I’ve been mercilessly assaultedby the unexpected.
First, I come home last night full of rich food and fine port, to find Amanda asleep on the couch, with a book fallen open across her extended legs. I wouldn’t have seen her if I hadn’t remembered that I left clothes in the washer. Part of me is too tired to care, but the other part of me doesn’t want to have to wash the mildew out of a spoiled load in the morning.
How I’d love to lay down next to her and pull the blanket on the back of the couch over both of us. Instead, I do the gentlemanly thing and spread the blanket over her as lightly as I can so I don’t wake her.
A second surprise is waiting for me when I slip into the laundry room.
“I’ll be damned,” I whisper to the empty room. When I saw her asleep on the couch, I guessed that she probably didn’t put off her own load of clothes until tomorrow. If anything, I thought she’d probably leave mine in a cold pile on the counter. But no, she’d dried and folded them neatly. Lovingly, even, because there’s a note on top of the pile:
Took the liberty of drying your clothes. Glad to see there was no red towel. Hope you don’t mind. – A.
Makes me want to slip a thank-you kiss on her forehead on my way to bed, but I don’t want to wake her.
And my current situation, having just received a massage from those beautiful hands again, and the steel erection I now have as a result, were the most unexpected of all. I do the only thing I can do when she walks away and leaves me standing in the middle of the kitchen with a boner on display. I come back up to my studio, and step right into the shower. Only it’s not the cold one it should be.
Steam fills the shower stall and the ripples of hot water cascade over my skin just like Amanda’s fingers, sending shock waves of longing over every inch of me.
I imagine her behind me again, breasts pressed against me, and her hands instead of mine on my shaft. I can almost feel her full, wet lips branding my back with open-mouth kisses, and her tongue licking water droplets off my skin along the way.
I want her again, her body covering mine, her skin caressing mine. I move my own hands over my cock in time with the memory of how hers traveled over my neck and shoulders, and how I wish they would move over it now. I pump harder and faster until I burst like a busted pipe. I groan her name as the last of my cum spurts along the shower wall, and the pulsing spray of the water jets wash it away.
Between Amanda’s massage in the kitchen and the one I imagined she’d given me in the shower just now, I’m spent. I cut the water, give myself a haphazard towel-off, and fall naked into my bed, the rhythm of Amanda’s hands my lullaby into a delicious sleep.
* * *
I wakeup in the early afternoon feeling no pain, in my heart or anywhere else. I could muse all day about what this all means, but my stomach growls, so I make myself a sandwich and a cup of coffee, and take it out on the balcony to continue my musing there.
Conflicting thoughts whiz through my mind. We need to get control of ourselves, we’re not in college anymore for Chrissakes…Well, if we have to be here in this situation together, better we’re enjoying each other than fighting, eh?...Holy hell, Amanda and I might actually have a shot at a second chance! None of it makes any damn sense.
I take another bite of my sandwich and move to the rail with my coffee in hand for a better view of the beach. The sun burned off the morning fog, and it’s another beautiful day. I seem to remember Amanda saying something about Margot and Stirling taking the family on a helicopter tour of the islands today. I really wasn’t paying attention as much to what Amanda was saying at the time, I was entirely focused on what her hands were doing to me. At any rate, I’m glad it turned out to be a good day for them to do that.
Just as I take another swallow of coffee, I look down the beach to my right, probably almost a half mile from where the stairs from the house lead down to it way back around to my left, and I see Amanda. I don’t know how much further away she’ll get before I can catch her, but for whatever reason, I need to see her again. Now.
I abandon my coffee and the rest of my sandwich on the patio. Let the seagulls have it. I don’t want them in my studio though, and I barely slow down long enough to slide the door closed behind me. I don’t bother with shoes as I fly down the stairs, out of the kitchen, through the gardens, and down to the beach in record time.
Running on the sand proves to be a little more difficult, and reminds me that I need to renew my gym membership. At first I think Amanda’s gotten too far ahead of me to catch up, but then I see her in the distance, steadily moving further down the beach. I turn on steam, determined to reach her. I don’t know what I think will happen if I don’t catch up to her—I could just wait for her to double back—and I don’t know what I’m hoping will happen if I do, exactly.
“Amanda!” I call, when I get within earshot, but she doesn’t hear me at first over the surf. “Amanda, wait!”
She stops then and turns to face me. I seem to notice her pale blue sundress for the first time—or at least how sexy she looks in it. When she pulls her sunglasses down, her eyes widen with surprise. I’ve left mine back at the house, so I’m squinting in the sunlight, and I can’t tell if there’s fear or apprehension in her eyes at all. She slowly starts to walk toward me, so that’s a good sign.
“Amanda,” I say more calmly, when I jog up to her, though I’m completely out of breath.
“Damon, what are you doing down here? I mean, jogging on the beach isn’t a crime, but are you okay?”
“Yes,” I gulp, and try to slow down. “I saw you from my studio balcony, and I..I just wanted to come down. I wanted to see you.”
“Um, that’s nice. I was thinking about you too. Well, I’ve been thinking about a lot of things lately. I had quite the phone call with the corporate attorney this morning. What Margot and I are attempting to do won’t be easy. But Clark Huntington is a good friend and a great attorney. He may have to sacrifice his friendship with my father, but he wants to do what’s best for all of us.”
“Sounds intense,” I say. I can speak now, without feeling like I’m going to cough up a lung. “But I’m glad you got through it. Um, want to keep walking for a while?”
She hesitates, and my stomach drops. Maybe she doesn’t.
“How about we get out of the sun for a while instead?” Whew. That I can handle.
“Sounds good,” I say, and we head inland to some palm trees and foliage bordering the beach. I want to take her hand so badly, but I don’t want to do anything that will spook her.
She sits down in the sand and folds her legs under her. That’s exactly how she’d sit on our blanket when we went for picnics Central Park. I choose a large rock under a nearby tree. Not too close, not too far away.
