05

A/N: I would like to apologize for taking so long to get this published, you know how life can get in the way. I will definitely keep writing and posting as I can. Anyway, i hope you enjoy it!

*****

Ch. 3

Jay moved towards me, then sat delicately by my hip, his back to me, not daring to look at me for fear we'd both break. We sat this way for a long time, I thought about sitting up next to him. Instead I reached over and tugged on his arm, pulling him down towards the bed. He took my cue and collapsed next to me, his back still to me, his body pressed against mine. I tried to breathe, but I felt him all around me and suddenly there was no air. After what felt like days laying with him, I felt like I could breathe, speak, think. I could feel.

"I woke up and you were gone, I thought you didn't want me. I was angry, hurt. I was stupid. I hurt you, and I am so sorry," I said, softly. A tear gently streaked down my face. He rolled onto his back and looked at me, it was a moment of realization for him. I am not the cold stony façade I had presented him, I was fragile, breakable, soft. I just wanted, no, needed, to be wanted.

"Of course I want you, I've always wanted you, and your disdain and rejection made me want you more, you were a challenge, but you challenged ME to be a better person. I felt like I had taken advantage of you, or that you thought I did. I was guilty and ashamed of my actions against you, not of you at all." He was soft, he was beautiful and vulnerable yet impenetrable. "I left because I thought you wouldn't want me in the morning, I thought you would still hate me, maybe even more than before."

I was numb. How many missed connections are in the world right now for the assumptions of a party involved. And both of us were guilty. After another long silence and more tears we finally met one another's gaze. Suddenly embarrassed, I shut my eyes. I felt him roll into my arms, facing me now. His breath felt warm and silky on my cheek. He leaned in and placed a gentle kiss on my lips and then a small one on my forehead. I opened my eyes to see his closed. We fell. Gently into a peaceful rest, and even gentler into an understanding, we each wanted the other, in our lives, and in our sight, possibly forever.

I woke up again, this time he was still there. Awake, looking at me, waiting for me.

After four days of neglecting my wounds I was in for a rough morning. We went to my stash of first aid goodies, gathered our supplies and walked to our spot, this time I let him help. We uncovered, scrubbed, aired, then rewrapped my wounds, which were healing quite nicely. We left the brace off as I was walking better and it was just making life more difficult.

We were kind to each other, caring. Simple but sweet.

Ch. 4

The last few days have been the best I could imagine. I mean, my life and Jay's have seemingly become one. The day after he confronted me, causing me to have to confront my feelings, he slept in his own tent. After everyone got up we all went on a hike and he stayed right by my side. We all played in the "pool" near our camp, and he was right there with me. We made lunch and he ate right beside me. He never left my side. That night he stayed in my tent. He held me all night and I relished the feeling. The next two days were more of the same. Then on day nine of our adventure it was like we couldn't keep out hands off of one another. When I touched his skin it was akin to electrocution, but without the pain.

Finally Kaleb walked over our way and threw a handful of condoms at Jay. He smirked, saying, "Just get it over with already so we all don't have to witness the nauseating touch-n-giggle fest going on here." I choked on the water I was drinking while everyone else laughed. Jay and I simultaneously turned redder than a fire engine.

We sat there looking like deer in headlights while everyone else got up and headed to their tents. Jenna and Brian, Jon and Dani, Squid and Jamie, each pair going to their own. None of that was unusual, the shock came when Kaleb and Karsyn snuck away into his tent. Jay just looked at me and held out his hand and helped me up. We walked slowly across the camp, eavesdropping just a bit on the others in their tents. We knew what this was turning into. Jay opened my tent and I stepped in. I'm small enough that I can stand upright and not quite rub the top, but Jay had to hunch himself over to fit in.

He leaned in, giving me a kiss full of passion, wanting. This was nothing like before, this was pure need. If you blinked you would have missed his swift undressing of the both of us. We could begin to hear the moans from the surrounding tents, but we weren't bothered, for soon we'd join in, like a chorus. I reached down to find his hardness ready and waiting. I sat gently on the edge of my bed, leg extended as to not rip the sutures still there. I took his full length into my mouth, thanking the heavens my gag reflex was virtually non existent. I took my time with him, switching between his shaft and his balls pleasuring each until I thought he would burst. When I went back to his cock a final time he grabbed the back of my head. Normally I would have stopped right there, I'm not one to be controlled, I don't like it, nor do I like lacking control myself, but I let him. He slowly started thrusting inward, when he reached the back of my throat I would breathe deep to open it for his entrance. Pulling out again, as he neared complete exit I'd close my mouth gently grazing him with my teeth. His grunts and moans were music to me. He picked up the pace, becoming erratic, and when I felt his cock twitch in my mouth I took him all the way in as jet after jet of his hot cum ran down my throat.

I pulled back gasping for air. I hadn't even caught my breath before I felt a finger invade me. I leaned my head back with a moan as he worked his finger in and out of me, the sultry wet sounds filling my ears. He added another, and after a short adjustment there was a third. With his free hand he caressed my breasts, cupping and squeezing, making sure I knew I had his full attention. Then he moved his second hand to my clit, rubbing firm and slow then light and fast. He kept that pattern until I just couldn't handle it, my breath quickened, body tightened, and with a low moan I came on his hand. Still violently shaking, he moved my entire body to the center of my bed.

He stood beside the bed watching me as I regained control of my body and breath. I could tell he was thinking, but I was too far gone to worry about what. He reached down next to the bed and picked up my bikini top, then quickly stripped the string from it. He moved over to me, looked at me head to toe and smiled. "Hands." I quickly obeyed, again I don't like to not have control over the situation, but I wanted to see where this was going. Looking like a pro he tied my hands together and placed them above my head with instructions to not move them, or else he'd stop. I did as I was told.

He stood back and I watch as he, almost artfully, slid on a condom, then with a delicate viciousness slid himself fully into my wetness with one steady stroke. There's nothing I like more than someone vocal, except for someone who knows exactly what he wants, and here deep inside me I have somebody who is both. His thrusts were pleasurably brutal and he was firm in his assault of my sex.

We went on like this for hours, as did the people in the surrounding tents. When we were through we walked, some more stumbled, down to the pool where all of us met back up. Kaleb was the first to strip, to no one's surprise, then Karsyn and Dani followed and soon we were all skinny-dipping and drinking whiskey. This was precisely why I wanted to disappear to begin with.

In the pool Jay held me. Tightly, sweetly. Almost like he possessed me. And I was beginning to love the beautiful contradiction that is his nature.

Ch.5

When all this started I just wanted to run away. I was on the verge of a midlife crisis, at the ripe old age of twenty-one! This, however, was something much bigger. The full intent was to simply avoid my problems, ignore all responsibility, if only to have to address them later. What I got was somehow different, those simple goals had been met, but with far more than I could have hoped for. Walls came down, friends got closer, and I'd found something, in Jay and in myself. Maybe love? I'm not sure, but I'm not looking for answers, I found freedom.

By day twelve of our eight week odyssey we fell into a routine. Wake when we wanted, eat when we chose. Hiking, swimming, lounging, fucking. We did what we wanted, when we wanted to do it. Dani had surprised me the most, when we were still in middle school she was diagnosed with leukemia, cancer in her blood. Now this is not to be some sad story, because it's actually very happy and exciting. After a rough couple of years through chemo and transplants, she had been in remission for two years now, no signs of cancer. She and Jon had been together since sophomore year, and they have always been great together. But, here, she let loose. Same as any of us, she did exactly what she felt like, and never what she didn't.

We were all sitting around the fire when I looked over, she looked a bit sad, but I didn't ask. I just kept an eye on her. It was like I could see the conversation going on with herself, in her own head. Suddenly she just laughed. I guess the alcohol made it funny. Anyway when we all looked at her in question she just said, "While you losers are stuck with condoms, I get it bare. Cancer perk... medical menopause." No one knew whether to laugh or cry but she decided for us when she laughed and ran over to the box full of condoms and sprinkled them over the rest of us like confetti. Squid jumped up and swept Dani off her feet like she was a cotton sheet and threw her in the creek. This really had become an adventure far beyond what any one of us could have asked for.

*****

As always, Thank you to macktosh for editing.