Jen's Legacy.

He came back, bringing more wood in, after checking the area of plastic he’d laid down to collect water, seeing that she was relaxing, with her eyes closed again, after opening them to see that it was really him and no one else who would see her sitting like that... like a loose woman displaying all of her personal wares to entice and excite this man.

It had been a strange thought for her to have. Who else could it have been to come and kiss her like that on her lips and her body, and to snuggle into her like that? No one. There had never been anyone doing anything like this to her before Royce, and she was glad of that. He would be the only one she would ever need.

He paused and looked at her sitting there, able to take proper note of her now, and of her bodily exhaustion, in the way she was sitting with her eyes closed. It might have been wiser to have stayed at the river as she had wanted to do, and to have avoided this kind of weather, but it would have been worse down there. There had been little wood for fuel and no shelter from the wind and rain. They’d done the wise thing, leaving when they could.

He studied her closely, wanting to touch, always wanting to touch. She was beautiful in every way, physically and personality-wise, just as Jen had been. He was pleased to see that she sat with her legs spread wide, getting herself warm, no longer shy of him and knowing that he was always watching her, curious about everything he could see, and always would be.

He could not understand how she could be so like Jen in so many ways, yet different in so many others.

He closed his eyes and berated himself for his weakness. His emotions, running away with him, were duping him to see what he wanted to see, but he also felt compelled to open them again and to continue studying her.

She was so much like Jen.

He was drawn closer to her, kneeling down, reaching out to touch her, to check her again. She sensed his presence with the heat of the fire suddenly being cut off by his body, and opened her eyes.

She looked at him, wondering what he would have touched first, her breasts, or down there... she would not have minded whichever it was. Or would he have kissed her?

“I need to see other things about you while there is still enough light. Your feet.” Her feet were almost the furthest thing from his mind.

“We didn’t cover a lot of miles today, and I’m glad of that but I noticed you were having difficulty for the last hour. The only other places to stop were not good camp sites in this kind of weather, and we couldn’t go back down to the river in this storm.”

He undid her laces, with her feet resting into his lap, and took off her sneakers, knowing that she was hurting, then slowly peeled his socks off her. He smiled at what else he could see, wanting to reach out and touch her there too.

She had blisters on her feet, but at least none of them had burst, and there was no rash to be seen on her body with her leaving that swimsuit off and with the weather getting colder. They would have to take it easy from here for the next day or two at least, until her feet hardened up, but he could do something even now to help that process.

He flipped her wet socks over that log to dry, with her shirt and shorts, and then took a close look at her sneakers. They would easily stand up to what they still had to do, it was her feet that were the problem.

He took out that same first aid kit of the night before when he’d applied that cream to her body in such a wonderfully stimulating way.

She watched him attentively as he told her what he would do.

“I’ll drain those blisters and get some antiseptic cream on them and a band-aid to cover them to keep dirt out.” It all sounded so straightforward. He seemed to have a lot of different things in that kit that she’d not particularly noticed.

“Let your feet be exposed to the air. Your socks and sneakers will soon be dry and then you can put them on again to protect your feet if you need to, and if you can stand the discomfort. You can sleep in those socks of mine (and that would be all she would need to wear, and the sum total of all of the clothing they would have to cover either of them tonight) and we’ll take it easy tomorrow. We don’t have so far to go before we can rest by the river again, where that rafting party was, on Monday night.

“In a couple of days your feet will have recovered.”

He began to massage her still-cold legs, rubbing at them above and below her knees to get the circulation flowing again, but the heat from the fire was also helping with that and getting too warm on him, with him sitting too close to it.

He added more, fallen branches to the fire, and rolled a couple of large pieces of wood closer to the fire to dry out for later, then took off his wet shirt, followed by his shorts and underwear, laying them with her shirt and shorts to dry together as he sat closer to the fire, sweeping water off his hair and his arms and legs, feeling her reach out to him.

“Sit here, Royce, she indicated that he could sit with his back into her, between her legs, and share the opened-up sleeping bag with him, now that she was dry and getting warmer. It would reach around them both.

They ate, sitting like that but with him turning more to her, feeling the hair between her legs tickling at his side, driving him crazy. He tried to close out that thought as he fished out some soup by dipping it out with the meat can, and letting it cool... seeing her eat her fill of it, before he finished it off, setting his empty pan under a small runnel of water coming from above, soon filling again to heat for a later drink.

It grew dark quickly, and the wind grew stronger, with rain and snow driving around them, and occasionally blowing in upon them, competing with the sparks rising from the crackling wood.

They would be comfortable here, and could keep each other warm. It was exciting for them to think of that, and what they might manage to do with each other tonight, that they hadn’t managed to do on the previous night. It would not be for lack of trying if they didn’t succeed, having got such a good start on things.