WOOD

by Rocklyn Ryder

  Tightening my arm around Gail's waist, I let my hand wander up to cup her breast, gently brushing across her nipple till it's a hard point against my fingertips. When she wiggles that ass against my hardness I know she's awake and eager for more before we begin our day.

  Opening my eyes, I can see the morning is another one of dim gray light and the rolling thunder has moved overhead and left behind the steady sound of rain on the tin roof.

  Gail must have gotten up earlier and added wood to the stove because the cabin is already warm and I can smell fresh coffee that's already been brewed.

  Burrowing my face under the edge of the covers, I start our day with soft kisses on her shoulder and work my way down from there. The coffee will wait till we're done.

  We've been doing this for days now. Most of that time, we've been cooped up in the small space of the cabin while Ma Nature tries to drown the mountains and we still haven't killed each other.

  In fact, killing Gail or running her out of here are the last things that have crossed my mind since she showed up. That oughta scare the shit out of me, but I like it. I like having her here.

  She fits here. She fits me. And not just the parts of her that are warm and wet. She makes the cabin feel right, like the place became a home the minute she started breathin' the air in it.

  Gail fell into step right alongside me. She's comfortable with my minimalist lifestyle and hasn't once tried to talk me into a bigger fridge or a dishwasher. She doesn't bat an eye at not having a Keurig or a microwave oven.

  In fact, she seems to like my place. She treats the place like it was hers and she looks at the modest cabin that my great great grandfather and I built together, a hundred years apart, like it was a fucking Beverly Hills mansion. And she doesn't seem to mind me too much either, so I can't get in it my head why she's so eager to take off.

  When we run out of chores to do, which is easy when there's two of us to do them together, we sit together in the main room. We talk a lot, sometimes we watch a movie-- if we can agree on something in my library-- or sometimes we read.

  Gail has a ton of books on her phone but all mine are old fashioned paper that don't need to be put on a charger when the battery gets low.

  We swapped a couple days ago, I got her to read my favorite Tom Clancy and I made it through about 17 of her romance novels. I laughed at how many books she's got about guys with beards and axes up in the mountains. No wonder she was staring at me like I was a steak dinner when she found me splitting wood, she was primed for action already.

  "Pig," she laughs at me when I tease her about it, "just because you're a mountain man doesn't make you a romance novel hero."

  Being inside Gail is heaven for sure, but being beside Gail is pretty fucking awesome too. I stretch out sideways on the sofa that pretty much makes up my living room furniture and pull her into my arms so she's leaning back against my chest.

  "I could be one those dudes," I say over her shoulder, looking down at the book she has open on her screen at the moment, "all I have to do is fuck you harder and grunt more."

  "You grunt plenty already," she laughs.

  "But I do need to fuck you harder?"

  Her head falls back on my chest so she's looking up at me upside-down, "The fucking is plenty hard," she tells me in a voice that goes straight to my dick.

  My dick is already at half mast at the idea of proving myself against the imaginary characters that I'm up against. I read over her shoulder while she scrolls through pages, "I need to boss you around and tell you you're mine more?"

  It's another joke but I can't help but wonder if it would work. I'm pretty sure talking to Gail like I own her would earn me a swift kick in the balls, but someone needs to make her understand that she belongs up here with me. She's still talking about fixing her fucking flat tire-- so she can "get back on the road," not so we can get her car off the pass and into my barn.

  "So you got jilted?" It's not the first time I've pressed her on why she lives in the car.

  Gail snorts without looking away from her reading, "I wish," she says without giving me any more details.

  "Drugs? Bad credit? Flunked out of college?"

  She laughs softly and lets her hands and her phone drop in her laps, "I've just been traveling."

  I nudge my chin into the crook of her shoulder, letting my beard rub against her neck because I know she likes it, "Yeah, I get that, Princess, but it sounds less like traveling and more like aimless drifting. What are you running from?"

  Her fingers softly touch the screen in her lap, exiting out of her book and blacking out the screen, "I'm not running," she insists, "I'm searching."

  "What are you searching for?"

  "I don't know," she tells me absently, "home, I guess."

  "Princess," I kiss her cheek and then lean back enough to watch her face, "you remember when you asked me what demons I was hiding from by living up here in the mountains?"

  I see a trace of a smile on her lips and a nod.

  "I know it's hard for people to wrap their heads around the idea that a man would choose to live out here by himself without being half crazy or having something to hide from, but I told you the truth about my choices. You know everything there is to know about me, Princess. What you see is what you get with me. And you've gotten to see it all. Now why don't you tell me what kind of demons are keeping you from recognizing home when you find it?"

  Her fingers fiddle with the phone in her lap and finally she picks it back up and I watch her frown at it before her whole body seems to shiver with a sad little sigh.

  "No demons," she says finally, "just haven't found it yet."

  Gail

  "Bullshit."

  His face is buried in my neck, his lips pressing soft kisses into my skin between sentences so when he curses forcefully at my answer it's loud enough in my ear to make me jump.

  I don't know why he cares about it. This week has been nice but it's not like I can stay here with him. Blaze is an actual mountain man, living in a tiny cabin where no one is going to find him unless they already know where he is.

  Blaze isn't the kind of guy who'd have patience with Uber apps and using your cell phone to pay for 5 dollar coffees. I can't imagine him hashtagging anything and I'm sure he'd think a self checkout line at the grocery store is the first sign of the apocalypse.

  These mountains fit him. He belongs up here with his beard and his boots, swinging an axe for exercise instead of lifting his credit card for a gym membership.

  As much shit as I give him about it all, the man I've come to know really doesn't seem to be hiding from anything.

  Everything is easy with Blaze. I could make his little homestead my home in a heartbeat and spend the rest of my days up here growing vegetables in the garden and stacking the firewood that he splits while we make babies to leave this land to someday.

  He wasn't looking for a girlfriend when I showed up and I can't start thinking he's changed his mind just because he likes fucking me. No matter how well we fit together, and I'm not just talking about the sex.

  "No demons, I promise." I try to laugh it off and go back to re-reading my book, the one that reminds me most of Blaze, but now that he has me thinking about it I'm not so sure it's true. Maybe I do have demons, I just don't know their names.

  One of his arms releases its grip around my waist and his hand reaches out for my phone, "OK, no demons," he says, holding down the power button till the device shuts down completely and then taking it from me and placing it to the side, "why did you take off to begin with?"

  His arm returns to my waist and I let him pull me back against his chest. I like the feel of his heart beat under my shoulder and the soft brush of his breath against my cheek. I like the way he holds on to me like he'll never let me go, but I'm not going to let myself get used to that.

  Outside, the storm has blown over and the sun is starting to break through the remaining clouds. It's too late to start back to my car now, but the afternoon sun will
do a good job of drying up the road so by the time I hike back and get the tire changed tomorrow, I should be safe to get across the pass.

  "I went to visit my friend in Durango," I answer him, "and instead of going home, I went to New Hampshire."

  Blaze makes a surprised sort of hiccup noise above where my head is resting just below his throat, "Durango, Colorado?"

  "Yeah, that's where my bestie lives now," I smile as I confirm, "she got married shortly after graduation and that's where her husband ended up getting a job. So I went to visit."

  "So you drove from California to Colorado, and then decided to go to New Hampshire?"

  "No, I decided to go to South Dakota. I just sort of ended up in New Hampshire," I explain.

  "Where did you go after that?" His hand finds mine and laces his fingers through mine.

  "I was going to go to Maine, but I ended up heading south and next thing I knew I was in North Carolina-- did you know Venus Flytraps are native to there? So cool."

  His hands are so much bigger than mine, I love holding his hand but I have to change positions because it hurts to have my fingers spread that far apart. He holds his hand up and opens his palm to me and I idly trace down each of his fingers and along the lines that crisscross his hand. I wish I knew something about palmistry, I wonder what all those lines say about him.

  "Venus Flytraps like the plants?" He whispers against my ear while he watches me over my shoulder, "I thought they came from someplace like Africa or South America."

  "Nope, right here in the States," I say as I draw circles around each thickened callus at the base of his fingers, "then I went to Key West. I stayed there for awhile. About 4 months. Lived on some guy's boat."

  Blaze's chest tightens behind my back and his fingers close around my hand, "4 months? Lucky guy."

  I'm glad he can't see the little smile that tugs my lips at the obvious jealousy in his voice. My heart beats faster, but I remind myself that it doesn't mean anything, "He was in Italy. And he was 73. And married. To a 23 year old." The way Blaze's chest moves beneath me lets me know he started breathing again, "I just got to live on his yacht as a caretaker while they were gone."

  "Nice gig," Blaze says, "But you didn't stay in the Keys."

  I shake my head, "I told you, I've been traveling."

  "So stop."

  "I will."

  "I mean stop now," he says, brushing my earlobe with his lips, "here."

  Why is it so hard to do that, I wonder as I my head to the side so he can continue the soft kisses down the side of my neck.

  Inside me, I know I won't be staying here with him. It's too much to ask of a solitary man like Blaze to share his mountains, his cabin, and his heart for longer than a few days. I'll be on my way in the morning and Blaze will be nothing but a good memory to look back on.

  Of course, I'm not going to ruin the time we have left together arguing. So I murmur noncommittally and enjoy the feel of him touching me while I look out the window at the streaming sunlight.

  Blaze

  She might have been successful if she hadn't been trying to be so quiet, but her attempt to sneak out of here without me bites her in the ass. I wish the morning ended with more ass biting and less sneaking out of my cabin, leaving me sleeping.

  Instead, I come to while she's still shuffling around in the kitchen. I don't think anything of it. I listen to her try to keep her movements silent and I smile in my half asleep state, figuring she's getting a pot of coffee on the stove.

  When she opens the door, I don't bother opening my eyes, thinking she's grabbing a few more chunks of firewood to stoke the stove and bring the temperature up in here.

  When the door closes with a soft click of the latch, I think maybe she just doesn't want to let in any more cold air than necessary and I pull the quilt up over my shoulders moving back from the stove a bit so she'll have room to add the wood. Under the heavy quilt I stroke my own wood in anticipation of Gail's soft body joining me back under the covers.

  Her skin will be cool from being up and about in the chilly air of the cabin after the fire has died down over night and probably even cooler from the quick trip outside to grab more wood. She'll be looking to get up close to me for my warmth and I'll be ready for her. Just like we've started every day since she blew into my life, with me buried deep inside her while she screams my name.

  It takes me longer to catch on than I want to admit, I'm too busy thinking about how much I like warming her up.

  Suddenly, my eyes snap open. Something's not right, I know it immediately. I leap up off the floor where we'd made our bed last night and realize I'm alone.

  There's no coffee perking on the burner, there's no sharp sounds of the wood pile being rearranged outside the door, and there's an emptiness to the cabin where Gail's supposed to be.

  Her pack is off the chair where it's been sitting all week. Bright sunlight is streaming through the windows as the sun crests the mountains east of the valley where my cabin sits.

  She's gone.

  I stand like a naked fool in my own living room gaping at the spot where her things are supposed to be.

  She wasn't supposed to actually leave.

  We were supposed to hike down to her car together. I know she can change her own damn tire but that's not the point, the point is that she's mine now. She doesn't have to do everything by herself anymore.

  Even while I run to the bedroom and yank on a pair of jeans and a shirt and shove my feet into my boots in a mad rush to catch up to her, I still can't get myself to believe that she's leaving.

  As I brush my teeth and run a wet comb through my hair, I convince myself she never intended to actually leave. She's just being stubborn. She's used to doing everything on her own. She's planning on changing the tire and then she'll drive back up my road and park in front of my barn and everything will be right.

  The way it has been this week. With her at my side and in my arms.

  I barely remember to pull the door till it latches before I'm jogging down the 10 mile road that I call a driveway.

  Without a pack weighing me down, I should catch up to her in no time. It'll take a few hours to get to her car from her descriptions of where she left it, but then we'll just be driving back up so I'm not too worried about not bringing anything with me.

  Figures I'd fall for a girl as stubborn as me, I think as I hurry down the road.

  The thought stops me in my tracks and I have to wait a minute to drink it in, staring at the forest and the expanse of mountains all around me. I feel like I'm seeing them for the first time.

  Shit. It ain't exactly news to me. Maybe I knew as soon as I saw her standing there staring at me while I split firewood with the axe but it's not something I've bothered to think through till now.

  For a minute I remember how wound up I was the day she showed up. At the time I chalked it up to the electricity of the storm coming in and the fact that I hadn't been laid in too damn long. Maybe I knew before I even saw her. Like something inside me felt her headed toward me. If you believe in that kinda shit.

  I think about it and shrug at the trees beside the road. Maybe I do. I don't know. Never put a lot of thought into it before now.

  But I sure as hell knew as soon as I had her in my arms. Her body fits against mine like it was made for me to hold her. She tastes like heaven and sinking my cock inside her feels like coming home.

  Gail's mine.

  Her fierce independence, her sarcastic humor, the way she tells me everything I know about my favorite movies is wrong.

  I laugh out loud at the forest.

  She steals food off my plate but she doesn't steal the covers-- just curls up closer to me when she's cold. She plays a mean hand of poker but she doesn't know a single other card game.

  My feet start moving again, headed in her direction. I feel good. I'm gonna catch up to her and when I do, I'm gonna drag her back to the cabin with me and never let her go.

  I still don't really get why she's been
living in her car. She's got family, she's got friends, she's got an education and skills to make a decent living with. She told me she just enjoys the traveling and I think that might have been true in the beginning but at some point she was ready to call someplace home. I don't know why she's fighting it but we both know she's found it.

  When I catch up to her, I'm going to tell her I want her to stay. This is her home now. This is where she belongs, here with me.

  "Gail!" I catch the faint movement of something yellow up ahead and I recognize the strip of bright fabric that runs along the top of her pack, "Wait up!"

  Gail

  I knew it wouldn't that easy.

  His footsteps are fast and heavy, carrying him toward me while he calls my name and I know there's no avoiding it now.

  I ignore the way my heart rate picks up. The way my whole body tingles at the excited sound of his voice. Like I'm thrilled that he's coming after me. Like I have hope.

  My feet come to a stop despite my commanding them to keep moving. My head turns toward the sound of him rushing toward me and my lips curl up in a smile and my entire fucking body betrays me and it insists on staying put and waiting for Blaze to catch up.

  At least my brain is still thinking straight. My brain knows that this is a bad idea. That my body needs to carry us back to the Pathfinder, get the tire changed, and get off this mountain and into a real town.

  I am not a princess. I'm not a damsel in distress and I don't need Blaze Maddox coming to my rescue, slaying any monsters, or sweeping me off my feet.

  My feet disagree with me. They remain firmly planted and await being swept.

  "Hey Princess," Blaze is barely out of breath despite his sprint. He looks amazing in a t-shirt that stretches across his broad chest and clings to the muscles under the green fabric. His hair is a tousled mess and his lips are stretched in an easy smile under his mustache.