Firecracker in Heat - Firecracker #1 (Erotic Romance) (4 page)

Cy noticed where her eyes were fixed. 
“It didn’t break if that’s what you’re wondering,” he said.

“No. I mean, that’s good, but not why I was… staring. Sorry.”

Trixie wondered how much messier their coupling would have been if he
hadn’t
been wearing a condom. She’d slept with a lot of guys and not one of them produced that much spunk. Ever. She checked. Her watery release still trumped Cy by several cups, but Trixie suddenly felt like she had met a kindred spirit.

She wanted to tell him, but it sounded pathetic in her mind. She didn’t want to seem needy on what was basically their first date. For that matter, Trixie wasn't even sure how she felt about him yet. Still, Cy released not only while she was screaming like a banshee, but also whirling like a dervish. After scores of men, Trixie had never encountered his like before. If she was a maiden, Cy would be her unicorn.

“Mind if I use the shower?” Cy asked, interrupting her thoughts while pointing towards one of the bathrooms. Trixie realized she’d had been idly tracing a finger around one of her pelvic bones. She stopped abruptly, waking up from her daydream.

“Please, help yourself.”

Cy stood off the bed and picked up his clothes. Trixie couldn’t help but admire his ass as he crossed the room. Not too big or too flat. He actually had an ass, which was another redeemable quality. A fiercely taut backside into which she could find purchase with her nails. No, now was not the time for thoughts like that. Cy noticed that she was admiring his assets and shut the bathroom door. The water started running a few seconds later.

Trixie wondered if he was feeling a little objectified. Perhaps more than a little objectified. Most guys weren’t used to that, but Cy seemed to understand, all considering. Moreover, he was right. There was no vulnerability in how she seduced guys. Even the way she played at being submissive was a calculated way to lure men into position. The position she wanted.

Her girlfriends were different. For them, sex was how they figured out if they liked someone. Trixie didn’t acknowledge any chemistry with a guy until after he experienced her ultimate orgasm. Had any of those guys wanted a more meaningful connection? Had she ever lead them to believe that one was even possible?

It occurred to Trixie that there might have been several men who were potentially more accepting of her release, but had she ever given them a chance? Had she ever made them feel like more than grist for her mill? Trixie couldn’t really say if she had made the effort, which probably meant that she hadn't.

Trixie didn’t know Cy, but unlike most men, it already felt like he was
worth
getting to know. Yes he was good looking, yes he was a good lover, but there was clearly more to him than that. Ogling his assets just now probably hadn’t helped her case, but she was out of practice, especially when it came to taking their feelings seriously. Guys always pounced on her sexual overtures. Anything beyond that was unfamiliar territory.

She pulled the covers off the soaked bed and used a corner to dry herself before bundling the whole mess up and throwing them in a closet. Trixie didn’t want a reminder of how she had emptied herself on him in the room. She donned her camisole again and opened the bottle of honey-wine Cy had thoughtfully bought, filling two fluted glasses from a cabinet beside the mini-fridge. She was going to set things right, assuming it wasn't too late.

When Cy stepped out of the bathroom, he was already dressed. That was a bad sign. Trixie sat pertly on the driest of both bed, one leg tucked under her backside, the other languidly dangling over the side. She extended one of the two glasses towards him, smiling apologetically. If Cy saw the glass, which he must have done, he didn’t act like it.

“I should probably go. I have an appointment in the morning that really deserves my attention. Look, thanks for having me over. This was definitely… memorable.”

She could tell that Cy was upset. He didn’t look freaked out like other men did. This was different. He looked hurt, but was trying to hide it. Trixie was crestfallen. Had she blown it that badly? At the very least she hoped for a chance to explain herself and tell him that he was right about her pseudo-vulnerability. He turned towards the door, but then paused. Trixie was about to stop him, but then Cy checked himself and bolted away. The door closed abruptly behind him.

Trixie cursed herself. What could she have done differently? Cy had attended her every need, matched her stamina in bed, and nearly equaled her quantity of release. He even came after she went completely unhinged on him. She couldn’t help it. 
That’s what happened when she switched places with her inner sex genie. 

Then it dawned on her. Despite what she had been looking for all this time, Trixie didn’t want a man who could be ridden like a mechanical bull. Okay, yes she did want that, but Trixie also wanted a man who needed to be appreciated for more than sex alone, exactly like the one who just left. Cy was susceptible to a good time, no less than most guys,
but he wanted to be treated like more than an everlasting dick, in the same way that she wanted to be treated like more than a bountiful cunt
.

Trixie thought it would be hard to drink an entire bottle of mead by herself, but it turned out to be surprisingly easy.

Apparently mead hangovers are even worse than regular hangovers. Trixie could shake off pretty much any night of drinking and debauchery, and be functional the next day, but this headache wasn’t going away. The added weight of her emotional epiphany wasn’t helping. She considered staying in bed and skipping the race, but the room only reminded her of last night. Trixie crawled out of bed and began looking for her sportswear suitcase. The search took longer than it should have, but she finally it found under the soiled sheets in the closet. Yup, that memory wasn’t going away anytime soon.

Trixie pulled out her team uniform, which consisted of a baby doll sports top and a pair of black hot pants with T.A.R.T. written across the ass. She forgot about that too, but they were the only shorts Trixie brought for this weekend. Whatever. She was too hung-over to care, but after running back to her room twice, once for a painkiller, and the second time for her racing bib, she was in a thoroughly bad mood. 

Nothing short of her headstrong nature kept Trixie from fleeing or panicking as she waited with about one-hundred other racers at the starting line. They were all laughing as the master of ceremonies made jokes about the hellish conditions that awaited them. First heat of the day. That had also been her idea. If her girlfriends could be here now, they would be enjoying a good long laugh at her expense.

The motivational speaker was getting everybody riled up as the runners began to chant “LOVE OF MUD! LOVE OF MUD!” Pride alone prevented Trixie from plugging her ears to shut them out. She was stubborn, but only obstinate enough to run this race and go home. Trixie kind of wished her girlfriends
were
here. Their laughter would be welcome right now, even if she was the object of it. Trixie was the most independent member of their group, but they could also be her armor sometimes. She missed that right now.

The reasonable side of her brain was screaming that it wasn’t too late to just walk away, but the thought of bumping into Cy back at the hotel or in the village was not an appealing one. It would only rub salt in her
the-one-who-got-away
wound, which was silly, because he was a complete stranger. She could have easily taken off before the race, but the masochistic side of her brain wasn’t done punishing her yet, using the obstacle course as retribution for screwing up with Cy in the first place.

“When is this damn race going to start anyways?”

Somebody tapped on her shoulder and pointed at a digital clock that was counting down. Oops. She didn’t mean to say that out loud. The clock was at thirty seconds. The people around her were shaking their limbs energetically and jumping up and down in one place.

That’s when Trixie realized she wasn't merely surrounded by thrill-seeking weekend racers. These were committed athletes. Not only were these men and women superhumanly lean, but they were ripped from head to toe. Some of them were even barefoot. Advertisements for t
he event said that it was all about teamwork, which sounded like fun, but maybe the first heat attracted people who didn’t want to get stuck behind casual racers.

The master of ceremonies piped up again.

“Okay mud lovers! On 3… 2… 1…”

A starting pistol fired and Trixie was swept up in the pressing throng of bodies. They were running uphill right from the start, but she could handle that. Trixie had trained on the hardest elliptical settings, programmed specifically for inclines. She had plenty of breath to spare, at least until Trixie could hear all the people in front of her yelling blue murder.

Cresting the hill, she finally saw what they were approaching. Massive bins preceded by ladders. Were they jumping into water? No, it was worse than that. They were jumping into vats of ice. Trixie blocked it out. She couldn’t think about what was coming or she’d never go through with it. Holding her nose, she leapt in, swimming under a wooden barrier.

When she came up for air on the other side, her chest was pounding. Breathe she told herself. Deep breaths. Breathe and keep moving. What kind of sadist creates an obstacle like that? What kind of fool pays good money to do it was a better question, but she already knew the answer. At least her hangover was gone.

It turned out to be a small favor because the next obstacle involved balancing along a thin piece of wood spanning another pool of freezing water. Really? The race had barely started! Trixie was damned if she was going to let this race get the better of her. The board wobbled under her feet but she made it to the other side without falling.

“Take that you hypersensitive bastard!” she yelled, not sure who or what she was addressing. It actually felt pretty good to vocalize some of her frustration.

The next challenge involved scaling a wooden hoarding near the starting line. The same one against which she had pushed Cy the night before. He had been so selfless right from the start. He told her she didn’t have to go down on him, but she wanted to, liked doing it even. Was her biggest release really that much of an imposition? She put it from her mind. This was not the kind of race where you could afford to get distracted. Trixie charged the wall at speed and hit the ground running on the other side.

The obstacles only got more difficult each time she thought the worst was over. Despite that fact, there was a tangible sense of camaraderie among all the racers. Everybody helped each other without being asked. It felt like a collective need for self-inflicted suffering had brought them all together and now she was a part of that. Trixie was bruised and bloody and none of it mattered. She stopped feeling sorry for herself. The mud went everywhere and it wasn’t going away any time soon.

Trixie slid on her belly down a narrow plastic tube into a pool of, surprise, more mud. The wet obstacles were perfectly spaced apart to occur whenever you started drying off. At least it was sunny. She wormed her way up a similar plastic tube on the opposite side and collapsed for the first time. Trixie was tired, but not defeated. She would get up again in a moment, just not yet. A few more seconds on her back was all she needed. That’s when Trixie noticed one of her shoes was missing, probably floating between the two plastic tubes.

“MOTHER OF BALLS!” she shouted at the sky.

“Hey Firecracker.”

A racer bent over her supine body, raggedly drawing breath, but haloed by the sun. Trixie shielded her eyes to get a better look at him.

“I think you lost this,” the deep voice said.

Cy held up a muddy shoe while bracing his other arm on a knee.

“Thanks,” she replied, more than a little stunned.

Trixie took the shoe and slipped it back onto her foot with a squish. Cy straightened and grabbed his ribs. He wore a compression shirt covered in mud and plastered against his chest. Cy was also similarly bleeding and scraped.

“You look beat up,” she said.

“Yeah, about that. You set a punishing pace. I’ve been trying to catch up with you for five miles. If you hadn’t thrown that sneaker, I’d still be lagging behind.”

“I didn’t see you at the starting line.”

“That’s because I wasn’t there. I was scheduled to run in a later heat with some friends, but w
hen I saw you bounding away, I joined in after the fact.”

“You abandoned your friends to run after me?” Trixie said, unable to hide a smile.

“You didn’t answer my knock on the Fairview Suite this morning, and you weren't in the breakfast room either. I’d almost given up hope until I saw your red hair among all the other elite racers.”

“Wait, I’ve been running with the elite racers?” Trixie said.

“You didn’t know?” Cy asked, genuinely surprised. “You’ve been keeping up with most of them.”

“I just signed up for the earliest race on a lark. I had no idea,” she said honestly. “This is my first obstacle course race.”