Chapter Six #3
herself out of her thoughts and back into the world. “Yes. I’m glad I couldn’t sleep. I’d hate to have missed this.”
More silence. She was becoming comfortable with it, and let herself enjoy simply sitting beside him in the dark. Not having
to search for something to say was remarkably freeing, not to mention relaxing. If he’d been expecting to be entertained by
her wit and insights she’d have been miserable, but while she didn’t know much about him she did know that he liked silence
better than noise, and solitude more than company. For him to be sitting there now, and showing no signs of itching to leave,
was like an early Christmas gift and she accepted it for what it was, without wishing for anything more. This was enough.
Holy shit, he could see her nipples—the shape of them beneath that thin tank top, anyway. She probably thought she was safe
in the darkness, but it wasn’t all that dark because of the glowing aurora, and he had very good night vision anyway. Her
breasts were smallish, and her nipples were tightly puckered from the cool breeze.
After being mostly alone for so long, even by his own choice, being this close to unfettered breasts felt like the erotic
equivalent of a naked lap dance. Better; he was as turned on as if he were on top of her, about to slide home—which was nuts,
because their only contact was a light brush of her bare arm against his, and all he could see was the outline of her nipples.
Not having sex with a woman didn’t mean he hadn’t jerked off now and then, so it wasn’t as if he hadn’t come in three years.
He had, just not inside a woman. Which meant he wasn’t so turned on because he was sex-deprived, but because there was something
about her that checked all his sexual boxes. He hadn’t known he even had sexual boxes, other than he was hetero, but only
a fool ignored the evidence right in front of him.
He should leave right now. He didn’t like the companionable silence between them, or sharing the magic night sky, because
this was about connecting and he didn’t want to connect with her. He wanted her to stay a distant acquaintance, someone he
recognized from the service station. He wanted to go back up his mountain and sit in solitude on his own porch, not beside
her on her wooden front steps.
But . . . nipples.
It was hard for him to walk away, with hard being the operative word.
Which made her even more dangerous to his self-imposed semi-exile from the human race, because every time he came in contact
with her he became more interested in finding out who she was, what made her tick. She was so quiet and self-contained that
even years into the future she could still supply surprises, and he wasn’t a “future” type of guy. He was a here-and-now,
don’t-let-anyone-close-enough-to-give-a-fuck-about type of guy. He shouldn’t be wondering if she had a temper, how far someone
would have to push her for the hot to surface, if he could make her scream in bed or if she tried to be as quiet as possible—
Shit. Just when his dick was settling down, he had to default to thinking about sex.
She said, “If you run short of food, we’ll share ours. We wouldn’t have what we have if it hadn’t been for you.”
He surprised himself by almost snorting a quick laugh, holding it back at the last second. Here he’d been torturing himself
thinking about sex with her, and she’d been thinking about food. There it was in a nutshell, the difference between men and
women.
His dick took that as a challenge to refocus her attention. He knew he could. He had the self-control to really make a woman
happy, several times a night. Give him five minutes and she wouldn’t be thinking about eating pizzas and Pop-Tarts, she’d
be eating—
Fuck! Shit! He needed to get out of here. He needed to go, and go now.
Then a bright curtain of crimson waved over the sky, and he saw a black shape on the other side of the road. He was on his
feet and the shotgun in his right hand, pulling her upright with his left, before his brain finished forming the word bear. She didn’t yelp, though he knew he’d startled her. He released her to pull open the screen door, then pushed her up the
step and onto the screened porch. He joined her, putting himself between her and the door and silently closing it.
He pointed toward the bear, hoping she could see his gesture in the deeper darkness of the porch. She turned her head in the
direction he’d indicated, and went totally still as she spotted the problem.
The bear was rooting around on the ground, likely snuffling for fallen acorns. The breeze was in their faces so it hadn’t
scented them, and a bear’s nose was far more acute than its eyesight. Likely they could have stayed still and remained sitting
on the steps without the bear ever knowing they were there—and he had the shotgun—but he didn’t want to kill it if he didn’t
have to, and neither did he want Sela in harm’s way. They were safer on the porch, where he could quickly get her inside if
the wind shifted and the bear scented them.
They stood motionless, watching the creature root around. They heard a few grunts and snuffles, then it moseyed deeper into
the bushes and was soon lost from sight. Ben listened as it got farther and farther away, and the sounds faded.
He realized he was holding Sela’s slim wrist, his big hand wrapped completely around it. Her skin was cool and silky smooth
under his rough fingers, and the impact of willingly touching someone after years of holding himself apart was so strong that
he felt as if he’d been punched in the solar plexus. He had to force himself to release her.
“I gotta go.”
He pulled the screen door open. His voice sounded raw and a little strained, but at least he’d gotten himself moving in the
right direction.
She didn’t ask him to wait. Instead she said, “Be careful.” Then she let herself into the house, leaving him there, and he
heard the click of the door lock.
He blew out a gust of relief when he was once more walking the road, heading back home. He kept the shotgun in his hand because
obviously the bears were active tonight . . . and she hadn’t asked him to wait until the bear they’d seen was farther away.
She hadn’t fussed, but her quiet “be careful” carried the weight of a benediction that warmed him all the way home through
the red night.