Dangerous Weather

I work as a reporter for the county newspaper. We were organized recently and given assignments to cover the recent rains and flooding in California. I'm the only guy in the whole outfit, except for the editor in chief.

As we gathered and were given our assignments, I was selected to cover the coastal landslides. With the loss of life involved, we were going to put two reporters on the scene to provide detailed coverage.

On any dual-assignment, this was the part I hate the most. I'm young and trim; this leads to all kinds of harassment from my female co-workers who are all fat, fatter, or fat and bitter. All except for one, but I never drew assignments with her. The short gal all the others hated, as physically fit as I was, had waist-long, straight red hair. Her name was Tracy, and she was engaged to the editor in chief. He gave her the good assignments.

Imagine my shock at the announcement that Tracy would be assigned with me. In thinking about the assignments, ours was the plum job. At least Tracy didn't hate me and I could stare at her cute ass all week long. The others all used my looks as a way to either claim I was harassing them or to put moves on me. Nothing can turn a stomach like a fat cow with the moon in her eyes.

I treated the assignment like an assignment but hadn't realized the extent of the damage the rains were causing. We were booked into a seaside hotel about forty minutes away from the major damage. I worked with Tracy the first day on organizing our plan of coverage. She was hopeless as far as anything happening, but at least she was nice and fun to look at. She always treated me well.

We put in two solid days of wet camera work and note taking as we interviewed local home and business owners. Seeing the damage firsthand is always more devastating than what is seen on TV. Despite whatever perspective is used, all the damage looks smaller on the tube.

At the end of an exhausting second day, I invited Tracy to join me for soup at the hotel restaurant.

She looked a little reluctant, but nodded. "Sure. Soup sounds really good."

We met at the register and were seated at a table by the window. Water dripped down from the ceiling here and there into buckets while we sat there. The rain was coming down harder. We Californians know what hard rain is, but they last only a few minutes and are gone. Invariably, some idiot decides he can prove he has a big dick by trying to swim across a river during the rains. Happens every time. But this rain was longer than any other in memory. This was a hard rain that lasted not minutes, but hours, and hours that stretched into days. This was like nothing seen in my lifetime.

I think both of us were awed by the display of mother nature, and we both kept looking out the window at the great Pacific ocean as it roiled and bubbled under the rain's onslaught.

"Sort of reminds you how mortal we are, and how powerless..." I murmured.

Tracy glanced at me in surprise. "I was thinking the same thing; how we can't stop something so vast."

I nodded.

"We're always in control all the time, managing and directing, but this makes you feel powerless against nature." She picked at her napkin. "It's almost frightening."

"Almost?" I asked. "This weather is scaring the hell out of me!"

Tracy looked nervous for a moment and smiled her wonderful smile briefly. "I thought I was the only one who felt scared."

I reached across and gave her hand a single, encouraging touch. She looked down in embarrassment.

We ate and made small talk about our careers; journalists always feel they're going to save the world. I asked Tracy about her impending marriage out of courtesy. Her and Ian the editor were going to be married in less than two weeks. The courtship had been too long - almost a year. But Ian had wanted to be sure he was established in his position before committing to marriage.

I told her about my divorce almost ten years ago. You marry young and realize you've made a mistake, so you correct the problem. But people looked on someone divorced as having some stigma of relationship-failure. You almost have to keep divorce secret for fear of it chasing you your whole life with failure after failure.

Tracy appeared interested, and not judgmental for me having admitted to a previous marriage. "You don't seem so bad; why didn't it work?"

Great, she might be giving me a chance, but even she equates divorce with "bad." "Well, she wanted a family right away, but wanted to run off on her career. I was all for career and making sure that was secure before starting a family. She didn't want to wait for either."

Tracy looked confused. "She expected to do both at once? That's not possible, is it?"

"It is if you can run off on your career path while the husband takes care of the family."

Tracy formed a circle with her mouth. "Oh."

"She was too young to consider either, seriously. So was I for that matter."

Our conversation turned to lighter subjects and we ended the evening on the second floor landing. The lights were out in the hotel hallways, except for the emergency exit lights, which were on battery back-up. Tracy lingered from going to her door down the other hall.

"Matt..." Tracy said with a tremor in her voice.

"Yes?" I turned to her in the dark.

"Umm, would you mind sitting with me until the lights come back on? I don't want to sit in the dark alone." She hugged herself.

"Oh, yeah, sure." What was I thinking? What a jerk I was to think she didn't need some emotional support during a blackout.

I sat with her in her room. She sat on the bed with a pillow hugged to her while I sat in the room's only chair. We talked and joked to pass the time. It's times like these where you miss the inanity of TV. But then, I wasn't missing it. I was getting to talk with Tracy before she tied the knot and was gone forever.

We really tried to do our job the next day. Really.

We walked outside to discover that Mother Nature had other plans. Not only had it continued to rain, and rain hard, but the ground up here had gone soft. The entire ocean side of the parking lot had given way and both our cars were laying in a tumble of broken asphalt and mud. My guess is that they were totaled. Not only the cars, but all of the telephone poles on this one side.

I pissed off Mother nature's plans, though, and whipped out my cell. Within twenty minutes, the newsroom had been apprised of our situation. We were told to continue covering from where we were since we were now in the middle of it, and we would be picked up at the end of the assignment.

"We're slated for pick-up Saturday." I snapped the cell shut.

"What are we going to do without cars?"

"Cover the reporting from here." I shrugged. Our cars were as good a picture as any, so I readied the camera for some firsthand material.

We did a fast job of splitting tasks for the day and separated. People don't like reporters, but they love to talk. Once past the initial hostility, you get tons of info, some good, some useless. Unfortunately for me, I had to write small for fear of filling my notepad. All my extras had been in the trunk of the car.

Since we were limited to the same vicinity, I saw when she approached the café. I was busy sipping coffee, and she joined me in a wet plop of jacket and purse.

"Am I ever going to be warm again?" Her teeth chattered.

My eyebrows raised into my scalp. Was I that stupid I couldn't see her shivering? "I'm sorry, you want my jacket?"

She glanced at it but said nothing.

I looked at it and realized that mine was just as soaked. Due. I felt like an idiot. "Oh, I'm sorry. How stupid."

"No, that's okay. Thanks for offering." She huddled in on herself.

She ordered soup with chattering teeth. She was really cold.

Can I be any more dense? I got out of the booth and scooted in beside her. I reached my arm around and tried to hold her as best I could in the booth. Usually, you feel some warmth created, but all I felt was cold.

"Your jacket isn't weatherproof?"

"I don't know, it's just a jacket." She started to shiver less as some semblance of warmth was generated.

"Oh. Mine is treated. It gets wet, but takes longer. You're soaked through to the skin."

The soup really helped and she thanked me for warming her. I didn't move back to my side, and she said nothing. If Ian had walked in here, I'd be looking for another job, I'm sure. Even as wet as she was, she smelled wonderful.

"I probably look like a drowned rat," she looked into her soup.

"No, you look beautiful..." I realized I was speaking my mind without thinking. "Oh my gosh, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to harass you or anything..."

"Oh stop it. I'm not like those other women." She gave me a stern look.

"No, you're not," I said slowly. "Are you?"

She looked into my eyes and we locked gazes. Neither of us blinked. We both stared and kept staring, waiting to see how long it could be held without someone breaking it. The waitress asked if we wanted more coffee and we both broke the look at the same time in embarrassment.

Wednesday dawned with an even harder rain. We had only short periods of electricity in the hotel, so there wasn't much point to hanging around. We both separated again to cover the remaining locals we hadn't gotten to yesterday. The day was one mad dash for door followed by another.

At the end of my run for the day, I saw Tracy had already finished. She was standing out by the freeway aiming her camera up the hill. I trotted out to her in the darkening rain.

"Whatcha got?" I asked.

"Up there," she waved the camera a little. "A section of that hillside is moving."

I scanned the hill, but saw nothing. It butted up against the freeway, though. If it slid, the road would be blocked. I took out my camera and held it at my side. I looked along the freeway, and back behind us to the hotel and the sea.

"Oh my god! Look!" Tracy screamed.

At her voice I had heard what sounded like a breeze of air mixed with rain. I turned to see a huge section of the hillside rushing down to the freeway. Mud and water cascaded onto the freeway as Tracy snapped what would be some fantastic candid shots. But with her eye to the camera, she couldn't see the traffic veer wildly as it approached the now blocked road.

I could feel it. We were standing right across from the slide. The only place for those vehicles to go was where we were standing. I didn't bother yelling, or anything. I just grabbed her around the waist and pulled hard. Without time to turn, I backpedaled hard. Of course, something was low behind me, I'm not sure what, but my heel hooked it and down we went just as a large delivery truck passed close to where we had been standing. He hit a small lake of water there as he fishtailed and we were drenched as we went down.

The truck probably would have missed us, but it would have been close. I tried my best to keep our cameras from the water, but the only way to be sure would be to get them inside. I helped Tracy up as the rain decided it wasn't coming down hard enough and doubled in intensity. Black clouds replaced the merely dark gray ones.

We rushed back to the hotel entrance as thunder sounded in the distance. We both shook in startlement at the fury of the storm. The lights were out again but Tracy didn't have to ask. We went to her room and I quickly toweled off the cameras like a concerned mother hen.

She said something about the muddy water on her skin. Her reminder brought it to me, too. I could feel the grit on my skin. It's not a good feeling.

"I'm going to shower this off, okay, Matt?"

"Sure. I'll go after you."

"Okay," she smiled, shivering.

While getting the grit off might have been a great idea, it wasn't until I was in the shower after her that I realized that without electricity, the water was ice cold. I hadn't bothered to ask her about it, because I didn't want to give her the wrong idea. I had just brushed by her and into the bathroom.

Not only did I realize there was no electricity and thus no hot water, I realized as I got in that I had nothing to change into. I'd have to run to my room in a towel. How the hell did Tracy stand the cold? I yelped several times as I forced myself to shower off the grit.

When I got out, the towels provided no heat and no comfort. I was shivering so hard that I wondered if I was going to die. I stumbled out to tell her I'd be right back after getting some clothes. She was wrapped up in the blankets of the bed, and she didn't answer me.

I leaned over her to make eye contact, and she looked at me from a deathly white face. Her lips were almost a brilliant blue.

I'm not sure who was more scared. Me for her and the possibility she was suffering from hypothermia, or her when she saw my panic. Both our eyes widened, mine then hers.

I clawed at her blankets. My hands touched her face and neck. Ice cold. This was not good. "You're too cold!"

If her core temperature dropped too low, her heart could stutter and fail. I looked around wildly for a heat source, but there was no electricity. The thunder outside sounded like doom.

I fought with her to get her uncovered. She clutched to the blankets, not knowing what I was doing. I succeeded in getting her uncovered. I then dropped my towel and climbed on top of her, covering us with the blankets again.

"What are you doing?" She stuttered at me.

"If we don't raise your temperature, you could die." I pressed her down and covered her with my body as best I could. I arranged the blankets tightly and hoped I remembered everything. Then I remembered the joke about kissing. Kiss and heat it up. Warmth into the breathing tract will warm the hypothalamus which regulates body heating.

"Listen to me. You need warm, moist air. We have none except for what we make. Kiss me for warmth." I lowered my mouth to her cold one. I kissed her gingerly since we were both shivering. I stopped for a second. "If I had any other way to do this, I would, okay?"

"Okay, I understand. I remember the hypothermia articles we did."

I went back to kissing her. She kissed back and our tongues shook together. She shifted under me to get as comfortable as she could until she got warm. Never in a zillion years would I have imagined myself actually in bed with Tracy. Not just in bed, but naked, pressed against her lovely body, and our tongues roving together. So maybe it wasn't due to romance, but I'd take what I could get before Ian locked it all away.

I'm not sure how much time had passed, but I remember coming to the realization that the kissing was warm, and fun. Our mouths had melted and were once again soft and sensuous, rather than rigid from the cold. Not only that, but some warmth was finally working through to our bones. Both of us would wiggle a little as small pockets of warmth collected. The wiggling was just not the thing for me to be doing. Our knees kept knocking and my dick was getting hard.

After just a few minutes of wiggling around, my dick was solid and poking at her hip. She tried to shift around to keep comfortable, but we couldn't find a position. All this while we were still kissing. Finally, we both realized that I was arched up trying to keep my dick from touching her and the warmth was getting away. She pulled on one leg and used it to shift me between hers.

Oh, I thought I was gonna die. I lowered myself onto her, my dick resting on her pubic bone. That was quite a bit more comfortable. We went back to kissing. I ran my hands over her head, checking for temperature, but soon I was doing it because I could get away with it.

I wasn't the only one squirming. I would squirm when my dick started to ache from laying on a hard pubic bone, but I noticed after several minutes that Tracy was also squirming. Her hips would thrust up against mine, and then stop - almost as if she realized what she was doing. I tried to sit still and concentrate on the kissing.

Apparently, that's what turned her on. Once I figured that, I started kissing really deep. Her hips responded energetically. I could feel her thin patch of pubic hair rubbing against the base of my dick. Unfortunately, that made the bone grind into my dick even harder.

"Ouch," I murmured.

She froze with panic on her face. "Sorry," she started.

"No, no, just let me get comfortable." I raised up enough to reach my hand down. What little warmth escaped. I angled my dick down between her legs and laid back down.

We shivered together and wiggled around. That was maddening, but the warmth began to build again, quicker this time. My dick was rubbing her pussy but it wasn't supposed to be romantic. Talk about frustrating.

"Kiss again?" She asked.

I was so frustrated, I had forgot. "Oops, sorry. Sure."

I scooted back up to kiss her and my dick dragged against her opening and clit. I wanted to cry. I lowered my mouth over hers and she started kissing me hungrily. She probably wanted to get this all over with. In less than a month she was throwing it all away, so she probably wanted to be a good girl. As if to underscore her eagerness to hurry up, her hips began working against mine. She would have been a great lay.

I sort of lost track again kissing until a gasp escaped her lips.I quickly tried to realize if I was doing something painful. No, but our crotches were firmly pressed together and we were mutually rubbing them against each other. Her hands ran up and down my back, but not like she was feeling for warmth. In fact, there was a good deal of warmth, now, and only our feet were still cold.

I sadly acknowledged to myself that I would have to be getting off. I opted for a few last kisses. She kissed me back so eagerly and almost raised off the bed as she thrust her vagina at me. I froze for a moment as it occurred to me that she was feeling lust, too. Yes, she was indeed.

"What's wrong?" She asked, concerned. No chatter to her teeth.

"I think we're getting warm."

"Oh." Disappointment screamed from her voice.

I felt like pushing my luck. Under the pretenses of feeling for warmth, I ran my hand along her skin. I started at her head, stroked her neck, then lifted up to stroke down to her breasts. She heaved them up at me and moaned almost inaudibly as I brushed them.

If she liked it, I was going further. I circled my fingers around one nipple until I felt her start to shake. "Still cold I guess."

"Yes, I think so," she agreed. She pumped her hips at me and drew my head down for more kissing.

I shifted around down there until my dick was squarely rubbing up and down her moist opening. Her vagina was soft and inviting. I wanted to slide it in so bad. What would she know if I just kept shifting? When would she stop me?

I pulled up farther this time so the helmet of my dick passed over her hole. She shuddered beneath me. I leaned down and kissed her as I pushed down. The helmet passed down over her lips and she almost bit my tongue. I think she liked it, so I kept doing it.

Tracy's red hair was almost dry and her features looked serene without make-up on. Lust had hit her face, several times. It was painted all over it. When I stopped my massage of her pussy, she continued without me. I was determined to see how far she would go, but didn't want to ever be accused of taking advantage of her. I rolled to the side and hugged her to me. After a second, she knew what I was doing and rolled with me until I was on bottom.

She leaned down over me and kissed me as she worked her pussy back against my dick in ever-increasing desperation. I reached down to bring it forward, to lay it on my lower abdomen, and she raised enough to let me. I gazed at her beautiful body above me as she settled back down to sit on the underside of my dick. She slid back and forth on it as it laid on my lower abdomen.

Between kissing me and squirming, her hands began pulling at me. I could feel her tension mounting. She was almost frantic. I reached down again and gripped my dick. I held it up so that she was forced to work with it as a potential penetration. She worked her very wet pussy all up and down it as I held it there.