January 2
~3:22 AM~
Three twenty two. Jeez, it was three twenty two in the damned morning.
Blue blinked owlishly at the glowing light of the clock at her bedside, wondering what it was that had caused her to wake. The answer to her question came in the form of a low growl. Abe lay at one corner of her bed, head up, ears perked, and tense. The quietly rumbling noise made the hairs on Blue's arms stand up.
Sitting up in bed, she held the covers in a fist against her chest, her eyes darting around the darkened third floor room. Seconds ticked by. Abe seemed to relax, enough so that he laid his head down on his paws and sighed the way dogs sometimes do before falling asleep.
"Hey." Blue whispered. "You can't just do that and drop it. What were you growling at?"
Abe rolled over for a tummy rub.
Slipping her legs out from underneath the warmth of the heavy covers, Blue blindly felt for her favorite fuzzy socks with her toes. Finding them beside the bed where one usually kept slippers, she slipped them on, gave Abe a look that was ignored, and padded softly to the window.
Peeking outside showed her that it had stopped snowing, but a snowplow had come by at some point and had cleared the road in front of the house. Maybe that was what had caused Abe to growl? Leaning close enough for her breath to fog the cold glass, Blue peered from side to side down onto the snow covered lawn as far as she could see. Nothing moved. A quiet, muffled stillness that often came with a blanket of snow and late night-early morning hours had settled in.
"Well." Blue whispered still, making Abe's ears flick back and forth. "No more growling at snow plows at three in the morning, okay?"
A flip of a tail was the only response. Blue walked toward the bed, hoping the warmth was still trapped under the blankets. But instead of climbing in, she surprised herself by grabbing the robe that was hanging over the back of her overstuffed chair and continuing on to the stair well.
The old wooden stairs creaked in their usual spots, the only sound as she descended. Pausing in the hallway on the second floor in front of Aunt Jean's bedroom, she tilted her head and held her breath to listen. There was nothing to hear but the usual, familiar sounds that one often takes for granted until forced to hear them. Before she continued on, the soft clicking of Abe's nails on the stairs told her that the dog had decided to join her. Abe paused in the darkened hallway and looked up at her expectantly.
If there was anything hinky going on, the dog would be telling her, Blue was sure. Even so, she continued on to the next stairwell and down to the first floor. She could go back to bed, or she could keep going on downstairs. Judging by the restlessness now flowing through her body, she knew she would have a tough time getting back to sleep.
Before she took the next step down, she paused. Standing at the top of the stairwell, her stomach quivered. She knew what she would find if she went down. Taking a deep breath to shore her nerves, smelling the faint musty scent of the ancient wallpaper due to her oddly sharpened senses, Blue moved out of the comforting glow of the little night light plugged into an outlet along the baseboard and stepped down into the dark stairwell.
By the time she reached the bottom, a faint, flickering light welcomed her, growing brighter as she moved on fuzzy socked feet toward the living room. Stopping at the entryway, she saw him. He was still asleep, the light from the muted television casting itself onto the form of his body with a soft, lazy strobe. Pressing a hand to her fluttery stomach, Blue took her time and looked her fill of the man stretched out on her sofa.
He was still here. She'd half expected him to have awakened. To have gone home sometime during the night. But there he was.
She had been half disappointed, half relieved when he hadn't pressed for sex after they had come inside. She'd invited him in, yes, although she had been somewhat bemused when he had suggested she go make that hot chocolate she had tempted him with while he scrolled through the TV listings to find a movie.
They had snuggled on the couch, sipped at the frothy mugs of hot cocoa, and watched the movie that he had chosen, occasionally making quiet, companionable comments. It was wonderful.
She wasn't sure who had fallen asleep first, but she was willing to bet it had been her. He had brought her up close beside him for movie watching and soft, absentminded touches, and the next thing she knew, the movie was over and she was tucked snugly into his side, the solid chest under her cheek rising and falling regularly in his own deep sleep.
Though she'd tried not to wake him as she extricated herself from the warm, heavy arm around her shoulders, he had come awake enough to mumble something about how he should go home. She ignored that, and by the time she had brought a blanket to him, he had stretched his long legs out along the sofa and was sound asleep. She'd covered him and trudged drowsily up to her own bed, Abe following along after a moment of hesitant indecision about who to stay near.
John was still stretched out, one leg bent at the knee, the other straightened so that his foot hung over the arm of the sofa. He had snugged himself cozily against the back cushions, and had one arm flung above his head, the other hand resting on his hip bone. The blanket she had given him had slid off sometime during the night.
Realizing she was staring, she moved forward to lift the blanket off the floor. Her mind's intent was to re-cover him. Her eyes had other ideas. As she stood over him clutching the soft blanket, her gaze traveled from his face, his features still intensely masculine even when relaxed in slumber, to down over his torso. He had, at some point, unbuttoned the checked flannel shirt he wore to expose the snug white t-shirt underneath. Even in the dim light from the television, or perhaps because of the shadows the light created, she could see how the thin, well worn cotton material lovingly molded to the solid form of his chest and stomach.
Her eyes skimmed lower... and stopped. His hand rested, relaxed, thumb and fingers spread in just the right position on his groin to frame the very male bulge there. The snug fit of his jeans helped greatly, and Blue swallowed against the sudden watering of her mouth.
"Stop staring at the man's crotch." Blue mouthed to herself soundlessly.
She allowed herself one last appreciative glance, though. Thinking it a shame to cover up such a nice view, she lay the blanket as gently as she could over his legs and up to his waist. Her careful attempt at not waking him was for naught. When his hand closed over hers, her gaze flew up to his face to find his eyes, heavy lidded from sleep, trained on her.
His stare remained steady, trapping her,
daring
her, as his hand tugged gently on hers, bringing her palm flat onto his abdomen, edging under the blanket. When she didn't pull away, his half closed eyes glittered in the dim light. The large hand engulfing hers guided her fingers lower.
When her palm curved over the bulge of his cock, his eyes drifted closed. A low 'mmmm' rumbled up from deep within his chest. Blue settled onto the edge of the sofa at his hip. John's hand still lay across hers, but not insistently, only following along as she pressed and tested, rubbing her hand back and forth experimentally. All the while she watched his face, saw the corners of his mouth tighten, his jaw clench, his tongue dart out to wet his lips.
Inside his jeans his cock swelled and hardened, and she traced the impressive ridge with her fingers. Just as she was about to search out the zipper of his jeans, he moved her hand away, settling it on his thigh. John's chest heaved with a gust of breath and he opened his eyes, more awake now, to look up at the ceiling.
"Dear Diary." he murmured in an exaggeratedly wistful voice. "You'll never
believe
the awesome dream I had this morning..." He caught her eye and winked teasingly.
Blue wasn't sure whether she wanted to laugh or just be confused that he seemed to want to stop when her own body was telling her go, go, go.