Running Hot

by Rachel Hanna

  If he gave me a backrub, chances were good I'd turn over halfway through it and see what happened from there. And that would be very, very bad. I'd promised myself time off for good behavior. I didn't know him, had only met him hours ago, and more than half of our interactions had been disagreements.

  Halfway through the thought process I yawned unexpectedly, nearly a big enough yawn to take off my own head. Right. The only thing I was in danger of was falling asleep. And that's what I wanted to do, only I wanted to be clean. A backrub, however much I experienced of it, would be wonderful. The race info had said to bring friends, to plan massages, to have food available for race end.

  I hadn't done any of that. I had been fully in Make It On My Own mode when signing up and training, and worse, a little bit of mopey Nobody Wants To Play With Me mode. Which was true both because none of my friends numbered among the ultra marathon bunch and because if you don't tell anybody you're going to run over a mountain, then nobody offers to be there for you while you're doing it or when you're done.

  I hadn't scheduled any kind of massage because I didn't know Auburn and didn't want to stand someone up if I was just as tired as I now turned out to be.

  The food was going to shortly became an issue.

  Cody, maybe reading my mind or hearing my stomach growl, gently returned my leg to the floor and rummaged in the first aid kit. "Here," he said, handing me a Power Bar. "Eat this and take your shower. Then you decide if you want to sleep or eat after the backrub. Choose sleep and I can go get you food if you want."

  I took the Power Bar, watching him carefully. Why was he being so nice? He'd given me so much hell all the way through the race.

  "Thanks," I said, and took it with me to the shower, which was hot and long and glorious and proved that I had weeds in my socks and some down my jog bra and something I pretended not to see that looked too much like a bug and had been in my clothes. Whatever it was, it wasn't moving.

  Post shower I rummaged in my bag, came up with the soft old t-shirt and cotton shorts, combed my hair, slathered on face cream because my skin felt dry, then looked in the mirror, shook my head, did a short blow dry, massaged the cream into my skin, and put on mascara and lip gloss, started to try to talk myself out of the makeup, and left the bathroom when another jaw-bursting yawn happened.

  Cody was sitting on the edge of the bed. The cabin was a single bedroom. If he spent the night – but why would he? I wasn't even sure why he was here now.

  "Shouldn't you be back at work?" I asked before I realized how ungrateful it sounded. "I'm sorry, I just mean don't you have a shift to finish?"

  "Called in while you were showering. I'm good and so are they. Mop up's almost done. Fires are out. Last of the runners have been fetched and awarded DNF's."

  Right. It was 1:30. The race had been over for two and a half hours.

  "There's always next year," he said quietly, and nicely enough I didn't wail like I wanted to about this year being the important year, or about how hard all the training had been and yes, rewarding, but I wasn't convinced I'd ever do it again.

  "I'll be just as lost next year," I admitted.

  Cody patted the bed. "Bring a compass."

  I squinted at him. "Don't know how to tell you this, Captain Jack, but I can't read a compass and even if I knew where north was, I don't think it would matter."

  He just smiled lazily at that, eyes closing partly, mouth quirking, and I felt a thrill of longing to feel his hands on me again, even to be sitting there while he put stuff on my legs, which were starting to hurt again.

  I was about to feel his hands, I realized, and when common sense tried to talk me out of it, I talked faster than it could. "Is there more painkiller?"

  There was, and he sprayed it on, which wasn't as rewarding (or painful) as having a cream rubbed on would have been. My legs stopped throbbing and my eyes started closing and I went willingly to the bed, stretched out face down and said, "You're sure that – "

  "Shh," he said. "I'm a professional."

  I almost giggled at that, but his hands dug into my traps then, easing the stiffness from holding my arms up, my neck less relaxed than it should have been as I ran up and over and down a mountain and ran into trouble and met a man…

  His hands were warm, gentle, moving up my shirt, starting down my back in strong circles. The pain in my back began to ebb away like the pain in my legs and the need to sleep filled me like water filling a bathtub.

  The pleasure was enough to keep me on the verge of sleep for a while, laying content in the sun coming in the cabin window, Cody's voice low as he said nonsense things, letting me relax.

  He moved like a real masseuse, the noninvasive way they have of working only on the non-erogenous zones, but it wasn't working quite that way. With every brush of fingers and knead of palm against my lower back, or my arms, or the tops of my thighs, I sighed deeper into myself, feeling everything awakening. The impatience shot through me, the way I always felt before making love, like I had to have the man I was with or burst into flames. Like I wanted to run or do something fast and violent, like I had to have something deep inside me satisfied before I could go on living.

  Far from making me relax, his hands were now making me tense, and I knew he could feel it. I wanted to turn under his hands, reach up for him, pull him down against me, his mouth on mine. I already knew how incredible that mouth felt, hard and hot and full.

  Just for a few more minutes I stayed face down, letting his thumbs curve down over my lower back. I was sore, the kind of sore that comes from staying upright and moving for so many hours. But it was a good sore. With every stroke of his hands, the frustration at not finishing the race was being taken away. I'd done something amazing. Add in the distance I'd run that I hadn't meant to, when I was lost, and if I hadn't run 100 miles, I'd come very close. If there hadn't been a detour, and a fire, and a fireman, I'd have made it to the finish line in under thirty hours.

  It wasn't enough, but it was close. And with that thought I sighed into the rhythm of Cody stroking hot hands along my back, moving up again now from hips to mid-back to that always-knotted place between my shoulder blades.

  Something in the way he was touching me had changed. I thought if I turned now he wouldn't be surprised. He'd sensed something in me, the way I was breathing or responding or maybe he could even feel the tension coiling low in my belly, between my legs, the way I wanted to turn and –

  Reach up and twine my arms around his neck, looking into his eyes. My t-shirt had ridden completely up, over my breasts, leaving me exposed down to the rolled down tops of my shorts.

  Cody's eyes lidded, half open, his mouth opening slightly. He breathed, took in my face, my eyes, traveled down my body with intent pleasure, and his hands followed. Those wonderful, hot hands that had kneaded my back, pressing away the tension and tired, now slid from where they'd more or less come to rest, on the outsides of my shoulders.

  He stroked inward, down my torso in long streaks. His eyes were on mine, heady and heavy, he was seeing me, watching me, and I was there, in the moment, not running, not hiding away, but present, watching him.

  My hands let go of each other so I could trail them down, touching the hard angles of his cheekbones, running one thumb over his full bottom lip.

  Cody turned his head toward that hand, letting me cup and stroke the side of his face as his hands circled in, the same kneading, more gentle now, soft, round circles over my nipples, stroking with feathery light touches that made me arch my back to press myself more strongly into his hands. He started rubbing harder, molding me into his hands, letting me set the pace. My hands slid from his face to chest, suddenly needing to get rid of the simple gray t-shirt he'd had on under the fire retardant yellow shirt.

  He blinked at me, moved in a single fluid motion, hands sliding to his waist, crisscrossed, grabbing either side of the hem and lifting it fluidly over his head, letting it go to flutter down at the top of the movement.

  His han
ds came back to me, to my face, my arms, my breasts, moving down my belly, the taut muscle there. I was as lean and hard as he was, product of six months training.

  When he didn't seem to be getting there on his own, I linked my hands behind his head again, pulled his mouth down to mine. His lips were as hot as I remembered, full and hard against mine. He kissed me hard, deep, his tongue flickering along my lips, my own tongue finding his bottom lip, tracing it, making him shiver under my mouth.

  He broke the kiss to lean down, his tongue exploring my throat, the hollow there where my pulse beat, along the slopes of my breasts, his mouth hot and making me ache. My hips thrust up now, my body twisting toward his, moving to get closer. Cody stood, moving away from me, and I shook with sudden cold in the heat, reaching even as I told myself if he stopped, no way I would beg or ask or follow or try.

  He had stood to remove his pants, thumbs hooked in the waistband, he'd already unbuttoned, unzipped while I panicked, afraid my first foray into wanting, into asking, was going to be rebuffed. He shoved them down and off, bending to pull them off at the ankle, and I watched the play of muscle in his sides, the V of his waist, the slope of back, the way his ribs stood out in sharp relief and the veins in his arms showed, traceries under the skin because he was so buff, his muscle so cut. He was beautiful, a kind of golden all over, as if tan on him looked like sunlight on his skin.

  He kicked away the pants and straightened, turning toward me, not shy. The sunlight outlined him, filling the room. He was beautiful, strong and hard and moving back toward the bed, a question in his eyes now. He wasn't going to move any farther than I indicated.

  I held my arms out and he came into them, joining me on the bed where the bright sunlight came through the southwest windows, lighting everything around us. In the warmth and heat, we came together, pressing our bodies full length against each other, arms encircling, mouths meeting again. His skin was silky, the fine hard feel of a man with very low body fat. I ran my hands over his arms and shoulders, along his back until I could circle his ass with both hands, pulling him tighter against me. And right away I was moving again, circling him with my legs, which hurt, but not as much as I expected, and moving so I could touch his face, his chest, so I could run my hands down the front of his body until I had him in my hands.

  Cody never stopped moving. Even when his body arched into mine in pleasure at something I'd just done, still his fingers moved, trailing over my skin, touching, cupping, learning. His eyes only lost mine when we kissed, too close together to look at each other that way, laughing into each other's mouths at the stolen, wonderful moments.

  He twisted on the bed, bringing me up to straddle him, and I protested, hands going automatically over my breasts as the full sunlight slanting in caught me, making me feel like I was onstage.

  Cody gentled my hands away, kissed the palms, and let them go. "You're beautiful," he said. "You don't have to hide. But if you do, it's OK."

  With his words, I didn't have to. My hands were free to stroke and touch even as Cody's touch ignited me further, even as I opened to him, pressing against him, feeling him hard against my belly but not inside, not yet, but still my head was thrown back in pleasure and the sunlight surrounded us both.

  We rocked together, holding tight one minute, me upright and holding onto his hands for balance the next. When I least expected it he reached up and grabbed my arms, toppling me over onto the bed and spinning to come up above me. I laughed, shaking my hair out of my face, watching him as he knelt above me but he wasn't entering me yet. He was taking his time, running fingers under my breasts, along my rib cage, down my belly, teasing and stroking and tickling until ever inch of me felt set alight, until I glowed and sweated and arched my hips toward him and he met them with his hands, fingers going inward, between my legs, sliding slick and rubbing hard, making me shake and watch him avidly, mouth open, tongue licking my own lips and Cody smirking, that wonderful cat's-in-the-cream grin that mocked and taunted and begged me to join him.

  I rolled onto my side, pulled him down against me, wincing as one calf came into contact with the bed, shifting to take my weight off it and, in doing so, pressing myself hard, hard up against him, against him from shoulder to shoulder and belly to belly and hips to hips his legs over mine, my mouth open, my tongue on his, and then on his lips, and then trailing down his body and meaning to stop somewhere around his solar plexus but I just kept kissing, just kept traveling down until my mouth found him and I was able to make him shake with joy against me.

  He pulled me off and flipped me before I was ready, making me laugh as he pulled me away. Then I was on my back and he was above me, fingers on my breasts, my lips, my ribs, the inside curls of my hipbones. He was saying my name, saying Rory and asking if I wanted him, if I was OK with this, if we were –

  "Shut up," I said, and I was the one who guided him into me.

  Cody moved slow and gentle, stroking into me, watching my face. He stretched full length above me, supporting his weight on his forearms, and my legs arched up and around him, pulling him close. The burns ached, but distant, far away and unimportant under the pleasure.

  He took his time, changing speed, changing angles, brushing my hair out of my face. I reached up for his thumb as his hand pulled away from my hair, sucked his thumb into my mouth, making him gasp, his hips moving faster, my legs holding him tighter.

  Sunlight fell across both of us, hot but welcome. Cody's skin was golden in the light, hot against my own, his mouth another heat. His hips moved against mine. We rocked together in sync, our eyes meeting sometimes.

  He looked away every time, something hidden in the icy blue depths.

  I also looked away. Held him, my nails scoring his back, his hands cupping my shoulders.

  Silently wrapped together, and completely separate.

  * * *

  We fell apart from each other at the same time, bodies slick with sweat, breath coming fast. The bed in the cabin's one bedroom was huge, big enough to invite several friends to come join us, big enough to sprawl in. Big enough we could easily have retired to our separate corners, to glow in solitary or to lick our wounds, depending in what psychological response to the physiological won out.

  Neither of us did. We lay together, separated by a small space because of the heat, though neither of us suggested getting up to close the curtains. We lay with only inches between us.

  We lay with our hands loosely linked. Holding on.

  Chapter 6

  I woke with a start two hours later. Four p.m., and plenty sunny in July. I was alone on the bed, my shirt back in place, my muscles feeling friendlier than they had.

  I found my shorts, struggled into them, swung my legs out of bed, stood faster than my head could catch up with being at 1,500 feet altitude when I live at 4,600 and had recently been running at stratospheric, and I rocked a little, one hand out to catch the wall and keep me upright.

  The living room in the cabin was empty, the kitchen nothing more than the table and the far end of the living room. The bathroom door stood open.

  No Cody Green. I crossed the living room faster than I'd meant to, and opened the front door.

  His truck was gone.

  He might have gone to get food. He'd said he might. He might have just gone. And nothing I could say to that. He'd been wonderful once he'd stopped picking on me. I had less sore muscles and more sore other places that weren't used to a workout anymore. I had some sweet memories and some memories of him from the mountain that were more annoying than sweet. He hadn't been meant to be a part of my life or my race or anything else. If he was gone, that was his right; I'd certainly spent enough time convincing him I was just fine whether or not I was, and that I had my own plans for getting home.

  So I'd forage for food soon, whatever I had to do to get to some, because that I hadn't thought of. The bag I'd dropped at the finish line, the one with the clean clothes I now wore, held sports drink and gel energy packets and Power Bars, none of which I w
anted to see or consume for several months.

  Once the initial rush across the cabin ended, though, I realized how sore my feet were. I wasn't looking forward to any walking at all, even to go get food.

  I was still standing in the doorway, looking out at the empty circle of gravel where the truck had been parked, and the strength in my legs failed all at once. The burns ached, and even though the topical painkiller was still on the table, I only looked at it from the doorjamb, unmoving, and turned back to the bright day out front.

  He'd gone. Of course he had.

  I called Melody.

  "Did you win?" she answered the phone.

  "Yes, no, maybe, and not at all."

  "That clears it right up. Did you get a buckle?"

  "I got something better. No buckle. And then I think I lost the other thing."

  There was a brief silence. "You're not making any sense. Did you run into a tree?"

  My utter grace and complete non-klutziness is well known among my friends. "I did not run into a tree. I ran into a fire."

  "Ohmygod."

  "Kind of. I'm OK. Kind of."

  "Kind of?" She sounded like she was about to grab her keys and mount a rescue mission. If it hadn't been too selfish – and one too many rescues in one day – I'd have let her.

  "And after I ran into the fire? I ran into a fireman."

  Another pause. "Is that the alternate reward to the buckle?"

  "Uh huh."

  "The one you lost?"

  "Uh huh."

  "Rory, you didn't do anything stupid, did you?"

  I swallowed and stared out at the circle of gravel again. Quarter after four now and the sun hitting flecks of mica or whatever it was in the crushed gravel was blinding. I let my eyes water a little. It was only because of the sunlight. "Define stupid."