I Only Wanted You Pt. 03

Later that evening, we went out for dinner at a nice place, enjoying ourselves and talking about the trip and what else to pack. On the way back to her place, I brought up the possibility of trying to have sex again, but she shook her head. "I'm a little sore. Let's save it for tomorrow, okay?"

"As you wish," I said.

"That movie is so corny," she said, tickling me.

"Yeah, but she has perfect breasts. That reminds me of you."

She gave me a sidelong look. "What are you talking about?"

"The scene where's she's gonna stab herself?"

"I've seen the movie," she said. "I remember that scene."

"But then Westley interrupts, saying there's a shortage of perfect breasts in the world?"

"Huh?"

I glanced at her askance. "Did you watch an ultra-edited version or something?"

She opened her mouth but nothing came out. She made an exasperated sound. "God! Is there nothing those prudes won't ruin?! I guess we need to watch the real thing someday."

I laughed, then thought better of it, until she joined in.

I dropped her off at her place, then headed home to pack. We had a very early start the next morning, so perhaps it was for the best that we weren't going to be in the same room, especially now that things had really heated up.

My alarm went off in the darkness of early, early morning, a time reserved for people with shitty shifts, criminals, and those select few about to embark on sweet mountain holidays. With a yawn and a stretch and a grin, I got up and got going.

Chapter 18: The Drive

"You weren't kidding. This really is early," Natalie said, yawning around her fist. "The sun isn't even up. I haven't gotten up this early for who knows how long. Not on purpose."

"Yeah, I know," I said as we got in my car and buckled up. "But this way we can have the place to ourselves for at least a few hours before anyone else shows up."

"I can't imagine what we'll do with the time," she said, giving me a sly sidelong look.

I glanced at her, noting that sly look, and took a risk. "I'm gonna fuck your brains out."

She stared, bug-eyed. "Jeez, I wasn't expecting you to say that."

"Heh. Good, gotta still surprise you." I checked her out. She was wearing jeans and sneakers, and what looked like a good, new winter coat. "Well, let's get going."

We stopped on the way to pick up breakfast, then drove to my workplace and parked near where the truck was waiting. One of the dock guys was there. I signed some paperwork and took the keys from him. We unlocked the back, did a quick inspection, then Natalie and I tossed our bags in and locked it up.

We climbed up into the cab of the truck and I got it started. I let it warm up for a few minutes while we ate the breakfast sandwiches we'd bought.

"Coffee," she said, handing me one of the cups. I nodded my thanks as I chewed.

"So..." she said, looking around. "I thought you meant, like, a semi, or something."

"What, this isn't big enough for ya?" I said, laughing. "I don't have a CDL, but this truck isn't big enough to require one anyway."

She looked at me, but didn't say anything.

I continued. "I know how much these trucks can hold. A semi trailer can hold way more. We don't need that."

"Makes sense," she said.

"Anyway, we're carrying spoilable food, so this is a refrigerated truck. The dock guys loaded the non-food items yesterday and the food this morning, and the reefer... uh, that's the refrigerator... has been running to keep it cold in there. It even has its own gas tank."

She listened while she ate. "Got it."

I went on. "We sometimes rent trucks for off-site things. Conventions, trade shows, that sort of thing. They found out I had experience driving these when they first hired me, so I ended up going to all those things, despite it not being my job. Honestly, I think that might be what made them notice me. If nothing else, I was always around."

She nodded as she sipped her coffee. "Funny how these things work out, huh? Well, Mr. Truck Driver, shall we go?"

I put the truck in gear. "Onward, ho!"

"Who you callin' a ho?" she said, and we both laughed at the stupid, overused joke. But hey, if we laughed, it worked. Or maybe it was just way too early.

We were both pretty quiet after that. I guess after so long apart, despite the previous day, we were just getting used to being around one another again. The sun rose as we drove, and about an hour into it, Natalie got my attention. "Uh, can we stop at the next gas station?"

"Sure," I said. We were still in the city's outskirts, so I figured we'd find a gas station soon enough.

"I have to pee," she said.

"I assumed as much."

"Also, I forgot to bring sunglasses and it's really bright out here with all this snow."

"Ah, damn. I have mine, but I should have said something."

About twenty minutes later, we spotted a gas station up ahead. I slowed down and pulled off the road, turning into the large lot. I parked the big truck and I got out with her. She looked at me questioningly.

"I might as well join you," I said.

"Hopefully they have those cheap sunglasses," she said. "I don't care what they look like, I just want to stop squinting."

We went in and hit the bathrooms. I came back out and started browsing the shelves, waiting for her. After a while, she emerged and found me. "If you want any snacks or drinks, grab 'em," I said.

She found one of those rotating sunglasses stands and started turning it around, checking out the available pairs. It looked like it was about half empty. Eventually, she picked one and we went to the counter to pay for everything.

Back in the truck, she put on the sunglasses and turned to me. "Whaddaya think?"

They were a cheap knockoff pair of aviators, but on her, they still looked good. "Thumbs up," I said, and got the truck rolling.

After a while, she took off her coat. "Getting too warm in here. Want me to help you out of yours?"

"Yeah, please." After she helped me out of my coat, I turned the heater down a bit. "Can't let it get too warm in here. Don't wanna fall asleep."

"Speak for yourself," she said, yawning.

I glanced at her and smiled. She wore a simple tight white t-shirt and a little silver necklace. I took a moment to admire her great body. It was so wonderful to see her in person again. "So what all did you do over the last month?" I asked.

"I told you most of it on the phone."

"You didn't keep any surprises?"

"Nothing major," she said, though as she watched me, a small smile crept across her lips.

I glanced at her, seeing if there was anything immediately obvious.

"I don't see any new earrings," I said. "And I think I recognize that necklace."

"Wrong on the necklace. It's new."

"Whoops, point against me, then."

"And wrong on the earrings. I got one more, to even things out. Four in each ear now."

"Ooh, another point against me. I'm off to a good start. You get anything else pierced?"

"Ha. Funny you should ask."

"Huh?"

"I tried to put a piercing back in, but the hole had closed up because I hadn't worn it for too long."

"What, your belly button? I thought you always wear that one."

"No, this is a different piercing I had done after I turned eighteen. When..." She trailed off, then went on reluctantly, "When I was in a really rebellious state."

"Huh... I don't think we've talked about this."

She shook her head. "I've avoided it. But I realized while you were gone that I'm safe around you. You aren't going to blow up at me, or lecture me, or, you know, any of that other crap."

"Well now I'm dying of curiosity. Where? Nose? Lips?"

"Tongue."

"Holy shit, you have a tongue piercing? How could I not know this?" I said, staring at her. "We've kissed so much!"

She opened her mouth wide and waggled her tongue at me. "Had a tongue piercing. Like I said, I haven't been wearing it. Apparently tongue holes close up pretty fast. Keep your eyes on the road."

I forced my eyes forward. We were, after all, driving up a mountain road. This conversation, however interesting it may be, would abruptly end if I drove us off a cliff. "So when you turned eighteen? How'd you keep it from your parents?"

She snorted. "Easy enough to just not wear it around them. They never knew. There's no way it wouldn't have caused a fight."

"Man, I wish I could have seen that. That would be hot. Are you gonna get it re-pierced?"

"I dunno. I thought about it. When I went in for my ear piercing, I even talked about it with them, but ended up not doing it."

"Any other secret piercings you wanna tell me about? Nipples? Clit?"

"No. But I'm glad you like this sort of thing," she said. It wasn't a question.

"Yeah."

"Good," she said. "That saves us from having some stupid argument about my bodily choices."

"Hey, we've talked about this. Your body, your choice. I am curious, though... what led to it? You said you were in a really rebellious state?"

"Yeah... at my school, there was an undercurrent of..." she paused to think. "I guess you could call it secret rebellion. A lot of girls wanted to push back against all the rules and all the control. So things like piercings became an act of rebellion, especially the ones that can be easily hidden."

"What about drinking? Drugs? Sex?"

"Most girls avoided things that could be easily discovered. Secret was the key word. You had to be eighteen to get piercings without parental permission. While there were ways to get them underage, and plenty of girls did, I had this idea in my head that if I was going to get piercings, I wanted them done right."

"So you wanted to rebel, but you had high standards."

She laughed. "It sounds so ridiculous now, but this was super-serious business back then. Remember when I told you and the girls about my mom checking my underwear before letting me out of the house? That's because girls really were wearing thongs to school. It was another rebel thing."

"Did you ever do that?"

"Nah. I wanted to but I couldn't figure out how I'd be able to hide them. My mom did all the laundry. And then she started the underwear check thing. Apparently it went out in a newsletter to all the parents. Can you believe that crap? An official school newsletter about your girls possibly wearing a thong, so you better check 'em before they get out of the house? So stupid. I saw girls changing underwear in the bathrooms at school to get around it."

"Did they measure skirt length and all that?"

"Yep."

"Man, nothing like that happened at my high school."

"I'll bet. And I just remembered another thing. Since most of us turned eighteen before graduating, some girls would go out and get tattoos. In secret places, again, so they could stay hidden. Basically, you'd get them where underwear would cover them. A few girls even tattooed themselves, but I don't think I could have ever done that."

"Well I've seen all of you and I haven't noticed any tattoos."

"I was going to... again..." She made an annoyed sound. "Seems like I have a lot of stuff I was 'going to do.' But that was right about the time my mom started the underwear checks, so I chickened out."

"What were you going to get?" I asked, interested.

"What, you into tattoos?"

"Nah, not really. I don't mind them, but you've seen me. I don't have any."

"That's how I ended up feeling about them. Anyway, there was a fad going around where girls would get a little heart with the letters FEA inside. That's what I would have gotten, down under where panties would cover it. Glad I didn't, now, but that was the plan."

"FEA? What does that stand for?"

"The idea," she said with a little laugh. "Was that it stood for Female Empowerment Association. You know, in case we got found out, so we could have a little bit of plausibility. Not that it would have mattered."

"What did it really stand for?" We were on a straight stretch, so I glanced over at her.

She blushed. "It's naughty."

I grinned. "Should I try to guess?"

She gave a low laugh. "No, it's okay, I'll tell you. It meant--" she cut off and grimaced. "I can't say the real thing. It meant eff 'em all. Or maybe eff everything, always. I'm not sure which one it really was. Maybe both. It wasn't real, so who knows?" She gave me an embarrassed look.

I shrugged. "High school, right? Plenty of dumb stuff goes on then. Why can't you say the f-word? You've said it before."

She was silent for a long while. I glanced at her again and she was studying me. "It's okay," I said. "You don't have to answer."

"This might sound weird," she said in response. "But I kinda want to reserve that word for... you know... us."

I blinked at her. "You mean, just when we're being... intimate?"

"Yeah. Or when we're talking about it. That's fine, too."

I'd never thought of that before. It was an interesting idea. "All right. I'm on board." I gave her a quick smile and she seemed relieved. It made me wonder what was going on in her head, if she's coming up with things like that. "Anyway, it's good to be back," I said, eyes fixed on the road as I drove us around a curve. I fished around with my hand until I found her knee, and then gave it a quick squeeze.

"Yeah, I missed you." She pulled my hand up to her mouth and kissed it, then rested her cheek against the back of my fingers.

"That was a long month," I said. "I mean... I knew what I was in for, but I guess it took a while for the reality to set in, and then I really missed you--" I choked up unexpectedly.

She looked at me. The truck was silent except for the steady drone of the engine and the wheels on the road. She let go of my hand and gently stroked my cheek with her fingers. "I'm so lucky to have such a sweet man. I know what you mean. I understand."

I didn't say anything. I just swallowed a couple times, cleared my throat a couple times, and blinked a bunch.

She fiddled with her seat belt. "Is there a way to... I dunno, move this or--"

"There's a middle seat belt, if that's what you're after."

I pulled on one of the straps to show her. She unbuckled herself and moved to the center, where she struggled with the seat belt for a bit before figuring it out. Now she was right next to me. She leaned her head on my shoulder. Her left arm was partially trapped between us, but she managed to slip it behind me. She turned so that she could hug me with both arms. After getting situated, she let out a contented sigh. She slipped her hand down and placed it directly on my dick through my jeans.

"Miss that, too?" I joked.

"Yeah... heh heh." I couldn't see her face, but I could feel her smiling.

After a while, she fell asleep. I'm not sure if she meant to, but I could tell she was nodding off. I decided not to disturb her.

I thought about my life, examining my decisions. I really had tried to find Natalie after she disappeared, but without success. Did I try hard enough, or did I give up too easily? I mean, I had wanted her back in my life, and I thought about her a lot over the years, even when I was with my other girlfriends, which undoubtedly caused some issues. Even my last girlfriend, the one I'd had sex with, had said something along those lines when she broke up with me.

"I don't think I'm quite who you're looking for," she had told me. It wasn't a messy breakup and we didn't dislike each other. But when she told me that, I realized she was right. She was, without knowing it, talking about Natalie. I liked the girlfriends I'd had, but none of them were her. It was clear I had never gotten over her, despite our whopping one ultra-chaste date prior to her disappearance. I guess I was as smitten with her as she was with me. That made me smile. What sort of future were we looking at? Marriage? I could see myself marrying Natalie. Children? That one was harder to wrap my mind around. Maybe after being married for a few years.

The road got worse as it ascended into the mountains. I'd gone over the directions, and I had a map, in case the GPS screwed up, so I wasn't worried about getting lost. It wasn't snowing, but wind was causing snow to drift across the road, so I slowed down. I saw a sign for a chain up area ahead, and decided it would be for the best.

Natalie woke up as soon as I stopped the truck. "What? Are we there? Sorry I fell asleep."

"Nope, not there yet. I'm going to put on the tire chains. Road's not as clear as I'd like. Better safe than sorry."

She looked around, a bit bleary-eyed. "Wow, where are we? It's like we're driving through a winter wonderland."

"Yeah, it's beautiful, that's for sure." I squirmed my way into my coat, then grabbed some heavy work gloves and got out of the truck.

"Can I watch?" she asked.

"Sure, hop on out."

I got the chains out and started prepping them. It was cold and there was a stiff breeze, but with my coat and the heavy gloves, I was fine. It felt nice, even, after the warm truck cabin. I glanced at Natalie, who had her coat zipped all the way up and her hands in her pockets. "You okay?"

"Yeah, it's just cold. What are you doing?"

I explained the process as I worked. I'd done it a couple times before, so it went smoothly. "I just need to move the truck forward a couple feet. Hang on."

I hopped back in the truck, put it in gear, and slowly rolled it forward a bit, then climbed back out to finish. "Almost done," I told her.

When the task was complete, I stood up straight and looked around. Even though we weren't actually that from from civilization, it sure felt like it. There was nothing to see in any direction except snow-covered pines, steep hills, and rocky cliffsides. "Let's go."

"Hold on," Natalie said, coming up to me. "There's nobody around. It's so quiet, and still." She looked up at me. "Kiss me."

"Gladly." We kissed, standing there in the chain-up area off the side of the road. She was right; other than the sound of the idling truck, it was wonderfully quiet, almost overwhelmingly so.

"Imagine having sex up here," she said very unexpectedly.

I eyed her. "In the snow? You'd be up for that?"

"No, silly. I mean the isolation, the quiet."

"We can do that up at the cabin."

"Yeah. You said something about my brains..."

I winced a little. "I can dial it back a notch if you need me to."

She shook her head. "You shocked me when you said that. But... in a good way. Even thinking about what you said still gives me a thrill."

"Well, what can I say? I'm in love, and I'm horny. I hope you feel the same way about me. I love it when you get all turned on and naughty stuff slips out of your mouth. I wanna hear you say... you know..."

She looked up at me, a sly smile on her face. "That I wanna fuck you?"

I sucked in a breath. "Yeah. That."

"Well, I do." She tilted her head up and I leaned down to meet her. "Your nose is cold," she said as we kissed.

"Gee, I can't imagine why," I joked. She smiled, and I could feel it against my mouth. I liked that. "Let's get back in the truck before we freeze in this position."

She pulled back and gazed at me, but kept her arms looped around my neck. "But we would make a really romantic ice statue."

I got the truck moving, nice and slow as I got a feel for the chains, then I accelerated to a more normal speed.

"How much longer until we're there?" she asked.

I glanced at the GPS. "It's ten more miles. We're going thirty, so it should be another twenty minutes."

"The math checks out," she teased. "Weren't we gonna get food?"

"About that..." I gave her a sheepish look. "You were asleep and I didn't want to wake you."

"What? You're kidding."

"Nope, sorry. Good thing we bought those snacks."

She poked through the bag from the gas station. "Damn. I'm hungry. Well, snack time, I guess. What do you want?"

About twenty minutes later, the GPS proved itself to be accurate. We entered what looked to be a small, but upscale, ski resort, though the directions took us around and past it. A few minutes later, we rounded a curve and there it was. In a clearing surrounded by beautiful snowy woods was a large, fancy building.