The Possibilities - Desire - A Collection of Short Stories (10 page)

“I…came to see Staff Sergeant Sawyer
Burns…or at least talk to him.  The house I’m looking at belongs to
Sergeant Burns and the number I got from the Probate Court comes back to an
Avery Burns at this address.”  She felt like a stammering child.

“I’m Sawyer Burns,” he said, “Avery
was my father.  He passed away a few months ago.”  It looked as if he
wanted to say more, but his mouth snapped shut as if he had bitten the words
off before they could get out.

“The house I’m talking about…” she
started.

He interrupted her.  “The lake
house, I really hadn’t thought about selling that one.  How did you find
out about it?” She told him, leaving out the part about skinny dipping. 
He was fascinated that she was a rider.

“I would have thought you’d know I
was a biker after the other night,” Gillian said. It was enough to break the
ice, and he began to talk with her; both of them being hooked on Harley
Softails was just the connection it took to animate him. They talked for more
than an hour, first discussing the merits of their bikes, and progressing
through the death of his father and his return home to deal with the
estate.  She badly wanted to ask him what had happened to his eye, but she
instinctively knew that she had already gone further than he had intended. They
agreed to ride out to the house together so that he could show her the inside
on the following Saturday, and Gillian was ecstatic.

“I did a little checking for you,”
Cindy told her, giving her a ballpark figure.  “I could get in touch with
him for you if you’d like…” she left it hanging, begging silently for
information.

“You don’t have to,” Gillian said
airily, “I’m going out Saturday with him for a ride and a look at it.” 
She knew her friend was dying for the details, but she was going to make the
little gossip work for them.   Gillian giggled to herself, holding
her hand tightly over the mouthpiece.  It was a game they had played
together many times, most often with Gillian as the curious party and Cindy
enjoying parceling out the meager facts, hinting and embellishing as she went.

“You be careful out there, you don’t
know this guy…”

“I know him well enough to go riding
with him Cindy…what the hell, I can leave the key in the Harley in case I need
to make a quick getaway.”  There was a silence on the line.  “Come on
Cindy,” Gillian said, “I’ll be fine.”

INTIMATE
DISCLOSURE

Saturday
was a grand day for a ride.  Gillian was dressed a little more
conservatively for this ride than she had dressed for the last one.  She
wore her leather vest again, but this time she wore a tee shirt beneath
it.  The low rise jeans had been replaced with her regular jeans, and she
still wore her low boots.  Her hair was braided into a pigtail that hung
to the base of her neck.

She
had cleaned and polished the Harley after the last ride, but she spent the
early hours wiping it down with a soft cloth.  Sitting down on her front
porch with a strong cup of her favorite coffee blend, she savored the strong
liquid while she admired her handiwork.  Her handsome neighbor was taking
out the trash, and he smiled and waved at her.  On his way back to his
house, he looked as if he wanted to talk, but as soon as he glanced Gillian’s
way the strident voice of his young wife called out to him…she wanted him to
stop “dawdling.”

With
a cheery grin, Gillian waved and put on her fingerless gloves, striding out to
the shiny dark purple over white Harley and starting up.  As always, the
throbbing vibration of the big V-twin set her hormones on ‘active’, and the
warm sun on her face pleased her. In a moment she was cruising down the street
towards Sawyer’s house (she rolled the name around on her tongue, liking the
feel of it…Sawyer.) She found herself looking forward to seeing him
again.  He had seemed a little scary at first, because of his silence and
that intimidating eye patch…and his total lack of fear when facing that monster
in the bar.  After talking with him at his home, and getting to know the
tiniest bit about him, she had decided that the eye patch gave him kind of a
rakish look.  As for being scary, all really attractive men needed just a
touch of the bad by in him…it was part of the attraction.

Before
the Harley was even warmed up, she arrived at the neat, orderly house that had
belonged to Sawyer’s dad.  She noted approvingly that all the painting
equipment had been put away and that his Harley was sitting polished and ready
in the driveway.  Sawyer came out the door of the house grinning, two
steaming mugs of coffee in his hand.  “I hope you like the dark blends,”
he said, handing her one of the mugs.  “I didn’t think to ask,” he said,
“do you take cream and sugar?”

“Not
unless this climbs out of the cup and slaps my face,” Gillian giggled.

“It’s
pretty strong,” Sawyer told her, watching her face as she sipped.

It
was wonderful coffee, she had known from the aroma before she sipped from the
hot mug…it was the same brand as her own.  “Delicious!” she
pronounced.  They sat on his front steps sipping their coffee, slipping
into the easy rapport they had developed earlier, and it seemed as if they had
been friends forever.  Sawyer began to tell her about his father and the
lake house.

“My
mother and my sisters never wanted
to go there,” he said.  “Dad
used to take me up there every time he had a free weekend to fish.  He
loved freshwater fishing and he kept that little john boat in immaculate
condition.  We even went up for a couple of weeks in the summer and
stayed.”  Sawyer’s face darkened.  “That’s where we were when the
Sheriff came out to tell us mom and the girls had been killed in a car
wreck.  Some asshole in a dump truck ran a red light and took out the
station wagon.  They never knew what hit them.”

Gillian
was speechless.  She knew there was nothing she could say to make
something so horrible any better.  Sawyer seemed to appreciate her
silence, and he continued his story.  “I was fifteen then, and dad never
seemed to want to go back after that.  Oh, we’d go up and do the
maintenance on it…but as soon as I got my license I did it all.  When I
enlisted, I guess he hired someone to keep it up.”

“What
did you do in the Army?” she asked timidly, her curiosity about his missing eye
killing her.

He
rubbed the patch self consciously.  “You’re wondering about the eye, huh?”

Gillian
reddened, but admitted it.

He
grinned.  “I was attacked by a bird,” he said.  “I’ll tell you about
it out at the lake house,” he told her, taking the empty coffee cups and
carrying them inside.

The
two bikes looked and sounded good together on the road, both riders quickly
developing the trust in each other it took to ride side by side in
traffic.  The sweeping curves of the lake road were exhilarating, as was
the wind in her face, and the fifty minute ride was over too soon for her. They
turned into the honeysuckle smelling Spanish moss hung corridor and drove along
slowly in first gear. To Gillian, the place seemed magical.  They reached
the driveway and pulled in, and Gillian noticed that he had been here. 
The porch, columns, door, and shutters had all been painted, and he had
transplanted some of the honeysuckle into large concrete planters on either
side of the porch.  “I love the smell,” he said, shrugging.  Gillian
adored the smell of honeysuckle.

The
house was simple, three bedroom one bath floor plan, characterized most by its
neatness.  The furnishings were old but in good repair, and startlingly
clean. Gillian was awed and she said so.  “Dad wouldn’t have wanted it any
other way,” Sawyer said.  He didn’t cry, but his good eye took on a
faraway look and Gillian knew he was remembering his father.

They
were sitting on the end of the dock, having left their boots on the porch as
well as Gillian’s leather vest…the sun was high and there was little
wind.  The heat was bringing beads of sweat up in the small valley between
her breasts, and she noticed that Sawyer’s brow was beading up as well. The
cool water looked inviting, but she was afraid to come right out and ask him to
go skinny dipping…not that she didn’t want to. She had already decided that she
wanted him.

“I
was doing a free fall from thirty thousand feet,” he said.  “My squad had
been inserted into the desert by night.  We were on a covert mission,
something that required hands on verification before taking it out…and of
course, why waste rockets when you have a squad of Rangers with boots on the
ground?  We turned off the resuscitators at twelve thousand feet, and I
had just cleared the fog from my lenses when a large black bird of some kind,
(we never found it) caught my in the face mask.  When I came to, I was on
my back and my buddies were packing the eye with gauze and covering it with a
field bandage.  The medic slipped me a quarter of a dose of morphine, and
I went along on the mission with them…I just stayed at the last rally point
with the medic while the guys completed the mission.”  Sawyer’s good eye
was again far away as he recited his story.  He didn’t bother telling her
about the hell of humping a hundred odd pound rucksack across the desert 
in the miserable heat with broken glass in his eye.  It was not a pleasant
memory.  He stood up quickly and shucked off his jeans and tee shirt,
diving into the cool water in his briefs.

He
came up spluttering.  “Jesus I’m sorry,” he said, “I didn’t even think…”

Gillian
was already standing, her tee shirt and jeans falling to the dock as she dove
into the water.  She hadn’t been wearing a bra, and Sawyer’s good eye
widened as she took off her shirt.  Gillian smiled inwardly. When she came
up spluttering and laughing, he joined her.  “I’ve been sitting there
wanting to do that for an hour,” she said.

“Why
didn’t you say something?” he said.

“I
didn’t know how you’d react,” she said softly, moving closer to stand in front
of him in the shallow water.”  He was breathing heavily and she could see
the front of his white briefs jutting out in front of him.  She’d had more
than her fill of false modesty, and she wrapped her arms around his neck and
pulled herself closer to him.  Her breasts pressed against his chest, her
hard nipples crushed deliciously between them.  Her lips parted under his,
searching and demanding, drawing him into her like a hummingbird in the wild
honeysuckle.  She could feel the maleness of him, pressed tightly against
her hard flat belly, and a ball of heat began to build beneath her navel. 
His kiss was soft, and he refused to rush.  Gillian’s slender legs had
lifted of their own volition and her heels had locked around his narrow waist
at the small of his back. The thin, wispy panties that she wore might just as
well have not been there at all.

His
lips and tongue slowly sought out the places that cried out for them, behind
her ears, down her neck to the hollow of her throat.  The world was frozen
in place for Gillian, there was only her and Sawyer and nothing else.  She
wanted him desperately, and the motion of her hips left no lingering doubt in
Sawyer’s mind.  Maddeningly, as forward as she was, he refused to
hurry.  He seemed to be devouring her slowly…and she loved it.

Gillian
was no novice at sex, she had been down that road many times, and she truly
enjoyed it.  What was happening to her now was not just sex, and she was
intimately aware of the difference.  What other men had gradually been
able to bring her to, Sawyer was starting at that point.  Her pulse rate
was soaring as was her spirit.  She urged him onwards, her hands and hips
sending frantic messages, but still he refused to hurry.  Gillian was
drowning in their mingled desire.

When
he lowered his mouth to her breasts, she saw the stars in broad daylight, and
she was beyond amazement at the sensations he was creating in the body she had
believed she knew well.  Moments later, as he finally, and incredibly
slowly, gave her what she had been craving all along, she learned all over
again. There were no words to describe what she felt…she only knew that she wanted
more.

They
lay side by side on the wooden dock, the sun gently drying their bare
skin.  Their faces were side by side as well, their lips touching
softly.  “You
know
you’ve started something,” he said quietly,
rolling up on his side so that he could take in her loveliness.”

“Me?”
she said teasingly, knowing he was enjoying the sight of her and rolling onto
her back to make it easier for him to look at her.  She couldn’t stand
teasing him anymore, even in jest.  Her hand went to his firm jaw and
traced a line to his soft lips.  “You finished it,” she whispered.

“Nope,”
he grinned, “I don’t want to ever finish it, I want this to go on forever…”

“Can
we live here?” Gillian asked him.  She knew as she asked him that it
wouldn’t be forever, but she was willing to settle for what she could
get. 
          

I am a mom and I live
in Central Texas.
 
I really enjoy reading
fiction, anything from romance novels, both historical and modern, to crime
dramas as long as they have some element of romance and humor.
  
I prefer reading while sitting in a beach
chair with my toes in the sand and a beer or two in the cooler.