Climax of the Storm

"I want you to."

They switched places. She guided Eng into her and steered him to her desired pace with gentle, high-pitched words. Twice C.C. asked him to slow down. During each interlude, she pulled him to her for kissing. She liked stroking his biceps, and when asked about it the next day, she admitted she was turned on by the strength it took for him to maintain a pushup position with arms locked or bent.

"Finish," she whispered into his face. "Lay flat on top of me and go as hard as you want, for as long as you want." Eng tucked his left hand beneath of her back and spread the right across her ass. C.C. breathed in his odors of sex and soap and sweat, and her own odors too. He eased his body against hers until in position. With a faint gasp of "Don't hold back," C.C. reached under his arms to grip his shoulders.

She screamed into his neck as Eng pounded her, harder and then harder still, the staccato slaps of their bodies merging with their cries, his cock sliding without resistance through the wetness while shocks from her clitoris shot down her legs and up her spine. He slowed. He sped up again and struck her with less force but far more speed.

C.C. encouraged him further, in a quivering voice now, until both were panting, as breathless as drowning swimmers, and she asked him to let himself go. Eng's grunts turned into throaty gasps of her name. Another orgasm began to surge inside her. The sounds of C.C.'s deepening climax released his own and Eng came, on and on, still crying out in the aftermath, lifting from her torso to thrust through the familiar post-peak impulse to stop. C.C.'s hands slipped from him. At her request, Eng hovered a moment to let her contract her muscles around his penis. He began to slip from inside her and pinched the condom to keep it in place as he withdrew.

C.C. stirred at daybreak. She crept outside in clothes, though the morning felt less chilly than she had expected. After walking herself awake, she soaked a still-damp washcloth in a pool at the foot of the cliff and washed off from the night before. Spring odors filled the air—a hint of violets amidst the smell of mud and growing wet green things. The leaves at eye level twitched at the touch of drops from higher places. A thread of water still trickled off the cliff. A thousand birds sang behind a complaining blue jay. She could have awakened into a new world and, for all she knew, she had done just that.

Eng stumbled out of the tent. C.C.'s eyes narrowed at the lost expression on his face. Uncertainty? Regret? Morning grogginess?

She croaked, "No coffee is a perfect definition for primitive." When Eng sat down next to her, C.C. leaned a shoulder into his arm. "The best thing about making love with a dear friend is the special kind of awkwardness the next morning." Even kissing his cheek failed to break his straight-ahead stare. "We have to put off serious discussions until we get back to caffeine and civilization."

"That's fair," Eng said, and he sounded relieved.

C.C. twisted to reach into her pocket. "Here. It turns out I put your magic charm into the wrong shorts."

Eng studied the coin in her hand before folding her fingers over it. "I want you to keep it as long as we're together," he said. "Whether it's the next two days or a thousand years. Will you do that?"

"I will."

He kissed her. They listened to the woods.

"You can already feel the air heating up again," Eng said. "If it's like yesterday, I may have to experiment with your clothes-off lifestyle."

C.C. deftly unbuttoned with one hand. "Why don't we go back to the tent," she said, "and start right this minute?"