After depositing my backside onto the wooden structure we brushed our teeth at this morning, JR moves to a shelf at our right to gather up supplies. I always carry a toothbrush and a tube of minty paste in my medical bag. I’ve been caught out by double shifts too many times. Although it should have felt awkward sharing my toothbrush with JR, it didn’t. He had one, but it was just so worn down there were barely any bristles left on it. Besides, I’m eating the food he rationed to get him through the winter. Sharing is very much the way of life out here.
“Where’s the blood coming from?” I ask JR when droplets dribble to my brow. “I can’t see a gash.” He pulls me back from the mirror before he weaves his fingers through my hair. It’s a little matted since I forgot to brush it this morning, but he finds the tear in a remarkably quick time. “Do you think it’ll need stitches?”
I stop praying for him to say no when he shakes his head two seconds later. Instead, I focus on not crying when he pinches the wound with a swatch of animal fur to slow the bleed by pretending we’re in the bathroom for a completely different reason—like a retake of this morning’s riveting performance.
I’ll always be a wimp when it comes to pain but shifting my focus to something else works better than expected. Within seconds of locking my eyes with JR’s bushy beard, I’m more fixated on a tiny twig entwined in his facial hair than my throbbing head.
It’s somehow twisted itself through the dark, wiry strands, but it doesn’t appear suffocated by the unusual conditions it finds itself in.
Kind of like me.
Only days ago, JR scared the living hell out of me. I’m not facing the same issues now. He fascinates me, but even more than that, he intrigues me. That’s a rare feat for someone like me. I rarely have time to assess someone’s qualities, much less rate them on a scale of one to ten. I don’t face the same challenge here. I have all the time in the world, and most of it has been spent trying to figure out JR instead of far more pressing matters like letting my family and friends know that I’m safe.
What can I say? A broken libido isn’t a nonexistent one, and this is the first time in a long time I’ve allowed it to take center stage for a change.
“Y-You have a twig,” I stammer out when my endeavor to free the stick from his beard sees JR snatching up my hand. “It’s right there. I was going to get it out for you.”
Although his eyes continue to show his unease, he releases my wrist from his grasp, wordlessly permitting me to remove the twig.
With one extraction comes another and another and another until his beard is as clear as my soul feels for helping him. I’ll never be able to fully repay him for pulling me out of the wreckage before it exploded, and something so simple as de-fleecing his beard shouldn’t feel so impacting, but it’s the god honest truth that my soul feels brighter from helping him, prompting me to ask, “Can I wash your hair?”
As my eyes follow the bounce routine of his, I whisper, “Please. We could do it here… over the vanity. Once you grab the dining room chair and the travel-size shampoo and conditioner out of my bag, it’ll be like a real-life salon.” Nothing but honesty rings in my tone when I add, “I’m sure you’ve washed it plenty of times, but it isn’t the same as when someone does it for you.” I shrug. “It’s nice to be pampered occasionally.”
In my excitement to continue paying my penance, I forget that my foot is fucked up. I slip off the vanity straight onto my bunged foot, my hiss of pain only hidden because JR follows orders as if he likes the idea of my hands on him even more than I’m dying to watch him touch himself again.
After dragging the dining chair from the kitchen to the bathroom, he snatches up my medical bag and dumps its contents on a wooden shelf at the side.
“That isn’t as it seems,” I assure him when a box of magnum condoms is the first thing to fall out. “They’re for a friend who went from wanting no kids to craving half a dozen.” When JR’s brow pops, I mutter with a smile, “His wife had baby number four last month, so I figured he’d want some form of protection. When he didn’t, I stored them in my bag for a rainy day.”
Is a snow day close enough?
Disturbed by my inner monologue and JR’s frozen stance, I place the chair where I want it by pushing him onto it. The water ram system installed outside of the house rattles into gear when I turn on the tap. With JR installing the pipes to pass through the fireplace during circulation, the first blast of water comes out steaming hot.
Once it settles to a pleasant temperature, I gather up JR’s hair and place it under the flow of water. He has even more strands than I realized. They hog the vanity sink, and more than a handful of times, my fingers get caught in the knots of my soothing massage.
“Have you ever had your hair washed before?” When the insensitive nature of my question dawns on me, I attempt a quick back pedal. “By a professional? I’m not really a wash-and-blow-dry type of girl. I barely have time for a trim. I haven’t cut my hair in years.” When silence reigns supreme, I mutter, “I guess it’s the same for you?” I lock my eyes with his, smiling when I notice how relaxed he looks. “Although I have a feeling you rocked the long-hair gig no matter how close you lived to a hairdresser.”
While manipulating the shampoo to ensure it coats every strand of his wild hair, the tips of my fingers brush past the mottled skin on his nape. As suspected from viewing it from afar, the texture of his skin exposes it is distressed from a burn. It’s warm to touch even with the thinness of the scars revealing his injury occurred quite some time ago.
A squeak pops from my mouth when JR snatches up my wrist for the second time. I’m not just startled by his quick grab, I’m shocked by the sheer amount of familiarity in his eyes. It’s so strong, it almost drowns out the unease they didn’t hold only moments ago.
“Do you not like being touched?” I ask before I can stop myself. “Or do you just loathe being touched by me?”
My question shocks him as much as it does me, but instead of reacting negatively, he proves it isn’t my touch he dislikes. It’s the response of his body he hates. He is once again hard, and when he places my shampoo-coated hand onto the obvious bulge in his sweatpants, he gets even thicker.
“There’s nothing wrong responding like that when someone is pampering you.” I lean into his embrace when he treks a calloused hand down my bruised cheek and across my busted lip, compliments to my accident. His touch is detrimental to my sanity, and it doubles the sparks that have been blistering between us the past two days. “Yes, even when someone is battered and bruised,” I mutter on a moan when it dawns on me what he’s asking. “Attraction has nothing to do with looks and everything to do with your soul setting on fire.”
I gather up the hand he used to point out my imperfections before requesting him to shut his eyes. When he does as asked—after a stern stink eye that warns of the repercussions if I were to run from him again—I trek the back of his hand down my budded nipple. Even with his sweatpants lined with a thick layer of fleece, I see the throbs of his cock when he learns my body is responding to his closeness in the same manner as his. It strains against the crotch of his pants, its growth so uncontrollable and appears seconds from breaking through the rigid material.
When JR’s eyes pop back open, I freeze, shocked by the wild rowdiness swarming them. He stares at me with such raw passion, even if I hadn’t caught Cedric cheating, nothing could stop the next set of events from occurring. JR’s wanton gaze activates every one of my hot buttons, not to mention the continuation of his hand’s descent of my body.
I go up in flames when he slips his hand under my shirt. He’s barely touching me, but the sensation it rips through me is almost overwhelming. I’ve never had this type of pull before. This type of craziness. And it grows more rampant when the briefest brush of his fingers down my damp panties starts an avalanche of gropes, moans, and swift maneuvering.
Before I can comprehend what’s happening or pray for it to occur sooner, my backside is planted on the vanity, and JR tugs my panties off without the slightest bit of strain fettering his features.
“Ugh,” he grunts when his caveman removal of my undergarment causes my head to flop back and my eyes to close.
I want to watch every sordid thing he does to me, but the idea that he couldn’t wait a second to drag my panties down my thighs before consuming me is too erotic to act nonchalant. To be wanted like that is euphoric, and I can see it being extremely addictive.
