Sorry this chapter was so long in coming (OMG... I just cracked myself up with that one. You'll get it after you've read the chapter.) ANYWAY, I hope to update on Sundays or Mondays most weeks, so if you like schedules, you can look for it then. Other than that, I should say that this chapter has more sexual content than usual - Some will like that, and some might be offended... But I try to please everybody!
Chapter Two
They hadn't been traveling for more than an hour when a fine, misty rain began to fall. The interior windows of the truck quickly fogged over, and the temperature dropped, the air becoming damp and chill, the kind of cold that soaks into your bones. Kate fiddled around with the heater, and was astonished when it actually came on, blowing a stale-smelling gust of warm, dry air into her face. She looked over at Sawyer, who seemed just as surprised as she was, though he tried to hide it.
For a brief respite from the gloom, they stopped at an all-night truck stop for their first real meal in three days. Kate pulled the hood of her sweatshirt far over her head so that she seemed to peek out from the recesses of it. They sat at a booth in a dimly lit corner, and though she received a few glances from lonely truckers ranging from appreciative to outright lustful, nobody seemed to recognize her. The waitress was half asleep and had heavy dark circles under her eyes. She barely looked at them.
They were both too tired and hungry to make the effort required for conversation, and so the meal passed mostly in silence. In the bathroom, Kate held her hands under the hot water faucet longer than she needed to, enjoying the warmth and the steam that drifted up toward her face. Her eyelids drooped and her chin sank toward her chest. Suddenly she jerked her head up, forcing herself to turn the water off and go back out to the truck, where Sawyer was already waiting.
"Did you fall in?" he asked sarcastically.
Sighing, she pulled her seatbelt on and didn't answer him.
The oppressive mist continued to drizzle down, not turning into real rain, but not diminishing either. The windshield wipers swooshed back and forth... back and forth... back and forth. On every third trip to the left, they made a pronounced squeak. Kate timed it, and then followed the rhythm in her mind, keeping track to see if it would stay in sequence. The combination of motion and sound was strangely hypnotic, lulling her into what felt like a trance. It was only on the seventh squeak that she realized she was about to throw up.
Closing her eyes tightly, she swallowed hard and took deep, slow breaths. Just don't think about food... just don't think about food... she repeated to herself like a mantra. Of course, the harder she tried not to think about food, the more she thought about it.
Opening her eyes again, she looked out the window for distraction. They were passing through the main street of a tiny, run-down mountain town. The place was deserted except for their truck, and the neon signs of the storefronts cast a distorted, colorful sheen onto the wet pavement. The red and green of the town's only stoplight was reflected so brightly and garishly on the slick street that it hurt her eyes. But to her immense relief, her queasiness began to pass.
On past the stoplight, they were forced to wait at a railroad crossing as a train lumbered by, so slowly the boxcars appeared not even to be moving.
"Gonna be okay?" Sawyer asked quietly without looking at her.
Kate glanced over at him, surprised. She hadn't thought he'd noticed anything at all.
"Yeah," she finally whispered, turning back to the front. "Fine."
For a minute the only sound was the steady beating of the windshield wipers and the clanking of the train. Then Sawyer exhaled loudly and with purpose, as if something was troubling him.
"Before I forget," he muttered. Reaching behind him, he dug his wallet out of his back pocket. Kate watched curiously as he searched through it for something. It was the same wallet he'd had on the island, now dirty and stained and falling apart. She wondered vaguely if it would ever occur to him to buy a new one. Probably not, she decided.
He finally pulled out a strip of paper and glanced at it once, then handed it over to her.
"Memorize it," he told her. "Then get rid of it."
She looked at it in the faint light from the dash. It was a phone number.
"Whose number is this?" she asked slowly.
He kept his eyes on the train still rattling past, and she could see a muscle in his jaw clench tensely. At first he didn't answer, but then he forced himself to say, almost wearily, "It's Jack's."
Kate continued to stare at him, not quite understanding.
He turned his head to her, reluctantly.
"Just in case."
He spoke in a low voice, giving her a meaningful look.
She held his gaze for a second, then quickly glanced out the window to her right so that he wouldn't see the tears that filled her eyes.
There was really only one situation that his "just in case" could apply to, and it wasn't anything she wanted to think about. It had occurred to her that they might not both see the end of this journey, but even in her worst imaginings, she had always pictured herself as the one who would be cut down. Not him.
After a few seconds, however, she took a deep breath, composing herself, and looked back down at the paper. Her memory was keen and fine-tuned, and it didn't take her long to burn the numbers into her mind. When she was positive she had them, she tore the paper into tiny shreds and rolled the window halfway down. As the last car of the train threaded its way to the west, Sawyer hit the accelerator and they began to pick up speed again.
Kate held her hand out the window and opened her palm, letting the fragments drift away and dissolve in the moisture. The air on her face was cool and refreshing, and she took deep draughts of it into her lungs, trying not to think about how much danger they might have to face.
"Too bad we can't just hop on a plane and fly up there, huh, Freckles?" Sawyer asked, as if he was reading her mind. "Would make things a hell of a lot easier."
She smiled slightly. "When has flying ever made our lives any easier?"
He grinned at her. "You got a point, there."
She rolled the window back up and unbuckled her seatbelt, then scooted over closer to him on the seat. Leaning her head onto his shoulder, she breathed in the damp aroma of his jacket and watched the road rise up out of the darkness to meet them.
When Kate opened her eyes, the sky was a pale pearly gray, the drizzle still falling. She sat up quickly.
"What happened?"
Sawyer turned his neck stiffly to look at her, then back to the road. "What do you mean, what happened? You fell asleep, sassafras. After that last gas station, you gave me the road directions like a damn drill sergeant, and then you just passed out." He looked exhausted, but still amused by this.
"I'm so sorry," she said miserably. "I wanted to stay awake with you."
"There's always next time," he answered. He didn't appear bothered at all. She had a sneaking suspicion that he might have enjoyed the silence.
Sighing, she looked at the landscape they were driving through. The mountains were lower here, more like plateaus, really, with the valleys and flat areas between them larger and more spread out. They were on a narrow two-lane highway that snaked through what looked like the outskirts of a medium-sized town.
"Where are we?"
"'Bout to cross over the state line into Kentucky," he replied.
Kate peered closer up ahead. "Is that a motel up there?"
He glanced where she was pointing. "Looks like it."
She nodded. "Pull in there. We've come far enough for one night."
"You sure?" he asked. "It ain't even light yet... I can go another hour or so."
"No," she said firmly. "You need to rest."
He rolled his eyes and made no move to slow down, even though they were nearing the entrance to the parking lot.
"Sawyer," she said with emphasis. "Turn up here. I mean it."
"Oh, well then, if she means it..." he repeated irritably, swinging the truck into the lot and bumping along the rutted asphalt to the parking spaces against the sidewalk.
"Ask for a room on the other side of the building," she told him after he cut the ignition. "Second floor, if they have it."
"Yes, ma'am," he said, opening the door to get out. "Anything else?" He looked back at her with false, exaggerated patience.
"That's it," she said slowly, trying not to snap at him. She knew it was just lack of sleep that put him in this kind of mood, but she certainly wasn't going to encourage it.
He slammed the door and headed around to the office, coming back a few minutes later with a key. They found the room and carried a few things in, looking around. It was a standard cheap motel room, not much better or worse than any other. The carpet had cigarette stains, the mattress was as hard as a rock, and on the wall hung a framed portrait of a Cherokee Indian chief on which a previous occupant had drawn a joint and a nose ring. There was also a long, floor-to-ceiling mirror positioned strategically in front of the bed, which simultaneously made Kate grimace and Sawyer arch his eyebrows approvingly. Overall, the place wasn't bad. Good enough for sleeping and cleaning up.
"What names did you check us in under?" Kate asked.
Sawyer looked proud of himself. "Bonnie and Clyde," he said in a funny voice, cocking his head to the right.
She had to fight the urge to smile, even though she should have been annoyed. It was too risky to pull shit like that, even if it was funny and sadly appropriate. "Don't do that again," she said quietly.
He ignored her.
"You want the shower first?" she offered, trying to be diplomatic.
"Go ahead and take it," he said. "I'll just watch some TV. If that's okay with you, of course, sweet cheeks," he added.
Closing her eyes for a second and sighing, she picked up her backpack and went into the bathroom.
When she came out about twenty minutes later, he was sound asleep on top of the covers. He'd grabbed the remote, but hadn't made it far enough to press the button. She smiled and pulled his shoes off, which didn't even cause him to stir.
While he slept, she did their laundry in the lobby next to the room, turning her head nervously away every time someone passed by on the balcony or clanked up the metal stairs to use the vending machines. It was a dark, overcast morning, and although this area was enclosed on two sides, every once in awhile a moist gust of cold air blew from the front of the building, making her wish she hadn't put all the warm clothes in the washer at the same time.
After she bought a coffee from the machine, she went back to their room to wait. She watched the news and was relieved to see that there wasn't a single mention of anything regarding Sawyer or herself, on either the national or local news. Maybe they'd overreacted, after all, in leaving so suddenly. It wouldn't be the first time. But still, she didn't even let herself entertain the notion of going back. They would have had to leave sooner or later, no matter what, and at least this way, they had a decent shot. If they'd waited any longer, things might have been different.
On the back of a flyer advertising Dollywood that she'd picked up from a rack near the vending machines, she wrote out a list of things Sawyer would need to get before they took off again, then studied the atlas in detail for a while, making mental notes. Eventually, she brought the dry laundry back to the room and folded it. Sawyer still showed no signs of waking, so she lay down next to him and flipped the channel to one of those obnoxious old black and white romantic comedies from the 40s where the leads talk a million miles a minute and it doesn't matter what they say because they never seem to shut up. The heavy curtains were pulled all the way closed, and when she flipped the lamp off, it was as dark as midnight.
She reclined against the pillow as the light from the TV flickered on the walls, trying to focus her mind on something other than the miles they still had to travel, but it was hard to think of anything else. The coffee kept her awake, and she began to wonder why she'd bought it. It was early afternoon, near the conclusion of another annoying movie, when Sawyer finally woke up and stumbled toward the bathroom without a word.
After he'd showered, she gave him the list and suggested that he go now while she waited here in the room. It was safer than waiting in the truck.
He squinted at the words, still not entirely awake. "Hair color, blonde," he read, sounding confused. "What's that supposed to mean?"
"You don't know what hair color is?"
"I know what it is, I just don't know what the hell you want it for."
She tried to speak patiently, like she was talking to a little kid. "They know exactly what I look like - they just saw me when I was arrested on the island. If I change my hair color, that's just one more detail that could make all the difference in the world."
He stared at her for a second, a strange expression on his face, almost one of regret.
"What?" she asked, genuinely confused.
"Nothin'." He spoke hesitantly, like he was embarrassed. "Maybe I don't want you to color your hair, is all. Maybe I like it the way it is. Ever think of that?"
For a second she didn't know what to say. She bit the inside of her cheek to keep from laughing, looking down at her hands, and then back up at him with slightly raised eyebrows.
"And stop givin' me that look," he said with scorn.
"What look?"
"That 'Isn't he adorable?' look."
She rolled her eyes. "You may be many things, Sawyer, but adorable will never be one of them."
He appeared to be thinking. "All right, how 'bout this? I'll get you a wig, instead. It ain't like they're gonna know the difference, trust me. Guys don't see that kinda stuff."
She considered, but finally gave in with a sigh. It wasn't worth arguing about. "Fine. But not the cheap kind, okay? They're really tacky."
"Oh, so you're a high-class fugitive now?" he asked with sarcasm.
She leveled a hard stare at him until he lowered his eyes back to the list.
He finished reading it, and then looked away, thinking. His face grew more serious. She was prepared for this.
"So you don't want me to get another test?" he asked quietly.
For a second she looked down at the floor, not answering. "No," she whispered, finally meeting his eyes. "I can't go through that again. Not yet."
He still watched her like this answer didn't satisfy him.
"What's the point?" she asked defensively. "Either way, we'll know eventually, right? Can't we just... wait it out?"
She heard the edge of desperation in her voice, but there was nothing she could do about it. He eventually looked away, disappointed but giving in for her sake. "Suit yourself."
He stood up and prepared to leave, grabbing his jacket. At the door he stood and looked at her pointedly like he wanted to say something else. What he finally settled on wasn't what he'd been intending, but it would have to do.
"You should try to get some more sleep. You look pale."
She nodded and gave him a slight smile. "I will."
"Be back soon."
A few minutes after he'd closed the door behind him, she realized, with a slight twinge of irritation, that he'd forgotten to take the room key with him.
The sleep that she drifted into once he was gone was deep and all-encompassing, and the eventual sound of knocking reached her as if through water. She had to struggle up to the surface to make any sense of it, but she finally realized what it was. Dragging herself up off of the bed before she'd even opened her eyes, she moved blindly toward the door through the dark. Damn him. He was the one who'd told her to sleep, wasn't he? The knocking was insistent and heavy.
She twisted the latch, feeling for the correct angle in the dark. "Just a minute!" she called out impatiently. Finally it turned, and she swung the door open and was momentarily blinded by the stream of bright light that flooded in. "Maybe next time you'll remember to take the..." Her words were cut off in shock as her eyes grew more adjusted to the daylight.
It wasn't Sawyer who was standing there. It was a cop.
He looked at her strangely, like he was trying to complete the sentence she'd just begun, but couldn't quite figure out which word should come at the end of it, or if it even applied to him. He was chubby and middle-aged, and apparently sweating, as though the climb up to the second floor had taken it out of him.
"I'm sorry?" he asked, confused.
Kate was frozen, unable to form any kind of response at all. She wasn't even sure if her heart was still beating.
Finally, he took the initiative and went on. "I just wanted to let you know, ma'am, that the complaint's been taken care of. You were right, they were all underage... Guess they were plannin' some kind of big party for tonight... you know how kids are. But it's broken up now, so you shouldn't have nothin' to worry about." He stopped here, like he expected some kind of response.
She tried to fit his words into meaningful symbols, shuffling them around in her head, attempting to make sense of them. Was she even awake? Was it too much to hope for that this was just a dream?
"What?" she finally said desperately, giving up on meaning.
He seemed confused. "Weren't you the one that called about the room next to yours - the teenagers drinking, gettin' rowdy?"
She forced her head to move back and forth, shortly. "No," she whispered, still bewildered.
He mopped his brow with his sleeve, looking up above her head and squinting. "Well, shit," he muttered. "Guess it was the folks on the other side of that room." He looked back at her, apologetic. "Sorry about that."
"It's okay," she finally managed.
He nodded at her, which apparently signified a goodbye, because he turned to go. As she was preparing to close the door, he called back, amused. "You sure are one sound sleeper!" Then he turned his attention to another door, two rooms down, and began the task of pounding on it with his fist.
She went back into the darkened room and sank down onto the chair at the side of the bed. The whole thing was funny, in a way, but she didn't feel like laughing. After her initial relief, the only emotion she was capable of was disgust with herself. How the hell could she have let herself get that sloppy? What had she been thinking? Obviously, Sawyer wouldn't be back this soon. And he would probably let her know it was him, instead of just banging wordlessly on the door. She could partially blame it on the grogginess of being pulled out of a deep sleep, but it wasn't only that. She had expected it to be Sawyer there, without even questioning that assumption. She had known it would be him standing there in the same way she'd known he would ask her about the pregnancy test. She had depended on it being him.
And maybe that was the problem, she realized with a sinking feeling. How many other things was she simply depending on these days? What else was she taking for granted? She knew that she never would have done something so utterly stupid and careless during her earlier years on the run. And the reason for that, she assumed, was that she had been alone. There hadn't been the opportunity to depend on someone else, and so she never had.
The horrible thought suddenly occurred to her that maybe this couldn't work with two people. Sawyer had just been acting like his typical smart-ass self when he signed them in as Bonnie and Clyde, but maybe the parallel should serve as a reminder of what could happen when you tried to partner up at this. After all, those two had been killed together, hadn't they? Maybe Bonnie would have been better off striking out on her own, Kate thought bitterly.
But then she was appalled at herself for thinking such a thing. Perhaps it was true that this wouldn't have happened if she'd been alone, but then again, if she'd been alone, she wouldn't have been in this motel to begin with. She would have been crouched in a truck stop bathroom, or hunkered down under an overpass somewhere. It was Sawyer's money that was paying for all of this, and she shouldn't let herself forget it. Of course, in her heart she knew that the money was beside the point. She was now dependent on him for much more than that, and maybe that was what truly scared her.
About an hour and a half later, he finally tapped on the door. "It's me! Forgot the damn key..."
She sighed and unlocked it, letting him in. It was late afternoon now, and the sun would be setting before long. The smell of food wafting out of the bags he carried in with him suddenly made her realize that she hadn't eaten all day.
"What'd I miss?" he asked jokingly, dropping everything on the bed.
She was quiet a minute, and he looked over at her, concerned.
"Nothing," she finally said. She smiled softly. "I just slept."
"Hungry?" he asked.
After they'd eaten, Sawyer took an envelope from one of the bags and drew out a huge, bulging pile of money.
"Oh my God," Kate said incredulously. "What'd you do, knock over a liquor store?"
"No, he said contemptuously. "It's mine. I took it out of the bank."
As he began to count it out, she noticed that almost all the bills were hundreds.
"You cleared out your whole account?" She sounded alarmed.
"It's a Tennessee bank... Won't be easy to get to the money once we leave the state."
"You don't have an ATM card?"
"Lost it."
"You can get another one."
He sighed. "Look, if they decide to track us, you really want to leave 'em a nice little ATM trail all the way up there?"
That was a good point. And also one she should have thought of herself.
She looked down at the bills, still worried. "It isn't safe to travel with this much cash."
"Safer than the alternative." He glanced at her. "You really think someone's gonna rob us? Be kind of ironic, wouldn't it?" He looked amused.
"Stranger things have happened," she told him wearily.
They were quiet for a minute as he counted. She could tell how much he enjoyed the actual physical presence of the cash, the smell and the feel of it. She didn't even want to touch it.
When he was done, he leaned back against the headboard. "So... you gonna try it on, or not?"
She looked at him blankly. "Try what on?"
"The wig," he said, like it was obvious. "Hell, I spent half an hour pickin' the damn thing out. Least you can do is put on a show for me."
She closed her eyes in irritation, then opened them back up. "I have to do it now?"
"You got anything better to do?"
She didn't have a response for that. "Where is it?" she asked in a tired voice.
He tossed her a plastic bag. She reached in and pulled it out, making a face. It was a dark, shiny auburn, long and wavy.
"Sawyer! I thought I told you to get blonde."
He didn't look at all apologetic. "Blonde wouldn't suit you. This'll be better, trust me. Red hair'll match your freckles."
He looked so pleased with himself that she almost smiled. Standing up, she went into the bathroom. There was the mirror in the room, but she didn't want him watching her.
She didn't bother to do much with her own hair, since this was only temporary. She simply pinned it back loosely and stuck the wig on top of it, trying not to pay too much attention to what it looked like. At least she wouldn't be recognizable. That was the important thing, she told herself firmly.
With her arms crossed, she went back out. Sawyer was staring at the TV, but he glanced up at her. The look on his face changed to one of surprise, then to one of interest, then to one of fascination. He stared at her intently.
"God damn," he breathed.
"Oh, God," she said in a disgusted tone. "Is this turning you on? Please tell me you're joking." This was certainly not something she wanted to deal with right now. Not after what she'd been through today. After the shock of the police officer at the door, she didn't think she'd be able to concentrate on anything, especially what he seemed to have in mind.
Instead of answering, he stood up slowly and crossed the room to her. He continued to gaze at her wonderingly for a second, then he gripped her by the waist and turned her towards the mirror, spinning her around despite her resistance.
He stood behind her and a little to the side, and she looked at the reflection they cast. As strange as it was, she realized that she had never actually seen the two of them together like this before. She had to admit to herself that they matched up well, physically. But the wig was disconcerting. It made her look like someone else, and the image in the mirror seemed to be of a different woman - a stranger - standing with Sawyer. She raised her hand to pull it off, but he caught her fingers and brought them back down to her side. She met his gaze in the glass with a confused look. There was a gleam of intent in his eyes that she knew all too well.
Lowering his head a little, he breathed against her ear, "How 'bout you just leave it on for a while." The roughness of his grizzled cheek against her neck sparked something that had been dormant in her, and suddenly, her body was in complete agreement with his plans. Maybe, after all, this was exactly the distraction that she needed. She turned toward him, intending to reach up around his neck, but he stopped her yet again.
"Uh-uh," he whispered teasingly, angling her so that she was facing the mirror again. "You just enjoy the view."
Reaching around from behind her, he undid the lowest button of her close-fitting white Oxford shirt, pulling the two sides apart to reveal just a bare triangle of skin below her navel. Before starting on the second button, he ran his fingertips tantalizingly over the exposed flesh.
Kate kept her eyes on the reflection in the mirror, unable somehow to draw her gaze away, even though she wasn't entirely comfortable with this. It was too bizarre, too different from anything she'd ever done. She had an ambivalent relationship with herself at the best of times, and this was pushing the limits. The auburn-haired Kate stared back at her, trying to remain still as Sawyer's hands worked their way up from the bottom of the shirt, unbuttoning deliberately, with excruciating gaps of time between each one. He kissed along her neck, his tongue occasionally darting out, pressing against her skin, and she had to fight the urge to turn her head and meet his mouth with her own.
Finally he reached the top button at the fabric just above her chest, and she felt the warmth of his hands and wrists where they rubbed lightly against her. Pressing upward toward him did no good; he drew his hands back tauntingly, keeping the pressure gentle and maddening. Drawing the two sides of the shirt apart, he pulled it away from her shoulders and slid it off her arms. The sudden air against her skin raised chills.
Now the reflection in the mirror was wearing just a simple white bra, edged with a hint of lace. If Kate looked closely, she could almost detect the steady throbbing of her pulse at the base of her neck. Sawyer kissed around from her right shoulder to the swell of her breast and then stopped abruptly, raking his fingers down her midsection as he kneeled in front of her. She could see the back of his head as he brought his lips to her stomach, just above her waist line. She placed her hands on the top of his straw-colored hair, trying to guide him in the direction she wanted him to go, but he obstinately chose his own course. He next unfastened the clasp of her jeans and worked the zipper down, and she caught a glimpse of her own red underwear. Sawyer, of course, had chosen them out of the catalog. It wasn't a color she ever would have picked for herself. But they looked exotic and foreign and altogether perfect for this moment, so she didn't regret his choice.
After kissing in a line along the top of her jeans, he began to tug on the belt loops, pulling them down. She cooperated, and he slid them off first one leg and then the other. Starting at her bare feet, he ran his hands back up, and she drew in her breath sharply as he delicately cupped the space between her legs and pressed his thumb against her for just a fraction of a second before moving away. As he rose to stand in front of her, she tried once again to pull him down to her face, to feel his lips against hers, but again he dodged her, leaning down to kiss the tops of her breasts instead. She sighed shakily in frustration. He knew exactly what he was doing to her.
Working faster now, to her relief, he removed the bra and underwear with smooth, polished technique. She was now acutely conscious of her own state of arousal, and she was positive he couldn't fail to notice it either. The knowledge brought a faint flush to her cheeks, and she carefully avoided looking into the mirror.
But he wasn't going to let her get away with it. Moving back behind her, he gripped her lightly around the waist and bent his head to whisper into her ear again. "Look up," he instructed. He was pressed so closely against her that she could feel the fabric of his jeans rubbing against her skin. He was still completely clothed, while she was wearing absolutely nothing, a situation she didn't consider exactly fair. But then why was it also so thrilling and seductive?
With reluctance, she slowly raised her eyes up, taking in her own complete image in the mirror. She rarely saw herself this way, and it was an odd sensation to view her own body through Sawyer's eyes. She could tell, even without looking closely, that her angles had softened since she'd left the island. In that remote place, and even before then, she'd never bothered to eat quite as much as she should have. She'd always been consumed with the stress of simply existing, of moving from one place to another, avoiding capture. That life had taken its toll on her body, but it had also endowed her with physical strength. Now her muscles were less pronounced, softer, which for the first time vaguely worried her. Also, her hips had more of a curve, not appearing as slim and boyish as they used to. Her breasts were a little fuller, and although her stomach was still trim and toned, she could detect, just above the dark patch at the cleft of her legs, a vague, almost imperceptible swelling. She looked away from it quickly.
Leaning back against Sawyer, she met his eyes in the glass. He was watching her closely, with a look that she wasn't quite sure how to interpret, but which unnerved her in its intensity. Tipping her chin back, he kissed the hollow of her throat, lingering on the throbbing of her pulse. She now shifted her gaze over to her own eyes. They peered back at her with an expression of fierce need that was both physical as well as something else indefinable. Suddenly, the eroticism of the scene threatened to tip toward a darker place, and she closed her eyes before that could happen, cutting her vision off from her own unfamiliar image. This had lasted long enough.
She turned toward Sawyer again, blindly reaching out for him, and this time he didn't try to stop her. As she kissed him, the wig worked itself loose, and she yanked it off impatiently. Her own hair spilled onto her shoulders, and he pulled back to examine her anew. "Even better," he said with a crooked smile. She worked at tugging his shirt over his head. Backing up toward the bed, she sat on the edge of it and frantically undid his belt buckle while he watched with something like amusement. Finally, to her relief, they were both in the same state of nudity.
But now he took control again, pressing her back against the bed and kneeling over her. She felt his hair tickling her stomach as he lavished more unnecessary attention up and down her body. With an impatient sense of needing to get even, she withheld the moans that she knew he wanted to hear. Her breathing became labored and jagged, and her hips, of their own accord, tried to rise up to meet him. He pushed them back down into the mattress and held them there.
After what seemed like an eternity, he allowed her to guide him into her. Her hips were so narrow that he filled her completely, and she arched her back a little in the effort to make more space. With excruciating slowness, he began to move in her. Rocking underneath him to increase his rhythm had absolutely no effect at all. He was doing this on purpose, and he clearly had no intention of letting her rush the conclusion.
Kate bit her lip to keep from crying out in rapturous exasperation. If this was a contest, he wasn't going to win that easily. But it was difficult. A fundamental aspect of her personality was that she didn't like to wait for things. She was accustomed to living impulsively, sometimes recklessly, but in situations where she always made sure she was in control. She was used to getting her own way, deciding her own agenda, and doing things at her own pace. During these moments with Sawyer, her fate was taken out of her hands. It was both infuriating and undeniably exciting at the same time.
Eventually, he must have grown tired of teasing her in this particular way, because in a deft move, he flipped her over on top of him and took her space against the pillow. Now maybe they could get somewhere, she thought with a sort of triumph. If she could set the speed, then they could be done with this in no time. Her body was desperate for release, and she knew she could quickly bring him to the same point, if he would just let her.
But she soon realized that these weren't his plans. Grasping her hips, he forced her to go slowly, using sheer physical strength to raise and lower her with the same maddening slowness he'd used in the previous position. You've got to be kidding me, she thought to herself. Looking into his eyes, she was met with a challenging expression. She smiled a little, breathing hard, and answered his look with her own.
To be honest, though, she knew there was no competing with him in this regard. Sex was like a sport for Sawyer, something that he studied and trained for and took very seriously. It was where he was most in his element, where he performed naturally and with a kind of graceful perfection that was a pleasure to witness. She had suspected as much, even in the first few days of knowing him, but the reality of it still never failed to captivate her. No matter how much she teased him, or belittled him, or made him feel like an idiot, no matter how often she gained the upper hand in discussions or proved him wrong in arguments, this was something she hadn't yet discovered how to best him at. With a few rare exceptions, he took initial control every time they made love and held that advantage throughout, and it was impossible to wrest it away from him. For the most part, she had given up trying. This was the one thing that she was willing to accept his dominance in, and he had discovered this fact early on. It was strangely comforting, in a way, to be able to relax and enjoy the ride.
But right now, the ride, so to speak, was being enjoyed with no relaxing involved. She still straddled him, a fine sheen of sweat coating her skin. His fingers gripped her tightly, fighting against her efforts to increase the rhythm, and she marveled at his ability to be able to hold out for so long while she was aching with the need to finish this. Wasn't it traditionally supposed to be the other way around? She closed her eyes and concentrated on keeping her breathing steady, feeling with intoxication that her body had become a live wire, buzzing with sensation.
Finally, just when she thought she was going to scream if he kept this up, he flipped her again, pressing her back into the same spot she'd started out in. The sheets felt warm from the heat of his body. Now what? she wondered vaguely. This didn't fit any pattern she could recall. But then again, they hadn't formed many patterns. Sawyer was endlessly inventive, and sex with him was never quite the same twice. It wasn't only the locations and positions that varied, but the method as well. Sometimes he was so gentle it was like he was afraid he would break her, while at other times he was so rough it was almost more than she could take. This fell somewhere in between, but she couldn't remember him ever drawing it out to such an extent before. How long had it been now? She'd lost any sense of time.
He kept his hands moving on her, darting down to the space between them but then traveling back up when she got too close, keeping her incessantly on the brink but denying her the ultimate release. What he wanted, she knew, was for her to beg, but she gritted her teeth obstinately and refused to give in. Sometimes she did, but not this time. She was determined.
Her eyes were glazed over with need, his face just a few inches above hers. In spite of her intentions, her expression conveyed the words that she was unwilling to say, and Sawyer now looked victorious. Leaning over her, he covered her mouth, his tongue meeting hers, and she drew in her breath sharply through her nose as he finally began to thrust harder. The mattress set up a steady squeaking that reminded her, absurdly, of the windshield wipers earlier. At any other time, the sound would have embarrassed her enormously, but now she was past caring.
Pulling back again, he kept watching her, and she locked gazes with him. She never felt closer to him than she did at these moments, just before climax. It was oddly fitting that they did their best communicating then. Her breathing increased to panting, and she felt the hot puffs of his own breath on her face. Her entire existence whittled down to one sharp point of intention, the achievement of which was the only thing on earth that mattered. Everything else dropped away - the grief, and the terror, and the danger of her existence ceased to be real, if only for a few seconds.
Then she stopped breathing as the heat radiated out from the core of her in waves, reaching all the way to the tips of her fingers and toes in short, explosive pulses. Her muscles contracted around him, which was the cue that always triggered his own plummet over the edge. She watched his face as he went, all the macho posturing evaporating in his unavoidable relinquishment of control, and she had time to take satisfaction in knowing that she was the cause of that. Then she tilted her head back against the pillow until it was nearly upside down, angling herself up toward him, making a slightly choked, straining noise as she reached the peak. Other than this sound, they were both silent, the intensity being too powerful to require any vocal cries. He pressed down onto her as she pressed up against him, the two of them clenched together in a moment of bliss that was all too brief.
Kate experienced a few seconds of vertigo as her body gradually transitioned down from the heights, relaxing in stages as Sawyer grew heavier and more still on top of her. Their harsh, out-of-sync breathing tapered off, becoming quieter, and she closed her eyes as he nuzzled against her ear in exhaustion. She suddenly realized, with no emotion whatsoever, that they hadn't remembered to use a condom. Deep down she already suspected that it didn't matter.
She smiled a little now at the thought of what he had just put her though. "I'll get you back for that someday," she whispered to him warningly.
He leaned up and gave her a sly smile. "We'll see," was all he answered, as if he didn't believe her. She kissed him and then shivered slightly as the sweat cooled on her skin in the open air.
Reaching down to grab the cheap motel bedspread, she pulled it up and all the way over their heads, creating a dark, cave-like shelter that she had no immediate desire to leave.
