The Erotic Expeditions - Complete Collection (7 page)

Then, his climax was over and her hips made up for lost time.
 

Even as his thickening lessened, her hips pumped against him and the sweet spot swelled. His pelvis jerked forward once, and then twice, and the timing finally matched. The heat blossomed as she clenched. He suddenly stiffened.

His soft yelp of surprise blended with her deep groan as she took over the thrusting. Up and down his still hard length she rode as her sweet spot hit him again and again. Her clench only tightened and made the ride hard. As he rose from his elbows to his hands, changing the angle of his pelvis, he pressed his groin into hers until she finally spasmed.

Waves spread outward from her hard clench. She felt a quivering there as her hips convulsed against him. As the heat and burning of it finally fell away, she was able to lay still, breathing hard.

Austin slid off and she felt the ground vibrate as he landed on his back.

“Oh my god,” he whispered between heaving gasps.

• • • • •

After several minutes, Emily finally opened her eyes. She looked up at the bright dome. Beautiful blue light suffused the entire interior. It had to be bright outside, maybe noon?
 

Had it only been a day?

It had felt like a lifetime.

She felt movement and turned to see Austin drawing the bearskin over them as he lay on his side with his head propped on his hand. She smiled up at him but he didn’t smile back.

“I don’t want this to end,” he said, lowly.

Her smile slowly faded.

She didn’t either but what were the choices? Even so, she couldn’t bring herself to say it.

“I know,” she said. “Me either.”

He smiled a little at that.
 

She turned to him.

“Let’s just stay here forever,” she said, as she propped her head the same way. “We’ll eat pasta Bolognese every day.”

Now he really did smile. He looked at the white fur between them as though he were thinking of doing just that. Then his smile disappeared.

“I have a confession to make,” he said.

A confession? So soon?

He looked her directly in the eye.

“I ate the rest of your pasta,” he said.

His lips couldn’t help but curl upward.

She had to giggle–more at him trying
not
to laugh than the cute joke.

“God, you’re pretty when you laugh,” he said.

She looked into his smiling eyes.

“No, seriously,” he said. “I actually did eat your pasta, after I fetched the snowmobile, before you were awake.” He paused and looked at the white fur. “And I looked at the pictures on your camera.”

She had been about to ask how long he’d been awake when that last part sunk in.

The pictures on the camera. Her eyes immediately shifted in the direction she knew it lay and then she realized what he must have seen.

Her hand flew to her mouth as she sat up.

“I’m sorry,” he said, quickly sitting up. “I know I had no right.”

“
You’re
sorry?” she said. “Oh please, Austin.
I’m
the one who should be sorry.” She shook her head. “Let me rephrase that. I
am
sorry. That was wrong of me.”

Her face felt like it must be glowing.

“I saw them yesterday,” he said, quietly. “Just so you know.”

That seemed to mean something and she looked at him trying to remember.

Did it matter now?

“Okay,” she said, quietly.

“After I saw them,” he continued. “I felt like it’d be okay to…well, to get into bed with you.”

Now his face was flushing.

“Oh,” she said, as the sequence of events became clear.

He was waiting for her reaction. His body language had shifted ever so slightly, with shoulders drawn in as he even stooped a little. He was only a couple feet away but he was keeping his hands to himself.

She took in a deep breath. This was too important to mess up.

“I’m glad you saw them, then,” she said.

“Really?”
 

“As embarrassing as it is,” she said. “Yes. Really.”

He sat up tall as a crazy grin filled his face.

“How could I not be?” she said. “You’re amazing.”

But even as she said it, sadness was already starting to take over. He
was
amazing but now the storm was over and all that was left was going back to civilization. Day after tomorrow was the whale hunt and then she’d leave. This would all only be a memory. And it would be agony.

He jumped up, energized by what she’d said. She stared at him, smiling. He wasn’t in tomorrow yet. He was still in today. And today he was happy.

“You get to wear the sealskin,” he said.

Austin had reluctantly dropped Emily off at her bed-and-breakfast. The only way he had managed to let her go was knowing that they’d be together in a little while. All he could think about was their time in the igloo and the next time he’d be with her. It needed to be soon but it’d have to be after his father was drunk.

As Austin trudged up the few wooden steps to the front door of the shack, he put thoughts of Emily from his mind. He felt the weight of the backpack on his shoulder and tested its weight. Satisfied, he opened the front door. His father had heard the ATV and Austin’s footsteps, as usual.

“Where in the hell have you been?” he bellowed.

Austin closed the door and turned calmly.

“On the ice,” he said.

It was his standard answer.

“In a storm?” his father demanded. “Did I raise an idiot?”

“Came up quick,” Austin said and shrugged.

“
Quick
?”

The acid disgust dripped from the man’s voice but now he paused and peered into Austin’s face.

“Where you been?” he said, almost slyly, as though it was him doing the lying.

His eyes narrowed as he waited.

“On the
ice
,” Austin said.

“Liar,” his father yelled. “You think I’m an idiot?”

His father’s huge hands balled into fists.

Austin swung the backpack smoothly from his shoulder. He hefted it by the strap, testing its weight in his right hand.

His father glared at it.

“Yeah,” he said, with his crooked grin. “That’s right. You’re big as me now.”

Bigger, thought Austin, and taller. Though he knew it wouldn’t stop the old man when his mood was foul enough. Maybe like now.

“I’d kick the living crap out of you, just for the fun of it,” he growled. He slammed his fists together in front of him, knuckle to knuckle. “But you’re already behind in your chores and the hunt’s just a day away.” He paused. “And I already did my beatin’ today.” He smirked. “Looks like I’ll be needin’ a new dog.”

Austin grimaced. He’d learned to stop getting friendly with the animals because this was always how it ended. At first he thought they died
because
he was friendly with them. Eventually he realized it didn’t matter. His father just liked to hurt things.

The man jerked his thumb toward the back door.

“Well get on with it!” he yelled. “The trash is piled up back there and we need more wood.”

Austin immediately took the opening and left.

“Came up quick,” he heard his father scoffing, as the door closed.

He crunched through the muddy snow to the shed but avoided looking at where the dog would have been tied up. He only needed his peripheral vision to know that the snow there was red. He unlocked the padlock, opened the metal door and stepped in. Then he quickly closed the door and lowered the bolt into place.

After he lit the propane lantern, he surveyed his small domain. It looked just as he’d left it. Either the old man didn’t care what he did in here, or it was too cold for him. Or maybe getting bolt cutters for the padlock was just too much bother. In the end, Austin didn’t care as long as he left it alone.

The weight bench took up some room but it was the kayak, survival gear, and tool bench that were important now. This was the moment he’d prepared for all his life. The plan he’d hatched since the day his mother had died.
 

He was leaving.
 

It’d be a matter of snowmobiling from one small village to the next, further and further north, and out of his father’s reach.

Only the duty to the hunt had kept him here. He owed those men a lot. They’d taught him everything they could about living in the wild and he’d soaked it up like a sponge. He was going to go on one last hunt with them and make sure that it went well.

Then he thought of Emily. She had changed all that.

Hadn’t she?

He thought about her sad look as they’d left the igloo. He hadn’t wanted to leave either but they’d find a way to be together. They
had to
and they
would
, he thought, nodding to himself. Because the alternative was unimaginable.

• • • • •

As Emily hung the towel up, she realized the tips of her fingers were puckered. She had taken what was probably the longest bath of her life. Completely warm now, she put on the terrycloth robe and picked up her brush. As she opened the bathroom door, the thick steam swirled in its wake.

She was brushing her hair and heading to the suitcase on the couch when a familiar scent caught her attention. On the low coffee table in front of the couch, she had passed the sealskin clothing. She stopped, set down her brush, and picked up the parka. As she brought it to her face, she inhaled deeply.
 

It smelled of
kudliks
.

She smiled. Who would have thought that burning seal blubber could smell so good? Of all the things in the world. She closed her eyes as a flood of memories came back.

The igloo, the storm, the polar bear skins and finally Austin.

Beautiful, innocent Austin–in their private ice bound world. It seemed like a dream now, so impossibly wonderful that it couldn’t have really happened.

She stopped herself.

So it’s already started, she thought. Therapists called that a distancing technique and Emily knew it would only be the start. If the igloo couldn’t have really happened, she could ignore it. If Austin seemed too good to be true, then he probably was. She remembered his face.

Austin.

Maintaining a long distance relationship wasn’t out of the question. Her travel was flexible. In fact, she’d done it before–but that wasn’t the problem.

She set the sealskin back on the table.

The pattern was already emerging. In time, Austin would ask too many questions about the nightmares. Then he’d feel like she was keeping something from him and finally that she was keeping him at a distance. And it would all be true.

She stared at the sealskin but didn’t see it.

The nightmares were terrifying and something she couldn’t deny. But she had never purposely kept anything from anybody. She simply couldn’t remember. The nightmare never varied. It always ended before she discovered what her father had actually done. She couldn’t tell people what she didn’t know.
 

They had called it dissociative amnesia. Her mind had locked the memory away to protect itself. Even now she dreaded knowing what had happened but the not-knowing had started to poison everything in her life.

 
And as for keeping people at a distance…

She walked to the bed and sat heavily.

Letting someone get close meant you had to trust them. She knew that. But knowing it and doing it were two different things. She had trusted her father.

She shook her head and took a deep breath, trying not to think of him.

And now there was Austin.

Could she put him through what she knew would eventually happen?

And he was
nineteen
.

She hugged herself at the thought. Is that what she’d come to? A nineteen year old? As soon as the thought occurred to her, she regretted it. Austin was more than that.
Much more
.

But, god, what had she done?

• • • • •

The wood was chopped and stacked and the garbage bagged up. Austin closed the padlock as he glanced over his shoulder. He could hear the TV from here. As he neared the kitchen window, he crouched low and peeked in.

His father was in his recliner. The empty beer cans were mostly on the coffee table but some had rolled to the floor. With the remote in his hand, his head was leaning off to the side, already passed out.

Even though he probably wouldn’t hear it, Austin decided against the ATV. The B&B was just a short walk.

• • • • •

There was the knock at the door.

Emily hesitated.

No, she’d made her decision and she needed to follow through with it.

“Emily,” she heard Austin say. “It’s me.”

She crossed the room and opened the door.

He had started to enter but quickly held up.
 

“What’s wrong?” he said.

She opened the door a little wider.

“Please, come in,” she said quietly.

She softly closed the door and turned to him. He was wearing the same thing he was wearing earlier.

“I didn’t have time to change,” he said. He started to take off the parka. “I could–”

“No,” she said quickly–and too loud.

He had unzipped the parka but now his hands dropped to his sides.

“Emily,” he said. “Please. Just tell me what’s wrong.”

“Us,” she said bluntly.
 

He actually rocked back on his heels.

“I’m so sorry,” she blurted out. “I didn’t mean to lead you on. I didn’t mean for
anything
to happen.”

“What?” he said. “You didn’t lead me on. I–”

“It must have been the hypothermia,” she said.

He stared at her, frowning.

“What? Seriously? Emily, I
know
hypothermia.”

“Oh please Austin,” she pleaded. “I’m trying to save you pain.”

“Like
this
?”

“Austin, I’m
sorry
,” she said, her voice rising. “I don’t want to do this.”

“Then
don’t!
” he said, his voice rising as well.
 

Suddenly, he took a deep breath.

“I love you,” he declared.

Stunned, she backed up a pace. He was staring at her, searching her eyes, watching her mouth, trying to read her. She turned away from him, afraid of what he might see.