CHAPTER 3 - CLICK, CLICK, CLICK
"Show me what you're wearing!" Lorelai called to Rory from the bathroom. Lorelai scrutinized herself in the mirror, applied another coat of mascara to both eyes, then blinked to assess her work. She looked soft and natural, which was what she had been aiming for. It was Saturday, and she and Rory were about to leave for the annual Huntzberger and Stiles Memorial Day weekend picnic in Central Park, which was where Lorelai was supposed to meet her blind date, courtesy of one Taylor Doose.
Rory bounded up to the bathroom door. She was wearing a pretty skirt and a blue top that showed off the color of her eyes.
"Wow," Lorelai said, "someone's dressed to impress."
"Dean and I haven't seen each other for three weeks," Rory reminded her. "I figured I'd put a little extra effort into it."
Rory and Dean Forester had been dating, off and on, for several months. As far as Lorelai knew, it wasn't very serious; Dean was a hockey player in the New Jersey Devils feeder system and was often gone for games, camps, and tournaments. Whenever Lorelai asked how things were going with him, Rory tended to be vague; it was the one area of their friendship where Rory was a little closed off. Lorelai supposed Rory was hesitant about the relationship because she'd had such a bad experience with Jess, her hometown boyfriend whom she'd dated through college. Lorelai didn't know much about that, either, but her understanding was that Jess had broken her heart.
"Oh, so you think you might finally let him get to first base, huh," Lorelai teased.
Rory gave Lorelai a look. "I'll have you know, first base is a very nice place to go with Dean."
"Eww, you've kissed?" Lorelai asked, imitating a junior high girl. "Did he slobber all over you?"
"Well, look at you," Rory said, turning the tables on Lorelai. "Those jeans are rather snug, and that's not exactly the most opaque white, deep V-neck T-shirt in your wardrobe. Not to mention the sexy, tousled hair. If I didn't know better, I'd think you were looking forward to this blind date."
"Hey, there is nothing wrong with putting your best foot forward."
"I'd believe you more if you hadn't spent the whole week complaining about having to meet this guy. And is that perfume I smell?"
Lorelai deadpanned. "I don't smell any perfume."
"That is most definitely perfume."
Lorelai sniffed the air. "No, I smell no perfume. You must be imagining it. Your olfactory bulb must be damaged. Your olfactory bulb controls smell. I learned that from Paris."
"Well, you must have short-circuited your olfactory bulb, then, because an alluring fragrance is wafting toward me as we speak." Rory raised an eyebrow and stared down Lorelai.
Lorelai stared back.
"Okay, fine, I did spritz some on," Lorelai confessed. "But I don't know, maybe Taylor hit his head on a big boulder and managed to know someone decent. I just want to be prepared."
Rory slung her purse over her shoulder. "Well, there's only one way to find out."
It was a picture-perfect afternoon in New York City when Lorelai and Rory got off the bus near Central Park. The sky was robin's egg blue, the clouds were white and fluffy, and the air was warm, without a trace of uncomfortable humidity.
Inside the park, families picnicked and played games on the lawn or visited in the shade of the trees. Couples strolled along the sidewalks. Occasionally a biker or skateboarder would zoom by. It reminded Lorelai of Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte, only modernized.
"So where are you supposed to meet this guy?" Rory asked as she and Lorelai made their way to the fenced off area where H&S had a tent, tables and chairs, and grills.
"By the tent, whatever that means," Lorelai replied. "Taylor didn't give me much to go on, other than the guy's tall with brown hair and blue eyes."
"Oh, well, that'll narrow it down."
"That's what I said."
"He didn't give you a name?"
"I think Taylor is expecting that the heavens will open, a dove will land on his shoulder, and the voice of Charlton Heston will announce his presence."
"Taylor does have a flair for the dramatic," Rory remarked.
They finally found the picnic area and got wristbands from the interns who were guarding the gates.
"These are very important," Lorelai said, pointing to her wristband. "They allow us to get endless amounts of food and, more importantly, beer."
"Gilmore, you're going to behave yourself this year, aren't you?" Rory asked, not entirely joking. "Because last year I practically had to carry you onto the bus, and, sister, you're not a feather."
"I was not that bad last year," Lorelai protested. "Yes, I may have overindulged a tad, but at least I wasn't passed out in a ditch like George from Accounting."
Rory just gave her a look.
"Okay, okay." Lorelai held up her hand, Boy Scout-style. "Yes, I will behave."
"Good," Rory said, "because I don't know if I'll be coming home the same time as you, and I'd hate for you to follow in the footsteps of George."
"Really," Lorelai said, suddenly very interested. "You're going to abandon me for the lusty, hockey-playing arms of Dean Forester?"
"I didn't say lusty or hockey-playing arms, madam," Rory said, blushing slightly. "We just might go somewhere else for a while. We might get ice cream or something."
"Ah, ice cream. So that's what the kids are calling it these days," Lorelai teased.
"Did someone say ice cream?" a male voice asked.
Lorelai turned around to see the tall, sinewy frame of Dean Forester standing behind her.
"Hello, Lorelai," Dean said politely, flashing a smile that showed off his dimples.
"Dean, hi!" Lorelai greeted him. "Still got all your teeth?"
"All twenty-eight accounted for," Dean replied. His gaze moved on to Rory and showed enthusiastic approval for her outfit. "Rory, you look lovely." He put his hand on her upper arm and gave her a quick kiss.
"Ooh, it's getting hot in here," Lorelai quipped.
"Okay, that'll be enough," Rory said, shooting daggers at Lorelai.
"Rory, are you hungry?" Dean asked.
"I could go for some kibbles 'n bits," Rory admitted. She turned to Lorelai. "Do you want me to stick around?" she asked, and Lorelai knew she meant "be protection in case this blind date guy turns out to be a nut."
"No, I think I'm good," Lorelai said, waving her on. "Go. Consume. Gluttonize."
Rory shot her a thankful smile and walked off hand-in-hand with Dean.
When they'd gone a few steps, Lorelai walked over to the nearest icy tub and pulled out a bottle of beer. Taking a sip, she surveyed the picnic-goers. She saw a few secretaries huddled together, exchanging gossip, while their husbands and boyfriends (some already red-faced) drank beer at tables under the tent. She saw a few members of accounting playing some sort of ring toss game in the grass. Dotted throughout the area were the various cliques of copywriters, account managers, and artists. She saw Colin and Finn chatting up some girls who were only attractive from the neck down. A few yards away from them, Logan, with a gorgeous blonde on his arm, gave a friendly, masculine back slap to a man Lorelai didn't recognize. To Lorelai's surprise, the man turned his head and caught her looking at him. He held her gaze for a few seconds, and then Lorelai looked away, slightly flustered. Something about the way he looked at her made her stomach flutter. She supposed it was because he was quite attractive, although physically, he was very different from Luke -- more streamlined than brawny. She also supposed, rather cynically, that despite his brown hair, there was no way he could be her blind date…but it didn't stop her from hoping.
Wanting to get a closer look, she started to move as nonchalantly as possible in the man's direction. When he started to look her way again, she quickly turned and began playing with a lock of hair that was resting on her shoulder. A few seconds later, she slowly began meandering nearer, spotting another icy tub that was only a few yards away from him. Setting her half-drunk bottle of beer on the nearest table, she began to stroll toward the tub…and the man got up with Logan and started walking away.
Dammit! Lorelai marched up to the tub, snatched up another bottle, and twisted the cap off. Taking a ferocious swig, she scanned the crowd to see where the man had gone.
Craning her neck, she took a few steps to her left and promptly ran into a flat chest.
"Hello," said the chest.
Lorelai looked up to see a dough-colored male face looking back at her. "Oh, excuse me," she said. "I'm sorry, I wasn't watching where I was going."
"Believe me," said the owner of the face, "I don't mind."
Lorelai stepped back and got a better look at this stranger. He was tall and thin, narrow at the shoulders and not much wider at the hips. He wore a pair of corduroy pants and a pale blue, button-down short-sleeved shirt that was one size too big and looked like it was straight out of 1962. His eyes were bulbous and his eyebrows dark, and his chin seemed to recede into his face. Among the H&S crowd, he stuck out like a sore thumb.
"As a matter of fact," the stranger continued, "I believe this is a sign that the universe has conspired to bring us together."
"Oh…really?" Lorelai asked, feeling her spider sense start to tingle ominously. She noticed that in addition to his odd set of features, he had an unusual, monotone cadence to his speaking.
"I do, indeed," the stranger said, sounding as though he were preparing to deliver a practiced speech. "There are over eight million residents of New York City. There are one and a half million in Manhattan. There are only thousands in Central Park. Taking your most educated guess, what do you suppose the chances are that two of them, strangers to each other, would be acquaintances of the same person?"
Lorelai felt her stomach drop out as she realized that the man in front of her had not only brown hair, but blue eyes as well. Her knees suddenly felt shaky, and not in a good way.
"And beyond that, what would you say are the chances that one of them would bump into the other just as the other was arriving?"
"I have no idea," she said weakly. Half of her mind had gone completely blank. The other half was beating Taylor to a bloody pulp.
"My, my, my, you are a pretty picture," the stranger commented. "I must say, you are much more attractive than your photo. You know the camera adds ten pounds, so I wasn't sure if it was an accurate representation. Not that I'm opposed to dating more Rubenesque females, mind you, but I do have a weakness for the svelte ones."
"I'm sorry," Lorelai said in a small voice, trying to recover, "what did you say your name was?"
The stranger smiled one of those no-teeth-showing smiles. "Kirk Gleason, friend to man and lover to ladies," he said, sticking out his hand. Lorelai shook it limply.
Kirk glanced over at the buffet line. "Do you mind if we go through the line? They wouldn't give me a bracelet, even though I said I was with you, and I'm so starved I could skin a grizzly right now."
Lorelai, still in shock, just nodded numbly.
"Hmm, the line looks long," Kirk observed. "Oh, well, I'm sure there's something you can tell me about yourself that I don't already know while we wait. By the way, you smell heavenly. I hope that I'll be smelling the same by the time the night is over, if you catch my drift." He waggled his eyebrows knowingly.
Kirk had to take Lorelai by the hand to lead her over to the buffet line. For some reason unknown to him, she suddenly seemed unable to move.
"You're not having any corn on the cob?" Dean asked as he and Rory went down the buffet line.
"Corn gets stuck in my teeth," Rory said as she scooped some chips onto her plate. She smiled when she saw Dean carrying two full plates of food for himself to their table.
They sat down and ate, and Rory realized she was hungrier than she thought. She cleaned her plate in record time, while Dean alternated between talking and eating.
"So I checked the guy, and he came after me -- really threw himself at me -- and the next thing I knew, I was at the bottom of a pile. The team doctor said I was lucky I didn't break anything." Dean paused to shovel down some cole slaw.
"Definitely," Rory said. Dean was something like a hockey-playing Houdini; he'd had more narrow escapes from injury than she could count.
"Well, it's part of the game," Dean said. He reached out and covered Rory's small hand with his large one. "I'm just glad I'm in one piece when I come home to see you."
Rory nodded. "I agree," she said, but his words didn't make her heart race. She liked Dean, she really did, but it was more of a mellow pleasance that she felt around him, rather than an eager pit in her stomach. But after Jess, she was fine with not riding the emotional roller coaster. Dean was nice and safe, and right now, that was what she wanted.
"Well, well, well. Rory Leigh, you didn't tell me you were bringing a date!" a very familiar voice said loudly.
Rory looked up to see Logan Huntzberger hovering over her. A gorgeous blonde girl dressed in designer clothes clung to one of his arms. Logan himself was dressed impeccably in an expensive-looking knit polo shirt and khaki pants. It was the first time Rory had seen him out of a suit. He looked nice. She felt a strange flip in her stomach. She hadn't been sure that Logan even knew her name; at work he always seemed distracted. And why would he have thought she was bringing a date? She hadn't even told him she was coming to the picnic.
"Hello, Logan," she said, remembering her manners. "Uh, this is my friend, Dean. Dean, this is Logan, my boss."
"Oh, so just a friend?" Logan asked, pointing his finger back and forth between Rory and Dean.
"No, we're dating," Dean said quickly. "Dean Forester," he said to Logan, shaking his hand.
"Logan Huntzberger." Logan put his hand at the back of the blonde. "And this is Lisa."
"Your date?" Rory asked.
Logan grabbed Lisa's hand, swinging it a few times, and grinned. "I don't know," he said to Lisa, "are we dating?"
"If you want to call it that," Lisa said with a smirk, and Rory noticed she had a slight foreign accent.
"I guess we are, then," Logan announced with a jovial shrug.
Rory laughed nervously. Dean didn't laugh at all.
"Your girl here's very talented," Logan said to Dean. "Good writer. She helps save my ass every day."
"Yeah, Rory's pretty amazing," Dean said, not taking his eyes off Logan.
"Well, we need to keep making the rounds," Logan said, not seeming to notice the tension. "Keep up the good work, Rory. You're a lucky guy, Dean." He slung his arm around Lisa, and they walked off to the next table.
Dean turned to Rory. "What the hell was that?"
Rory shook her head. "I…I really don't know," she said honestly.
"Oh, yes, I'm finding that the educational CD-ROM business is extremely lucrative. Our latest offering is a CD-ROM on how to use CD-ROMs," Kirk said as he polished off a fried chicken thigh. "At the rate I'm going, I'll finally be able to move out of my mom's place. She won't let me lock my bedroom door. It puts a real damper on my love life."
Lorelai cringed. She pushed around a chunk of potato from her potato salad on her plate. She had spotted Rory, but Rory was on the complete opposite side of the tent, engaged in what looked like an intense conversation with Dean. For the past ten minutes, Kirk had been droning on and on about his various business ventures, which included dressing up like Superman for kids' birthday parties and being a personal shopper for non-English speakers, despite his inability to speak any other language. "I am an expert in the language of gesturing," he'd explained when she'd asked how that worked, exactly.
"You don't seem very hungry," Kirk said, noticing Lorelai's plate. "Taylor said you eat like a horse. 'A thoroughbred mare' were his exact words."
Lorelai frowned, but before she could reply, a loud whoop ripped through the tent, and people started parting to make a pathway. Down the impromptu path came Logan, decked out in some sort of plastic chestplate, brandishing an enormous water gun. Right behind him were Colin and Finn, outfitted similarly, along with a few others. They passed by Lorelai's table, and to Lorelai's surprise, one of the group was the very attractive man she'd noticed earlier. At the sight of him, her stomach gave another little flip, then a very big one when he looked straight at her, gave her the once-over, and grinned as he passed by.
Once outside of the tent, Logan halted and gathered the troops. "Okay, boys, I think we know the rules: basically there aren't any rules. Just don't get hurt, and don't get caught by the cops." There was a swell of masculine laughter, and Lorelai heard Colin's voice yell, "Yeah, Finn, I'm not paying your bail anymore, you dirty Australian!"
"All right," Logan said, holding out his arms to calm things down. "Players, take your marks…get set…GO!"
Instantly, streams of water started flying everywhere as players scrambled all over the lawn, ducking behind trees and taking shots, then darting through the spooked picnic-goers who were still unaware of what had started.
Lorelai watched Logan take a shot at Finn, miss, roll a somersault, then take another shot, this time nailing him right in the face. Finn threw his arms in the air, trying to block Logan, and then, unable to escape, sulkily called truce. Lorelai couldn't help but silently egg Logan on for her own sake.
"It's too bad no one asked me to participate," Kirk said as they watched. "Of course, with my vast knowledge of martial strategy, dating from the Byzantine Empire through the Alamo, I would have flattened them all in no time."
"Uh-huh," Lorelai said, not really paying attention. Now Logan was going after Colin.
Suddenly, she noticed something moving out of the corner of her eye and turned to look. The next events seemed to happen in slow motion.
The very attractive man stood in front of her. She started to open her mouth. He raised his water gun, pulled the trigger, and a blast of cold water hit Lorelai smack in the face. On her hair. On her chest. Her arms. Everywhere.
With a yelp, Lorelai leaped to her feet. She was dripping, sopping wet. Open-mouthed, she glanced up at the man, who was grinning at her. "I…you…" Her vocabulary failed her.
Kirk had leapt to his feet, too. "I think I need to ask you to step outside, sir," he said to the man, clearly gearing up for a fistfight.
The man gave Kirk a funny look. "Um, we are outside," the man stated.
"Oh. Right." Kirk tried again. "Well, then I'm going to have to ask you to apologize to the lady, or I am going to have to force-feed you a knuckle sandwich."
Lorelai finished wiping the drips out of her face, then began wringing out her shirt.
"Don't you think you ought to get her some paper towels to dry off with first?" the man pointed out.
Kirk's gaze darted between Lorelai and the churl standing before him, his inner conflict about which problem to address first written clearly on his face. He pointed at the man. "You stay right there. I'm not done with you," he said, then zoomed off for the paper towels.
Lorelai and the man watched him go, and then the man approached Lorelai. "Hey, are you all right?" he asked, and Lorelai was surprised to hear the gentleness in his voice. Coming up alongside her, he put his hand on her shoulder, which sent an unexpected little current through her.
Lorelai looked at his hand, then up at his face. "Yeah, I guess. You kind of took me by surprise there, buddy," she replied, keeping her tone light, but his nearness was making it a little hard to think of anything else.
The man smiled. "Okay, good. I mean, good that you're all right." He leaned in, and Lorelai's heart began to beat faster. It was like his entire body was sending out electric shocks to her, just by sharing the same air.
He lowered his mouth to her ear and murmured, "The thing is, I wanted to meet you, but I had to get rid of that other guy first. So I hope you'll forgive me."
Lorelai exhaled a shaky breath, and her whole body backed her up when she nodded and managed to say, "Yeah, okay, forgiven." As she did, she couldn't help but let her gaze linger for a brief moment on his lips. Then she realized what she was doing, and felt her cheeks warm. Hadn't she just declared to Rory a few days ago that she had turned a corner, turned over a new leaf, gotten maturity when it came to men? That when it came to relationships, she was new and improved? Yet here she was, letting her mind skip ahead to things that the new and improved Lorelai would demand she wait for.
"I'm Lorelai Gilmore," she said, holding out her hand for him to shake.
"Christopher Haden," he said, engulfing her hand in his, and a new current of electricity rippled up her arm. "So, Lorelai, what do you say we get you out of those wet clothes?"
Her eyebrows shot up to her forehead. "Excuse me?"
He just grinned. "You'll see."
"I just can't believe you work for that guy," Dean said, shaking his head, as Logan and his friends staggered into the tent, wet and muddy, but exhilarated after a very rambunctious water fight. "Does he even do any work?"
"He works," Rory said, feeling annoyed at Dean. Logan was far from a perfect, or even good boss most of the time, but having an outsider to the agency criticize him -- even if it was Dean -- just felt wrong to her. It was like someone criticizing a relative; you could do it, but someone else couldn't. She covered her arms and shivered slightly. The picnic was starting to wind down, and the first hints of dusk had begun to creep into the sky. "Can we just drop the topic of Logan, please?"
"Of course," Dean said. "I didn't want to talk about him, anyway."
Rory pressed her lips together. Dean was the one who hadn't been able to let the topic of Logan go ever since Logan had swung by their table much earlier. They would start talking about something else, and then somehow Dean would bring it back to Logan.
With a sigh, Rory reached out and squeezed Dean's hand. "Look, I'm really glad you're back in town. I missed you while you were gone."
Dean's face brightened. "You missed me?"
"I missed you."
"I missed you, too, Rory. I always miss you when I'm on the road."
"I just want this to be a nice time for us, and I'd rather leave work at work, and that includes Logan, okay?" She looked at him, hoping he would get it.
"Of course," Dean quickly agreed. "Let's talk about anything but work. What do you want to talk about?"
Rory ran her thumb over Dean's knuckles as she looked into his eyes. "Well, I do believe we discussed going for ice cream. That would definitely go a long way in making this a nice time."
"I think I can manage that," Dean said, smiling.
"Good."
They stood, and Dean took Rory's hand. As they left, they passed Logan and his friends breaking open beers and talking loudly around a table, but Rory made sure to keep looking straight ahead.
"Oh, well, you have to go to the Statue of Liberty," Lorelai said to Christopher after she found out he'd never been there.
They were walking along the sidewalk, peering into the shops as the last of the day's light finally disappeared. Every so often their shoulders would brush, and Lorelai would just notice it. Her body and mind seemed to be in a state of heightened awareness, attuned solely to Christopher's nearness. She was already well aware that they were walking much more closely together than they would have with any other newly made acquaintance, but she couldn't remember if she'd ever felt this kind of chemistry before, this magnetic pull she couldn't escape. Ever since they'd left the picnic, they'd constantly been brushing up against each other and finding other ways to touch, whether it was his hand briefly resting against the small of her back as he let her enter a store first, or her pressing into his side to make room for others on the sidewalk, or his fingers lightly rubbing the back of her arm as they waited for the light to change color. The continuous stream of little touches was driving her mad, yet all she wanted was more.
"I mean, it's on the shirt you bought me," she continued, referring to the cheesy tourist-trap tee which she'd changed into at a souvenir shop after they left the picnic. "Plus, who doesn't want to recall the days when the French did something nice for America."
"Other countries celebrating the United States? Imagine that."
"I know, but that is one big hunk of metallic proof right there, my friend."
Their shoulders brushed again, and for a few moments they walked in silence. Lorelai could feel the tension descend on them like a blanket, wrapping thickly around them, and as she sneaked sideways glances at Christopher, she was sure he had to be feeling it, too.
They passed a mini-mart, and suddenly Lorelai grabbed Christopher's arm. "Wait. I need something from here," she told him.
Christopher raised his eyebrows at the run-down exterior but let Lorelai pull him inside by the hand.
Lorelai marched down the aisle, scanning the items, until she found what she was looking for. She picked up a package and held it up to Christopher.
Christopher read the label. "Corn nuts. You wanted to stop for corn nuts."
"It's the beer from this afternoon. I need something salty."
Lorelai went to the counter to pay, but Christopher plunked down a few dollar bills before she could pull out her wallet.
"Why did you have to pay?" she asked him once they were back outside. She gave him a little shove. "Now I feel obligated to share with you."
Christopher held out his hand. "I know."
They munched on the corn nuts, once again in silence, until Lorelai felt something small hit her on the head.
She ignored it, but a couple seconds later, she felt another tap, then another. They were getting close to her apartment building now, and there were a few people ahead of them on the sidewalk, but other than that, she had no idea where the tiny missiles were coming from. Then she glanced at Christopher.
Shaking a corn nut from the bag, she tossed it at the side of his head.
"Hey!" he exclaimed. "What was that for?"
"Don't play innocent with me," she said, accusing him playfully. "I know exactly what you're doing."
"What am I doing?"
She pelted him with another corn nut. "You're throwing corn nuts at me."
"Am I?" Christopher asked innocently -- and then he started flinging corn nut after corn nut at her. They lodged in her hair, hit her on the forehead, and Lorelai tried to pelt him back, until she ran out of ammunition. She threw herself at him, but he caught her by the wrists, and they struggled, laughing, leaning and staggering on the sidewalk, until Lorelai's hands were pinned behind her, and she found her face just a breath away from Christopher's.
They stared into each other's eyes as they caught their breath, and Lorelai knew for certain that he wanted everything as much as she did. What they were doing now was just the prelude.
"You know, we're only a couple blocks away from my place," she said in voice barely above a whisper. "You could come up…we could have coffee…"
"Yeah, coffee sounds great," he said, sounding like he was talking about anything but coffee.
He loosened his grip on her, and they walked briskly in silence toward her building. They avoided brushing shoulders and any other physical contact, as though they would receive a fatal electric shock if they touched. The tension between them had swelled to the bursting point; one more push, and the seams that held them back would explode.
In the elevator, they almost lost control, until the doors opened on the second floor, and an elderly couple got on. Lorelai determinedly trained her focus on the lighted floor numbers above the door, trying desperately not to be aware of Christopher's hand resting next to hers just fractions of an inch away on the rail.
Finally, the number 7 lit up. When the elevator door opened, they practically sprinted down the hall to apartment 707. As Lorelai dug into her purse to find her keys, Christopher pressed his body against her back, wrapping his arms around her waist as a little thrill went up her spine. She smiled, remembering when college boyfriends used to do the same thing, and continued searching for her keys; but when he dipped his head and began to kiss her neck lightly, she had to stop and close her eyes, exhaling a small sigh. Oh, yes…they should have started with this much earlier in the evening. The touch of his lips was like a series of small electric shocks on her skin, sending her pulse racing. When his tongue pressed against the sweet spot on her neck, she abandoned her keys altogether and turned around in his arms.
Immediately Christopher captured her mouth with a long, searing kiss that Lorelai felt all the way down to her toes, a kiss that unleashed everything that had been building between them all afternoon and evening. She wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled him closer, making a small sound when she felt his erection press into her hip. It gave her a rush, the proof that she was already affecting him so viscerally. She opened her mouth wide and sank into his kiss as his tongue slid inside and did wonderful, wet, insistent things to hers. He tasted like beer and salt and man, and all she wanted to do was keep devouring him. Raw need coursed through her veins like a roaring river, drowning out all other thoughts; it had been so long since she'd had this, far too long. How she'd made it this long at all was suddenly a mystery to her.
Christopher's hands moved under her shirt, over her stomach and up her back, sending a thousand new jolts of electricity through Lorelai as she encouraged him with her body and the sounds in her throat, losing herself in the sensations he was creating. He moved his mouth to her neck, sucking sensually on the skin there, and closed his hand over her breast.
That was the wake-up call Lorelai needed to remember that they were still in the hallway, in plain view of anyone who might walk by, particularly busybodies like Taylor. She pushed Christopher back slightly and panted, "We need to get inside."
"Right," he agreed, nodding vigorously. He let her fish out her keys, running his hands up and down her sides, each second that ticked by seeming to last an agonizing eon. Finally she turned the key in the lock, and they hurried inside.
The second the door was closed and re-locked, Christopher's lips descended again on Lorelai's, crushing open mouth to open mouth as their hands slid frantically over as much warm skin as they could. Lorelai felt like her skin had become a raging fire, and she quickly stripped off her top so that Christopher could touch her more easily. Christopher soon pulled off his own shirt, and Lorelai began to guide him back toward her bedroom.
Once inside, she closed the door and unzipped her jeans. He helped peel them off her, then wrapped his hands around her bottom, squeezing and caressing endlessly, first over her underwear, then slipping beneath the waistband, as his mouth feasted on her neck.
Lorelai moaned breathlessly. The need he was arousing in her was almost too much to bear; it felt like a hot, heavy coil deep inside her wrapping tighter and tighter. Filled with near-desperation, she quickly felt around for the waistband of his jeans, tugged on the zipper roughly, and shoved his pants off his hips. She swallowed when she saw his snug boxer-briefs. They left little to the imagination about his form, and she pulled him over to the bed.
She threw back the covers and lay down, and he followed her. She felt the weight and heat of his body descend on hers, and she let out a hot breath as he began to kiss her everywhere, behind the ear, on her jawline, neck, ribcage, stomach. He kissed her breasts through her bra, and she suddenly felt that if she didn't take off that bra right then, she would die. She arched her back, then reached behind and unhooked it. She flung it into a corner and pulled his head to her bare nipples, gasping in delight as he took each one into his mouth. He dallied there for a while, working her into a froth, then began to retreat down the plane of her stomach. As he passed her navel, he hooked his fingers into each side of her panties and slid them off her hips, down her legs, then discarded them on the floor. He returned to her stomach and pressed new hot, wet kisses to her skin. She squirmed happily beneath him, burying her fingers in his hair.
Then he began to kiss lower, and lower still, and Lorelai realized with a wild start that he was pulling her hips to the edge of the bed. Her breathing quickened when he wrapped his hand around her ankle and placed her foot on his shoulder. Suddenly she let out a sharp cry as his lips and tongue began to do marvelous things to her, things that made her see hot, swirling colors that were like molten pools of energy, energy that would consume her, blind her, make her incinerate if she got too close. She clutched the sheets tightly in her fists, trying to maintain some semblance of control. Her vision went white as the tightly wound coil inside her began to twist, then tremble, then quake; a torrent of sound rushed through her throat into the air, and she abandoned herself to Christopher, letting him drag her down to the depths, plummeting into darkness.