Chapter 15 #2
I’d savor everything that I’d normally try to avoid, just because I experienced it with him. I’d enjoy every splash of water and every speck of dirt I kicked up onto the back of my legs. I didn’t worry about tripping, I had someone who’d catch me if I stumbled.
The smell of petrichor perfumed the air as we took shelter on my cabin’s porch.
We were drenched in the big romantic comedy confessional way.
Shirts were clinging to skin. Droplets of water dripped onto the floor.
Evan’s hair was plastered to his forehead in thick, wet waves, I felt my mascara smudging on my eyelids. Neither of us cared.
“I’ll grab some towels,” I turned around to pull them off the hooks inside when Evan firmly wrapped his hands around my wrist. I spun around to see the clear blue of his eyes focused on nothing else but me. If his eyes were crystal balls, this is the future I’d want to see.
“Towels can wait,” Evan spoke low.
Rain still pitter-pattered on the roof of the cabin, on the sprawled leaves of the trees, and across the lake, filling this silence that hovered between our lips. Stray splashes spritzed us through the porch screen and as thunder rumbled in the distance he kissed me.
Evan’s hand trembled as it slid into the waistband of my shorts. I gasped as he pulled the fabric away from my skin. Two callused fingers slid down my damp skin. I’d let myself be entirely his right now.
“Is this okay?”
“Of course, but—” I exhaled a half-assed protest. We should dry off. We should talk through what’s next. We should, we should, we should.
With his free hand he placed a finger over my lips, “enjoy this, Dani.”
I was still nodding as he dropped to his knees in front of me. He rested his head on the curve of my stomach and gazed up at me.
My shorts fell to the ground, then my underwear, both fully soaked through.
The rain had cooled the air and my skin was covered in goosebumps.
I stood there trembling, waiting, hoping.
Evan wrapped his hands around the backs of my thighs and drew his face in-between them.
He pried them further apart, giving himself the space to do what he intended.
His tongue dipped between my folds, plunging inside me with a hot fervor.
It twisted and curled as he learned the terrain.
He wrapped it around my clit, sucking as he worked and my knees buckled.
I gripped onto the wall of the cabin for purchase and bit down on one hand to muffle the moan begging to escape.
I grinded myself against his mouth, seeking the nerve-sparking bite of his teeth.
Evan moaned beneath me, the hum of his sounds vibrating deep into my bones. Pleasure built to a precipice, and nearly broke through the skin on my palm as my orgasm rolled over me like the distant thunder.
“What the fuck was that?” I gasped after he broke away.
He stared up at me, a devilish grin splitting his glistening mouth in the dim light that had pushed through the clouds. Lightning flashed in the distance, illuminating his soft eyes. “I wanted one more taste,” he said innocently.
“Let’s formally commemorate our last night,” I said after we stepped inside.
Evan sat on a kitchen chair with a towel draped over his bare shoulders. “I’m sorry, was what I did on the porch not commemorative enough?”
I shot him a playful glare.
He laughed and shook more of the dampness from his hair. “What did you have in mind?”
“Cheap wine I had bought with the intention of using to get over my ex.”
“Ah, yes, before you took an alternative approach.” He winked.
I pulled the bottle of wine off the counter and procured two juice glasses from the cabinet. “I know they’re not real wine glasses but they’ll do,” I said as I attempted to measure two equal portions.
“As if I care what vessel alcohol comes in,” Evan took the glass and drank a long swig with a trembling hand.
We had maybe fourteen hours left together, neither of us wanted to waste them.
The conversations about what was next were less of a big ambiguous “if” and were slowly morphing into a “when.” There was nothing stopping us from at least giving things a try back in the real world.
That very thought, which terrified me on Wednesday, was now electrifying.
It felt like I had a teenage crush again, that sparkly excitement of newness and unknowns and wanting to shout out how happy you were to everyone who could hear, even though it was all for a guy I’d known for a week.
That was the absurd part of this whole ordeal.
It had been a week. A blip of time in the grand scheme of things.
I had passive visions of him calling me halfway through our respective drives home to carry on the conversations we’d started, or sending me a playlist of songs we could listen to simultaneously. I wanted a few more hours of easy.
I paced the kitchen as I sipped on my glass of wine, I couldn’t run to clear my mind and the alcohol was making it more and more foggy.
Evan watched me as I padded across the floor, so in my own head I couldn’t focus on the little good that was left.
He stood up and crossed over towards me, caging me in the corner of the kitchen.
“No distractions, just you and me,” he cupped my chin in his hand firmly.
He turned my face towards his, I couldn’t break away to avoid eye contact.
I didn’t want to. “This is our last night we can do this. Whatever happens from here on out won’t be as simple, so please, let’s enjoy what we have for now. ”
“We have to be quieter,” I said as a low rumble of thunder echoed out across the water. “Actually, on second thought, we might have the perfect cover.”
Evan stalked towards me, caging me in between him and the counter. He leaned in close, his breaths fluttering against the shell of my ear. I was on the verge of melting into a puddle. “Good, because I want to hear every little sound you make as I fuck you.”
It could’ve been static electricity thrumming in the air from the storm, but every hair on my body stood on end. I needed Evan in the way a drunk person needs a cigarette. The pleasure would be short-lived and wouldn’t do anything good for me, but I craved it all the same.
We were being careless because we wouldn’t have the opportunity to be careless like this again after we left.
Our kisses were messy and wild, lips touching lips, teeth nipping flesh, hands roaming across bare skin.
Our bodies were magnets being pulled closer and closer together until I was convinced we’d merge.
My own words flashed in my head like a blinking neon sign. A short fic inspired by the premise, “what if Erwyn was able to say what he wanted to?”
It was written in list form, a drabble of poetic statements that were drenched in yearning and stolen song lyrics. Right now one of them stands out.
I wish time could be frozen.
I wanted us to freeze right here, our bodies grasping for steadiness on the kitchen table.
There might be a time where we’d have to be more calculated with one another, but for now, why not be reckless, why not be a little messy?
Our glasses of wine sat unfinished on the counter, I was focused on getting my clothes off as fast as possible. We weren’t drunk on anything but each other.
In our clumsy entangled walk to my bed, we jostled the table and sent things crashing to the ground. An unopened box of cereal fell over. A few apples rolled onto the ground. My notebooks slid off onto the floor.
My notebooks.
I hadn’t thought about packing. I figured I’d shove everything into bags tomorrow after Evan left. I didn’t want to waste time when I could savor these dwindling hours with him.
Everything was left out in haphazard piles, my clothes, the remaining bits of food I had left.
Those damned notebooks. In the dim glow of the gas lamps they faded into the background, resting beside my laptop on the edge of the table.
I hadn’t thought much about them and the weird weight they held over Evan and I.
The notebooks fanned across the floor in a dramatic spill.
My brain finally caught up to what was happening, I came back into myself like I’d been watching everything from outside of my own body. I couldn’t leave them like this.
“Fuck,” I muttered. I immediately crouched down and began to gather them up.
If I could hide them away before Evan noticed I could buy myself more time before coming clean about this.
I had every intention of telling him about this secret, separate identity—but not right now.
He squatted beside me as I was closing them shut as fast as possible, not caring about folds or crinkles in the pages.
Time stopped as he flipped one over.
This wasn’t the moment that was supposed to be frozen. I wanted to rewind it, start everything over. The credits were about to roll and I didn’t like the ending of this film.
“What’s all this…? Ice on the Turret?” He slowly stood up, his eyes scanning the page. Sir Erwyn’s name was on that page. It had to be. Alongside descriptors or chunks of dialogue or something that would thread my words to his character.
“Evan—” I shot up and reached out to grab the book from him, which was now solidly planted in his grip.
He pulled it away from me, his eyes turned to ice. He kept reading. My limbs were going numb. My heart was racing.
“No, seriously. What is this?” Evan's body language shifted, he stood up straighter and put more distance between the two of us. “Why do you have these character descriptions? Why is Sir Erwyn written down? What are you writing in here?”