He didn't ask for any more assurance. He carried me closer to the cabin and I figured he’d take me straight to the bed. Instead, he walked right past the porch and carried me to the hammock. He laid me down gently and then leaned over me, kissing me on the lips, as he stroked the side of my face. The dress bunched up below me and cool air struck my body everywhere, reminding me we were exposed.
He stared at my face for a moment. Then he kissed me deeply stopping only to pull me up so he could unzip my dress and pull it over my head and toss it in the grass. The sight of that expensive, beautiful dress splayed across the ground, half in the green weeds and half in the dirt reminded me of Adam. It was just like him, exclusive and expensive, but also wild and carefree.
Lying before him in only my bra and panties, swinging slightly back and forth on the hammock in the breeze, I didn’t feel nervous at all. I felt way too amped to be held back by fear. Adam’s eyes trailed down my body, and he slowly, carefully, slipped off my shoes and then worked his way up my body, feeling each curve as he went.
He had dressed in his mountain uniform—flannel shirt and jeans. The materials scratched against my bare skin. The fresh bright light of morning meant I was completely exposed, but I didn’t care. The way his eyes burned into my skin, his thick fingers pawed at my curves had me so hot I couldn’t think at all. My skin begged to be against him.
His eyes changed over the next few minutes from the deep pale blue I was used to, the vulnerable windows to his heart, to a more vibrant, darker blue. It reminded me of how the sky could change from calm to downright sinister in the moments before a brutal storm.
I bucked up against him, physically begging for more.
I closed my eyes as his hand moved between my legs. I fumbled with the fly on his pants, and he took just a few seconds away from rubbing me to push them off as if they'd grown horribly uncomfortable on his skin.
We explored each other's bodies for a long time. We used the hammock in creative ways until we spilled in sexy laughter into the grass and got serious. We kissed and touched, eyes open most of time, except when I closed them in embarrassed pleasure. We pinched and bit and moaned. We whispered secrets too. That he’d wanted me since we first touched. That I'd never felt something so amazing, so deeply satisfying. He told me things I didn't quite believe. And at one point, so quietly I could hardly decipher the words, he whispered, "Don't hurt me."
At those words, I'd squeezed him in the strongest embrace I could muster, trying to create for him that feeling of being enveloped in desire, that feeling he created in me.
Sweeping the hair away from my face, staring down into my eyes, he clenched his muscles as he poised above me. I felt him between my legs. Neither of us needed to say it. He was ready. So was I.
As he plunged into me, he groaned, and a high-pitched moan emerged from my lips at the sudden quench of desire. I couldn't think after that. I could only be led by my body and his.
17
Before my eyelids opened in the morning, I ran my legs over the soft white sheets of my cabin's bed and grinned. For the first time in a while, I wasn't confused by where I was. I didn't feel unsafe or confused. But only for a split second. The cabin was completely silent. Adam was not in bed with me and, as I lay still again for a minute listening for any movement at all, I realized he was not in my cabin.
I knew I had fallen asleep in his arms, not self-conscious at all about the fact that I was falling asleep naked next to Adam. How could I feel shame now after what we’d done outside yesterday? I grinned at the memory. I’d screamed his name as he made me come and pulled grass from the ground as he joined me. My body still tingled with aftershocks of yesterday’s lovemaking.
We’d spent the day together, touching, kissing, talking like a couple who wasn’t fighting against anything. Late at night, a conversation on the couch easily shifted into an intense kiss that set us on another round—him sitting on the couch, while I straddled him. Oh my god, I had been forward.
I swallowed, blushed, and closed my eyes. Where was he? After the couch, he’d carried me into the bedroom and we’d fallen asleep in each other’s arms. I thought we'd turned some kind of corner. I got out of bed, slipped on clean panties and a fresh t-shirt, and checked the large open space of the cabin, thinking maybe Adam had gotten up earlier.
The room was lit up a little differently than usual, but that wasn't the most noticeable difference. The room was freezing. I wrapped my arms around myself and walked to the hooks by the door where my hoodie hung. Pulling it on, I noticed the door was open.
Adam wouldn’t leave the door to me unlocked, let alone open, given everything that had been going on lately.
I swung open the door and scanned the woods. Nothing seemed out of place. Each tree along the tree line had become as familiar to me as the houses of my neighborhood.
I stood on the porch searching, feeling slightly ridiculous. My bare feet reminded me it was even colder outside than it was in my apartment. I turned to go inside and stopped immediately when I heard a man yell. It was unintelligible, but desperate. He needed help.
I spun around instantly as if my eyes could help me ferret out where the sound had come from. I heard it again, along with another voice—fighting, although I couldn't make out what they were saying.
My mind went straight to the most likely. Adam had finally managed to capture Roadsie. I didn't know whether to be scared that I was about to have a standoff with a criminal or relieved that Adam was going to take away the one thing that kept me from fully enjoying my time on the mountain.
I couldn't decide whether to run or stay still. And where would I run? Behind the cabin? In the cabin? I pictured the gun, its exact location, how I would take it from the drawer, how I would grasp it and aim.
The yelling grew louder. One of the voices was definitely Adam, the other muffled. I was grateful to know that whatever happened, Adam would be here.
A flash of white appeared on one of the trails that cut through my clearing. I focused on the trees in that area, trying to make out what I saw. My jaw dropped to the ground.
Adam held the man's hands behind his back as if he had them in cuffs, but I could see that he just held them in one of his broad fists. The difference in size between the two men made it easy for Adam to dominate him. Adam seemed to revel in it a little bit; his eyes were fiery and alive and I almost felt that I needed to approach him the way he usually did me—like a wild animal that might react out of instinct and fear rather than logic.
Adam's arms tightened, the muscles flinching as the man in his grasp struggled to get loose as he was being dragged toward my cabin. I wanted to speak, but I couldn't. I was that much in shock. As they got closer, Adam broke the tense silence in the air.
"Found this prick sneaking around the trails, scoping out your cabin." Adam's arms strained again, putting more pressure on the hands of the man he held captive. "He says he knows you."
Finally my voice managed to break through the barrier of shock in my throat.
"Michael?" It came out as a question for several reasons. The situation was so absurd. I had no reason to think Michael would show up here. I'd never even given him the exact name of the place I was going. But the biggest reason was that Michael looked different from the last time I had seen him. His clothes looked decidedly more expensive and he'd replaced his old familiar glasses with trendy chunky black frames. His hair even had product in it. Polished dressy shoes rounded out his new professional demeanor.
Adam had shoved a greasy rag in Michael's mouth, which he now pulled out so Michael could speak.
"Ina, what the fuck!" he screamed, trying to turn his head and get a look at the man who had him in a full body lock. "Will you tell this guy to let me go?"
I couldn't help it. I smiled. Michael continued to beg for release. I threw my hands to mouth. "Oh my god," I whispered into them.
"She knows me, all right?" Michael stood up a little straighter and Adam allowed it. "Now let me go."
"What are you doing here?" I asked.
"I had to see you. I didn't like how we ended things on the phone." He tightened his arm around me. "Can we talk inside?" He nodded to my porch and then let his eyes drift over to Adam to show me what he wanted to get away from. Adam noticed.
"Are you sure she wants you in there?" Adam asked in a husky, scary voice I hadn't heard from him before. I shivered.
"Man," Michael started, sounding more like his cocky old self, "this is my girlfriend and I'm visiting her. I don't know who the fuck you are, so just leave us alone, all right?" Michael pushed me behind him as if he were protecting me. Maybe I would have felt that to be endearing a month ago, but right now it just felt annoying. As if I needed protection from Adam.
I poked my head around Michael and had to do a double take. Adam seethed. His body fidgeted as if he were ready to strike. He was using all of his strength to hold himself back.
As much as it turned me on, it also scared me. Adam’s feelings for me were animalistic. Michael lived in a completely different world. He didn’t know what he was messing with.
I stepped around Michael and walked right up to Adam, rubbing my hand over his cheek. I knew it was a strikingly intimate way to interact—for the two of us who were only just easing into coupledom, and also for Michael. But I felt like I needed to do something to defuse the situation, to break the tension before it exploded into violence.
Adam blinked. His glare loosened and his eyes shifted to mine.
"Let me talk to him, see what he wants," I whispered. I didn't want Michael to hear us, another subliminal way to ease Adam's brooding about the fact that I wanted time alone with Michael. On one hand, I felt guilty for spilling all of our sordid details to Adam because I knew I had somehow created the hatred in his eyes. On the other hand, it felt deliriously nice to have someone so wholeheartedly back me up. "Just give us a little time alone, please. I want to find some things out."
Adam sighed and shifted his weight, deciding something, not answering me directly.
"Seriously alone," I specified with a sharp look. "No watching from afar."
"I’ll be at my cabin if you need me," he said in a clipped tone, then he turned for the trail and walked away from us. He didn’t look back.
Michael put his hand on my shoulder and I was glad Adam didn’t turn back. I knew that Michael’s hand on my skin was enough to hurt his fragile heart, and I didn’t want to do that to him.
*
It felt awkward to have Michael in the cabin. He didn't belong there.
"So what else did you want to say, Michael?" I asked him. "Must be pretty important to have come all this way."
His hand flew to his ankle with a loud slap and he scratched at it furiously. "Something bit me," he muttered.
I walked around him to the counter and created the salt and water mixture Adam had shown me. I rubbed it into the raised red skin and he made a loud groan that reminded me of being in bed with him. I blushed and wouldn't meet his eye.
"Thanks. You got it."
I stopped rubbing the scratchy salt over the wounded skin and backed away so I was sitting on the couch, looking at him from a comfortable distance. That groan told me that even though he looked different, he was the same—my Michael. Being close to him was like an old habit. I couldn't let that happen. I needed to keep my distance. It was hard enough to think clearly with Adam around. I didn't need to add Michael to the confusion.
"Why are you here?" I asked.
His eyes wouldn't meet mine, which was usual for him, but suddenly stuck out to me. Adam wouldn't not look me in the eye.
"There was so much I wanted to say on the phone, but it wouldn't come out. I was so flabbergasted by hearing your voice, I couldn't think straight."
I swallowed and tried not let his words affect my heart. This guy cheated on you, I reminded myself.
"Work is complicated," he started. "Some days I stare out the window of my office and just wonder what it's like for you out here in the wilderness not having to deal with all the pressure, and I'm jealous as hell."
He leaned back and I let my eyes rake over him. His neck did seem strained, as if all of the muscles were pulled taut. His hand went back instinctively and rubbed the base of his skull, the place where I knew from several past midterms he stored his stress. I resisted the familiar urge to go sit behind him and massage that spot with my thumbs. It was like all of my instincts were geared toward making life easier for him. I'd never realized it until I didn't have him here to dote on anymore.
"What does this have to do with me?" I pushed. As much as he was falling back into the old patterns of using me as a sounding board for his problems, I seriously doubted he’d come all this way just to share work stories.
"I wish you were there so much of the day. I think that's how your words ended up in my brain. I’d try to have one of our conversations in my own head, but all I have is the words you've already said. I kept thinking of how excited you were when you were writing that Honesty in Advertising paper. Even then I thought you were nuts." He shook his head.
"What?" I asked. "Why didn't you say anything? You could've saved me so much embarrassment. You could've saved my career!"
"I don't know." He stared around the cabin, seeming to notice it for the first time. "All I could generate in my mind were your words so I used them. The pressure—" He shook his head and a hurt expression flashed across his features. "Well, if I didn't come up with something, I was going to lose my job. I came up with two ideas. They liked neither, so I threw yours out there as a wild card. I needed to say something." He looked at me like I should understand.
I sort of did understand, but I still couldn't forgive him. I was a little annoyed that he was complaining about how hard his job was to someone who couldn't get a job.
"I get it," I told him with sarcasm and meanness in my voice. "You were like a drowning victim. You needed to grab onto something to survive, so you pushed me under the water and used me and my ideas as a flotation device."
He smiled. "You always had an incredible way with words." He looked serious all of a sudden and his expression changed. I had to change my position on the couch because I felt like he was attempting to reignite something in me. He searched my eyes for approval, so I tried to make them stone.
"After speaking with you on the phone, hearing how hurt you were by the ad, I couldn't sleep. I started thinking about what I'd done, how it must have looked from your point of view, and I knew I had to apologize, not just for the ad, but also for the cheating. For all the things I've done to you that weren't chivalrous. You were nothing but good to me and you didn’t deserve it."
Wow, he'd actually surprised me. I hadn't expected genuine remorse from him at all. That wasn't his style. Perhaps the real world had changed him.
"Thanks."
"There's more." He smiled. I couldn’t imagine what he could possibly have to say that would elicit a smile. "Before I came out here, I went to my boss's office," he said. "I admitted what I’d done, and I demanded they offer you a job."
"What?" My heart rate sped up immediately at his words. Doubt, confusion, and excitement rushed around my head and my veins. My fingertips tingled. All of this must have shown in my face, in the way I trembled, in the way I kept standing up and then sitting back down. I walked toward him. "What?" I repeated. I felt dizzy so I reached out for his arm.
"I explained to the executives at my firm that after thinking about it, I had to give credit to you for the campaign I'd conceived. It was based on ideas in your article. Once they Googled it, they asked about your work ethic and professionalism, asked if you had committed to any firm yet."
I didn't say anything. I just listened like he was telling a bedtime story written just
for me—a horrible bedtime story because it sent my pulse into hyper speed. It made me jittery and forced me to forget the mountain and everything that had happened. My ambition levels time warped back to that time before everything blew up in my face. The surge of adrenaline through my veins at the thought of a job offer on the table was like a junkie experiencing that first hit after a period of abstinence. I sighed. "What did you tell them?"
"I told them you took a year to travel after graduation." He grinned at me sideways and added, "They ate that up."
I smiled too as the energy from the information shivered through my veins.
"I'm not going to lie to you. It’s demanding. We work insane hours to realize changes made on the whims of lunatic executives who have all of the power and no fucking idea what they're talking about. The more power people have the less connection they have with reality, I swear to God." He tilted his head to the side, grinned, and shot me a familiar, intimate expression. "You'll love it."
He was breathing heavy and I noticed that he had moved closer to me just as I had to him when I'd gotten excited. Our bodies had known each other for so long, they gravitated to each other whether we willed them to or not.
"The salary is good. Perks are unbelievable." He sniffed, smirked, and met my eye, so that I suddenly felt like I was in a Hollywood movie about youth and excess. "Combined, the two of us could easily afford an incredible home, vacations, everything we've always talked about."
18
The energy that had pulsed through me before now buzzed in my head like a lit bug zapper electrifying and burning off any rational thought that tried to approach it.
All I could see was the fiery movement in the irises of Michael's familiar eyes and the matching excitement of the picture he was drawing in our imaginations. My hands were resting on his knees and I was unconsciously leaning toward him, just as he was toward me. Maybe the electric charge buzzing in my mind was so strong that it created actual sparks in the air between us. For whatever reason, I backed away from him and shook my head as if I'd been having a dream.
Gone Wild Page 13
