Let Me Count The Ways (23 page)

I took my time as I worked my way up his shaft, licking and nibbling, drawing it out, making it last. Pressing closer and closer until I felt my breasts brush against him, teasing him, teasing us both.

Since he’d released my arm, he hadn’t moved once, and I wouldn’t ask him to. But, oh, how I longed to feel his hands moving over me now. To feel them hard on my breasts, kneading and squeezing. To feel them reach between my legs and stroke my pussy.

Finally I reached the top of his shaft. I rubbed my lips against his cock’s swollen, purple head, flicked my tongue along the ridge, nibbled at his frenulum. The rasp of his breath would have kept me apprised of his rising excitement, even without the drops of pre-cum leaking from his slit. I licked them up, one by one, treasuring the taste, swirling my tongue around his crown, hoping for more and yet more.

A quick glance at his face assured me he was watching, half-closed eyes focused hotly on my face. I opened my mouth wider. His own mouth gaped open in unconscious imitation. Then I wrapped my lips around his cock and slowly, slowly, inch by inch, swallowed the length of him down.

I loved the feel of him stretching and filling my mouth and throat. Loved the salty-sweet taste of him. Loved the ragged intake of his breath and my name on his lips. “Claire.”

Down and down my mouth moved over him, until my lips brushed against the hair at the base of his shaft. Another groan escaped him as I slid slowly back up, releasing him inch by inch. Then I canted my head to the side and took him again. And again. Closing my eyes as I settled into a steady rhythm--in and out, up and down, over and over. I’d braced myself with one hand on his thigh. My other hand grasped his sac and softly milked it.

“Claire.” Mike’s voice was harsh but his hand, as it stroked and tangled in my hair, was gentle, “Oh, Claire.”

Yes,
I thought happily as I felt the faint trembling in his legs, felt his fingers as they clenched on my scalp.
Yes. You want me. You know you want me.
I sucked harder, letting him feel the edge of my teeth along his shaft.
Let me have you, all of you, now.

He broke suddenly, filling my mouth with cum. I swallowed and swallowed and swallowed again.

Then his hand slid out of my hair and he collapsed backwards. He lay on the bed, not saying a word. I ignored the faint sense of disappointment I felt when I raised my head and found he’d drawn his arm across his face, covering his eyes. I felt like he was closing me out, shutting the door on his heart.

Would he even object if I got dressed now and left? Would he even notice?

I got up and turned down the bed, prodding and nudging him until he got under the covers. Then I turned off the lights and got into bed beside him.

If he doesn’t want me here, he can damn well tell me to leave
, I thought feeling angry now.
And maybe I’ll listen. Or maybe I won’t.

I curled up against him hesitantly, half expecting to be rebuffed. Instead he reached for me and pulled me to him, holding me tight, kissing me desperately. Hs hands roved everywhere, hot and urgent, as though he were attempting to commit my body to memory.

Maybe he is
, I thought sadly as I pressed closer.
Maybe he knows this is the last time we’ll be together like this. Maybe, tomorrow, everything will change, everything will be different. Everything will be lost.

Maybe. But that’s tomorrow. We still have tonight...

Tonight, there would be no games, no resistance and no conversation. I think I missed that the most as I let him take me slowly to the edge and over. But he didn’t stop then, either. He continued to touch and stroke and fondle me until I was once again trembling on the brink. Then he rolled me beneath him and slid between my legs. His cock was hard again, thick and solid. “Good. So good. So good,” I moaned as I curled into him, biting gently into his shoulder as he thrust into my wet and willing pussy.

We came together in a rush; in a white hot explosion that had my nails digging into his shoulders, his fingers biting into my hips. And then... he was gone. Rolling off of me with a final whispered, “Claire,” but without so much as a single kiss, and well before the aftershocks had ended. I think he was asleep before his head even reached the pillow. I lingered on the edge of consciousness only a little longer myself; floating on a soft wave of ecstasy and regret. I missed him already.

Through the crack in the curtains I could see the sky. Night had already begun to fade to gray. Morning would come too soon. I closed my eyes and curled up against Mike once more, clinging to what was left of the night, to the shadows that surrounded us, to my hopes for tomorrow. And, most of all, to him.

Mike

Despite the exertion of the night before, and the exhaustion of the two days before that, I woke up early. Too early, if the aching in my bones and joints and muscles, or the weariness in my mind, were anything to go by. I suppose the smartest thing I could have done, at that point, was to stay in bed, to rest if I couldn’t sleep. But I was too anxious, too impatient for that option.

If I were alone, I’d have gone ahead and checked out. I wanted desperately to be home. Not that I knew if I even had a home anymore.

The next smartest thing would have been to wake Claire up and make love to her again. With any luck, I could have tired myself out enough to fall back asleep for another couple of hours. But considering how badly things had turned out the last time I’d tried something like that... maybe not such a smart choice, after all.

The worst option--short of stealing her car and leaving her stranded here, I suppose--would be to get up, to wait by the window, and watch while the sun rose. To sit alone in the dark and think about everything that had gone wrong, everything that still might go wrong. To dwell on my worries, my fears, my regrets.

So, of course, that’s precisely what I did.

I drew up a chair, pulled the curtains aside and sat down. All was gray--sand, sea, sky--glistening darkly, wet with dew, with fog, with salt-spray; beautiful and bleak.

It had been sweet of Claire to try and console me, to try and make me believe that things would turn out okay. But that kind of faith had been damn hard to sustain last night, for even a short while. Now, in the cold, dim, pre-dawn light, it was completely beyond me.

Zoe’s fate, and the fate of my house, were a
fait accompli
, at this point. There was nothing I could do about either of them now but wait and see. And the situation with Claire, which should have been dwarfed by the rest, not even a blip on my radar, loomed instead like a vast, unsolvable puzzle, defeating all my attempts to grasp either its secret or its solution.

It had been clear from the way she’d run out on me Saturday morning that I’d screwed up somehow. What still wasn’t clear was what it was I’d done wrong. How had I upset her?

Whatever it was, I knew I’d only made things worse by chasing after her. I had taken a bad, but potentially fixable situation, made it worse by acting precipitously, and then turned the whole thing into a full-on disaster, yesterday, by admitting my mistakes.

It seemed hopeless. I knew Claire cared for me. But would she ever care
enough?
Would she ever give us a chance to settle our differences? Could we ever reach a resolution that would satisfy us both?

I knew what wouldn’t work: going back to the way things had been. We’d fucked that up too good. We were both finally in agreement on that count.

Last night I’d been worn down, exhausted, weak. I’d let her make love to me out of pity--I was sure it was that, more than anything else, that had motivated her. But, fool though I was for her, I did have some pride and I would
not
let it happen again. Unless, or until, she convinced me she’d had a change of heart, that she wanted me as more than a friend, there’d be no repeat performance. No more sex, no more dating, no more anything.

“What time is it?” Claire asked in a soft, sleepy voice.

“It’s still early,” I said, turning to look at her. A thin strip of daylight had slipped into the room through the gap I’d put in the curtains. It fell right across the pillow where her head had lain. I guess I should have felt guilty at having disturbed her sleep, but I was full-up with guilt already. “I’m anxious to get going though. Do you mind if we leave?”

She said nothing for a moment, then nodded. “Give me a minute,” she said as she threw back the covers.

I tried not to watch as she headed for the bathroom, tried not to pay too much attention to the way the silky fabric of her gown clung to her figure. I failed. I guess some things never change.

“Do we have time for coffee?” she asked, stopping to indicate the coffee maker set up on the vanity outside the bathroom.

I shrugged. “If you’d like.” Then I shook my head as she picked up the carafe. “No, leave it. I’ll make it while you dress.”

But as she disappeared into the bathroom, I turned back to the window, wondering if I wasn’t making yet another mistake. I had no idea what we’d find in the canyon today--anything from a miracle to total devastation was possible. If it was the former, my joy would be that much sweeter with her there to share it. But though I’d need her presence even more in case of the latter, I wanted to shield her from it too. I guess I wanted to shield us both, since I knew nothing would break me faster than the horror in Claire’s eyes if... if...

“Are we keeping the room?”

“What?” I turned, rubbing my eyes to clear my vision, chagrined to realize Claire was already dressed and I’d made no move toward the coffee maker.

At any other time, I would have appreciated her performance. She didn’t cast so much as a single glance in its direction, she just smiled serenely, not a care in the world. “Well, I’m sure it’ll be days, at least, before the power’s restored in the canyon. And this place is convenient, if nothing else.”

“Let’s just go,” I answered, ignoring all the questions, spoken and unspoken. I had no answer to any of them this morning.

The day was treacherous in its normalcy, deceptively bright and beautiful until we neared the canyon where haze and the smell of burning hung in the still air. I felt my chest start to tighten.

“Wait,” I said as we passed my car, parked by the side of the road.

Claire slowed. “Did you want to stop and pick up your car?” she asked.

“Yes,” I told her then, “No,” then, “I’m not sure.”

She pulled over and stopped while I thought about it. Even if I still had a house, she’d been right about the utilities. It might be days, weeks, even months before they were fully restored. It would be at least a few days until I could stay here. “No,” I sighed at last. “I’ll come back for it.” Claire nodded and pulled back on the road.

We had to stop and show ID before proceeding into the canyon. Only residents were being allowed in, to prevent looting. I took the fact that someone thought there might be anything left to loot as a good sign and tried to cheer up. It was hard to maintain any kind of optimism as we passed through once lush terrain that was now as barren as the moon. So much that had been familiar had been destroyed. But not everything was burned and, now and again, we passed houses--sometimes one, sometimes a cluster of two or three or four--that had survived seemingly unscathed.

“Look, there’s another one,” Claire said, pointing out another small grouping. I nodded and tried not to think about the odds.

Just before we reached the point where my property should be visible, I tensed in my seat. Claire took one hand from the wheel to briefly squeeze mine. A moment later... there it was. It took my eyes a second or so to adjust to the sight, it took my brain a little longer than that to process the scene before me.

“Oh.” Claire’s soft gasp sounded dismayed. “Oh, Mike...”

Well, what was she expecting? I wondered, staring, taking it all in, trying to grasp what I was seeing and put it in perspective, somehow. It was... not as bad as it could have been, I guess. I let out a deep sigh of something. Relief? Resignation? Regret? I was too numb to decide.

The hundreds, or perhaps thousands, of gallons of water that had been dumped on the property had not landed gently. Not that I was complaining, you understand, but it’s called water bombing for a reason, and, this morning, that reason was abundantly clear. The landscaping was an almost total loss, several trees had come down, along with part of the stone wall that had bordered my garden.

Part of the roof had collapsed, including the chimney, but considering the scorched vegetation all around, it appeared the helicopters had arrived just in time, had prevented the structure itself from going up in flames.

“I’m going to park here,” Claire said as she pulled up on the shoulder. She nodded toward the drive. “I’m not sure I trust my tires on that.”

“I sure wouldn’t,” I sighed. The drive leading up to my house was not exactly drive-able, at present.

I got out of the car and stood for a moment, surveying the mess. Claire came to stand beside me. “Well? Are we going in?” she asked.

I nodded, then happened to glance down at her feet. She was wearing a pair of sneakers today--bright white, spotlessly clean. “You’re gonna ruin those too, you know.”

Claire slanted me an exasperated look. “Well, gee, I’m sorry. Next time you have a fire, I’ll be sure to pack more appropriately.”

Next time? Did that mean she planned on being here? “Next time I have a fire...” I growled, then I stopped myself. “There’s not gonna be a next time.” I sincerely hoped not, anyway.

Claire winced and nodded. “I know. Sorry. My mouth again.”

“C’mon,” I said, starting toward the house, feeling wretched. She’d had no breakfast--no coffee, even, thanks to me--and not a lot of sleep. And here I was snapping at her. I was definitely not winning any points today. Not that it mattered, I supposed.

The front door was blocked by debris--tree limbs, shingles, bricks from the chimney. We weren’t getting in that way. I had taken my keys out--acting on instinct, I guess. Now I returned them to my pocket, feeling stupid.