18. Chapter 18
Chapter eighteen
Kate
Gidget must have been as tired out by the long walk down the stairs and the ride as everyone else, because when we get back in the camper, she immediately flops down on a rug and goes to sleep.
I climb the short stairs to the loft and realize that Cece has star-fished out in space. Mr. Fluffy bounds up past me and snuggles up beside her. I don’t remember making a sound, but I must have sighed or something.
“Kate,” Charles calls softly, “Come on down here. There’s room for two.”
“I thought you would be asleep,” I say, retreating back down the steps.
“I’d like to,” he says. “But I need to be sure everyone is secure first. There’s a prescription bottle in my kit. Once I take that, I’ll be out for several hours and you won’t be able to wake me.”
I turn to him, feeling a frown wrinkle my forehead. He is still lying on the wide bed at the back end of the camper. “Your hip?” I ask .
He gives a short laugh. “My hip, my knees, my back . . . my old company drill sergeant would have my head for letting myself go to this extent. He used to always say that the worse shape you were in, the harder you should work at keeping the working parts functioning.”
I go over to him. “Did James get you anything to eat or drink?”
“Yeah,” he says, turning a hand over to indicate a bedside shelf where a bottle of soda and bag of chips represented provender.
Now I really do sigh. “That James!”
“It’s all right,” Charles says, “I really don’t want anything else. You were asleep when we stopped at the hot dog joint and fed Cece.”
“Okay,” I relent. “You won’t mind if I make some tea and have crackers then.”
“Sure you don’t want something else?” he asks. “You last ate just before we left the shelter.”
I look around the miniscule kitchen space and realize that nothing looks familiar. “I’ve got some snack packages. Is there any more soda?”
“In the mini-fridge, under the counter.”
I find cans of Sprite and the red punch that Cece likes, but none of the flavored, unsweetened, fizzy drinks that I prefer. I take out a can of Sprite. It will have to do.
I’d packed several luncheon packages, hoping that they would stay good with frozen fake ice cubes. I tuck them into the top shelf of the mini-fridge. I take my food and drink over to the bed next to Charles.
“Roll over,” I say. “I’m not a masseuse or therapist, but I know a little bit about massage. Let me see if I can help.”
“I’m not sure I can turn over,” Charles protests.
I can see that he is lying in an awkward position, half- curled around the source of his pain. I put my food aside and go over to him.
“Let me help, Charles.”
“I’m fine…I’m fine.” He gestures me away, waving one hand.
“No,” I say, gently. “You are not fine.” I sit on the edge of the bed and bring the foot of the good leg into my lap. According to my book on acupuncture, feet are like a road map for the rest of the body. Charles has not even removed his boots and is dangling his feet over the edge of the bed.
I unlace the boot, and remove it, ignoring the funk of manly foot odor that arose from the sock. At least 18 hours since our last opportunity for a good shower . . . I set that thought aside and focus on the condition of his foot.
Reasonably clean, nails trimmed, calloused along the outside edge and around the heel. Charles Emory might be rich, but he’d not treated himself to personal care at a salon.
I begin kneading the muscles, working the toes, and trying to relax the knots. As I advance toward the ankle, he gives a soft moan. I stop, wondering if I had hurt him.
“Other one,” he says. “Please. That feels great.”
I unlace his other boot, pull it off, and note differences in this foot from the other. Still scrupulously clean, but the nails are cut at an odd angle as if it had been hard to get to them.
Since I knew this is the foot connected to the bad hip, I proceed with caution. I keep my touch firm so as not to tickle, but work my way along the foot, to the ankle and up the calf. The calf muscles are knotted, giving me some idea of the amount of pain he feels.
I say, “Charles, please don’t take this the wrong way, but I can’t do much more for you unless we remove the jeans.”
“You’ve turned me into putty,” he mumbles into his pillow. “Do your worst, woman.” He reaches beneath him and undoes his belt .
I help him ease his jeans off, leaving his Fruit of the Looms in place. Disability notwithstanding, his legs are well-muscled, the simple briefs emphasizing the perfect sculpting of his gluteus maximus. He’d not given me the opportunity to appreciate his appearance in the storm shelter, nor was I in any condition to appreciate it, between my fear and my intense reactions to his practiced attentions to me.
But now, in the mellow light of the emergency lantern, I admire his trim swimmer’s musculature, the breadth of his shoulders in his rumpled t-shirt that is hiked up above his waistband. I warm with the memory of that beautiful body face-up beneath me.
If his hip replacement needs attention, there is little I can do about that, but I can ease the rest of his body.
I cease my attention to his legs and move to the soft curls at the back of his neck. They’d grown out in the months since the funeral. “Need a haircut,” Charles murmurs, as I run my fingers through them.
“I like your curls,” I say, rubbing gently behind his ears, and at the base of his jaw, before running my thumbs down his spine. I still have the impulse to kiss the swirl at the base of his skull. It seems oddly endearing and vulnerable, like the hollow at the nape of a child’s neck.
Not surprisingly, his muscles are knotted and tense. I knead the hard muscles at the base of his neck, using my palms at the same time to sooth and relax his shoulders.
So much long, lean muscle! He has a swimmer’s or runner’s build, rather than that of a weightlifter. Even so, it is well toned. As I work, his muscles slowly relax. I am rewarded with a deep male grumble of sound, almost like a cat purring. “Oh,” he says, “You have about a hundred years to stop doing that!”
I giggle but don’t stop. He is gorgeous! Long, lean, with a light dusting of dark hair over his shoulders and down his spine. How had I missed that?
The hair becomes soft down as it approaches his waistband. I gently run my thumb down his spine. Nothing seems misaligned, but he seems, somehow, warmer. I feel an answering heat in my lower abdomen, a longing to see if it is possible to repeat the hurricane of emotion and physical response I had felt in the shelter.
I gently massage his buttocks. No one seems to remember that those are massive muscles and that they are capable of storing enormous amounts of stress. At least that’s what I tell myself. Deep down, a part of me knew that I wanted to touch, to explore, and to see what his response might be.
An inner fire smolders in my nether regions, prompting me to be rash, wanton, like a romance novel heroine. I slip my hands, palms against his skin, under the top of his briefs, easing them down to expose the top of his well-toned, muscular ass. Daringly, I brush one thumb across the base of his spine.
The rumble-purr sound stops with a gasp. I stop, alarmed. “Did I hurt you?”
“Oh, heck, no,” he replies. “But if you keep going in that direction, this massage will have moved from being therapeutic to erotic.”
“Is that bad?” I’m ashamed to hear a quiver in my voice. Had I misunderstood what had happened in the storm shelter?
“Not bad,” Charles says, easing over onto his back. His erection makes a massive bulge in his tighty-whities. “Oh, sweetheart, not bad at all. But I wanted you to know where you were headed. Are you sure you are ok with this?”
“If you are,” I say, suddenly worried. I’d stuck my hands in his pants! I had! What the heck is wrong with me? But I knew that was a rhetorical question. I knew exactly what I wanted.
“Kate,” he says softly, “You are a gift from the gods. No one else in the world . . .” He doesn’t finish the sentence. Instead, he goes on, “I think you are a little overdressed for the occasion, if you plan to do more than tease me.”
I feel heat rise in my face, making it almost as hot as my lower regions. I catch the edges of my t-shirt and pull it off over my head, then shuck out of my jeans.
“That’s better,” he says, the purring note back in his voice. “Now we’re more on an even keel. Come, lay down beside me, little lost lamb, and tell Uncle Wolf what exactly you were trying to do.”
I giggle nervously and stretch out beside him. His skin feels hot against mine. I suddenly want to rip those briefs off him, throw them to the winds, and throw my underwear after them. Instead, I ask, “What about your hip?”
“It hurts, but it isn’t locked up. You’ve done me a lot more good than the pills over there in my duffle are going to do. Let’s get you caught up to me. If you don’t mind being on top again, I believe I have already risen to the occasion.”
That makes me giggle again. Then I gasp as he slips his hand in my panties and finds my clitoris. “Hot and wet,” he purrs. “I’d almost think the massage was a ploy, if you weren’t so darn good at it. Where did you learn to do naughty massages?”
“Backstage at summer tent, camp-outs...”
“Naughty girl,” he says. “Were you really a virgin before we . . .”
“Yes, I was saving myself for a boy I knew in high school . . . only he got married sometime when I wasn’t looking.”
“Foolish man, didn’t know what he was missing,” Charles assures me, sliding two fingers into me. I try to get more, rocking against his palm. The glow that had begun while I was admiring his muscular backside now builds into a demanding blaze.
My nipples tingles, and I feel as if I want to climb inside his skin so I can get closer. I know that doesn’t make any sense, but I want to touch him everywhere.
“Easy there, cowgirl,” he says, mimicking the tone I’d once used to show him that I wasn’t going to be anyone’s unpaid housekeeper. “Let’s get rid of a few more bits and pieces.
He shucks me out of my panties and does that annoying trick with my bra that guys seem to learn in high school and never forget. Then he slides off his briefs.
I reach over and take his penis in my hand, marveling at how soft the skin on it is, yet how strong it feels. It is like the softest suede stretched over a rod of flexible steel.
Experimentally, I stroke my hand down and back up again. He groans and the motion of his fingers inside me stops for a moment. I rock against his palm, hinting that I want the motion to start again, and wrap my hand firmly around his cock.
I must have gripped a little too hard. “Easy there,” he says. “That’s delicate equipment you’re handling.
I relax my grip. “Sorry,” I say. “This part is still very new to me.”
“You are doing fine,” he replies. “Let’s let nature take its best course here before we are too tired.”
I whimper and nearly cry when he withdraws his fingers. But he places his hands on my hips, lifts me almost as if I weigh no more than Cece, and settles me on the object of my too-vigorous attention.
As that silken shaft slides inside me, I think I feel the throb of his veins. It was what I wanted. It was all I wanted. Every part of my attention centers on the sweet intrusion of his man part into my woman part.
I try to follow as he slowly withdraws a little way, lifting me to give him freedom of action, and I almost sob with relief as he slides back into me.
“Bring your knees up to bear your weight,” he directs softly, “So you can give me a little room to work.”
I follow his directions, even though what I really want to do is wrap myself tight around him, to keep him inside me forever.
He rocks his pelvis gently, withdrawing a little way, then slowly, teasingly returning into my depths.
I hear an odd sound emerge from my throat with the second stroke. “Shhh, shhh,” he breathes into my ear, “You’ll wake the dog, and that will wake the cat, and the cat will wake Cece, and we won’t be able to finish.”
I stifle a giggle as I recognize the paraphrase from one of Cece’s favorite nap time books. To stifle any more noise, I suction my mouth onto his neck, tasting salt, and breathing in the ghost of his aftershave.
He steps up his rhythm, and in three short strokes, he has me melting all over him. I have no mind. I have no body. All I have is the steady rhythm, working at my core, driving me higher and higher. Melting bursts into an explosion, and I nearly collapse on him.
But he grips my hips, holding me in position, driving me higher still, until he groans beneath me, and thrusts deeper and harder than he had before. I could feel his penis pumping out the life-force within me. I can feel the extra wetness from both of us, and I explode into an orgasm such as I have never experienced before.
He holds me for a minute or two, then gently eases me over beside him. He is breathing hard. But as his breathing steadies, he cups one hand around my butt. It covers most of one cheek, and he uses one long finger to gently tickle the cleft, gliding moisture over my anus.
For a second I think perhaps we are going for a second round, delving into completely unfamiliar territory. I shiver with delicious terror.
Instead, he cuddles me up close to his good hip and teases, whispering softly in my ear — which is its own kind of sweet torture — “I think I’m relaxed enough now. The only question remaining is, who gets to sleep on the wet spot?”
“That’s just mean!” I whisper back. “I think I’m one big lump of goo.”
“Good,” he whispers back.
From somewhere he finds a sheet and drapes it over us. I fall asleep puddled against his side.