And then freaking out.
“Holy shit. Holy shit, holy shit, holy shit,” she just kept saying over and over. She tumbled off of me.
“What?” I asked. She just kept saying, “holy shit,” though, and before I could stop her, she’d opened her car door and was scrambling out.
“Ruth, Jesus, where the fuck do you think you’re going?”
“I’ve gotta pee,” she shouted back at me.
“Do you even know where you’re going? Take your phone at least for a light!”
“I’m fine!”
I huffed out a frustrated breath, then followed her anyway. She could get over me seeing her piss. I wasn’t letting her out of my sight. We were basically in the middle of the woods, and this was bobcat country. I’d seen one out on the ranch a couple months back. She’d lived here all her life so she knew it too.
There was barely a sliver of moonlight out so I was only moving by the sound of her footsteps and the rustle of bushes near the edge of the road.
“I won’t look,” I said.
She shrieked, jumping up. “Jesus, I told you to stay in the truck!”
“Actually, you said you were fine, and I determined you’d be safer if I came along. The buddy system is best in the wilderness.”
She scoffed. “I’m barely fifteen feet from the truck!”
“And I feel better when I’m close.”
“Jesus, you really are a control freak.”
I didn’t bother denying it.
“Hold your hands over your ears. I don’t want you listening to me pee.”
I rolled my eyes, not that she could see it. “I’m a guy. I’ve heard plenty of people pee before.”
“Not me!”
“Fine.” Anything to get her back in the truck. I put my hands over my ears. I could just make out her crouching back down.
I dutifully waited until she stood back up. “My turn.”
She made a disgusted noise. “I’m sure you’ll be fine against the woodland creatures. I’ll be in the truck.”
“Get some water from the back. I don’t want you getting dehydrated.”
“Control freak,” she hissed under her breath as she passed. I could just make out her shaking her head. I could also make out her breasts jiggling. I quickly looked away. Having a hard-on wouldn’t help me at the moment.
But right then, a wolf howled, I couldn’t tell how near. And she grasped for my bicep. “How about you bring the water in. I’ll be in the truck cab.” And then I heard her scrambling steps as she raced back to the truck.
After she was gone, all I could feel was the heat of her touch ghosting against my arm. She’d been afraid and she’d reached for me. It was disturbing how much I liked that. I quickly took care of business and then climbed up into the back of the truck to retrieve the two now-full bottles of water.
Ruth was huddled in the corner of her side of the cab when I climbed back in. She was holding up her shirt and shaking it out.
“Still wet?” I asked, knowing it was.
“Do you think it’ll be dry by morning?”
“We could turn on the truck for a while and put the shirts over the vents. The denim probably won’t be dry till morning. Maybe not even then.”
“Even just getting my bra and underwear dry would be a start,” she said. “And having some light for a little bit. It’s so dark and creepy out here.” We were close enough that I could feel her shudder. It made me want to pull her back in my arms but then I reminded myself that, right, that was over and done with. That was how it had to be.
I reached for the keys and started up the ignition. “Watch your eyes, gonna turn on the light.”
I punched on the overhead light. When I looked over at Ruth, goddamn, I was smacked all over again by the beauty of her, acres of beautiful pale skin. The way she was curled up, I couldn’t see much except her long legs and the side of her ass. I immediately glanced away, though pulling my eyes off her took effort.
“Here, I’ll turn on the heat,” I said, keeping my eyes averted. “You can put your, uh, underthings against the vents to get them dry.”
“’Kay. Thanks.”
I felt her scramble beside me and it had never been so difficult to be a gentleman.
Finally she was holding up the thin scraps of the little lacy thing she called a bra and her cotton panties against the two vents on her side.
“Wanna hand me your shirt? I can hold it up to these vents. And here, some water.” I handed her one of the full bottles of water we’d collected earlier.
“Oh. Sure. Thanks.”
How had we gone from bickering to wild sex to this stilted politeness? All I could say was that I hoped she was also doing the genteel thing and not looking ’cause my cock had a mind all its own and cared fuck-all about being gentlemanly. All it knew was that the slick cunny he’d been buried in hours ago was feet away and he wanted to be buried back there. Especially as I watched her throat as she swallowed. I reached blindly for the other bottle and drank some too.