Okay, I totally picked A River Runs Through It to get Lucy’s goat. But I’m learning that with Lucy, everything I do to get under her skin comes back to bite me in the ass.
In this case, it’s the maddeningly slow pace of the movie. The long, contemplative fly-fishing scenes, the dialogue with stories unfolding at the same pace.
It leaves me immense stretches of time to be hyper-aware of Lucy.
She’s sitting close enough that I can smell the floral of her shampoo and feel the warmth of her body. Her thigh is not quite close enough to touch mine, but in some ways that’s worse. I want it to touch mine. I want it like I want my next breath.
I edge my thigh closer and closer to hers. And I think she’s doing the same, because the gap is definitely narrowing.
In a quiet moment, I hear her breathing.
It’s ragged.
So is mine.
“Lucy,” I say.
“Mmm-hmm?”
She turns to look at me.
I reach for her, sliding one hand behind her head, her silky ponytail slipping between my fingers, the smoothness of her hair against my palm. She makes a surprised needy sound that shoots straight to my balls. I cup the back of her head and guide her face to mine. Just before our lips touch, she whimpers, and I lose control. I let myself take her mouth, not gently. I plunder her. I lick into her. I slide my tongue against hers. And I consume all the little noises she makes, the hmmms and whimpers and pleas. She consumes me right back. Not at all restrained, not at all polished. Hungry and messy and real. Her hands are in my hair. On my face, curling around my ears, my jaw, insinuating themselves into the kiss itself, so I’m kissing her lips and sucking her fingers at the same time. She cries out when I do that, and my cock surges hard against the restraint of my jeans. I glide my fingertips down her throat, finding the vee of her shirt. I tug it down and slide a hand against the satin of her bare chest, still kissing her desperately.
She pulls away, breathless. “Oh my God. This is—crazy.”
“Crazy—bad?”
“Crazy good.”
We’re both panting. Even in the mostly-dark, the flickering glow of the screen, I can see how red her lips are, soft and open, the bottom one still inviting me back.
“Lucy—”
I can tell she thinks I’m going to call a halt. She bites her lip and looks uncertain. I don’t want to stop. But I want her to understand how it is in my world, so there aren’t any misunderstandings.
“I’ve wanted you since that first night.”
Something shines in her eyes in the flickering light thrown off by the TV screen.
“If I hadn’t found out who you were, and if you’d let me, I would have fucked you.”
A tiny sound escapes her parted lips.
“You okay with that word?”
She nods, big-eyed. She’s more than okay with it, I realize.
“You like it.”
“Yes,” she whispers.
I file that away, my cock swelling hard where it’s trapped against my fly. I hope I don’t have to file it away for too long, because I love the idea of talking dirty to Lucy. I love the idea that Lucy, of the buttoned-up clothes and the neat hair and makeup, the smart plans and the rehearsed speeches, might fall apart to my words.
But I have this thing I need to say, still.
“I wanted to fuck you that night, but then I found out who you were, and it felt like it would be way too complicated. And I don’t do complicated, and I don’t do relationships.”
“I don’t either,” she says. “I don’t do either of those things. So that’s good, right? We’re in heated agreement on that point.”
She reaches up, pulls out the ponytail, and for a hopeful moment, I think she’s taking her hair down for me. Moving us forward. Then she wraps her hair in a tight bun and secures it with the elastic. Locking it down. Taking all the swerve out, all the possible mess.
She’s shutting us down.
I was only trying to say that I still wanted her. To let her know that I could deal with a little bit of complicated if it meant getting to follow that insane, hungry kiss where it was leading us.
I’m not sure how much longer I can stand jerking off in the shower and craving her every minute of every day.
I want to reach out and yank the elastic out of her hair. Cup her head and lower my mouth over hers. Feel that wet heat and her fiery, needy response, go where it takes us. And I know where it would take us.
It would take us both there so fast, I’m not sure either of us would know what had hit us.
That thought finally snaps me back to rational thinking.
There’s a reason I don’t do complicated. I don’t do relationships. I don’t do this, this… out of control lust. I don’t do anything except tourists who are leaving town in the next few days and women I’ve known for years, who want nothing from me and have just about that much of themselves to give. It’s because the last time I did, I got my heart broken and it hurt worse than the one time I took buckshot in the bare calf—and for a hell of a lot longer. And I don’t think any sex, no matter how good, is worth the risk of that again.
So what about Lucy makes me want to break those rules?
What about Lucy makes me want to argue with her? To tell her that this isn’t crazy, it’s the sanest thing I’ve done in years. To tell her it’s not confusing, it’s simple, the equation of wanting each other this bad. To tell her it’s not complicated in the slightest: We just need to get it out of our systems.
I don’t though. I don’t argue. I lean back on the couch and let my breathing slow down. I let my erection, which was straining at my fly, subside. I let Robert Redford’s Montana landscape and the peace and quiet of the river wash over me.
But I’m listening. To see how long it takes her breathing to slow down.
And I can’t stop feeling her, warm and alive next to me.
Or smelling her. Her arousal, salty and beckoning and so, so much more real and fierce than all the florals that she wraps around herself.
I’m not watching the movie.
I don’t think she is either.
I corner Lucy after work the following Tuesday. She hasn’t been around as much the last few days. She finished asking us the questions she needed to ask, and she’s been out and about, visiting the hot springs, spas, and wedding venues, and trying to get the lay of the land. Maybe gearing up for the next outdoor adventure we push on her.
I’m in awe of how thorough she is. She wasn’t kidding when she said she wasn’t going to make recommendations without understanding our business and the market first.
But right now I’m worried about another aspect of her research—Clark’s survival trip, which we’re joining this weekend. She still doesn’t have the clothes she needs.
She’s been re-breaking in Hanna’s hikers since the fishing trip Friday, wearing them around the office. Which is hilarious, because she hasn’t changed anything else about the way she dresses. Today she’s wearing high waisted, slim-fitting cream-colored pants, a copper-colored tank top, and a cream blazer. The hikers are completely incongruous.
But scratch the word “hilarious,” because there’s actually nothing funny about Lucy’s outfit today. She took her blazer off at lunch because Amanda’s chili was blazing hot—temperature and spice-level—and we were all sweating. That left her shoulders and arms bare. The tank itself was just a scrap of silk. If you’d slipped those spaghetti straps off her shoulders, the whole thing would puddle at her waist. Or on the floor.
And, when she stood up to go to the restroom, I noted no panty lines under her cream-colored pants.
So of course I can’t stop wondering: thong? Or nothing at all?
I set this question aside and tell her what’s on my mind:
“We need to get you clothes for this weekend.”
She raises her eyebrows, then looks down at her outfit. “I was planning to wear this.”
“I wouldn’t put it past you.”
“I know you wouldn’t.” She grins at me, and I can’t help it; I grin back.
“I’ll drive you into town. You can get stuff at Krandall’s.”
“Sometimes, Gabe, we ask people what they want. Like, ‘Lucy, would you like me to drive you into town? Krandall’s is a great place to shop, if you’re interested.’”
“Sometimes we do,” I agree. “But in this situation, it’s a safety issue. You need clothes that are going to protect you from the elements.”
“In May.”
People make this mistake all the time. “Closest I’ve ever come to dying was in May,” I say. “People think it’s safe because it’s spring, but the nighttime temps are brutal, and you can always get wet or even just sweaty and bam, you’re hypothermic.”
This time, she doesn’t gripe at me about how I’m not selling the trip well. She says, “Okay, let’s not do that. I have no desire to get close to dying.”
That decided, she follows me to the Jeep and we head into town.
As we approach the shops, she’s gazing out the window and I wonder, again, what she sees. It’s been a decade since I set foot in New York, and all I have left are vague impressions—speed, noise, smells, and steel-and-glass. We must seem slow as molasses to Lucy, with our one- and two-story buildings. And maybe a little old-fashioned, too, with the flower barrels and railed saloon porches and gas lamps.
“What do you think of Rush Creek?” I ask, without meaning to.
“Hmm,” she says. “You know? I think I like it. And I like the old and the new. I know I’m an outsider, so I don’t feel the history the way you do. But I like the rugged West meets lavender sachet vibe.”
For some reason, that makes me smile.
In Krandall’s I explain what she’ll need: at least two base layers like the one Hanna lent her the other day, top and bottom, wool socks, a wool hat, wool gloves. “We’ve got enough outer layers between us to get you set for that. But you’ll need a pair of hiking pants. Unless you want to wear those.”
We both look down at those creamy slacks of hers. Our eyes meet on the return trip, and she looks away, but not before she blushes. I may have given away how hot I think she looks in that outfit.
I leave her to her shopping and strike up a conversation with Joe Kahn, Krandall’s current owner. He’s the guy who called to me the night Lucy and I were saving the ducklings, the one who asked who my friend was. He raises his eyebrows in her direction, but keeps his mouth shut on the subject. I ask him how business has been, both of us knowing I mean in the New Rush Creek.
He shrugs. “I’m getting used to it, man. It takes a while, but I’m figuring it out. Once upon a time you could outfit yourself for a real trip here. Now if I keep all that stuff in stock, I’ll be out of business in ten minutes. People have to haul it to Bend and go to REI. But you can get yourself a hell of a bikini, and a variety of massage oils.”
“Do you hate it?” I ask.
He shakes his head. “I like that there’s more money coming in now than there was. More tourists, more tourists with money. And to be honest, I actually am enjoying the variety we can carry now. I was stubborn, Gabe. Took me too long to accept that things had changed. I almost lost the store.”
I sigh. “Those words could be coming out of my mouth.”
“Most any of ours here in town. That your girlfriend?” he asks, curious. Because even Joe Kahn, who’s little more than a friendly acquaintance, knows “girlfriend” is not a Gabriel Wilder thing.
I explain about Lucy, and he says, “That so? I could use a chat with her.”
“I’ll let her know you’re interested.”
His gaze skirts me and settles. “Well, well, well,” he murmurs.
“Shut it, Joe,” I say, because friendly acquaintance or no, this is Lucy we’re talking about. I turn to check her out.
Lucy, I learn, can make hiking pants look good. These ones are gathered up the side seams and snug in the ass and thighs. And she’s wearing them with a cranberry-colored base-layer half-zip that is molded to her tits. Which would be heart-stopping under any circumstances, but I can see the lace of her bra through it, and something about that, about Lucy in lace and base, goes straight to my cock.
I push off from the front counter and stalk toward her.
She takes a quick step backward, and I wonder what exactly she sees. If the expression on my face contains half the hunger I feel for her. I follow her to the back of the store. The fitting rooms are behind a divider wall, and I chase her to where we’re out of view of Joe.
“What?” she demands. “Do I look like a total poser?”
“You look fucking hot.”
She giggles. Actually giggles.
“Jesus, Lucy, do I look like I’m kidding?”
She takes in my face, and then her gaze drops and she surveys the rest of me.
“No,” she says quietly. “You don’t.”
I spin us into the fitting room, pull the door shut behind us, back her up against the wall, and kiss her. Her mouth is ready, willing, and eager, her tongue licking into my mouth and driving me wild. Her hands clutch at my hair, my clothes. She rubs herself against me, her sex hot through the hiking pants, against the thick muscle of my thigh, so, so good. She whimpers and pulls my head down, clutching me, pressing her breasts into my chest. I’m so hard it hurts, my cock throbbing against her belly. I drop a hand between her legs, cupping the heat, and she hikes her hips against it.
I could get her off like this. Here. In the dressing room. Watch her fall apart, practically in public.
Except I’m pretty sure she’d take me with her.
We pull apart at almost the same moment, stepping back. Eyes on each other’s faces.
“God,” she says. “We have almost no self-control when it comes to each other.”
I like that she says it like that. Not a question and including both of us. We’re in this together, and I like that she knows it.
“No,” I agree. “We really don’t.”
She glances down at her clothes. “Well,” she says. “I guess I’m buying the hiking pants.”