I readily agree, eager to know more myself.
“You don’t have to ask me to watch TV in your own place. It’s your job too,” I tell him, and he nods. Letting me know with a glance that he’s only being polite.
I offer to clear up the ‘dishes’, but he’s already on it, passing a trash chute on his way back to the kettle, asking if I want another cup of camp coffee.
I hoist myself up onto my elbow, watching him.
“Ben Slater, if I didn’t know any better I’d say you were enjoying this ‘natural disaster.’ How long has all this sat down here, unused and waiting for just such a weekend?” I add smiling.
“It’s not how I would’ve planned a weekend alone with you,” he says grimly, looking down before his eyes suddenly light up again.
“Once we’re able to, I’ll take you over to the ranch. If it’s still standing,” he adds, making a face so funny we both have to laugh.
“The ranch?” I have to ask. “I thought you had a condo downtown?”
He almost speaks but clamps his lips shut. Thinking for a moment before he tells me.
“My folks, when they passed…” he says, and I feel awful for even bringing it up, but he insists he go on.
“I don’t know how much your dad has told you about my life, now or from the past, but I was left a lot of real estate. All the grandparents and even great grandparent’s stuff too. And my great-great-grandparents,” he adds softly.
He’s not boasting, but I can tell he’d feel awkward talking about this sort of thing to anyone else.
I wonder if my dad even knows.
“A ranch does sound impressive,” I add and he smiles.
“Oh, the ranch is mine, bought and paid for with my own two hands,” he laughs, holding his huge mitts out, laughing to himself still.
“I just wonder if it’s still standing. This storm went right through it yesterday, before I—”
“Before you had to come find me?” I ask, a pang of guilt running through me.
“I’d give up everything, all of it just to have one more night with you,” he whispers, kissing me so tenderly I almost cry at just how beautiful Ben Slater actually is as a person, especially as the person I know I want to spend the rest of my life with already.
Ranches and property be damned.
I want Ben. The man.
My man.
“You okay?” he asks, tracing my hair back behind my ear as I nod, sniffing back emotion.
“I’m better than that,” I answer. “You’re really something else, Ben.” I let him know. “You really could send a girl head over heels, you know,” I break off, finally overcome with feelings for him I don’t yet understand myself.
I only want for him to hold me again, to quiet my mind with his touch.
To feel the warmth of his body against mine and the softness of his lips on my hair, on my own lips again.
And he does all that and more.
Ferrying me back to a blissful state, stroking my hair after kissing everything better, and laying me down.
Only voicing his own thoughts that all sound like new ways he can make me feel better.
Safer and happier.
“There it is,” he remarks grimly, jutting his chin towards the giant screen TV, edging the volume from the remote loud enough so we can both hear it.
“That’s where this little cloud’s already been,” he says. “I can bet once it passes over us here we can expect the same.”
The thought doesn’t scare me like it used to, but everything he’s just told me only makes me want him more.
Hugging him under our blankets, I let my hand go where it might.
Where I want him to feel it more than anywhere else.
I feel him tense up briefly and then relax, my little palm curling as best it can around his manhood, which feels hot against my hand, pulsing to life instantly.
“I want you, Ben. I don’t want to wait. We could die here and I’d never forgive myself if we didn’t—” I hear myself gasp, purring as I feel him stiffen under my somewhat clumsy attempt at stroking him through the clothes he’s had on all night.
He moans softly, drawing me closer to him with one arm around my shoulders.
“Die here?” he says quietly as his body shakes with silent laughter. “That’s a little dramatic don’t you think?” he asks, turning to kiss me again.
There’s more than just feigned drama in my words, and we’re both aware of a newfound urgency soon enough.
“I just wanted our first time to be special,” Ben grunts, tugging at his clothes under the covers, stripping in what must be record time.
“What’s more special than losing my virginity to the man I love during a hurricane?” I ask, my hands hot with the touch of his hard warm body.