Cabin Fever

by Edie Bryant

  She kissed my cheek. “Nah, pretty sure you’d be cute no matter what. And I definitely would’ve still fallen for you.”

  Fuck, I liked her.

  I really, really liked her.

  8

  Emily

  I CAN CONFIDENTLY SAY that this has been the weirdest fucking weekend of my life.

  I mean, seriously, is it possible to just take a minute and reflect on all the absolute insanity that has happened so far?

  First of all, I come up on this trip thinking I’m going to be totally alone. Then, some girl shows up, and I’m relieved to not be totally alone for the night. And, I think she’s cute, and I kind of like her, but I suspect she doesn’t like me at all after she goes to bed early. I expect her to head out the next morning.

  Then, somehow a fucking blizzard happens in the middle of the night, and I’m stuck with her for the weekend! But that ends up being fine because it really seems like she likes me, too. But then, no, oh wait, when I go to kiss her, she actually doesn’t go for it! And I’m back to square one on being confused about her feelings.

  And that was just an hour ago! Seriously, less than an hour ago, I had thought for sure she was uncomfortable around me. I had believed she had been hung up on her ex and that she couldn’t wait to get away from me. I had been doing everything I could to keep my mind off her.

  Now, she’s lying in my arms. Now, we’re talking together like we’ve been dating for years. Hell, even more importantly, like we’re going to continue to date for years. We’re not even in a relationship, and this girl has me thinking about marriage.

  It was stupid. I felt totally stupid. But I didn’t even care. I was just so deliriously happy in a way I never had been before.

  I was going into this with cautious optimism, though. I liked her. I now knew she liked me, but who knew what was going to happen? For all we knew, all this crazy passion was just the location. Like, being up in this snowy mountain stuck in a cabin was bringing out the most intimate parts of us. And when it was all over, we’d go back to life as it was before. The passion between us would fade.

  I didn’t think this would be the case, though. That was not what my heart was telling me, at least. I may not listen to it very often, but I still knew when it was trying to signal something to me. And, right now, it was doing its best to tell me that I had just met the love of my life.

  I believed it.

  We were still wrapped up in one another on the couch. It was a picturesque scene. While Liz had been in the bath, I had decided to start a fire for some warmth, and that was still going. And Liz’s body was still pretty hot after a scalding bath, so she was keeping me equally warm.

  So, there we were, curled on a cabin couch, a fire going, my arms wrapped around her torso, and her head leaned against my chest.

  After talking with her about her family, I felt like she was even more beautiful than I had originally thought. Like, of course, she had been gorgeous to me from the moment I had seen her. But she was way more attractive now that I had been able to speak with her on an emotional level.

  Her eyes were closed. We had been quiet for a moment, both simply sinking into one another. And while I usually try to fill any gaps in the conversation, at this moment, I was content with the quiet. And I liked that Liz had her eyes closed. It allowed me to stare at her without her knowing. I was just taking in her beauty.

  “So, uh, can I try again?” I asked, breaking the quiet after a few minutes.

  “Try again?” she asked.

  “Yeah, you know, to kiss you?”

  She blushed for, like, the third time. “You want to kiss me, huh?” she stalled.

  “Hell yeah, I want to kiss you,” I grinned. “But don’t worry, I can see that you’re the kind of girl who likes to take things slow. And I’m fine with that. No sex, don’t worry, it won’t lead to anything. I just want one, good kiss.”

  She grinned. “Just one good kiss, huh? Are you sure you’re going to be satisfied with that?”

  “Absolutely. I can’t guarantee it won’t lead to some downright dirty thoughts in my head, but don’t worry, I won’t tell you about them. I’ll save them for later when I’m, uh, alone again,” I joked.

  I was always one to lay on the inappropriate jokes. Normally, when I didn’t know someone that well, though, I tried to keep things kosher. But, fuck it, I was being completely myself right now. And I just knew that Liz wasn’t going to take it the wrong way. Don’t ask me how I knew, I just did.

  “Okay, I suppose one kiss, I can allow. But just one.”

  “Just one it is,” I said, as I grabbed her chin and tilted her head toward mine.

  It was the most magical kiss I had ever experienced. Seriously, it was brilliant. I’d had worst kisses with women whom I’d dated for years.

  Our lips lingered on each other’s’ for a moment, and it felt like the warmth was traveling from her through to me. I thought I had been sure of how I had felt about her before, but it had been nothing compared to how I felt now. This kiss was something else.

  I pulled away after a moment, not wanting to push things. I knew she didn’t want to have sex, and I was totally prepared to respect that.

  But, when I pulled away, she pushed back and grabbed my cheeks, holding me close to her for a deeper kiss.

  Her tongue parted my lips, and I allowed her tongue to explore my mouth for a bit. But, when the feeling began to grow too intense, when I could feel myself start to get wet, I quickly pulled away.

  “Sorry, I can't go anymore,” I whispered to her, “this is, uh, just a little too exciting for me.”

  “Me, too,” she said, as she leaned in to kiss me again.

  I jerked back. “Wait, you understand, right?”

  “That this is leading to sex? Absolutely,” she grinned.

  “And you’re fine with that?”

  “I was really only worried about having sex when I thought I was going to have to say goodbye to you. If I don’t have to say goodbye, well, then…”

  She kissed me again, and it all went down from there.

  I could barely control myself after her lips touched mine. I turned into an animal, I had never needed somebody so badly. She slid her tongue on top of mine and her taste drove me absolutely wild. And if this was what the taste of her tongue did, I could only imagine the taste of her pussy would do…

  But I wasn’t going to wait to find out.

  I started stripping her down, sliding her clothes off of her. I couldn’t even remember how it all happened, it was a blur. It was like I was drunk off her. That’s exactly what I felt like… Like I was enjoying myself so much, I was drunk and unthinking. I had never been less inhibited.

  Suddenly, not only was she naked, but so was I. We had fiddled with eachother’s clothing until they’d all fallen off of us. And now it was just her nude body, mine, and endless possibilities.

  I was on top of her and I began to kiss her neck as I rolled my hands all over her naked body. She moaned under the pressure of my lips and began to search my body too. Her hands found my breasts which she began to grope wildly, feeling their weight in her hands and sliding her finger tips over my nipples, stimulating me more than I was already stimulated.

  And while I had let my hand drift over her breasts, it wasn’t her breasts that interested me most. I slid my hand lower until I could feel her pussy. At first, I just slid over the outside of her lips, feeling her smooth shaven skin. But I let fingers slowly drift inward until I was feeling how absolutely wet she was. It was so hot, knowing she was just as excited as I was. That she wanted me as much as I wanted her.

  “I want to taste you…” I whispered to her.

  “Do it.” She whispered back, and the little hint of desperation in her voice caused more desperation in me.

  So I lowered myself, scooting my body lower so that my head would be right at her soaking wet pussy. I extended my tongue, letting the coolness of the tip of it touch her clit. She moaned instantly and just like that,
my need was jumpstarted.

  I began licking her wildly, in every way that I could think. I was going up and down, doing circles, making a ton of movement and only pausing when she would begint omoan to indicate I was hitting the exact right spot. Holy shit, she was so sexy. I had only one thing on my mind now as the world began to slowly fade away… I wanted to make her cum as fast as posssible. I wanted to be responsible for her pleasure.

  In addition to my tongue I took a finger and began to slowly slide it into her entrance. It went effortlessly because she was so wet. And apparently it was the exact right move as her moans began to become louder. I felt her hands fly down as she gripped my shoulders, her nails digging into my bare back as she writhed under me. She was overtaken by the pleasure, I could tell.

  And I wasn’t going to stop until I’d reached my goal. So I thrust my fingers in and out of her faster and faster until I felt her nails dig even deeper into me. Suddenly, she creamed, and I knew what it meant as her thighs began to tremble next to my head. She was cumming.

  But I didn’t let her off easy, I continued to thrust as she orgasmed. I wanted to try and give her the biggest orgasm of her life, to overwhelm her with pleasure, and I didn’t move my tongue or release my fingers until she had completely stopped writhing.

  Which, less than a minute later, she did, of course. And when she did she was panting underneath me.

  I wasn't sure what her next move was going to be, but I was hoping that when I laid down next to her that she would begin to cuddle me. I was the kind of girl who liked to cuddle after sex, particularly while my partner and I were still naked.

  To my relief, Liz seemed like the kind of girl who liked to cuddle, too.

  She curled up next to me, still not wearing any clothes. Her breath was heavy on my neck, and I didn’t mind, because the cold was starting to hit me once again.

  And I guess it was starting to hit her, too, because she grabbed a thick blanket off the side of the couch and pulled it over us. But she didn’t bother to get her clothes back on. She just let her naked legs wrap in mine as she put her arm around my torso.

  “Mmmm… that was really fucking hot,” she muttered.

  “For me, too,” I agreed. And after a minute of basking in the glow of the sex we just had, I asked, “what do you want to do now?”

  “Besides spend the rest of my day talking to you? Hmmm… I don’t know. How does a nap sound?”

  Let’s see, a post-coital nap with the sexiest woman I’d ever met while a hot fire crackled next to us? Count me in.

  “A nap sounds absolutely perfect.”

  And, within half an hour, we both fell asleep, curled in one another’s’ arms.

  9

  Liz

  THIS WEEKEND WAS SHAPING up to one of the best of my entire life.

  I couldn’t believe how much bad luck had actually turned into amazing luck. Even Emily was no longer stressing about being snowed in. Her anxiety had seemed to disappear as we’d drowned ourselves in one another.

  She was easily the most amazing women I’d ever met, and I learned it more with every story we told each other. We were talking about everything from our childhood to our jobs to our past relationships. I had never spilled this much personal information in such a short amount of time with another person before. I was sharing everything now.

  And I loved it. There was only one worry lingering in the back of my mind… that there wasn’t enough time.

  We were talking about so much so fast, but there was an infinite number of things I wanted to learn about her. I wanted to know everything. I wanted to know her inside and out… and there just wasn’t enough time for that.

  By the next morning, a considerable amount of snow had already melted. I had no doubt that, in another day, we’d be able to safely return to our homes and back to our normal lives. And it was really putting a damper on this for me.

  I was sitting at the kitchen island, waiting for Emily to pour milk into a bowl of cereal for me, when she noticed I was being a little quiet.

  “Is something wrong?” she asked. “Don’t tell me you’re having doubts about this whole thing again.”

  “No, not at all, it’s just… what happens next?”

  “Well,” she sighed, “I think we’ll eat cereal, go cuddle up by the fire, talk, maybe play some cards if we get bored of chatting, which I doubt will happen… oh! I thought it might be fun to climb into that big claw tub together. What do you think?”

  “Hey, yeah, that would actually be really fun! No, but wait, that’s not what I’m talking about,” I said, trying to stay on track because there was absolutely no way I was going to be able to enjoy the rest of my weekend unless I got this figured out first.

  “What do you mean, then?”

  “I mean, the snow is melting. The temperature is only going to keep rising over the next forty-eight hours. We’re going to get to go home. We’ll have no more excuses to stay here and spend time together. What happens then? When we return to our regularly scheduled lives?”

  She poured herself some milk and then stuck it back in the fridge as she went to sit down next to me, placing her hand on my thigh.

  “You know, I was really hoping to not have this conversation until the end of the weekend.”

  “Why not?” I asked, immediately panicking. I quickly thought that maybe she wanted to push off telling me that she saw no future for us. But she didn’t want to say it now and ruin the weekend.

  “I don’t know, because saying it now makes me sound crazy. Although, honestly, I guess saying it later makes me sound pretty crazy, too. Eh, it’s going to be crazy no matter when I say it, I guess.”

  “Say what?” I asked, feeling relieved that it didn’t sound like she wanted to get rid of me.

  “Say that…” she took in a deep breath, “I really hope you’re going to be on board with this. Because I’m, like, totally about to make a fool of myself.”

  “Spit it out!” I said, copying something she said to me yesterday.

  “Okay, okay… so, uh, well…. I kind of was hoping that you’d be… my girlfriend?”

  “Your girlfriend?” I asked excitedly.

  “Yeah, you know, if that interests you. I, uh, I know it’s really early. We should probably not move so fast. But, you know what? I’m just tired.”

  I was a little confused about her last comment. It seemed off.

  “You’re, uh, tired?” I asked.

  “Yeah, I’m tired. Tired of living my life pretty much completely by the book. Tired of adjusting my behavior constantly to do what is right, what seems like the most appropriate option. For once, I want to do what I want to do. And what I want to do is date you. I want to be in a relationship with you now. I don’t want to waste time. I don't want to do months of only seeing you on the weekend for date nights. No, I want to drive to your house after work on a Wednesday and stay the night in the middle of the week. I want to spend my time with you like I’ve been dating you for years. Because, honestly, that’s what it feels like for me. It’s like we’ve been together so long. And I want it to fucking stay that way.”

  I was grinning. “So then we just… jump in? Start a serious relationship with each other after just a few days?” I asked.

  “Unless that’s not what you want to do. Obviously, I’m going to do whatever you want. But, that’s what I want, it truly is. I want to get real about this. I want to be real about you now.”

  I had known that she had wanted to pursue a romantic relationship between us even after all of this had ended, but I’d had no idea she had wanted to jump into a relationship right away. It wasn’t something I had even considered until this very moment.

  But, why shouldn’t we? I mean, I’m pretty damn convinced that this girl is going to be a big part of my life, aren’t I? I honestly think that she might be, like, the one. As silly as that sounds.

  “Hell, yeah, I want to date you,” I gave her a quick kiss, ignoring the fact that both of our cereals were slowly but
surely getting soggy. Eh, I didn’t care. I was too thrilled that I was now going to get to call this woman my girlfriend.

  I didn’t have an ounce of guilt about it, either. I know it was not the classiest move to jump from one long-term relationship to another, but fuck it. Seriously, fuck it, Sarah had never loved me. Sarah had never comforted me or nurtured me. I had never confessed to Sarah how broken I felt about my family situation.

  Emily has done more for me in the last couple days than Sarah ever had. And I was going to continue to explore that for as long as I possibly could.

  Though, if I had to guess, I’d say ‘as long as I could’ was probably going to be ‘forever.’

  After we broke our kiss, Emily suggested that we go ahead and start on our cereal before it got completely ruined.

  It was a healthy cereal, one of those organic whole-grain off-brands. And, it was no gourmet meal, but after spending the night eating nothing but chips and popcorn, this healthy cereal was really a relief.

  “What do you want for the future?” I asked Emily, in between my munching.

  “What do I want for the future, huh?” she asked, as she continued to eat. “Well, I haven’t thought about it in a long time. I’ve been so caught up in trying to keep up with my present that I haven’t had the time to think about the future until I came up here for vacation.”

  “Really?” I asked, extremely interested. “So, coming up to this cabin somehow made you think about the future? Why?”

  “Well, on one hand, I think simply slowing down and taking in your surroundings forces you to think about the future, definitely. And, on the other hand, I think you’ve made me focus on it.”

  “Me?! Really?” I asked.

  “Absolutely. Like, what’s the point in focusing on the future if it feels like you don’t really have any future? If your future endeavors only include working, climbing the ladder at your job, making as much money as you can… then, what’s the point? And, until you came along, that was all my plan consisted of. I’ve been searching for success.”

  “And now?” I asked. “Now that I’m in the picture, what’s your plan like?”