Cabin Fever Ch. 02

Realizing he was completely serious, Ginny moved uneasily at his side.

"Chase, I think it's too soon to talk about this right now," she said. In her mind, she was thinking that he was simply caught up in the moment. He didn't realize what he was saying. He would change his mind tomorrow when the rescuers arrived and then he would regret this entire conversation.

"No," Chase disagreed firmly. "This may be my only real chance to talk about this with you. As soon as you get home to John, you may change your mind. I want you to know that you don't have to go back to living that way. You can live with me, Ginny. Not now, not at my parents'," he acknowledged. "But when I get my own place in Denver, I want you there with me."

"Chase," she whispered, stunned by his proposal. "You don't know what you're saying. You're so young. You're starting over. You don't need someone like me hanging on, pulling you down."

"Someone like you?" he retorted caustically. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"It means I'm forty-six years old and I know what people think. You want to start your own business, entertain clients. What do you suppose they're going to be thinking when you introduce me to them as anything other than your assistant? They're going to think you're whack. You don't need that."

"I don't care what they think."

"You will," she said. "You will very much care what they think when your paycheck depends on it."

"Who I live with is no one's business," he said resolutely. "People don't think that way anymore, Ginny. They stay out of each other's private lives. They have to. Business would never get done if people judged each other the way they did twenty years ago."

"Well, then that just shows you how out of the loop I am."

He pulled her against him. "I don't think you're out of the loop. I think you're trying to protect me. But I don't want to be protected, Ginny. I plan on going after some big fish and what I really need from you is your unflagging support. I trust you, Ginny, more than any other person in my life. I need you to be there for me, just as I want to be there for you."

His hand swept the hair back from her forehead and he looked longingly down into her blue-green eyes. Despite their lovemaking, he could still sense the fragility of her feelings for him. She was a paradox, at one moment strong in her convictions of right and wrong, at the next, stepping timidly forward, afraid to do anything that might upset everyone else's lives.

"I don't want to mess things up for you," she said, gazing up into the depths of his dark brown eyes. "And I don't want to be hurt."

"I know. I understand," he said with conviction.

He wanted to add that he would do everything in his power to take care of her, but he knew that such a statement would only serve to make her feel more uneasy.

For a long while they stared into the fire together. Chase eventually went back outside to shovel newly accumulated snow away from the backdoor. When he returned, Ginny was nestled down on the mattress, the sleeping bag over her as she laid on her side to stare into the fire.

He settled down beside her, drawing her against him. Spooning with her in front of a fire was his new favorite thing to do. He closed his eyes and quickly fell asleep.

When he awoke the fire had died down considerably. He put on another log and walked silently to the bathroom to urinate. He glanced at his wristwatch. It was four in the morning.

He remembered a time several years earlier when he'd been staying at Ginny and John's for the summer while his parents were overseas, and he'd awoken at exactly four in the morning having to pee. He'd done his business and washed his hands, then noticed Ginny's panties lying in the hamper. It hadn't been a fetish of his until that moment, and forever afterwards he'd feared she thought him some kind of pervert. But the sight of her panties had aroused him and he'd picked them up and started stroking himself with them. He'd closed the door at first and locked it, but even after he'd stripped naked the stuffiness of the small bathroom had overcome him and he'd eventually opened the door to let in a little air, cutting off the light just in case someone stumbled by.

When Ginny had turned on the light and seen him, some part of his brain had convinced him that she wasn't real. Even as he'd watched the saliva pool on her lips and drop to the floor, he still hadn't grasped the fact that she was really there, staring at his dick covered in her body lotion. Not until she'd said, "Sorry," and whirled away from him had he grasped her very real presence, and then he'd come, not from any additional pressure on his penis, but from having simply seen her face.

As he walked back into the living room and looked down at the sleeping profile glowing in the firelight, the longing came back to him as fiercely as it had then. His cock was already growing stiff as he lay down beside her. Ever so gently he kissed the side of her neck, leaving his lips against her skin long enough to feel her pulse thumbing through her artery. She didn't stir. He pushed the sleeping bag down to the end of the mattress, then held her hip as he nudged the crack of her ass. She made a little sound in the back of her throat. He reached a hand around to the front of her and laid a finger against the cleft between her legs. She stirred against him, a frown appearing between her eyes as she continued sleeping.

Closing his eyes, Chase continued stroking her through her clothes while pressing his cock against the cleft in her butt cheeks. He was actually sleepy again, and the dreamy quality of touching her this way was blissfully pleasant. He put his lips back on her neck, not really kissing her skin, just enjoying the way it felt. Her groin barely moved against his hand. He looked at her eyes, wondering if she had awoken, but she still had REM—rapid eye movement. He knew she was dreaming. He lifted his hand and slid it under her clothes. Her clit was hard and already moist from the juice seeping out of her pussy.

A groan escaped him as he made little circles around her nub with his fingertip. The undulations from her hips deepened, causing her ass to rock back and forth over his stiff cock. He really wished he was out of his sweats now. He was holding himself up with his left elbow and stroking her with his right hand. There was no way he could push down his pants now without retracting his hand, and he didn't want to do that. He continued stroking her, groaning silently as the gap between her butt cheeks rubbed against his swollen cock.

Her thighs abruptly opened wide as she rolled onto her back, almost on top of him. Chase kept his hand inside her pants and moved to between her legs, balancing himself on his knees as he used his left hand to push down his sweats. His cock sprang out in front of him and he rubbed it with his left hand while he considered his next course of action. He could stay as he was and jerk off. Or, better yet, he could fuck her while she was sleeping. The very idea of it brought him perilously close to coming.

With the most delicate movements he could manage, Chase pulled down the waistband of the thermals she wore, thermals that were actually his. Because the waistband was too big for her, the pants slid easily down her hips in the front. It was getting them down the back that had him worried. But they'd already slipped quite a bit before she'd rolled over, and now they came down her thighs to her knees, moment by moment her flesh revealing itself to him. At last the pants came off her feet and he looked back up her legs to where the trimmed patch of hair laid just above the gleaming slit of her wet pussy.

Chase stood up to take his sweats off all the way. He was now completely naked as he stood over her, stroking his cock with his right hand. Just watching her sleep like that, naked from the waist down, was a rush. He could so easily stand like this and jerk himself off. But he wanted more from her. He wanted to feel her tight cunt press against him, surround him, take him in. He wanted to possess her.

He glanced at his backpack, at the five packets just inside the open zipper. Rather reluctantly, he bent to retrieve one. He did it out of deference to her. Falling to his knees between her legs, he started to glide his penis into her, then stopped himself. Oh yes, it was so tempting, so hot to think of fucking her while she slept, but something held him back. He needed her to trust him.

"Ginny," he said, stroking her face with his trembling hand. He didn't know why he was suddenly so afraid. "Ginny, wake up."

Her eyelids barely opened enough to take him in. A lazy smile softened her face.

"Mmmmm," she intoned seductively, lifting her hips towards him.

His breath caught in his throat. He took her vocalization as a green light and fervently led his cock into her waiting pussy. Her eyes were already closed when he looked back down at her. Except for the soft smile on her lips, she might have still been asleep.

He fucked her at a slow, leisurely pace, knowing that this could very well be their last chance. At least, for a while. He balanced himself on his forearms to keep from crushing her. His gaze moved over and over her features. He'd known her for so long that it didn't seem possible there was anything new in her face for him to discover. But there was. She actually had a bit of a widow's peak, and her cheekbones were quite pronounced, and her ears were double pierced even though he'd never seen her wear two pairs of earrings at one time. He realized that he knew almost nothing about her childhood or her life before he and Randy became friends. There were so many blanks yet to fill in.

One of her arms was bent behind her head, the other to her side and her face was turned to the fire. Her hips continued rising to meet his own in the unhurried rhythm he had set. Despite the pressure steadily building within him, he imagined it never coming to an end. He thrust into her, resisting the temptation to go deep. As long as he held it at this pace and kept his strokes relatively shallow, he might make it last eight, even ten, minutes.

What he didn't count on was that all those shallow thrusts were brushing right against her g-spot with the widest part of his head. Behind her closed eyes, Ginny drifted in an orgasmic dream. She dreamt that she and Chase were fucking and she was about to orgasm, and then she came out of the dream to discover that she and Chase really were fucking and she really was about to orgasm; and then the dream swept back over her and pulled her down, so that she had no real control over her motor skills. She was completely unaware that her hips drove harder and harder against him; that it was she, in fact, who made his dick go deeper and deeper until her clit rubbed hungrily against his pubes and she dug the fingernails of her right hand into the white flesh of his upper arm.

She climaxed fitfully, dragging in tiny breaths in the back of her throat so that she almost sounded as though she were asphyxiating. Chase continued drilling her as her cunt spasmed against his dick and gushed fluid like an errant fountain. He closed his eyes, pumping harder and deeper but with the same slow rhythm. The added moisture in her vagina made his dick glide inside of her, actually helping him not to come as quickly. He kept pounding away, pressing into her yielding flesh. He loved the way her thighs lay to the sides, wide open for him like a flower. As he gazed down at her face, he saw REM behind her eyelids. She was dreaming.

An irrepressible desire swept over him and he pulled out of her and drew back on his knees to lower his face to her glistening cunt. As he licked the surface of her vulva from clit to perineum, he carefully stretched his legs out from under him and leaned against one hip so as not to crush his own massive hard on. Her vagina gaped where he had pulled out his penis, and he thrust his tongue into that place, tasting a hint of lubricant mixed with her own sweet juice. It seemed to him that with each orgasm the taste of her was becoming more delectable. He certainly knew it was becoming addictive.

She moaned loudly and he looked up to see her bring both of her hands up to her breasts. She was wearing his own thermal top and the fabric had a nubby feel to it. Her hands moved back and forth over her breasts. He knew she was dreaming. Suddenly her groin tilted up to his face and stayed there. He flicked his tongue at her clit and she again groaned noisily. He liked that. Her butt cheeks were flexed as she lifted her groin up to his face. He stroked her perineum with his tongue and in response she slowly lowered her butt to the mattress. Now he could play with her clit again, and he did so, dragging the flat surface of the middle of his tongue over the hooded nub at the top of her cleft.

Her breathing became uneven. Her hips wiggled under his touch. He sensed she was about to orgasm again. He continued licking her, longing for that moment when she came against his face. He ran a pointed tongue down the left labia, then up the right, returning to her clit to tease it with tiny circular motions. She gasped and jerked against his face. He slid both hands under her ass and held her as he did the same thing over and over again. Her flesh strained to be released as an intense orgasm lifted her against his tongue. She bucked wildly under him as she climaxed. Her nectar flowed like silken honey out of her vagina and Chase went down on it, lapping until he'd had his fill.

His forgotten cock was still hard and waiting. Suddenly overwhelmed with sleepiness, Chase rolled Ginny onto her side, then entered her from behind. The position made it possible for him to lay on his own side and pump gently into her, his eyes closed against the light of the fire. He draped an arm around her waist and pulled her close to him. Her thighs opened wider for him and she lifted her right leg to let it fall back on his own. Almost asleep himself, he pressed deeper and deeper into her, a sense of utter calm and satisfaction washing over him. He could do this forever. Just after that thought, however, he orgasmed suddenly and ferociously, yelling accidently into Ginny's ear as the sensation possessed him for several long seconds.

Ginny jerked awake just as he came. Her sleepy eyes looked back at his grimacing face. She watched him for a moment, a puzzled smile playing on her lips, then lay her head back down and slipped right back into sleep.

Chase eventually, reluctantly, pulled out of her. He had to pee again; otherwise he would have stripped off the condom, tied it off and tossed it on the floor before going back to sleep. As it was he had to get up. He pulled the sleeping bag up over Ginny's naked legs and torso, then padded silently to the bathroom.

Within two hours, he awoke Ginny and told her to get dressed. The sky was turning from inky darkness into a purple dawn. Even while she rubbed her eyes, Chase went out the backdoor to shovel snow away from the path. When he was satisfied with the result, he put on his skis and slid out into the snowfield.

The chimney was puffing its gray smoke above a roof of snow, but Chase thought its visibility dubious. He had another plan. With his skis flat in the snow he made a block letter S, followed by an O, and then another S. It took a good while to carve the letters into the snow deeply enough to be seen from the air. Sunlight streamed across the sky above him in shades of pink and orange.

Ginny had made a breakfast of oatmeal and dried apricots. They ate silently, then went about the business of readying the cabin for their departure. Chase had already covered the broken window with plywood from the shed and together they double checked to make sure there was no glass left anywhere in the room. Ginny packed up their own supplies while Chase returned the skis to the attic. He left the propane on for now, just in case the authorities didn't show, but made a mental note to turn it off before they left.

All that remained was the fire. As the morning sun came over the mountains to flood the little valley with light, the last of the logs rolled over and crumbled into cinders, sending sparks racing up the chimney. Outside, the air echoed with a strange throbbing sound. Chase jumped up and ran out the back door to climb the incline up to the snowfield. A helicopter hovered a hundred feet above them.

"Chase Nolan?" a mechanical voice said through the thundering air.

Chase held his thumb up and nodded.

"Ginny Harris?" the voice asked.

He pointed to the house.

"Does she require medical attention?"

Chase made an X with his arms and then spread them apart, to signal, "No."

"Snowmobiles are in route," the voice said. Then the helicopter veered off to the south, taking its throbbing sound with it.

Chase stepped back into the cabin and stamped his boots onto the floor to loosen the excess snow clinging to them. Ginny still sat on the sofa, watching the last of the cinders burn themselves into ash.

"Have you thought anymore about what we talked about last night?" Chase asked quietly.

She didn't look at him. She couldn't. The magic of the little cabin was about to end and real life impose itself upon them. So many hard decisions faced her the next few days; she couldn't think beyond packing a bag and driving to her mother's, which in itself would be problematic since her car was stuck on the road somewhere behind them. She supposed that when the authorities found it, it would be towed. And she needed to talk to Randy, to explain things to him. Not that she thought he would be surprised. He might even be relieved that she was finally doing the right thing. But still, divorce was such a life-altering choice. She wouldn't go about it blithely.

"Ginny, I want to stay in touch with you," Chase said firmly. "Don't be surprised if I call you tonight and tomorrow and the next day. Please don't shut me out."

"I know," she said at last, looking up at him however reluctantly. God, he was so young, with so many rich years ahead of him. She thought of all the things she'd experienced since she was twenty-two; he deserved at least that much. Everything within her rebelled against holding him back. She wanted him to soar, to experience the fullness of his youth and celebrate these carefree days, before responsibilities weighed him down. And yet he seemed so set on being an adult…just as she had when she was his age.

Within the hour, a rescue unit on the back of snowmobiles came descending onto the valley. From that point on, the events of the day unfolded outside of their control. Following procedure, they were taken by ambulance to a hospital in Vail to be examined for possible injuries which, of course, there were none.

Randy was there waiting for her, all shaggy blonde hair and scruffy beard, looking as though he hadn't slept in three days. He gave her a bear hug and held her for a long while, tears brimming in his blue eyes. He didn't say anything; he didn't need to.

Chase's parents were there as well, along with his three sisters and their assorted significant others and children. He looked a little overwhelmed by all the attention, having forgotten that his family hadn't seen him since the wedding almost a year earlier. A lot had changed in his life since then, and not just because of the divorce and leaving his job in Dallas.

At one point he and Ginny locked gazes, a knowing look passing between them. For some reason, the room became quiet. Even the children stopped chattering. It was their moment. Their last moment of the day, and then Randy started talking about the rescue effort and everyone resumed speaking.

Randy drove Ginny home from the hospital. She hadn't asked where John was and her son hadn't volunteered. Naturally she had noticed her husband's absence but she wasn't upset about it. The fact that John wasn't there to greet her only confirmed her conviction that they were finished.