Guarding Miranda (33 page)

Finally his hands found her aching breasts and brought them what warmth they could from the other side of the wet tank top...

His mouth moved to her neck, his breath tingling her there.

It was a long moment before Miranda began to shiver with chill.

“You’re trembling.” Brian observed the obvious.

“I kn-now.” Her teeth chattered and she shuddered all the more.

“We better get you out of these wet clothes.” He opened the entrance door of the boathouse.  “Let’s go.”

Rain pelted them as they dashed back through the yard to the cabin, Miranda before Brian. 

Her hands shook as she tried to fit the key in the door. 

Brian steadied her hand with his own, warming her. 

In another moment, they were in the cabin, dripping on the earthen tile floor.

Lightning flashed behind them, across the river. 

A few heartbeats later, thunder clapped, loud and rumbling, causing the floor to tremor beneath their feet.

“Strip,” said Brian softly, as he began to remove his own wet T-shirt.

With shaking hands, Miranda didn’t argue and instead did as he suggested, peeling off the clinging wet tank top and her drenched denim shorts.  Her sunburn was now faded into a soft tawny brown tan, a color that complimented her dark hair, green eyes and soft pink lips, according to Brian.

Upon removing her sandals, she stood naked before him, shivering. 

The moment his last article of clothing hit the floor, she was upon him.

“Brian, warm me up,” she pleaded, rushing into his embrace. 

Against the slick heat of his bare chest, she found warmth and comfort but shivered just the same.

His strong arms wrapped around her, encircling her lean waist and trembling shoulders, drawing her near.  She wrapped her arms around him in kind, scaling the taut, rippling muscles of his back. 

She heard him groan with sexual hunger and she quivered within as she clung to him recklessly, reveling in all the heat his larger body had to offer her smaller, feminine one.

His head rested atop her shoulder, his hair dripping there with hers.  His mouth moved to the space behind her right ear and his tongue probed there with an intimacy that sent her senses reeling.

“I know how to warm us both up,” he whispered, his lips grazing down the length of her neck, to her collar bone and back to her ear.

“I bet you do.”

“I’ll start the fireplace, love.”

Miranda felt a twinge of disappointment.

“I was hoping that maybe we could...uhm...”

“The fireplace is only for background heat,” he told her. “Ambiance. I intend to light your fire myself.”

“Oh.”

As his kisses began anew to trail over her shoulder, her blood began to stir and heat, with an odd tingling sensation that moved through her veins.  Her nerve endings came to life at his caress, as did the rest of her. 

The ache in her core intensified, becoming a need and itch that only he would be able to scratch for her, as he had done so many times before...

“Oh, Brian...”

He collected the Navajo blanket from the couch and led her to the fireplace.  He treated the logs there to a bath of lighter fluid and lit them – they burst into flame, emanating heat. 

Her bodyguard spread the blanket on the floor, before the fireplace and urged Miranda to lay down.

“I’ll be right back.” He promised and left her that he might ascend the stairs.  Shivering only occasionally now, she was able to appreciate his firm behind as he walked.  He returned a short time later, condom in hand. “Out of a dozen, we only have the one left.”

“A shame,” she said demurely, posing provocatively for him on the blanket. 

The kitchen light flickered once and then went out. 

The only light left in the room was that of the fireplace. 

Thunder rumbled in the distance.

“Come here, Brian and light my fire...”

He knelt before her feet and kissed her ankles.  He grazed his fingertips over the inside of her calves, her thighs and it was at the valley between her legs that his mouth and fingers came to rest, delighting her with a small eternity of intimate pleasures. 

He satisfied her smaller needs with absolute tenderness and then covered her with his body and kissed her with great passion as his fingers continued their work.

She cried out, her heart pounding in her chest, as she clung to him for support.

He whispered in her ear, “You’re beautiful by firelight, you know that?”

Head swimming from the ascent of her soul to ecstasy, she had barely heard him. “That was marvelous, Brian.”

“You’re welcome,” he replied, kissing her again.

“Make love to me.”

He needed no further encouragement.  The moment he sheathed himself in her soft, yielding flesh, it was as though their separate selves became one, merged for the purpose of greater love. 

He just stayed there for a moment, looking down into her enchanting green eyes, kissing her with soft, joyous, reckless abandon. 

She felt him throbbing, deep within her.

All he knew was the soft, warm, moist heat of her, surrounding him. 

Finally, he began to move and she began to moan, her body crying out to know all of him.

Rain drummed on the roof, the verandah and lightning flashed intermittently, in a sky that had been darkened by storm clouds.  The rain fell, the lightning flashed and the thunder rumbled but all paled in comparison to the storm that raged inside of Miranda. 

She opened her eyes while Brian made love to her and saw him staring down at her, his eyes the color of the storm outside.

With each thrust, Brian gave her his all, gave her his secret, silent love, until finally, her sheath was gripping him as only she could do. 

It was then that he could hold back no longer.

It was then that he spent his seed, filling the condom between them.

They lie there, sated, satisfied before the fireplace, Miranda in his arms. 

She should have been without a worry in the world in that moment but there was something on her mind. 

Something that had the potential to change both of their lives forever.

The flow of blood that normally marked her menstrual period had not yet come. 

Not yet. 

And with each new day she was filled with growing dread and wonderment. 

Her breasts were tender and seemed larger but didn’t they always get that way, right before her period? 

Her nipples were darker and scents seems stronger.

She didn’t voice her concerns to Brian, how could she? 

And besides
, she thought,
I might not even be pregnant.  My period has come late before.

 Though not this late. 

Never this late...

The day after the storm, Miranda crept up behind Brian and put her arms around his neck.

“Feel like taking a drive?” She asked, kissing his cleanly shaved cheek.

“Sure.” He turned his head to kiss her lips. “Where to, love?”

“The city we came in from: Dauphin.  I’ve a need for a good paperback novel and the Emporium doesn’t carry any.” She paused. “Dauphin has a WalMart, I should be able to check out the new best sellers there.”

“Sounds good to me,” he told her, holding her close. “When do you want to leave?”

“Sooner is better.”

So they left after dinner, in the burgundy Ford Focus. 

By one thirty, they were in Dauphin, driving though the busy little city on their way to the WalMart at the Dauphin Marketplace Mall.

“What a nice little mall,” she remarked, as they parked the car. “It seemed bigger when I drove by the first time.”

The building was one long stretch of stores, with lit signs on the walls announcing the shops within. 

They were near the WalMart entrance and as they walked, Miranda had to fight an urge to hold Brian’s hand. 

Her joy, her love for him sometimes manifested itself in these small, barely repressible ways.  She felt sometimes as though her heart might burst with the force of her happiness alone.

And sometimes, just sometimes, she was able to imagine that he felt the same way, too...

They entered the mall near a short row of pay phones and two children’s rides: a space ship and a rocking horse. 

They went into the WalMart, Brian leading the way, cutting a path through the people they encountered.

His size tended to do that, warrant respect, if not fear as well.

“Well, there’s a book display over there.” He told her, pointing toward the furthest cash register.

“Let’s go there.”

Soon, she was considering two books. The newest Stephen King, which she had meant to read but hadn’t yet and the latest work by Dean Koontz.

“A fan of the horror novels, are you?” Brian quipped, himself thumbing through a work by Tom Clancy.

“Sometimes,” she said, stealing a glance at a row of pink-covered books.

Her favorite romance novelist had two new volumes out.

It was too bad, really but she wasn’t about to betray her love of romance novels to him, no way. 

He would surely laugh at her so-called
female sensitivities
that he often found amusing.

“Not a fan of Danielle Steel, love?”

“Nope.” She lied. “Too girly.”

“Full of surprises, aren’t you?” Brian shelved the Tom Clancy.

“You know that I am...”

In the family planning section of the WalMart pharmacy, Brian selected a box of gold-foil wrapped condoms designed for men his size. 

Nearby were the pregnancy tests. 

Miranda felt nervous the entire time that they stood there.

Am I or am I not?
She wondered, wishing for all the world that she could buy a few tests and find out.

But with Brian watching her every move, that wasn’t about to happen…

In the checkout line, Brian caught Miranda by surprise by asking the clerk where the nearest park was.

“Well, there’s Vermillion Park, here in town but doesn’t have all that much to offer.  If you’re looking for a nice touristy place, you could go up through the Riding Mountains to Clear Lake.” The clerk handed Brian his change. “It’s very nice this time of year.”

And so they consulted the map and drove down the highway, up into the Riding Mountain National Park. 

The place didn’t seem so much a mountain to Miranda as a collection of steep hills but then she had been spoiled by flying over the Sierra Nevadas on countless occasions, by skiing in the Rockies and the Swiss Alps. 

As they traveled, they were surrounded by a lush forest of spruce, pine and poplar, spotted with the occasional oak and maple tree.  Twenty minutes into their trip Brian had to slow the car to avoid a large moose crossing the road.

“Will you look at the rack on that one!” He exclaimed, at the twelve pointed horns that adorned the top of the huge animal’s head.

“What is that?”

“A moose, love,” he informed her, with a grin.

The moose crossed safely and Brian urged the car forward, up the rest of the hill they had been ascending.

A short time later, they found signs of civilization, literally.

A few signs marking roads to camping areas and cabin plots.  Soon, they were turning into Wasagaming and following the main road into the small town. 

Miranda was of the impression that Wasagaming was indeed a tourist town.