Chapter 4
JUD LED THE WAY THROUGH THE TREES WITH Viola at his heels, both careful not to step where dry underbrush might make unnecessary noise. There was always the possibility that the old coot at the cabin might get aggressive, might be sneaking up on them. Without speaking of it, he and Viola were both aware of the danger.
The animosity between them had for the moment disappeared, just as it had come to focus between Jud and Sam.
Finally they heard the gurgle of the stream. Jud paused; Viola looked at him with sharp anticipation. "It's just over there," he whispered.
He started quietly in the direction of the sound.
"Shhhh," he cautioned her, holding a finger to his lips. "It may be in sight of the cabin, and it's probably in the open."
Finally they reached the end of the cedar woods, and Jud peered out. There were about thirty yards of open space between the trees and the creek, which was marked by a winding line of thicker foliage and dwarf willows.
Viola knelt beside him. Her hand touched his arm, holding him. He saw by the look in her eyes that it was a completely unconscious gesture; she was staring at the creek.
"Well, they can't see us from the cabin," Jud said. "I'll make a dash first. Then if there's no shooting, you follow."
She shook her head. "I'll go with you. If we stay close together, we make a small target, and we make it only once."
She had a point there. "Okay," Jud said, taking her hand with his free one. "Come on."
Crouched and close together, they made a dash across the clearing, ducked in among the willows and slid off the embankment down to the gravel bed beside the shallow, narrow stream. There, still crouched, still holding hands, they waited. Nothing happened.
"Well?" she asked.
He shrugged his shoulders. "I don't know. We didn't get shot; that's all I can say."
But he could have said something else. He could have said that he was almost sure they were being watched, though he didn't know what made him think so. It was just a feeling-maybe just nerves.
Slowly he released his hold on her hand. She looked at him, her eyes telling him nothing. Then she slid across to the water and began to fill her canteens. He sat where he was, forcing his nervousness to the back of his mind, his eyes studying her from behind-the full curves of her hips in the tight trousers, the rounded thighs with the clothe pulled taut around them, the stretch of bare flesh that was visible between the top of the jeans and the bottom of the shirt, the well defined line of her spine. And the more he thought of the fact that the old mountaineer could be a complete kook, could appear and blow their brains out at any minute, the more vividly his memory pictured for him her body as he'd seen it yesterday and last night. But now he felt no animosity-only the craving for her. And the craving possessed his whole being, and there was seemingly nothing he could do about it.
She finished filling the last of the canteens, strung them together on a piece of rope, then straightened and turned back to him. His eyes met hers, and she stopped, motionless. His gaze traveled down, then back up the length of her body. Then he waited, looking into her eyes. When he spoke, it wasn't like his own voice:
"I told you I'd name the time, Viola."
Her blue eyes widened with shock. She didn't answer, and there was a long silence before he spoke again.
"I think now's the time."
She stood there a minute longer, seemingly entranced by his confidence. Finally she leaned over and placed the canteens on the ground. She straightened up slowly, reaching up to the shirt. There were only three buttons, and these she loosened quickly, till only the knotted tails held the shirt together. She placed her hands on the knot and pulled until it came loose. The shirt fell open in the front, revealing the full cleavage of her breasts, arched up tightly by a flimsy black bra.
Her eyes still on him, she pulled the shirt open, then let it slide off her shoulders and fall to the ground. Her skin was cream-white against the bra, her breasts seemingly on the verge of spilling over its top. She reached behind her back and undid the snap. The bra fell loose, and for a moment she let it hang there, precariously supported by her breasts. Just a hint of a smile crossed her face.
"Jud, I've waited a long time for this, And I don't mean that bitchy or anything, I just.. . mean it."
She pulled the straps off her shoulders, letting them slide down her arms. As the cups fell away, Jud could see that her nipples were already rigid, as if the mere exposure excited them to the point of pleading for his touch.
He smiled. "Yeah, I guess I have too-been waiting a long time."
"But we never thought it would happen this way," she said.
She lifted one foot and pulled her boot off, then the sock, and repeated this on the other foot as Jud removed his shirt.
"No, Viola, you bitch, I don't guess thought it would be like this at all." His smile broadened. "And I don't mean that as an insult, either."
She began unbuttoning her jeans. He could see her black panties as she opened them at the front. Then she hesitated, her eyes studying his lean, muscular body. She grasped the jeans, hooked her thumbs into the elastic at the top of her pants, and slowly pushed both garments down, getting all the play she could out of the revelation of the dark crest of her beauty, and all the assets that surrounded it-the full outward curve of flanks, the firm roundness of thighs, the creamy skin.
Just for effect, she added a slight wriggle of her pelvis as she slid the covering off the dark triangle of hair.
This gesture somehow completed the splendor of her undressing. It was the perfect touch, because it restricted the process of removing her clothing to a preparation for the act of lovemaking.
She kicked the jeans and panties off her ankles and stood perfectly still, perfectly naked for him.
"You don't think Sam will leave the camp?" she asked.
Jud was already unbuttoning his trousers. Sam! He wished she hadn't mentioned him, but for some reason, he now felt no guilt at all for what he was doing.
"No. There's too much for him to carry, and he can't go off and leave the supplies. At least he can't come this far."
That reassured him as much as it did her, but it didn't completely erase from his mind the feeling that they weren't alone.
Jud finished opening his trousers, and stepped out of them. Viola glanced around, then walked toward him.
"Over there." She pointed toward a sandy spot against the embankment.
She walked toward him, picking her way on the gravel, and he stood where he was, watching her. There was something ritualistic about her slow, calculated steps. Each was accompanied by something not un-like an undulation, but not quite that either. It was just a vague motion that seemed to flow through her whole body, as if she were pulsing inside.
"Oh, Jud!" she sighed, burying her head in the curve of his neck.
Something restrained him; his hands still hung loosely at his sides. Her flesh was there, waiting for him, her nipples inviting his touch, yet he could not move. And for the same strange reason, he couldn't let himself return the kisses she was planting on his neck and shoulders. He couldn't explore her flesh with his lips, not matter how much he wanted to-couldn't let himself return her passion.
She directed him toward the bed of sand. He moved willingly with her, but when they reached it he stood as he was, enjoying the brush of her breasts against him, the warmth of her belly, but still unable to return the passion.
She tiptoed up, looking searchingly into his eyes before she covered his mouth with hers. She pleaded for response with her tongue, and her hands wantonly explored his body. Then she dropped down from her toes, moving back from him half a step.
"You still hate me, don't you?" she asked, her voice calm, though her breathing was harsh.
He just looked at her. He didn't say anything. He didn't have to: She could sec that he wanted her, and at the same time she could see that a part of him-a last outpost of prudishness-was repelled by her. There was no hiding it.
"I know," she said. "You still hate me and you always will. That's what makes you different. I've always been able to make guys do just about what I wanted them to. Just let them have the right thing at the right time. I thought I had you, too, but I don't. And that just makes me want you more."
Suddenly she dropped to her knees before him. He looked down. She sifted the sand thoughtfully through her fingers, then looked up pleadingly. "Jud, I'm going to make it so good for you, you'll either quit hating me or you'll have to kill me, you'll hate me so much."
Her hand moved quickly, grasping his rigid malness. For a moment her fingers played on him so lightly he could hardly be sure they were there. A tremor went through his legs. Then her hold became more firm, and she began a smooth, expert motion. She was looking up at his face, studying him for hints of mounting desire.
Then, at a calculated moment, she stopped. Her hand remained on him, but didn't move. It was almost like pain, the momentary frustration of it, but then as her hand left him, sliding around his flank to rest on his hip, she replaced the hand with her mouth. He slid quickly and miraculously up to a new plane of pleasure.
Gently and expertly she began to tease him with her lips and tongue. She moved her head ever so slightly, sliding her lips up and down his cock, sometimes scratching him lightly with her teeth, always building toward the crescendo.
A great feeling of power surged in him as he watched her on her knees before him, but it was accompanied by a weakness, a realization of the power she held over him. He knew he still had to make it clear that it was he who, was in command. For one reason it had to be that way. She was the kind of woman a man had to stay one up on.
Jud grabbed her head, holding her to him for one last pleasure-tortured moment before he pushed her away, violently shoving her back on the soft, cool sand. He dropped to his knees over her, grasping her wrists and quickly pinning her arms. Now he was back in control, and that was where he'd stay.
Before she had time to get over her surprise, he lowered his body onto hers, shifting about until he could fit his cock to her ready labia. Then he drove himself ruthlessly in.
"Jud?" she gasped, seeming to question the reality of the presence that had invaded her.
She sighed, then cried out as he pushed against the last bit of friction and resistance, driving in to the hilt. She arched her hips up, and he felt her hands on his buttocks, clinging, holding him in. For an instant they both relaxed, and then he began to move.
He wasted no time with tenderness. She wasn't the type who would appreciate it. From the instant he began, he moved violently, driven by furious passion, and she responded in the same way. He kept her hands pinned, and she struggled to release them, but more of the struggling was done with her hips and loins than with her arms. She writhed like a maddened creature beneath him, she cried out, she twisted her body, arching up to meet his violent thrusts as if to bounce him off her. She bit at his neck, the flesh of his shoulders. And Jud arched his back and lowered his head to her breasts, taking her hardened nipples one by one in his mouth, sucking as if he would tear them from her body.
And from this initial madness they built onward, rising up to the crescendo as all the wrath of everything he hated about her and all the hunger of his wanting her exploded from deep inside him and burst into her. She felt it, and cried out in delirium, throwing her legs up around him, squeezing him so tightly he thought it would break his back.
When his motion slacked off, her legs stayed locked about him. She relaxed the struggling of her arms, and her eyes closed.
He released his grip on her hands, his body sagging on hers. Slowly her arms slid up around him, her fingers running gently over the muscles of his back.
"Jud," she whispered tiredly, "that was the best I've had in so long.. . "
He breathed in deeply, lifting himself up on his arms, looking down at her with neither passion nor contempt. She opened her eyes and looked back. He felt she could almost love him, if he would let her. But that was a bit out of the question, of course.
Quickly he withdrew from her and got to his feet.
"Jud!" she gasped in disappointment.
"We're overdue, baby," he said, beginning to put his clothes on.
She sat up in the sand. A little coat of perspiration made her body gleam in the dusky light. As he dressed, Jud looked around furtively, apprehensively.
"Oh, god, I hate to go back to him!" she said tiredly.
"Shhh!" Jud held a finger to his lips. He listened intently for a moment.
Viola held herself almost frozen, listening too, until he shrugged and pulled his trousers on.
"Did you hear something?" she asked.
'There's no way of knowing," he answered. "Just get dressed, and let's get back."
She stood where she was, looking at him with awe.
"Get dressed!" he snapped.
Now she moved quickly to her clothes. She put on her pants, then her trousers. Then she stopped. Jud was buttoning his shirt already. Still naked to the waist, her full breasts bouncing as she moved, she came back over to him.
"Jud?"
"What?" he said impatiently.
"Are you sorry you did it?"
He, laughed. "No. I'm not a bit sorry. It might even happen again sometime. But don't count too much on it."
Beaten, for a moment at least, she walked back to her clothes and finished dressing.