He was muddling me and I began to hear my brain soundtrack, this time it was Touch Me, by The Doors.
Suddenly I was warm, we both were, and it was much faster then I’d anticipated. As true physiological numbness receded, his hands on my body ignited something else. Soon the shared heat changed from necessary for survival to something evocative and abruptly ripe with decadent tension. His hands slowed and I realized belatedly that my breath had quickened. I wasn’t aroused, it wasn’t like before. I was…caught. This time my heart was involved, not the crazy part of my brain.
I glanced up at him, found him watching me. His eyes reflected the stars and I was close enough to see they were on my lips.
“Jessica,” he whispered, swallowed, his hands now motionless on my waist.
I shook my head slightly; really, the small movement was me telling myself to cease feeling. Duane was all around me, and he felt intoxicatingly good. I need to end this, whatever it was.
So I blurted, “I’m not kissing you.”
His eyes lifted to mine, his expression unreadable, but I felt him tense. “Why not?”
I huffed. “Because you lied to me, you pretended to be your brother—”
He cut me off, yanked his head back. “And you want Beau.” His tone was cold, unfathomably resentful.
I gripped his biceps to keep him from moving away. “No, no—that’s not it. It’s the lie, and my sexy bee cousin.”
“Your sexy bee cousin?”
“Yes. Tina Patterson, my dad’s sister’s daughter. Remember her? You kissed her. You kissed her right after you and I...” I couldn’t finish because I was confusing myself. I used to kiss boys all the time and it never meant anything. Yet I couldn’t finish my sentence because I was beginning to think Duane’s earlier kiss—even shrouded in a veil of deceit—had meant something to me.
He licked his lips before he asked, as though reading my mind, “Did our kiss mean something to you? Not,” he shook his head and glanced around the darkness, “not when you thought I was my brother, but after, when you found out it was me.”
I answered honestly, my words pouring out of me. “I don’t know. I honestly don’t. And I don’t get why you’re pushing this so hard now. I feel like I don’t know you at all. One minute you’re the Duane Winston who throws rocks at my cat, kissing another girl, making me feel like I have heartburn, arguing about the color of the sky, and the next minute you’re telling me we’re suited for each other. I don’t trust you.”
“Jessica, we’re standing in the forest naked. You trust me a little.”
I pushed against his chest lightly, shaking my head, feeling sleepy and exasperated and not ready to let him go. It was the strangest of combinations.
“Of course I trust you that way. I know you’d never murder me or take advantage—well, not take too much advantage. I mean, you did get a penis stroke out of me earlier and did really fantastic things to my nipples.” A little shiver raced through me at the memory. “But now that I think about it, you stopped me before I could—”
“Jessica, please stop talking.”
“What? Why?”
“Because you’re making everything…really hard.”
We stood motionless for a long moment as understanding dawned; his words held a delicious double meaning and, even in the inky darkness, I could tell he was struggling. I wavered back and forth between wanting him to do something, and hoping he wouldn’t. Our breath mingled. His fingers dug into my hips.
Then his eyes closed and he set me away. He didn’t let the blanket slip. Instead he pulled it from his shoulders, stepping out of our little oven, and wrapped it firmly around my shoulders, tucking it under my chin. I was mummified in our residual warmth.
Duane left and quickly located his pants. I watched his outline pull them on then move to the tree where I’d discarded my clothes. He brought them back and held them out.
“Here,” he said.
Once I had the folded pile I sensed him turn away.
I stared at the back of his neck for a beat, just the dim outline visible to me, then slowly began the process of getting dressed.
I rewound through the evening and our time together; all of my actions. I was too honest. He made me feel na?ve and mindless. I wasn’t used to the disorientation brought on by excellent quality physical intimacy. Plus he and I knew each other. We had history.
Maybe my immature, fantasy-based feelings for Beau had dispelled so abruptly because I’d been given a taste of reality, of an actual adult liaison. The way Duane touched me felt like a brand.
I felt the beginnings of an uncomfortable blush creep its way up my neck to my cheeks. When I was finished dressing I cleared my throat and glanced at him. I could just make out the shape of his bare back.
“I’m all done.”