Listed: Volume IV (8 page)

“You
want to…” Paul was so tense from leashed desire now he was almost shaking, and
she really wished she could see his face.

She
squeezed him intimately again and stroked his neck with her other hand, loving
the way the texture of his hair mingled with his warm skin. “I was liking it,”
she told him, feeling a little embarrassed but not enough to withdraw. “Is it
not good for you?”

Paul
released the most textured groan she’d ever heard, the sound doing something
intense to her chest and even generating a little ache between her legs. “Yes, it’s
good. If you’re sure…”

She
kissed him again. Then said against his lips, “I’m sure. I like it.”

Before
she’d even articulated the last word, he’d claimed her mouth again in a deep
kiss. Very daring, she slipped her hand beneath the waistband of his pajama
pants so she could get a better grip on his erection.

She’d
never really given a hand job before, and she wasn’t exactly sure how to best
do it. But she loved the feel of his hard, hot flesh under her palm, and he
started making little pumps of his hips, so she figured that was the rhythm he
wanted.

She
tried to keep kissing him, but she started to lose her coordination as she got
so excited about the way his body grew more intense, hot, tight. It felt like
something had coiled inside him, about to be unleashed.  And it thrilled her.
It
thrilled
her.

She
massaged him as best she could, responding to the urgent little thrusts he
started to make into her hand. But sustaining the kiss was soon beyond her.

It
seemed beyond him too. His mouth broke away, and he panted erratically against
her hair.

She
could sense the change in his body. He radiated heat, and the carnal tension shuddered
all through him. The slight jerking of his hips got faster.

“Oh,
fuck, baby. I’m going to…I’m going to…”

She
was holding her breath now, pumping him hard and fast. Then she felt him
unleash, let go, release.

He
came with a hard groan, his body freezing for a moment before it let go. She
kept squeezing him through the contractions, and he mumbled out words—she
couldn’t recognize any of them except "baby" and her name.

She
was overwhelmed with pleasure, with tenderness, with emotion so deep she
couldn’t find a name for it. Her fingers had tightened on the back of Paul’s
neck in her excitement, and she was afraid she might have scratched him. She
softened her grip and stroked him gently again. Then she released his softening
erection, caressing him there a few final times.

Her
hand was a little sticky from his come, but she didn’t mind. It made her feel
almost proud of herself in a silly way. When she pulled her hand out of his
pants, she sat up until she could reach the box of tissues she’d brought with
her. She wiped off her hand and then cleaned Paul up too.

Paul
was still gasping, lying limply on the mattress. When she'd cleaned up as best
she could in the dark, she cuddled up happily next to his hot, replete body.

“Thank
you.” He pressed a light kiss into her hair. “You didn’t have to do that.”

“I
wanted to,” she told him. Since the only part of him she could easily reach was
his shoulder, she kissed him there over his shirt. “I liked it.”

“I
can take care of you now if you want.” He sounded warm and drowsy, like he
wouldn't mind going to sleep, but she was sure the offer was genuine.

“I’m
good,” she said. She’d gotten a little turned on, but not enough to make it
worth the effort of trying to reach orgasm when she was so cozy and content as
it was.

“Maybe
later.” He adjusted, pulling her into his arms more securely.

“Definitely
later,” she agreed. She nestled against him, listening to the rain. It didn’t
sound so torrential now, and the tent was still nice and dry. The air was very
cool, but she was warm with Paul under the sleeping bag.  “I think I like
camping,” she murmured, rather foolishly. It felt like she might drift off to
sleep at any moment.

Paul
sounded like he was about to fall asleep as well. “Maybe I like it too.”

Emily was looking hot
and flushed, and Paul was getting worried.

They’d
been hiking for over an hour, and they’d left the woodland trail a while ago
because Emily said it felt too commercial and not authentic enough to the PEI
experience. By that, he assumed it didn’t feel as much like
Anne of Green
Gables
as she wanted.

He
hadn’t minded leaving the trail. They had a well-detailed map of the area,
including all of the established hiking trails. He also had a top-of-the-line
hiking navigator that was ultra-durable and waterproof and came equipped with
high-sensitivity GPS, barometric altimeter, electronic compass, and an enormous
collection of preloaded maps. He wasn’t worried about their getting lost, and
he had been finding the trail a little boring himself, especially since they
kept running into other tourists who all seemed to want to chat.

But
Emily’s face was red now, and her skin was damp with perspiration. He started
to get prickles of concern. The last time she’d gotten a fever, it had come on
her without warning and had spiked in just an hour or two.

They
were walking through a thickly wooded area that occasionally thinned out into
little meadows, ponds, or creeks. They’d plotted a route on Paul’s navigator
that would take them from the place they left the trail through the woodlands
and then back along the beach until they reached where they’d parked the SUV.

“How
are you feeling?” Paul asked, when he’d glanced over at Emily again and saw
that she still looked troublingly hot.

She
gave him a confused look. “I’m fine. I’m in decent shape, you know. I’m not
going to collapse from a few miles of hiking.”

“I
didn’t think you were. I was just wondering how you were feeling in general.”
Because he couldn’t resist, he reached over and felt her forehead.

She
made an annoyed sound in her throat and pulled away. “I’m fine, Paul. I’m not
sick. It’s just getting hotter, and I wore too many clothes. It was cold this
morning.”

It
was midday now, and the temperature had indeed risen significantly from where
it had been this morning. Paul had taken off the long-sleeved shirt he’d been
wearing over his t-shirt this morning and was now just wearing a pair of casual
khakis and the white t-shirt. Emily had taken off her zip-up sweatshirt, but
she was still wearing her jeans and a long-sleeved white undershirt with a
green t-shirt layered over it.

“Take
off one of your layers,” he suggested.  The trees had thinned some, and they
reached a clearing where a creek trailed picturesquely through the woods.
Beside it were several large rocks. “We need to stop and eat lunch anyway. Do
you want to stop here?”

Emily
seemed to think this was agreeable. As Paul unpacked their lunch from the
backpack he carried, Emily took off her t-shirt. Then, with a sheepish look in
his direction, she took off her undershirt and pulled her t-shirt back on.

Paul
tried not to look at her in her bra, since he didn’t want to start thinking
about sex midway through their hike.

They
ate their packed lunch of sandwiches, grapes, chocolate cookies, and bottled
water, chatting companionably about the Green Gables sights they had seen that
morning and what they were going to do later in the day.

Emily
was still hoping to be able to sleep out under the stars tonight, although Paul
was worried because the sky at the moment was completely overcast. It had been
mostly clear that morning, but now there was nothing but thick clouds overhead.
He hoped it wouldn’t rain, so she would be able to sleep outside like she
wanted.

He
didn't really care if they slept outside or in the tent. He was mostly just
hoping for sex tonight.

He’d
loved how she’d taken care of him the night before—it had felt amazing in every
way and had given him a intense physical and emotional release, one he’d
desperately needed yesterday—but he wanted to make sure he could give to her as
much as she’d given to him.

When
they’d eaten, they picked up their stuff and started to walk again, following
the route in Paul’s navigator. He figured they had about another half-hour
before they reached the beach again, and then another half-hour before they
reached their car.

Emily
looked cooler now that she’d shed her extra shirt, and she still appeared
bright and energetic. She kept mentioning spots she saw that looked like places
in the Anne books, and Paul pretended he found the connections intriguing. He
was glad Emily was having a good time. He didn’t mind hiking, but he had very
little interest in a series of books for girls about a red-haired orphan who
had a clear case of melodramatics.

He
wasn't about to complain, though. Being here felt different, distanced, from
the life they'd left in Philadelphia. Emily's last bout of fever and the
aftermath—during which Paul had been almost crippled with wondering how he
could possibly get through Emily's worsening illness and death—had weighed him
down emotionally until he could barely breathe. Being with her lightened the
burden sometimes, and being this far away, all by themselves, had lightened it
a lot more.

It
would just be temporary, but he'd needed it.

Twenty
minutes later, Emily jerked to a stop, staring at a tree to their left.

“What’s
the matter?” he asked.

“We
already passed that tree,” she said, gesturing toward a small white birch.
“Look, it has this weird forked branch here. I saw it before.”

Paul
checked his navigator. “No. We couldn’t have. We haven’t looped back.” He
showed her the small screen, which clearly indicated they were on the correct
route.

Emily
frowned. “Okay. Maybe it’s just an identical tree.”

They
kept walking for a few minutes. Then Emily gasped and tugged on his arm to get
him to stop. She crossed over in front of him and made her way through the
space between some trees. “Look! That’s where we ate lunch!”

Paul
followed her and froze in astonishment when he saw that she was correct. They’d
somehow gone in almost a circle and ended up where they'd been a half-hour ago.
“What the hell?”

He
stared down at the navigator, checking back to see what it displayed as the
route they’d just walked. Emily peered over to look with him.

“This
thing is definitely confused," he admitted, feeling a swell of frustration
tighten in his chest. He’d been focused on following the navigator and so
hadn’t been paying much attention to the landmarks. "I wonder what's wrong
with it.”

“It’s
broken,” Emily said, looking from the screen up to his face. “What a piece of
junk.”

“It
cost a fortune!” He glowered down at the little device in his hand. "It
shouldn't be a piece of junk. I wonder what…" He fiddled with it for a few
minutes, hoping to find the trick to restore its routing capabilities.

Evidently
getting tired of watching him fiddle with it, Emily said briskly, “Just give it
up. The more expensive a gadget is, the more dramatically it will fail. We have
a map. And I have a GPS app on my phone that might help.”

“I
do too.” Paul lowered the little navigator in disgust and swung the backpack
off his back so he could pull his smartphone out.

“No
reception,” Emily said, frowning down at her phone. “We had reception earlier.”

“Maybe
we’re just in a dead spot.” Paul checked his and found the same thing.

“Well,
people used to do this all the time without the help of gadgets. I’m sure we
can manage to muddle our way out of the woods without technology.”

Paul
felt frustrated and annoyed by the failure of his navigator and by the fact
that he’d led Emily around in circles unwittingly. He looked up at the sky.
“It’s too cloudy to see where the sun is or at least we could tell what
direction we were going.”

Paul
glared down at the expensive piece of junk he was holding and muttered out
valedictions on its head, as well as on the heads of everyone who made it and
sold it to him.

Emily
chuckled. “Don’t be grumpy. It’s not the end of the world.”

“We’re
lost in the middle of the woods with no GPS,” Paul said, arching his eyebrows
at her coolly, vaguely annoyed that she wasn't as annoyed as he was.

“We’ll
figure it out. You’re just annoyed because you have major control issues.” She
slanted him an almost teasing look. “Has anyone ever told you that before?”

He
couldn’t quite keep his lip from twitching, despite the exasperating situation.
“Not in so many words.”

“Well,
someone should have told you that a long time ago. Things get messed up. That’s
the nature of the world.”

Paul
preferred for that not to be the nature of
his
world, but in this case
there was nothing he could do about it. His navigator was broken, and their
cell phones had no reception.