Chapter Thirteen
I rise onto my tiptoes and put the last partially dried fern leaf across the wall of tightly packed fallen branches. This was always the trickiest part of shelter building. I could get the sticks as close together as I wanted, but they were never flush. Nothing the forest produces is right angles and clean lines. It’s all notches and curves, leaving gaps that need to be patched by whatever’s available. The big leaves from low-lying ferns have always been my go-to, but they aren’t a perfect solution. They need to be built up. Layered. Tucked one on top of the other until they become solid.
I step back and brush the dust from my hands. It’s not much to look at. A pile of sticks next to a decomposing tree. Rocks on each end, securing everything in place in case of wind. It’s not much, but it’s mine. I built a shelter in the woods. I’m living at camp. It’s exactly what I always wanted to do. But still. My shoulders tense. “What do you think?”
“I think you should climb in and we’ll test it out.”
A smile bleeds through Paul’s words and my hands fist on my hips. “Don’t even tell me you have a bottle of water in that backpack.”
I don’t want to test it. Not now. I want to enjoy it. Be proud of it. Not see its every fault.
His eyes dance. “You should never go into the forest without drinking water.”
“Drinking water which you should save for drinking.”
“I think I can make an exception.”
My breath pushes out from between my lips slowly, taking my shoulders down with it. I inhale confidence. Certainty. A plan to focus on what I’ve done and not where I’ve failed. I drop to my knees. Run my tongue over my lip.
“What are you doing?” His voice is low.
“Any other exceptions you want to make?” I tease. His throat bobs. Eyes flare. “You shouldn’t waste your drinking water by pouring it over the shelter like it’s rain,” I say. “Especially not when there’s a better way we could test if it’s a success.”
His hands ball into fists at his sides. “You do realize you’re nowhere near the shelter, right? That there’s no way to test it from where you are?”
I pull my lower lip through my teeth and walk backward on my knees. “Am I getting warmer?”
Paul stares at me. Eyes wide. Jaw set. He nods.
My lips curve upward and I extend my arms behind me, planting each foot on the ground. Crab-walking sounds like the least sexy thing of all time, but it’s not. My chest is pushed out. My knees spread. I move myself closer to the darkened, cramped space. “How about now?” I ask. “Getting warmer?”
“What are you doing, Amy?” He shoves his hands into the front pockets of his jeans. “You know this can’t happen. There’s no exception to my deal. It’s all of me for all of you.”
“So you say.” I curl onto all fours and crawl the last few inches to the narrow entrance of the shelter. I look over my shoulder. Pull my lips into a seductive smile. And crawl through the opening.
The darkness calms me. Blocks out my insecurities. Only a few circles of light come through the layers of ferns. Light that plays the friend but is actually the enemy. That should make me think of hope, but only reminds me that it’s going to rain. Soon. That the clouds rolled in while we weren’t looking for them.
That these openings are my failure in protecting myself.
The entrance darkens with Paul’s form. “I guess I deserve all that crawling around after how I left you last night. But really, how exactly do you plan to test this shelter if you won’t let me pour water over it?”
“Have you looked up lately?”
He tilts his head back. “Well, shit. When did those clouds turn grey?”
“Sometime between me building this shelter and you looking at my ass, I suspect.”
“Hey, now.” He leans forward. Breaches the entryway. Supports himself on his hands. “I helped build this. Shove over before the rain starts.”
He moves farther into the small space and I shift onto my hip to make room. “Handing me the first stick doesn’t count as helping, Harding.”
Paul lies on his side behind me, his back to the support log. “I handed you more than one stick.”
“It was just more fun to watch me bend over to pick things up myself, hmm?” I arch my lower back and that’s all it takes in this cramped place. He breathes in sharply when my ass hits his hardness. “But maybe there’s one more stick you want to give me?”
“Did you seriously just make a wood pun about my dick, while we’re lying in a forest?”
“May have.”
“I’m not sure whether to laugh or groan.”
I shift my hips. “Groan, I’d bet.”
He slides one arm under my neck, propping my head up on the pillow of his bicep. The other curls over my ribs, forearm resting between my breasts. They perk up with the possibility of attention, but his hand cups my shoulder instead. He pulls me close, anchoring my body next to his.
Paul’s lips dance against my ear. “You don’t have to do that, Amy. That seduction routine. You don’t have to remind me that I want you. I want your tits, and your mouth, and your delicious little pussy, but I don’t want that mask you put on. The one where your lips open and your knees part, but your eyes look beyond me.”
I stare at the wall of forest remains standing inches from my face. Count the scratches in the bark. Try not to breathe.
His arms tighten around me. “I’d love to give you this one last stick, Amy. But only when you’re looking for me when you ask for it. Only when you drop the mask and let me see the parts of you your skin hides.”
His erection presses into my ass. Not because he’s pushing it against me. Or because he’s trying to fuck me. But because it’s there, attached to him. Part of the man who sees through my solid walls. Who wants me to see him. Whose arms are heavy like the forest.
My stomach clenches. I weave my fingers through his. “Okay.”
He doesn’t release his grip. He holds me so tightly. So gently. His chest rises and falls against my back. And last night’s lack of sleep hits hard. My body relaxes in his arms and my mind drifts away under the soft tap of raindrops on ferns.
* * *
Two things are painfully obvious when I wake up. One, another layer of protective leaves would have helped with the dampness left in my hair after the rain. Two, I’m full-on wet between my legs in a way that has nothing to do with the weather.
Paul’s arm hangs heavy over my body and tugs of longing radiate from my center. My thighs shift without input and Paul stirs behind me. His cock lodges in the seam of my Lycra-covered ass. Bigger and harder than before, and so warm against me. My teeth bite into my lower lip and I squeeze my eyes closed. Force out a strangled breath.
I raise my hand to brush hair out of my face and graze my nipple in the process. “Mmm.” The moan leaks from my mouth before I can contain it. Before I can even think to contain it. I didn’t expect it. To wake up so fucking horny that an accidental graze of my own clothed skin would pull so hard, so low that I couldn’t keep the need in.
“You okay?” Paul’s groggy voice tickles my ear.
“Kind of?” I wish there was more space in this shelter. And less. And none.
He pulls me closer to him and nestles his face into my hair. His breath kisses my neck. “Better?”
Our upper bodies are pressed together, fused by his grip on me. But it’s my lower parts that need help. I squeeze my eyes closed and tell my body to stay still, but my hips turn in slow figure eights, each movement sending friction where I need it. Making my blood pump faster. Making me want more. Making it clear that I’m past the point of being able to ignore the desperate nerves between my legs.
I reach for his hand, the one that’s holding me tight against him. “Touch me,” I say. “Please.”
He freezes in my grip. His hand lingers near my waist, our fingers intertwined. “Where do you want me to touch you?” I nudge his hand farther down. Press back against his erection. “I might be able to do that,” Paul says. “Slip my fingers into your panties and make you feel good. But why do you want me to?”
I take a shaky breath. Squeeze my eyes closed. Block him out. His face. His shirt. This place we built—just big enough for us both. I send my thoughts to my core. To the muscles clenching and searching for something to bring them relief. My breath catches. “Because I woke up horny as fuck and need to get off. So bad.”
His thumb brushes against the sliver of skin between my pants and the tank top that’s riding up the more I squirm. “Why do you want me to touch you?”
“I need to come.” My thighs work together, pushing me closer to him with each rise and fall of my body. “Need it.”
He trails the rough tip of his finger across my hip. “Why do you want me to touch you?”
“Because I’m fucking aching.” I grind my ass against his hardness and he groans into my ear.
“I’m going to ask you one more time, Amy.” His voice is raw, ripped over jagged rocks. His lips brush my ear with each syllable. “Why do you want me to touch you?”
I know what he wants. Me to see him. To ask for him. My hips shift faster, pressing me into him. Rubbing the seam of my pants over my clit. Erasing anything but my own need—sending my frustration with him to the parts I can’t ignore and letting it build in me. Frustration. Need. Irrepressible desire. “Because not getting off isn’t a fucking option. I need to come,” I moan. “Put your hand down my fucking pants or I’ll do it myself. Right here. Right now.”
His hand wraps around my wrist, pulling it to my waistband. “Do it.” His voice is gruff in my ear. His hand urging mine lower. “Get those fingers in your panties. Rub your clit until you scream.”
He plunges our hands into my pants, his fingers behind mine. My mouth falls open as my fingertips find my wet heat. My eyelids flicker and I catch him watching me, stroking the back of my hand while I chase pleasure, slicking hard, tight circles around my clit. I close my eyes but his face remains. My hips shift against the friction from my hand and his breath is ragged on my cheek. His dick throbs against my backside.
Then his hardness is gone, replaced by his fingers, squeezing the curve of my ass and holding me away from him. “This is all you,” he rasps. “Make yourself come. Take the edge off.”
My fingers slide over my clit. Down my slit. Spreading and circling this need I can’t control. My hips move and I rock in Paul’s grip. My free hand works its way into my shirt and my forehead presses against the damp shelter. The heavy forest scent fills my lungs as I pant and gasp, fingers frantically searching for relief, moving faster and harder as my hips meet them in time.
His hand grips my ass cheek so tightly it hurts. My fingertips up their pace and I imagine his fingers moving, kneading my ass, holding it to him instead of away.
Paul moves behind me, his body crowding mine, his breath on my cheek. “The next time I touch you, it’s going to be because you want me. My hands. My dick. My mouth. It’s going to be because you want me touching you.”
My body tenses.
“It’s going to be because you want me fucking you.”
My thighs shake and I pinch my nipple in time with my clit.
“The next time I touch you, it’s going to be because you want me.” Paul licks my neck and it sends me over the edge. My body convulses with relief, my pussy squeezing and searching for more. Paul bites my collarbone and I shove my fingers inside, but it isn’t enough. The need is still there, burning, building. My thumb rubs circles over my clit and the tightening starts again.
“The next time I touch you like you just touched yourself, it’s going to be because nothing else will do. Because it’s me you want. Just like I want you.” The words cool and dry my cheek. His body heats mine. And I explode in time with his promise.
He turns me to face him and I press my face into his chest. My breath slows even as his pulse stays fast. My hand trails downwards but he weaves his fingers through mine and brings them back up. I press my hands into the muscles of his shoulders while his erection stays as hard as his resolve. Paul wraps me in his arms and pulls me close.
I trail my fingers down his chest. His heart beats fast under my whisper touch. “These are the hugs I think of,” I say. “Not the weak ones you gave me when camp started. The ones you gave me when it ended. When you’d squeeze me until I felt small.” My fingers stroke into his hair. “I loved that hug, but I hated it, too. It meant that I was leaving. That you were going back to the city while I lingered in suburbia. That it would be another year before I felt like that again.”
He rests his chin on my head. “Until you left without even looking at me. Without letting me hug you.”
“Until then.”
Paul’s hand trails up and down my back. “I tried to find you, you know. After you took off.”
“You did?”
“Yeah. I tried to break into the office to get your file. Turns out there’s more to picking a lock than what’s in the movies.”
I smile against his chest. “You don’t say.”
“When I got home after that next session, I tried to get your contact info from anyone I could, but nobody had it.”
“Why would they have? You didn’t even have it.”
“I had an old address for you, actually, from the summer we were nine. I wrote you, but my letter came back.”
My stomach rolls. “We moved.”
He strokes my hair. “Apparently. So I tried Myspace. I mean, I should thank you for not killing my ears with an unfortunate, auto-playing music choice, but I could never find your profile. And believe me, I tried.”
“I didn’t exactly love sharing pictures of myself. Social media wasn’t really my thing.”
“It’s still not, apparently. I don’t know how you’ve managed to get to this point in your life without a Facebook account, but seriously. It’s impressive.”
His hand combs through my strands. Grazes my cheek. I swallow hard. “I’m on Facebook. Just, you know. Under a different name.”
He sighs. “Leah.”
I nod into his shoulder. “I’d already stopped being Amy by the time Facebook took over.”
He nudges my chin up so I’m looking at him. His eyes bore into mine. “I don’t believe for a second that you’re as hardened and cynical as you want to be. You might not want to admit that you want more than my cock, but you came to the sound of my voice and the promise of what you could have if you just asked for it.” His thumb strokes my jaw. “The sounds you made when your body pulsed to the thought of having me—of me wanting all of you—was a lot of things, Amy. It was hot. Carnal. Fucking beautiful. But you know what it wasn’t?”
“What?” I whisper.
“A simple biological reaction.” His lips brush my temple. “It was one hundred percent you—body and mind—no matter what you want to tell yourself.”