Chapter Fourteen #3
Chances were sky-high that he didn’t wear any.
That he thought of them as an indulgence, a distraction, an unnecessary step that no one needed to take.
Jeans and skin like god intended, she could well imagine him saying.
Though by that point she felt so delirious she had no idea if she was imagining right.
Maybe it’s the other way round, she told herself.
Maybe not wearing them is the indulgence.
She didn’t get to figure it out however.
He broke the silence with something even more deranged before she could.
“Want some help?” he said. Much to her complete and total consternation.
What did he think he was going to do, take her shoes off for her?
In this economy? There was no way in the world.
Those hands just unbuttoned his fucking pants, she thought wildly, and went to shake her head. She went to say no.
She didn’t know how in the world it came out a yes.
She even somehow added a breathless please on the end.
But thankfully, he didn’t seem to notice. He just sat up—almost brushing his arm against hers, nearly skimming her thigh with his hand—and leant over, and went at it. Quicker than he’d done with his own, brisker.
Though it still made her stiffen like he was doing something else entirely.
And again when he slipped the first sneaker off, and something on him touched the arch of her ankle. Just above the heel, where there was definitely nothing sensitive. It just felt like there was in that moment. She almost put a hand out to stop him, but it was too late for that now.
He had hold of the other one.
And his body was farther over hers in order to do it. All she could see was the curve of his broad back, the shaggy hair at the nape of his neck. There was a little kiss curl just above his collar, so tender she had the overwhelming urge to touch it.
She had to close her eyes tight against it.
Think of other things: wallpaper, doilies, turnips.
Like she needed unsexy thoughts to stave this off—which was nuts.
All of this was nuts. And just when it seemed to get the most nuts it could, he slid a finger under the elastic of her sock.
Right in there, skin on skin, and so close to a caress she wanted to scream. She wanted to beg him not to.
Only him tugging at the material saved her.
He’s just straightening it, dipshit, her brain said. Though she couldn’t help thinking, after it had, that it was kind of a strange thing to do anyway. And so was the way he looked when he was done. Eyes dark, just a little awkward. “Go on and get in quick,” he said.
Then he retreated to his sleeping bag.
Right down into it, the zip pulled all the way up, his back to her.
All she could see as she slipped into hers were his shoulders, shirt drawn tight over them.
As if he’d wrapped his arms around himself, she thought—and really, would it have been so weird if he had?
He probably just needed to protect himself against further urges to help her out.
And that was a good thing.
A very, very good thing.
She only had on a tiny pair of panties under her cords. Thin cotton, near transparent, and clingy in a way that made her blush to think of him seeing it. And then there was her bra. The one with the see-through bits. The one she definitely wanted to take off.
Imagine him sliding his hand up your shirt to get it done, she thought, and hated herself for it.
But not as badly as she hated herself for going ahead.
For actually slipping it off underneath her T-shirt, sure she was doing this the polite and non-lewd way.
Only to realize that the T-shirt was tight, and it was thin, and it was now molded to her very round, very plump breasts.
Just as he sat up to turn out the lamp he’d brought in.
One glance to it, one glance back to her, a goodnight on his lips.
The word fading, the moment he saw. She had to whip the sleeping bag up over the sight.
But of course that just made things worse.
It made him apologize, and shove himself back to where he’d been, like she’d accused him of peeping.
And now she was lying there in the dark, next to the humped back of a man she had just flashed her tits at.
Knowing he had seen, knowing he probably thought she’d done it on purpose.
Half of her tight with embarrassment over it.
Half of her something else.
Something she did her best to deny.
But how could she, really? Her whole body felt like it had been dipped in molten lava.
She could feel the blush all over her face and throat, practically dissolving the skin.
And to the point where she had to do things to mitigate it.
She turned over to face the now cool wall of the tent. Put her cheek against it, her hand.
But the problem was, the space was so small.
All the move really did was press their backs together— and so tightly it seemed incredibly intrusive to her. She could actually feel him breathing. Slow, enormous-seeming breaths, as if he were some big prehistoric beast slumbering beside her.
Or, at least, she thought he was slumbering.
Until he made it crystal clear he wasn’t.
“You’re trembling,” he said, so sudden into the still darkness she came fairly close to gasping. Then she had to somehow scramble for an excuse for this deep betrayal her body was putting her through.
“Because it’s cold.”
“It is sweltering in here. I feel like I’m in a sauna.”
“Well, maybe that’s just you. Maybe you just run hot.”
“Or maybe I’m lying next to the little engine that could.”
She scrunched up her face, mortified. It took her a good ten seconds to come up with the fury she needed. “If you’re trying to say that I’m unnaturally overheated—” she burst out. But damn, he cut her off fast.
“I wasn’t trying to say anything. Those are just the facts.
You’re so warm it feels like a fever against my back, and you’re trembling hard enough it’s making my teeth chatter.
So tell me why,” he said, and just as she was about to fumble out some silly excuse, he supplied his own. “You afraid of being in here with me?”
And he meant it, too.
He sounded almost cut up about it, damn him.
“Of course not. I don’t even see why I would be.”
“Because I touched you. I touched you.”
“I think I’ll survive a hand on my shoulder.”
“It wasn’t just a hand on your shoulder and you know it.”
She had to look at him then. But all she could see when she did was darkness and the barest hint of his back. No sign at all that he wasn’t being serious, even though he was saying some really silly shit. “You didn’t mean to grab me like that. I was falling out of the truck,” she said, baffled.
He didn’t accept the bafflement, however.
“Still, though, I got hold of a lot of you. And very close to some inappropriate places. If you had shifted a little I would have probably had a handful of things I shouldn’t ever have a handful of.”
“But that didn’t happen.”
“It could have.”
“Could doesn’t mean anything.”
“I’m just saying, if you’re feeling a little nervous of me—”
“I’m not, all right, I’m not. Honestly I wish I was.”
“Why the fuck would you wish a thing like that?”
Don’t, she ordered herself. But she was just too flustered and annoyed to listen.
“Because then you wouldn’t be asking me these questions.
I would just be me and you would just be you and things would be as they always were.
Instead of everything feeling all mixed up and upside down.
My mind telling me one thing, my body registering something else altogether,” she said, all in a hot rush. No thought going into the words at all.
Though she thought about them a lot once they were out.
And apparently, so did he. He took what felt like an excruciating age to respond. She almost snapped somewhere in the middle of him clearly going over it all, inch by inch, and told him she hadn’t meant any of that the way it sounded. I’m not into you, she thought about saying.
Just as he acted as if she were totally into him.
“Jesus Christ. Are you saying your body liked what I did?” he said, and to his credit he seemed absolutely flabbergasted by this fact. She felt him shift, too—like he was trying to look over his shoulder at her for any massive signs that she had gone completely round the bend.
But all she had were excuses.
“It just doesn’t know the difference between fake and real, all right.”
“Yeah, but you loathe me. And I’ve barely touched you in any sort of decent way. It just cannot be the reason you’re shaking like this. It can’t be. Tell me it isn’t, Emmett. Tell me that’s not a fucking thing.”
“Look, I’m sorry I am the way I am.”
“And what way is that, exactly?”
“A horny mess.”
More silence then, worse than the first.
Mainly because she felt him jerk on the word horny.
Then had to wait for what that jerk had meant.
Him getting out of the tent and walking directly into the nearest bear, she thought, about a second before he said this instead, in a voice that seemed just a little grave and quiet and pointed: “And you think I hate that. That I would find it embarrassing.”
“I know you would. Hell, you hate it when I’m loud about a nice burger.”
“So you make a lot of noise, then.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“But that’s what you mean. You mean you moan when you make yourself come.
Maybe even when you don’t. Maybe just when it feels good, when you get to a certain point and you’re so turned on that you can’t help it,” he said, and okay, now she was getting a little concerned about the turn this was taking.
Because had he just used the word come?
While asking her about how out of control she got?
I’m gonna be if you keep talking like this, she thought. Though of course she couldn’t allow him to know that. “I don’t ever let myself get that way now,” she said, sure and certain that this would end the discussion.