Heartless (18 page)

He slid his hands under my tank top from the back, letting his fingers trail up my spine. I shivered. He moaned lightly against my ear. His hands traveled higher, to my bra strap. His little finger snuck underneath but he didn’t move to unhook the clasp. That’s when I moaned. I had opened my mouth to say, "not yet," but this soft pleasure sound had emerged instead. And now he was kissing the edge of my jaw lightly. He paused beside my lower lip. Slowly, tenderly, he slid his hands toward my stomach. His thumbs circled under the cups of my bra. I moaned again, arching my back so that my breasts lifted toward him. Taking my cue, he kissed my mouth lightly and then began to trail his lips along my throat, to my collarbone, the upper part of my chest. His thumbs explored the edge of the front of my bra. I felt my nipples go taut as they responded to the proximity of his fingers. I moaned again, feeling a surge of heat between my legs. He pressed himself closer to me. I felt his hardening length against my thigh just as his palm cupped my right breast. With his other hand, he held my ass and pushed it forward into his hips. His mouth was on mine now, his tongue probing, as his fingers traced the upper mound of flesh rising above the edge of my bra. He slipped one shoulder strap off. With his fingers he scooped out one breast and caught the nipple gently between his thumb and forefinger.

I kissed him ravenously as he fondled me. His other hand pushed my hips toward his in a rough rhythm. He rubbed against me through his jeans, through my shorts. I slid my tongue along his teeth and he shuddered. He tried to catch my tongue and suck it, but when I flicked it this way and that he gave up and pinched my nipple a little harder. I gasped, but it was a gasp of pleasure rather than pain. I hardly knew what my hands were doing until I realized I was fumbling with my bra strap, wanted to be free of its confines and available to Josh’s roving hand. The underwire loosened. Josh moaned. He let go of my ass and with both hands yanked my tank top over my head taking my bra with it. I grabbed for the hem of his T-shirt but he was quicker than me and in a flash it was over his head and on the floor and we were mashed up against each other, chest to chest, skin to skin, while our mouths devoured each other like feeding carnivores. I was damp and wet and he was hard and straining and I knew we would have to stop soon or we would tumble over the edge, an edge I wasn’t still quite ready for. Did he sense that? He pulled back and looked at me with wild and slightly glazed eyes and swollen lips.

“Is this okay?” he whispered.

“This part, yes, but…”

He nodded, seemed to know what I was going to say before I said it. He looked down at me then, his eyes riveted on my pink nipples. I thought I heard him whimper. He cupped my two mounds of round flesh, one in each hand, and bent his head down. He took one nipple between his lips. I flung my head back in a spasm of intimate sensation. He had broken through my boundaries. He held one of the tenderest most private parts of my body in his beautiful searching mouth. His palm pressed my other nipple back into my flesh and circled, massaging and warming. He held me in his hand, in his mouth, and I felt safe, loved, claimed. His tongue drew a line from one nipple to the other. His hands slid around my back and down along my spine. Each of his hands cupped my buttocks and squeezed, and then I felt probing fingers slide inward, over the hot seam of my shorts. My body spasmed again as he rubbed lightly and I thought that in a mere seconds he might trigger what I usually needed a good fifteen minutes to unleash. I clenched my legs and his fingers were caught. His tongue flicked my nipple and I used all my will power to stay perfectly still. If I rubbed against his finger I might explode. Slowly, I unclenched my legs. His hands slid back up over my ass and along my spine. His tongue traveled up my neck until his lips found mine again. We kissed, holding each other tight, my bare breasts pressed into his sternum, his denim-sheathed cock pushing against my belly. Our breathing was ragged, gaspy, and scented with each other’s tastes. Josh released my lips and kissed my temples, my forehead, and the tip of my nose.

“Soon, right? We can do everything soon?”

I nodded, resting my head against his shoulder. “Yes. Soon.”

I willed my mind to catch up with my body.

Late afternoon on the 4
th
of July, Josh showed up with his saddlebags laden with small coolers and bags with snacks. He had cans of pop and a collection of cutlery. From the kitchen window I saw him load everything into the back of the Porsche and then use one of the two blankets that I’d tossed back there to cover his supplies. My spying meant that his surprise was blown; clearly we were going on a picnic. That would explain the need for blankets. I wondered if it would be at a beach or a park. It was sweet of him to plan all this, even if the surprise part of it was a bust now. I decided to pretend I didn’t know. I’d act all surprised to make him happy.

Once he’d tucked everything out of sight, he headed toward the front door and rang the bell.

I opened it and jokingly, I said, “Whew, I was afraid the surprise might be that you wouldn’t show up.”

Taking me seriously, he reached into his pocket for his cell phone. “I’m not late am I?”

“Just kidding.” I grabbed him by the hand and pulled him in close for a kiss. “You’re getting all the fun coming up with surprises so you can’t blame me for making a joke.”

He held me to him and we kissed, but it didn’t last long. He pulled away and said, “There’s nothing funny about not showing up for you. I always will, Heather. You can count on it.” He looked deep into my eyes and sounded so serious.

“Uh, okay. Thank you?”

“Are you ready? We should probably go.”

“I was joking before. You aren’t late. We have loads of time.” I wrapped my arms around him again and leaned in for another kiss.
He glanced at his phone again. “Not really. It’s kind of a long drive.”
So not a local beach or park. I’d been hoping to lure him to the couch for another make out session. Our last one had left me wanting so much more. But it was the beginning of a long weekend. We’d have lots of time. Maybe I’d even invite him back after our picnic…

He pulled me through the open door.

“Wait,” I said. “I want to grab a sweater in case it’s windy later.”

He raised an eyebrow.

“Um, in case we’re outside or something, even though I don’t have any idea where we’re going. Or what we’re doing.”

He shrugged. “Sure, why not. You might want it later.”

I grabbed my cream sweater, the one I wore on our first dinner date, and then I locked up.

I walked around to the passenger side of the car.

“You want me to drive?” he said.

“It makes sense since you’re the only one who knows where we’re going.” I smiled sweetly.

We took the Ventura Freeway and I guessed we might be on our way to Malibu. But to my surprise, Josh turned inland on Route 23. That ruled out the beach then, and I wasn’t familiar with the parks this far out of the city. I thought it was mostly all farmland out this way. Now I wasn't so sure I knew where we were headed.

Josh drove confidently in the direction of his surprise. The sun, while still far from setting, was lowering behind us.

“Did you ever watch horror films as a kid?” Josh said over the wind-hum swirling around the windshield and teasing my hair into a veritable rat’s nest.

“Yeah…” I said, involuntarily recalling memories, and dreams, from my last session with Miranda.

“You know that part in some of those movies when the young girl and guy drive out of the city to be alone and make out in some secluded place…

Tentatively, I said, “I guess so…”

Why was Josh bringing this up? He had no way of knowing how it might make me nervous. Did it have something to do with this surprise. “Like where?” I said, trying to sound lightly curious.

He shrugged a bit, took one hand off the steering wheel and adjusted the rear view mirror. No one was behind us. It was a pretty lonely road. “Oh, I don’t know. Somewhere like a forest, or a cliffside, or a country farm with a cornfield or something.”

I flinched in my seat. I suddenly felt as if something was crawling all over my skin. I tried to hold myself together. It’s true there were lots of cornfield in horror films. He wasn’t talking about
my
cornfield. Even so, I felt myself break into a light sweat.

Josh continued. “Everything seems so sweet and romantic as they drive along, anticipating being in each other’s arms, but there’s ominous music playing and you just know things aren’t going to go as planned.” He gave me a furtive glance. His voice had changed slightly, it was lower, more ominous ever since he used the word ominous. He kept talking.

“And then they pull off the main road onto a narrow, unpaved road…”

Josh slowed the car down and flicked on the right turn signal. He turned onto a dirt road heavily lined with moss-clogged eucalyptus trees that blocked out the comforting orange glow of the evening sun. Shadows engulfed us. My breathing had turned shallow and quick. Fear. But this was Josh. He cared for me. He wouldn’t do anything to hurt me...

“It gets darker and darker, and it’s no longer romantic…because something sinister seems to be lurking just outside their vision...” His voice was even deeper and slower now.

A high, light wind made the eucalyptus leaves rustle. They sounded similar to my memory of breeze-brushed cornstalks. The tires rolled over a branch and the loud crack made me jump in my seat.

“Josh, what are you getting at? Where are you taking me?” My voice quavered. I realized I was out in the middle of nowhere with a guy I thought I knew but now he was acting so strange all my old doubts and fears resurfaced. What if these last couple of weeks had just been a set up to gain my trust? So that he could take me to some remote location outside of the city and …

“And you just know, in those horror movies, that something
really bad
is going to happen?…”

My hands were sweaty. I told myself to relax. I rubbed my palms on my skirt. I noticed Josh’s left knee was bouncing up and down and his fingers tapped the steering wheel nervously. He seemed twitchy.

“Are you all right?…” My voice sounded weak and squeaky so I cleared my throat. “Aren’t we going on a picnic, Josh?”

“A picnic?” He looked confused for a second. “A picnic!” He started laughing maniacally. A surge of fear shot through me. He was totally freaking out.

“Josh, you’re scaring me.”

We’d reached a very densely treed, dark, and narrow part of the one lane road and the car crawled to a stop. I was calculating how easy it would be to jump out and start running.

“You thought we were going on a
picnic
?” He shook his head side to side, slowly, as if he were speaking to a small child, a tiny, frightened child caught in his clutches… “Oh, Heather, I’d hoped you’d expect more than that from me. Something a little more original, a little less… predictable.”

I was shaking all over, and sweating, wondering if my adrenalin would kick in fast enough so I could run away. Fast enough.

Josh leaned toward me, his eyes narrowed, his voice strange. “It’s all right, you can trust me, Heather.” His fingers reached out toward my neck. I felt a scream building in my throat.

Suddenly Josh’s eyes went wide and bright and he opened his mouth and yelled,

“Surprise!”

What the…?!

His hands gripped the wheel and he gunned the accelerator. We shot through a narrow neck of road like cannon fire. I closed my eyes and screamed, preparing for impact. I felt the tips of branches brush my shoulders and then the light changed beyond my closed lids. All of a sudden, everything got brighter.

“It’s okay now, Heather. Open your eyes.”

Josh was laughing, but not maniacally, just in the normal way he laughed. He tapped my shoulder and I flinched, jerked away from him. “It’s okay. It was just a joke.”

With my heart still ricocheting in my chest. I peered through my fingers and saw that we had burst into a clearing. A huge one. A massive farm field. It was full of cars. And a towering wooden structure that was flat on one side and painted white. All the cars were lined up in neat rows and pointing the same direction, with a short post beside each car door. At the back of the rows was a line of PortaPotties.

My heart was still beating wildly but I managed to squeak out a question: “Is this a drive-in?”

“Uh, huh,” said Josh with a big grin on his face. “Surprised?”

I gulped. “I thought you were going to kill me.”

“Kill you?” He chuckled. “Only with kindness.”

As soon as I got my breathing under control, I punched him not-too-lightly in the shoulder.

“That was mean!”

“Was it?”

“If you weren’t so cute and I weren’t so trembly from terror I would totally strangle you, Josh. I can’t believe you did that!”

“It’s all to get you in the mood. That’s why I took the back road.”

As he guided the car along the grass at the edge of the parked cars, I saw other cars entering the field from the other side, where it looked like there was a peaceful country lane leading right up to the edge of the property.

I reached out and punched his shoulder again. “What if I’d had a heart attack?”

“I’d have ressucitated you. I know CPR.”

“I can’t believe you did that.” It was even harder to accept that, for a moment, I’d thought that he could have really hurt me. I took a few more deep breaths.

Josh pulled the car into an empty spot near the back of the field.

“What do you mean by ‘get me in the mood’?" I said. "Because you just freaked me out making me think you might kill me, and now my mood is making me want to kill
you
!”

He laughed again, but as soon as he had the car in park I lunged for him and wrestled him into submission by tickling without mercy. Until a tall woman with curly brown shoulder length hair approached us. She smiled at me but then directed her attention to Josh.

“How’d it go? Did she totally freak out?”

She glanced at me again. Her lips were painted a deep burgundy, yet her mouth looked very familiar. She reached her hand in the car. In my adrenalin-laced condition, her quick move made me jolt, but I saw that she was just holding out her hand to shake mine.