Page 13 of Red Rabbit
“Plants to help ward off infection.”
She held her arm out to me and I rubbed the paste onto her stitches and then wrapped a strip of cloth around the entire thing. When I was done, I felt her go completely still as I pulled my shirt over my head and turned my back to her. Without a word, her fingers smooth lightly over the cut. Her touch was so gentle I tensed, trying not to react. I tried to think of anything else but those fingers on my skin but even so I couldn’t help the goosebumps that appeared when she hit a sensitive spot. I handed her a strip of cloth and felt her breath warm on my back as she leaned forward to wrap it around my middle. I helped her then because god help me if she leaned any closer to me than she already was.
When I moved back to the other side of the fire, I glanced at her only to see her cheeks slightly flushed and her eyes stared hard at the fish. Even though I said she’d be begging me to touchher, I wasn’t sure if I could hold to that with the way things were going.
The fish soon sizzled over the fire and smelled amazing. The skin was crispy around the edges and when she pulled the stick off to test it, the meat flaked off the bone.
“I think it’s done,” she said as she eyed them hungrily. I came over and sat next to her so we could eat off the stick and when I watched her put the first bite in her mouth, the moan she made nearly killed me.
“Ohmygod,” she said around the mouthful. “That’s so good.”
“Be sure to throw any stray bits or bones into the fire so we don’t attract bears,” I said gruffly and pulled my attention away from the way she was sucking the drippings off her fingers. We ate in silence for a few minutes. After a few days without anything substantial to eat the fish tasted like a gourmet meal.
“I’ve only been camping once,” she said thoughtfully. She was picking at the third fish shared between us. “And we did this—caught fish and roasted them.” She got a fond look on her face but it was soon shadowed as something from the past came up behind it.
“Where did you go camping?” I asked roughly. I figured a location question was innocent.
“Glacier,” she said simply.
I nodded. “Nice place.”
“Yeah—it was.” There was a frown on her face now though. She saw me glance at her. “It was the last trip with my dad before he was killed. I was ten.”
I was distracted as she licked her fingers clean so I almost missed the fact she said ‘killed’ and not ‘died.’ Did I want to know? No. Best not to get personal so I stayed silent. The fish was gone, so I threw everything into the fire and went to wash my hands in the river. I felt her come up behind me and when I turned I saw her phone was out again.
“You really should stop. You’re not going to get a signal.”
“And you really should stop trying to mansplain tech to me,” she grumbled.
“What?”
“Nothing. I’m not even trying for a signal—I don’t have any battery left. I was taking a picture.” She blushed as though she knew how silly that sounded. “It’s just so beautiful. Even though we’re kind of in a fucked up situation, you only ever get to see something like this once right? At least once for me. You probably see stuff like this all the time.”
She snapped a few quick pictures before I saw the phone’s battery die and she put it away with a sigh then sat down at the water’s edge.
“Did you grow up camping?” She asked me.
She couldn’t seem to stop herself from asking personal questions. When it took me a minute to answer she looked up at me with an exasperated look.
“Seriously? You’re not even going to tell me that?”
“Yes, I did.”
I went camping a lot as a kid but camping reminded me of my brother which was classified under the family topic and thus off limits.
“Where’s your favorite place to go?”
“There’s a place just across the Washington border in Canada.” I could tell she wanted to ask more but after last night I sensed her nervousness to push me.
“I’ve only ever been to Banff,” she said. I turned and walked back over to the fire.
“Great talk,” she said over her shoulder.
“I don’t like small talk.”
I settled by the fire and lounged back against a log, staring at the back of her head. A vision flashed through my mind of myhands in her hair, my cock driving into her from behind and I shifted uncomfortably, thankful she was facing the river.
“You don’t seem to like talking of any kind.”
