Pete sat down on a small log, knees cracking with effort. “Snap, crackle, pop,” he joked.
“We all get old.”
“If we’re lucky.”
Mike winced. “Sorry. Wasn’t thinking.”
Pete blew out a long breath. “No offense taken. Just being philosophical.”
Mike strummed a few chords of a Led Zeppelin song. Pete began to hum along. “You playing that in the show?”
Mike shook his head. “No. Something new I composed.”
“I’d love to hear it.”
Something hard in Mike tightened further. “You will. At the show.”
Pete’s phone buzzed. He stood to dig it out of his pocket and looked at the screen, then thumbed toward the shed. “Gotta run. Look forward to hearing it!”
“Got to finish, but you’ll hear it.”
Pete whipped through the dark woods faster than Mike would have expected. He must know this place so well. Intimacy could be developed between two people, but it hadn’t occurred to Mike that you could have intimate knowledge of land. Of buildings. Of a shoreline or a landscape, roots so deep they kept you in place.
Lydia had left all this behind to work in corporate droneland.
To work for him.
Why? The campground was so idyllic that it unsettled him to think that she needed to escape it. What kept her from coming back, and what drove her here this time?
Why here? Why now? Jeremy’s presence had something to do with it, but he would have to live with so many unanswered questions.
A blast of wind sent a small spark flying, landing on the front of his guitar. A good, solid poke of the fire with his marshmallow stick confirmed it was mostly out. Mike got up and headed into the cabin. It was time to hit the sack.
Flashes of light, like lightsabers, blipped through the window. Kids roamed the woods late at night all the time. Ignoring it was the best approach, but this time the beams had voices.
“Here? Really?”
He froze in place, about to turn on the small lamp—the only light source—in the cabin.
Lydia.
“Why not?” A man’s voice, persuasive and cocky.
Jeremy.
Jesus Christ. What were they doing right here? Timing was everything, and if he hadn’t come inside…
“It’s buttfucking cold!” he heard her exclaim, followed by Jeremy’s mumbles, then hysterical laughter from a loopy Lydia.
Had she been drinking? That made her more pliant, if memory served correctly. As Matt he’d been so decent, so good the night he’d taken her home and tucked her into bed. What he wouldn’t give to go back in time and relish every inch of her skin, watch her face bloom from desire to release, take in handfuls of that ass as he thrust into her, making her—
“It’s even colder than the other day!” she protested, though the sound of her voice was muffled by a sudden silence that probably meant Jeremy was kissing her.
The absence of sound went on. And on. Each second stretched out before the next in agony.
Trapped. He was utterly trapped in this tiny little cabin with Lydia and Jeremy about to make love right under his nose.
If only…
“It is buttfucking cold!” she protested.
“Then tonight’s my lucky night!” Jeremy replied.
“Is that something you’d like?” she whispered. Mike inhaled, slow and deep. Easy boy. Stay in control. Ears perked, he listened for more.
“You’d consider it?” Jeremy sounded like a man who’d just learned he won the lottery. Which, sexually speaking, he had.
“Sure. We just need a strap-on.”
“A strap-on for—wait! No! Not that kind!”
Mike snorted, then froze.
“We have a warm cabin of our own!” she hissed. “Let’s go back there!”
“Chicken.”
“If it makes me a warm chicken, then duly noted!”
The sound of leaves and branches rustling, as if she were running, faded out into the distance, off toward the nicer cabins.
He’d been holding his breath, and let it out with one big whoosh.
This was stupid.
Michael Bournham would have gone out there, declared his presence, and claimed the woman he wanted—with or without Jeremy.
Michael Bournham, though, would never have come here a month ago.
Whoever he was, whatever the chaos of the past month had taught him, a clarity was emerging, and this much was true:
This year’s talent show shouldn’t be missed.
Four wine coolers seemed like the perfect amount as Jeremy had fed them to her, one by one, back in the nice, warm rec hall. Wandering back to their cabin, holding Jeremy’s hand, she’d lost her way in the woods, accidentally taking them over by the tiny, uninsulated cabins that were what she called “the new wing.” Built six years ago, they weren’t really on her radar, because they had been put in while she was away at college. While she knew the woods well, this area was tough in the dead of night, flashlights not very helpful when she had alcohol and lust pumping through her veins at breakneck speed.
She wanted Jeremy.
Now.
His pass at her, and the offer to fuck right here in the woods, was tempting.
“It is buttfucking cold!” she protested.
“Then tonight’s my lucky night!” he’d hissed, hands like tentacles. Everywhere. Everyfuckingwhere.
She couldn’t stop laughing. They hadn’t gone there—yet. The thought thrilled her, though. What if? No one she’d dated had truly suggested anal sex, though plenty of guys joked about it. Joked as if they weren’t really into it—and yet the joke meant something, right?
This was Jeremy. She could just ask.
“Is that something you’d like?” she whispered, running her hand up his thigh.
He froze. “You’d consider it?”
“Sure. We just need a strap-on.”
“A strap-on for—wait! No! Not that kind!” he said, sounding thoroughly confounded, though it didn’t stop him from sliding a hand under her breast, teasing the nipple to pebble.
“We have a warm cabin of our own!” she hissed. “Let’s go back there!”
“Chicken.”
“If it makes me a warm chicken, then duly noted!”
Dizzy with anticipation, she took off, Jeremy chasing her as she sprinted through the woods, loose and on track. Getting her bearings, she found the right trail. Blood and lust and the thrill of the unknown being a possibility in bed made her want to get naked, under the sheets, and wet and wild.
Why delay? She took the cabin’s stairs in twos, ripped the door open, slammed it shut and was nude from the waist down when Jeremy barged in, breathing hard, eyes popping when he caught sight of her breasts as she pulled her shirt up over her head.
“You are so wonderful,” she said as he stripped down, chest heaving with gasps, the broad shoulders and lean swimmer’s build making her want him even more, hands twitching to touch and touch and touch until she could quell her need.
“And you’re goddamn hot,” he said, suddenly picking her up, one arm under her naked breast, the other catching the back of her knees as Jeremy unceremoniously picked her up and tossed her on the featherbed-covered mattress, his body on hers in seconds.
“We’ll freeze!”
“Not if we make enough heat,” he growled, but relented as she pulled the down comforter down to the end of the bed and wiggled under it. The heat of their bodies made a warm cocoon quickly, and as both discarded their remaining clothes she found herself awash in his skin, his mouth taking hers
and then suckling one nipple, making her wet and swollen.
“How do you know exactly what to do to me, Jeremy?” she moaned, her hands fast and eager, finding him hard and ready.
“Un-uh. Not yet,” he said, pulling her hand off him. “Plenty of time for that. What I want is time to focus on you.”
“By all means,” she murmured, spreading her legs as he kissed her thighs, his mouth measured and masterful. Sex with Jeremy was becoming a given, an act she knew she could access when she asked, a joining they both wanted and indulged in at will.
Twice a day? Done. Sex outside? Great. A few drinks and a romp in bed? Awesome. If this was what a relationship could be like, why in the hell had she waited so long?
Oh. Yeah. Because the right guy hadn’t come along.
Mike.
Damn it! His name floated into her fuzzy head at the wrong time, a vision of him behind her now-closed eyelids as Jeremy’s tongue took her to new heights. Forcing thoughts of Mike out of her mind, she focused instead of that lush mouth that gave and gave, his tongue flicking her insistent red nub with a perfection that made her buck up against his lips, twitching and writhing as he slid two fingers inside her wetness.
“Do you really have a strap-on?” he asked, pausing a beat from his relentless drive for her orgasm.
“Not with me,” she answered, adding a fake sniffle to drive home her disappointment. His laughter rumbled along her lower lips as he resumed, carrying her higher and higher, two fingers inside her thrusting in and out, then deep inside her, one finger pressing up right in a spot that—combined with his tongue teasing her—made her feel swollen and ready to burst.
With his spare hand he reached up to find her taut nipple, pinching it so hard she squealed, the tripled sensations of fingers in her, the pain and his warm mouth all pushing her to a place she didn’t know she could go, the climax roaring through her, her hips rhythmic and thrusting up as Jeremy kept her pace, like a conductor of a flesh symphony named Lydia.
Red clouds plumed behind her eyes, a primal scream coming low in her throat, and then she tipped over with a gush and a release, the bed wet under her ass, the viscosity of his fingers inside her changing, the feel of his tongue and lips against her clitoris altered as she screamed with each thrust and pinch, her body soaring and bursting, soaring and bursting, flooding hot and then receding, the waves crashing over and over without end. This was unlike any orgasm she’d had before, most of which were a series of massive explosions followed by smaller aftershocks.
This one Just. Kept. Going.
“I can’t stop,” she gasped as he wrung each one from her with his mouth and hands.
“Then don’t,” he commanded, unrelenting. During sex there was always a point where she could feel herself slipping into a place of near-painful release, where the build-up of a new level of orgasm put her on a precipice she couldn’t bring herself to fall into. Jeremy wasn’t allowing her to stop, his push making her swoon with too much, too soon, too—
“Oh! Oh!” she moaned, this new round making her grab the comforter and bring it to her mouth, biting hard to suppress a scream she feared would bring the entire campground—hell, five fire departments—to their cabin. Muffled cries of pleasure and lust poured from her, unabated, as he wrung so much out of her, the rush of wetness greater than anything she’d experienced.
And then—
“What the hell?” she sat straight up and scooched her ass back from him, putting a halt to everything.
“Did I…what?”
“You wondered about female ejaculation,” Jeremy said, his words slow and proud, his hand across his lips. Smoky, contemplative eyes met her, with a cockiness that made her grin. “Now you know.”
“So I—what did you—how did you…?”
Her eyes took in his body as he stretched out beneath the comforter, the dim light casting a shadow over his erection, the grooved muscles of his abs leading down to his hips, his arms stretched up and now folded under his head. As she reached to caress the broad lateral chest muscles, she stopped short.
“Wet spot! Holy wet spot!” It was huge!
“Occupational hazard,” he joked.
Lydia’s body went numb and jellied, her limbs losing muscle tone as she flopped beside him, completely blissed out. “I can’t believe that happened.”
“I can. I just witnessed it.”
“You just caused it.”
“No.” He laughed, stroking her breast, making the pink pebble, her pussy tightening with need as she found herself aroused again. “You caused it. I just made conditions optimal.”
“Well then,” she purred, sliding one leg against his cock, stroking it with her thigh, “what can I make optimal for you?”
His kiss was wet and tasted like her. “Do you still think it’s buttfucking cold around here?”
Her breath caught in her throat. Anal was uncharted territory. A brake activated in her head, as if there were a NO TRESPASSING sign that kicked in instinctively.
Yet she could override it, right?
Her destiny. Her life. Her choices.
“I…um…”
“No pressure. Just a thought,” he said, kissing her again. “It’s something I’d love to explore with you.”
Explore. The word seemed less threatening than anal. Explore. Willingness. Openness. Experimentation. Those words were so tantalizing and intriguing.
She could handle those words. And all that they could bring.
With a languid, slow inhale, she infused herself with a sense of wonder as she said, “Let’s take it as it comes.”
“Pun intended?”
“Pun very much intended.” Blinking hard, she looked up at him, her palm over his heart, feeling its strong, steady march onward. “But this is new for me.”
“Then I’m honored,” he said quietly. “Let me expand pleasure for you.” With that, he pulled her onto him and she paused, unsure.
“Climb on me, Lydia, Put me in you.”
“I thought—”
“We’ll take this very, very slowly,” he said, sitting up to catch her breast in his mouth, suckling at the nipple as he shifted his hips to put the tip of him at her very wet opening. Easily slipping in, he moved to center her, her hands on his shoulders as he explored her nipple. One hand ran over the smooth expanse of her waist and around to her back.
“Do we have lube?” he said into her chest, nuzzling her.
She stopped, unsure, running through a mental map of her possessions. Had she brought any? “Yes!” she exclaimed. “Hang on.” She found it tucked into the nightstand, next to the phone book her parents put in each cabin. Phone book. Might as well include a phone with a cord and a pencil to turn the rotary dial.
With a cultivated skill, he took the bottle and, behind her back, did something she couldn’t see, but then…she most certainly felt it.
Out of sight.
Out of her mind.
The stroke of his finger against her puckered anus as she rode him sent shocks through her body, making her clamp down on his hard cock. “Oh,” she gasped as he circled her tight muscle, her body going rigid with fear and anticipation. Would it hurt?
“Just this. Nothing more,” he said. “And I’ll stop any time you say so.”
Don’t stop.
“It’s…keep going,” she rasped, his finger slipping in, filling her and making her tighten against the double penetration, her clitoris crying out for attention.
“Touch yourself,” he whispered, as if reading her mind, the finger exploring her slowly, in ever-increasing circles that drove her mindless.
Her hand found her red nub, and with two strokes she felt the scream rise within, starting at the very base of her sacrum and spreading out, through her pussy and mons, over the clit and up past her breasts, finally into her throat as she convulsed against him, her hips moving in tight, controlled shifts, her hand fluttering against the slick skin, body rigid and demanding, wanting more of everything.
“Je
remy, I—I don’t—what?” Every part of her went hot and numb, slick and fiery, a frantic energy overloading her senses. She sought out his mouth for a kiss and found herself senseless. The tightness and flood of warm keening flourished as he added a second finger, this time pushing her to the edge of some vast, hot chasm within.
“Let go, Lydia. Just drive it home,” he urged, his own hips beginning an endless thrust into her, a hammering up to the center of her being as the two fingers that stroked her ass filled her, making love more completely than ever before.
Opening her eyes, she found him staring at her with such expansiveness and love that it caught her in a vortex of some new dimension, where all she felt was everything. His eyes snapped shut, his neck went tight, and a micro-shift in the way his body moved told her he was about to come, too, and join her.
“Let go, too…” she moaned, begging him to fill her with yet more.
With a thrust so strong she almost felt it in her throat, Jeremy came, his orgasm violent and animalistic, one finger sliding in deeper to the point of pain, though it was a kind of transgression that simply heightened her own climax.
The shudder of her body in full, as if shaking off an old skin, made her tremble with the enormity of everything that their bodies did together, her final orgasm squeezed and teased out of her until she could handle no more, pulling off him and sliding to his side, needing to be free of him, to separate and gain hold of some semblance of reality after being tortured by the divine.
Panting hard, Jeremy stared at the ceiling for a few minutes. Lydia was too amazed to say a word. He stood and she heard the padding of feet, the rush of water, and then the quick movements of a cold, naked man on a fall Maine night as he climbed under the warm covers, damp hands sliding between her thighs.
“You’re cold!” She batted the hands away.
“You’re observant.”
Reality took her out of the magic cloud his touch had set her in, and while she enjoyed being grounded, she felt a sense of disappointment that she couldn’t live in a sensual wonderland forever.
As both faded off to sleep, a single word invaded her thoughts.
