Stirred Up (14 page)

After a lazy lunch they headed out for a
hike, winding their way up onto the cliffs. It was breathtaking,
and well worth the effort. Since she no longer had anything to
prove, she even let Jason take her hand and haul her up the last
steep yards to the top. They sat for a bit, their legs dangling
over the edge, then walked along the trail. She’d brought her
camera and took what she hoped were artful pictures. She took some
of Jason, too, mostly when he wasn’t looking.

For dinner they had burgers he cooked over
the propane stove. He’d brought all the fixings, including pickles,
potato salad and chips. The temperature dropped rapidly as the sun
went down, so she pulled on a sweatshirt and told him not to look
while she changed into a pair of jeans. He took this as his signal
to get the fire going, a task he approached with utmost
seriousness. When it was a roaring conflagration, he turned to
her.

“Now comes the whittling,” he announced.

“Seriously? I was kind of joking about
that.”

“I could not be more serious. Unfortunately,
we can’t go hunting for the perfect stick since there are no fallen
branches around here. But I brought my own.”

He went to the Jeep and came back with two
long, knobby branches. “For roasting marshmallows.”

He handed her a branch along with a jackknife
before sitting down and pulling a Swiss Army knife from his
pocket.

For a minute all she could do was sit there,
humbled that he’d gone to such lengths to please her. Tears pricked
her eyes, and she had to swallow several times and breathe through
her nose before she felt back in control.

Luckily Jason remained oblivious, too lost in
the beauty of knife and stick. She watched him slice away at the
tip, examine it, then cut away some more, as if he had a vision he
was trying to bring forth.

He glanced up at her, frowning over her lack
of progress.

“I can do it for you if you don’t feel like
it,” he offered.

“No way. I’ll do it. My stick is going to
kick your stick’s ass,” she said, determined to bluster her way
through her tenuous emotional state.

She made a big show of opening her knife and
eyeing her stick like she had some big plan for it. Jason laughed
and bent back over his work. They were quiet for a couple more
minutes, but really, it didn’t take as long as she’d expected to
whittle something suitable for cooking marshmallows.

When she looked up Jason was watching
her.

“Finished,” she declared, holding her stick
up for inspection.

“Very nice,” he said, coming over to look,
his hands clasped behind his back like an art critic at a gallery.
“Good lines, clean strokes. You’re ready.”

With a flourish he pulled a bag of
marshmallows out of a duffel bag, along with graham crackers and a
bulk package of Hershey chocolate bars. They each speared a
marshmallow and held them over the fire.

“You’re ruining it!” Cheryl called out,
alarmed when Jason’s caught on fire.

Calmly he held it up and blew it out, leaving
a charred, gooey mess that threatened to fall off.

“Not to worry. This is just one school of
thought. I like the dark tones a burnt marshmallow brings to my
s’more.”

Cheryl let hers get perfectly golden on all
sides before she laid it between the chocolate and cracker. Then
she took a bite.

“Oh my God,” she moaned, her eyes closing as
the luscious flavors flooded her taste buds.

She opened her eyes and licked her lips, then
turned to Jason to gush that it was the best thing she’d ever
tasted. Except he was staring at her like he might rip off her
clothes.

Maybe her moan had sounded a little
too…authentic?

“Sorry. That was just really good,” she
muttered.

He said something under his breath that
sounded like “keep it together” but she wasn’t entirely sure.

He cleared his throat. “You stopping at one?”
he asked, as if in challenge, his eyebrow raised.

“Hell no, I’m not stopping at one,” she said,
pulling out another marshmallow to begin all over again. Only this
time she’d keep her delight a little lower key.

After her third s’more she fully understood
the saying about too much of a good thing and decided she’d had
enough. Jason had stopped at two and was probably better off for
it, though he’d cracked open a beer. He handed one to her and they
pulled the canvas chairs closer to the fire.

“We have now arrived at the scary stories
portion of the evening,” he said, his voice pitched low. Then
without warning he gave a horrible, creepy laugh that had her
jumping out of her chair. He almost fell to the ground
laughing.

He told her every scary story he could
remember, plus some she was fairly certain he’d made up. It was
late before he wound down and they sat in front of the dying fire.
None of the campsites around them were occupied, and it felt as if
they were all alone in the world.

“Thank you,” she said, looking into the fire
instead of at him.

“For what?” he asked, sounding surprised.

“For all of this. It’s perfect.”

“You’re welcome.”

She shivered then, the chill of the desert at
night finally penetrating the fire’s heat.

“We probably ought to call it a day,” Jason
said, though he sounded reluctant. “We’ll have time for another
good climb in the morning if we don’t sleep too late.”

“Good idea,” she said, though sleeping late
was the least of her worries. Falling asleep in the first place was
more likely to be the problem.

They took turns doing their business at the
rustic toilets and then met one last time in front of the tents. He
handed her a flashlight.

“Give a call if you need anything,” he said.
“I’m just a few feet away.”

“Thanks, but I’m sure I’ll be fine,” she
said, trying to appear unconcerned.

“Okay. Sweet dreams.”

Her throat squeezed at those quiet words
spoken in the flickering light.

“You, too,” she said, her heart twisting over
something she couldn’t define.

Bending low, she crawled into her tent and
zipped it closed, leaving the door open just enough to see him gaze
into the fire a few seconds longer before dowsing it with dirt.

She lay there awhile thinking about Jason,
but she must have eventually fallen asleep because she woke up more
terrified than she’d ever been. Her heart was pounding in her chest
and her breath came fast and light, like she’d had a nightmare, but
she couldn’t remember dreaming anything scary. Then something
howled right outside her tent and the hair on her arms stood on
end.

After a few more howls, some farther away
than others, she had sense enough to realize that there wasn’t
anything right outside the tent. But one of the beasts making all
that noise was close. Maybe a matter of feet away, maybe yards, but
surely within striking distance. She wracked her brain, trying to
remember if she’d ever heard of people being dragged from their
tents by wolves or hyenas or whatever it was out there. Surely
Jason would have warned her if there was danger? He’d sworn she
wouldn’t die on this trip.

No, wait. He’d only promised she wouldn’t
fall to her death. He’d never promised she wouldn’t be torn apart
by wild animals.

Fumbling with the zipper to the door, she
crawled out of her tent and scurried over to Jason’s, feeling the
whole time like she was in the eye of some predator.

“Jason. Jason, open up,” she whispered,
afraid that if she were too loud, whatever beast was making that
noise would come for her.

“Cheryl?” he mumbled, his voice thick with
sleep. He unzipped the tent and poked his head out. “What’s
wrong?”

More howls.

Without waiting for an invitation, she pushed
her way in, falling on top of him in her rush to get inside. He
caught her by the waist just as her hands made contact with the
hard muscles and warm skin of his chest.

She was basically sitting in his lap, though
his lower body was in the sleeping bag, and she felt the surge of
his desire immediately, followed quickly by his sharp intake of
breath.

She froze, barely breathing as she looked at
him in the moonlight filtering through the circle of netting at the
peak of the tent. There was so little between them and the
wilderness outside, just a whisper of protection, and not much more
than that between the two of them.

For a few brief moments there was only the
breeze against the tent, and then Jason was crushing her to his
chest as his mouth took hers.

There was no working up to this kiss. From
the first moment it was frantic and uncivilized, one big hand
fisted in her hair while the other held her hip tightly to him, his
mouth demanding she open for him as his tongue plunged into her,
deep and carnal. She was straddling him, the sleeping bag bunching
between them until she was desperate to feel him without any
interference.

It was awkward and cramped and delicious, as
if they’d broken free of the roles and expectations, the restraints
and disappointments of real life and were in some space and time
where nothing mattered but their bodies pressed together.

Another howl pierced the air, only this time
it seemed more like the expression of her own need.

With a growl of frustration Jason turned them
until he was above her, somehow kicking the sleeping bag away until
all that separated them was his boxer briefs and her camisole and
shorts. All the heat and strength of those disciplined muscles,
everything she’d been denying herself now pressed her into the
ground.

Instantly her legs parted, making room for
him, and his hips settled over hers as once again his mouth took
hers, his hands slipping beneath her back to press her more fully
against him. She was desperate to feel him, to feel everything
she’d been avoiding for the past two months. Her hands raked his
back and cupped his ass, pulling him more snugly against her as she
widened her thighs.

Jason’s breath was harsh in her ear, the
ragged sound of his slipping control driving her beyond the point
of all thought. One big hand found her breast as his mouth slid to
her throat, devouring her as he worked his way lower. Movements
increasingly frantic, he pulled the fabric of her camisole aside
and took the taut peak into his mouth, his groan of pleasure and
hunger searing through her.

She bucked against him, the pleasure nearly
unbearable, and he responded with a slow grind of his hips that had
her whimpering, the sound joining with another distant howl.

Pulling him back up to her she took his
mouth, making demands of her own, drawing his tongue into her,
needing him to fill her.

He groaned, his voice dark with need, urging
her on. “Show me what you want.”

The moonlight lit half his face, casting the
other in shadow. The calm, patient man she knew was gone, replaced
by this dark lover whose body consumed all the space around
them.

Her hands went to his underwear, tugging the
waistband until the hard length of him sprang free. With a low
growl he sat back on his heels and without delicacy dragged her
shorts and underwear down her legs in one rough motion.

“Yes,” she moaned, hips rising to accommodate
him.

Then his mouth was back on her breast,
sucking, rolling the peak with his tongue, and her whole body
writhed in answer. He leaned on one forearm while his other hand
journeyed over her belly, pausing a few moments as if to enjoy the
way she moaned for him.

“Jason, please,” she gasped, so beyond
herself, she thought she might scream if he didn’t touch her in the
next two seconds.

His laugh was dark and shaky, as if he were
amazed himself. “I wouldn’t stop for anything,” he murmured, and
then his finger slipped into her wet heat and found her, both of
them groaning together.

“Christ, you’re so wet,” he gasped, two
fingers sliding into her as his thumb stroked her throbbing clit.
“I always knew you’d feel this good,” he crooned, his fingers
driving her higher and higher.

She was strung out and mindless, her body
arcing like a bow pulled back to let fly. But she didn’t want to go
alone. She needed him inside her, needed him to fill her up and
drive into her with all that animal force.

“You have no idea how much I want to be
inside you. But I didn’t bring anything,” he said, his voice tight
above her. Even as he said it his mouth was on her throat and he
ground his hips into hers, as if needing to get closer.

It took her body a minute to catch up to her
brain, but once it did she froze. In an unwelcome rush the argument
they’d had about her stripping came back to her, and she stopped
straining against him. They didn’t have condoms, and the reason
neither one of them had brought anything was because
she
shouldn’t be having sex with him
.

Every cell of her body was primed for him,
desperate to continue what they’d been doing. But her instinct for
self-preservation was stronger.

She pressed both hands to his chest. “Stop. I
can’t do this.”

Jason froze above her, panting, his whole
body rigid, as if it took incredible will not to move. She couldn’t
see his eyes, could only hear his breath rasping above her, and for
a moment she felt like whatever had been howling outside had found
its way in and now hovered above her.

He was silent so long, she began to wonder if
she should say something. Was he so angry he couldn’t manage to
speak to her? Finally he stood up and yanked his boxers back into
place.

“Shit.”

“I’m sorry,” she said, sitting up, crossing
her arms over her chest. “I didn’t–”

“Please don’t apologize. Just give me a
second.”

Neither of them spoke, and the tent filled
with the sounds of their breathing.

“On second thought, I’ll be right back.”