CHAPTER 19 - AVERY
I opened my eyes the next morning, and it immediately became clear what I had to do. Regardless of the mass of blankets covering both of us, one side of the bed was freezing, and the other side, where Eames slept, was toasty warm.
I had no choice but to snuggle as close to him as I possibly could, if only to get closer to that sweet, sweet heat. It was a tall price to pay, but I paid it after only a moment’s hesitation, and damn the consequences.
The consequences, as it turned out, ended up being way better than I thought. Just as I was starting to wonder why we’d gone to sleep without having sex, I felt Eames turn next to me, reaching his arms out and encircling me with them, pulling me even closer to him.
I felt his hot breath on the back of my neck as I shifted into a more comfortable position, and he pulled me in closer, one of his huge hands squeezing my breasts and lightly teasing my nipples, causing me to gasp as the first pulses of pleasure arced through my body.
Eames’ other hand…on the other hand, moved downward, and I separated my legs to let him in. I reached back behind me with my upper hand to wrap my fingers around his thick and hardening shaft, just as Eames’ fingers began teasing my clit, pushing another wave of pleasure out to the ends of my fingertips and toes.
By now we were almost routine, and knew each other’s bodies well enough that just like the first time, we didn’t need to speak - no sense in wasting energy on words when our bodies spoke to each other in a language that was far more vivid and expressive than anything we could form into speech.
Immediately after I felt Eames’ thick cock enter me, I gasped as he rolled us over, staying inside me the whole time, until I found myself on top of him, leaning over his rough but cut body. I felt my breasts brush against the tip of his chest when I leaned over to hungrily kiss him, and Eames reached back to move the pillow into place so his face was closer and we could kiss while I moved slowly up and down his thick shaft, feeling every part of it stretch me out.
It was so amazing I didn’t even mind the cold, and pushed the blankets away when Eames tried to cover me up, shaking my head. I leaned back and pulled my hair back behind my shoulders, feeling his cock stick straight up into me, pressing against my front. Electric. I didn’t stay upright long, though - Eames reached up and pulled me back down for a quick kiss, wrapping his hand around my head and pulling on my hair, a growl escaping his throat as he lifted his head up and pulled a nipple into his mouth.
I came almost immediately, marveling at how sensitive my breasts were when Eames touched them, and closed my eyes while my entire body shook. Eames smiled and winked at me before wrapping his free hand around my waist and guiding me up and down, forward and back, all throughout my orgasm, threatening to unleash another one.
My second orgasm and Eames’ first hit at almost the same moment, and this time it was my turn to rest on his chest as we collapsed together into a heap, his softening cock still inside me.
As we lay in bed together, panting and slowly moving our hands over the other’s body, I realized that our sex this time had felt different. Of course morning sex often did, but there was something different this time, something strange.
Like what we were doing was more furtive, like we were doing it behind closed doors because we were ashamed of it. That idea didn’t make any sense, though, because here in the inn there were only Marty and Clara besides us, and from the sly comments they’d made in the last couple days, they both knew Eames and I were having lots of sex.
So why did the sex we’d just had feel so different? I couldn’t understand it, couldn’t put my finger on it, but now that I’d realized it, I couldn’t think about anything else. I had to get to the bottom of this.
And for some reason, I had to get out of the bed, despite how comfortable it was to lie against Eames’ sweaty and content body. While normally I’d stay here and trace over the deep and colorful lines of his many tattoos while I gathered my strength for another round of steamy hot sex, this time something drew me away.
To the window. Without a word to Eames I slipped from the bed, gathering a couple blankets to slip around my naked body as a makeshift robe and walked to the large window, wincing as my feet touched the cold floor. I heard Eames turn as I got up from the bed and I could feel his eyes on the back of my neck, but he didn’t say anything.
I stopped at the window and pulled the blankets tighter around me as seeing the snow still coming down sent a wave of cold pulsing through me from head to toe. Outside lay the very definition of winter wonderland. In fact, there was so much snow out there that it was starting to become impossible to see where different features of the land began and ended. It was all becoming a mass of white powder. I was shocked that the inn itself hadn’t had any issues with snow piling up against it, before I remembered that it was built on top of a small hill in all directions — everything else must have landed just so that we were still standing and still sealed up, not so much as a broken window here.
I felt colder just looking out the window, but I couldn’t tear my eyes away from the snow. I’d been around it every winter for my entire life, but this was the first time I’d really had my life completely upended because of snow. I laughed to myself at how simple a single flake of snow was, or even handful of it, just enough to make a snowball.
A snowball wouldn’t change your life, one way or the other.
But if you got enough snow together, more snow than anyone around these parts had ever seen, and you dumped it on New Hampshire all at once, over the course of a week, then you could really change peoples’ lives forever, couldn’t you?
I turned and looked at Eames over my shoulder back on the bed. He was stretched out with his arm where I’d laid just now, like he was waiting for me to come back and use his arm and shoulder like a pillow. I wanted nothing more in the world than to do just that.
But that was because of the snow, wasn’t it? The snow was what had brought us together. If anything had been different, if the snow had started an hour earlier and kept the roads closed, if it had started an hour later and the bus had made it through the most treacherous part of the road to Meridian without taking that turn too fast and getting into an accident, if the driver had been more careful…
If anything had been different, any one step along the path, I wouldn’t be here right now. Or, if I was, then Eames wouldn’t be. One or both of us would be elsewhere, and no matter how great the sex we’d just had and the sex we’d had for the last few days while getting to know each other was, we’d never have had it.
Because we’d never have met. Or maybe we would have, but we’d have passed each other by, never knowing what we could have created together.
It was all a little overwhelming, and I was tiring myself out all over again just thinking through the various things that could have changed everything with just a subtle push in the opposite direction.
So yeah, all of this was fleeting — we were hanging on a cosmic knife’s edge — one shift in either direction and this could all fall apart. Everything was just so tenuous, and that was before I even thought about the rest of my life waiting for me when I got back to Meridian.
All I could do was wonder how long it would last, wonder how much time Eames and I had together, and when this would end, when would the real world rear its head and make its presence known.
And just then, as I stood at the window and thought about it as I watched the snow come down, I saw it.
A light. On the road.
At first it was just a shine on the snow piles to either side of what used to be the road, but then it got brighter and brighter until it couldn’t be dismissed as a natural thing. I drew in a deep breath, at once hopeful and fearful of what was to come over the ridge.
I didn’t have to wait long. The vehicle crested the ridge and after the powerful search lights game into view I saw that it was a gigantic snowplow, slowly pushing its way along the road, carving a path through the snow as it went by. Thick smoke churned from the rear end as it fought against the impressive amount of snow the storm had dropped on us.
It definitely wasn’t moving very quickly, and I wondered how much distance they were covering each day. The snowfall had tapered way off now, and I wondered whether it would melt a little in the coming days.
I felt a rustling behind me and before I could turn around I felt Eames’ hands around my waist, and I leaned back into him, falling into that comfortable cradle he created for me despite the blankets I was swathed up in forming a barrier between us. I turned my head and his lips were there to meet mine. Our kiss was long and kept going and had a note of finality to it that made me shudder.
We didn’t say a word, we just stood in the window and watched the snowplow come through. The driver honked his horn when he passed the inn and Eames and I watched Marty come out of the inn and hand the driver a bag and a thermos — probably one of Clara’s hearty meals and coffee, I figured.
And then the snowplow pressed on, passing us by heading on down the road to the North. We still said nothing, just watched it go. And when it was out of sight we stayed there and looked at the ground the plow had passed through — ground with only an inch or two of snow covering it and brown salt from the snowplow’s rear dispenser covering the ground.
Ground that could be carefully driven on.
Eames stirred behind me and tightened his grip around my waist. I turned and kissed him again and he let go, heading toward the bathroom. I stayed and watched the slow snow fall that had become more of a dusting than anything else, until Eames came back and it was my turn.
The sense of finality in our earlier kiss stayed throughout the day — we didn’t talk much, even though we put on a show of being happy when Marty or Clara were around that the weather was clearing up and the world was coming back to its natural order.
I couldn’t help but feel a sense of dread, though, that permeated the day. We didn’t talk about what we were going to do next, but it hung in the air like a cloud. Every so often one of us would speak and the other would offer a halfhearted or excessively sunny response, and then we’d lapse back into silence.
The coming of the snowplow had cast a pall over everything around us that even Clara’s food or Marty and Clara’s hospitality couldn’t dispel, no matter how hard they tried.
When Eames and I went to bed that night I clung to him under the blankets, and when he pulled my head back and locked eyes with me, I could see all the things we couldn’t say to each other, and I felt my desire rise as his strong hands grappled with my body, pushing and pulling me in all the ways he’d learned how to do so well in such a short time.
I didn’t want to fall asleep that night, even though I was exhausted from our love making. It just didn’t feel right, letting go of this day and this feeling of connection and surrendering to sleep.
I opened my eyes at once the next morning feeling a warmth that I hadn’t remembered outside of the hot baths we took here. It wasn’t that warm, just much warmer than it had been, which felt like a significant change.
I rolled around on my side of the bed for a minute or two before I realized that something was completely different, and it only took a few more seconds to figure out what that was.
Eames was gone. At least, he wasn’t in bed with me anymore. I looked at the old clock on the wall and lay back in bed — he could have been in the bathroom or up early helping Marty or Clara with something. After the radio stuff a couple days ago Marty had been coming up with a list of things he wanted Eames to take a look at while he was still here.
Out the window the world was starting to feel the new warmth too - I could see drops of melted snow coming off the trees, and many of them had actually started to look like trees again rather than vaguely tree-shaped snowmen.
It felt like the world was starting to correct itself, to readjust things back to normal after the rough week-long ice age.
Eames didn’t come back to bed, so I figured he must have been downstairs. After lounging around in bed and wanting to stay there more than anything, I finally got up and went to the bathroom, slipping on yet another of Clara’s daughter’s dresses over me before walking downstairs in my slippers.
The dining room and living rooms were empty, but as soon as I got to the bottom of the stairs I could smell something cooking in the kitchen, and the moment the smell hit my nose I realized just how hungry I was.
I went into the kitchen and found Clara stirring a pot that smelled like the most delicious oatmeal I’d ever smelt, and her face lit up as soon as she saw me. “Good morning, dear! Have some!” She took out a big bowl and scooped the oatmeal into it, adding a pile of raisins and chocolate chips onto the top afterward. “There! Perfect!”
Marty stood in the corner of the kitchen, taking generous spoonfuls from his own bowl and looking at it like he had achieved all he wanted in life. “Morning!” He waved his spoon at me.
“Thanks, Clara,” I said, gratefully accepting the bowl once I’d covered my hands in a towel. I blew on my first spoonful and then ate it, marveling at subtleties in oatmeal flavor that I didn’t know existed. “Wow, this is so good! Though I guess I shouldn’t be surprised after eating this much of your cooking. How do you do it?”
I’d discovered that nothing delighted Clara more than talking about her cooking, and she launched right into telling me all about it, and I realized that I’d learned more about how to make food taste good in the last week than I’d learned in all my many cooking attempts before this combined.
Marty came back for a second bowl and leaned back against the counter, sizing me up. “With this weather starting to look up, I expect you’ll be looking to move on soon, yeah?” He didn’t say it like it was a request - I had a hunch Marty and Clara would let us stay here as long as we wanted.
“Yeah,” I replied, in between spoons of delicious oatmeal. “We’ll probably see about a bus or a taxi or something as soon as we can.”
Marty gave me an odd look. “The roads should be cleared up pretty soon. Snow’s not falling nearly as heavy before, so I think the roads are safe to travel on. Driver said they’re planning on resuming bus service pretty soon.”
I nodded. “That’s good. I’ll see what Eames wants to do, but we’ll be out of your hair soon enough.”
Clara smiled. “Oh honey, you know having you both here’s been wonderful. You’re welcome to stay as long as you like…” she trailed off and looked at Marty, who grunted.
“No sense in sugarcoating it, Clara.” Marty turned to me, grimly. “Eames isn’t here anymore, Avery. He left this morning, went back to where he left his car, got it running and drove back to Meridian.”
I set the bowl down on the countertop just before I started to swoon. “What? He left?”
Clara was right there, her arm around my shoulder. “There, there, sweetie, I’m sorry. He said he had some things he needed to take care of.”
Marty didn’t say anything, just looked glum and kept eating his oatmeal.
How could Eames have left without saying a word to me? Was all that we had shared meaningless? Just a fling while the weather was bad, and now that the roads worked again, he was gone, like he was never here?
I picked my bowl up again, mind still reeling. “Thanks, Clara,” I mumbled. “I’m gonna finish eating out there and then I guess I’ll, uh, get packing.”
I started back toward the dining room, but Clara interrupted me. “You don’t have to go anywhere, dear, you know that. You can stay here with us as long as you like.”
“I know,” I smiled. “Thank you so much for the kind offer.”
And then I left the kitchen and sat down at the nearest table in the dining room, still unsure of what to do next.
He was really gone. Already the color of the inn had faded to me, the walls dull and drab without Eames there to light them up. I remembered the taste of his lips on mine, the way his hands moved up and down my body, the way he held me as he thrust into me over and over.
No. Wait. Stop, Avery, this was most definitely not the time to start fantasizing.
Especially about a man I’d never see again, let alone kiss or make love to again.
Whatever we had was over. We had lasted a week, if you could even call it that, and then, at the first sign that he could get out of it, Eames had gotten back on the road to Meridian and left me here.
Whatever we had had wasn’t even important enough to him to say good bye to me, to even pretend that we might get together some time soon when we were both more stable.
Nothing like that. He’d gotten up in the wee hours of the morning, before the light was up, and snuck out of the inn and back to his real life.
And I was still here.
I felt the tears come as I forced myself to eat in slow and methodical bites, but I didn’t really want to eat anything — how could I be hungry when the first time I’d really found happiness was ripped away from me while I slept?
By the time I finished the bowl of oatmeal, which was delicious even though I could barely taste it, I had made up my mind. I would not let this defeat me.
Eames and I hadn’t known each other a week ago, so it was pointless and weak for me to let something so new and sudden and unexpected drag me down when it disappeared. Easy come, easy go — sure it was a cliche, but it was more true than ever.
I had experienced a small slice of something wonderful, and unfortunately, that’s all I was going to get, at least from Eames Beckett.
The only thing left for me was to head home and get back to my own life — deal with my parents, spend the last week of my winter break mending fences with them, and then head back to school to finish up a degree and move on to the next phase.
If Eames Beckett didn’t have time to say goodbye to me, then I didn’t have any time to mope around about Eames Beckett.
I felt better already, and knew what the next step was — call a cab and get myself back to Meridian, on the double.
But first, I was going to have a little more oatmeal.