Page 90 of The Cabin

My eyes refocus and I realize I haven’t been paying attention to anything I just read. I try again, eyes doing their best to stay absorbed into the story. I flip to the next page and attempt to do the same but something catches my eye. Why is this page dog eared? Well, I can understand why it’s dog eared. The two main characters are about to finally get together. I can totally imagine wanting to revisit this next scene for future…endeavors. But why would one of my books already have marked pages? This is the first time I’m reading this one…

I quickly scan the next few pages and my cheeks heat. No fucking way. Noway.

He takes his time lathering up her skin, leaving lingering touches everywhere he goes. Kisses pepper across her shoulders and up her neck. They fall into a blissful silence, Kai reaching up to massage Lucy’s breasts. Not to suggest anything. Just to hold her.

There is no way.

I rush off to the reading nook and heave the books I’ve read into my lap. Book after book after book. Dog eared. And every single marker is for a spicy scene. Throwing a few aside (of course he went back to the creek and fetched my book we left there) I reach for one in particular. Yupp. There’s a corner flipped down on the first page of a scene in the back of a station wagon. Not a truck, but I guess you have to work with what you’ve got…

That one is tossed aside as I sort through the mess in front of me. Ah ha! Just what I was looking for. Exactly as I suspected. When I open to the right page, I see the beginning of the paint scene. And we all know where he got the inspiration for the hot spring…

Scrambling to my feet, I grab the current book I’m on and dash outside. The bang of the screen door makes it a pretty dramatic entrance onto the porch. Grayson is sitting in one of the rocking chairs, facing me, scrolling his phone. He looks up, clearly a little surprised that I’ve sought him out.

“Hi,” I say, a bit out of breath, a little awkward now that I’m actually standing in front of him.

He sets his phone down on the side table at his…side… and crosses one foot over his knee. “Hi.” I stand there without saying anything for, like, ten seconds too long.

“Do you wanna sit?” He gestures towards the companion chair.

“Um, no…well, I mean yes, but –” I stop and shake my head a little bit, organizing my thoughts. “Where did you buy these books?” My hand raises the one I brought out in the air.

“In that bookstore in Surley. The one you told me about.”

“But, um, that’s not a used book store, right?”

His eyebrows tilt up and his face reads, ‘What the hell is wrong with her?’ “No. It isn’t. Why do you ask?”

Why do I ask? Uh, shit. “I’m trying to uh…go green, recycle, yeah… all that stuff.”

“Oh, yeah, sorry. I bought them new. We can donate them somewhere once you're finished with them.” He gets up and puts his phone in his pocket, moving around me to go back inside. I’m still staring at the place he was just occupying.

“You read them, didn’t you?” I hear the door swing shut. Damnit. I waited too long, he’s already inside.

You can imagine the shriek that comes out of me when I feel his lips at my ear. “Every. Page.”

I lick my lips, too scared to turn around. Too scared of the millions of inappropriate things I want to do to him. Some dirty, some not. Of the feeling in my chest. He’ll know. He’ll take one look at me and know I’ve gone off the deep end. That I like him too much.

“What…what are the markers for?” I don’t know why I ask. I already know the answer. Maybe I just need to hear him say it. Hear it come from his lips.

“They’re the scenes that made your face go dark. Greedy. They’re the ones you were reading when I got to watch the change ripple across your features. They’re the ones you read that let me know you were getting wet right in front of me. That your nipples were pebbling while I was sitting right there to witness it. They’re the ones I memorized so I could give you the experience in real life.” He backs away and goes back into the cabin.

I feel his absence like a bucket of ice-cold water being thrown on me.

I think I might pass out.

—

I hear it, okay? I hear it loud and clear. The absolute uproar of people around the world screaming, “WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING? IF YOU DON’T CONFESS YOUR LOVE TO THAT MAN RIGHT NOW, THEN I WILL. HE LEARNED SMUTTY SCENES FOR YOU, YOU BIG STUPID.”

He learned smutty scenes for me. Among a whole other laundry list of things that I’ve recounted a million times and yet still somehow have done nothing about. Each one a rose petal he’s left at my feet. One after another, even while I stomp all over the ones he placed before them.

This man deserves the world. And he definitely deserves some freaking effort from me. Imagine if the roles were reversed and he only showed any type of interest when I came on to him and did all of the seducing. Excuse me while I fall over in laughter. I would’ve never freaking gone near him again. After the first or second time? I would feel like shit. I would think he was a) only going along with it because he felt like he owed me rent for letting him stay with me, b) only going along with it because he didn’t know how or felt uncomfortable saying no, c) he didn’t want to hurt my feelings by saying no, or d) he figured, ‘Eh, why not? We’re both up here. Might as well enjoy myself if it's being offered.’

I have to fix this. No matter the outcome, he shouldn’t have to feel like that. Even if he wants nothing to do with me anymore, he shouldn’t have to think back and remember his time up here like that. He should know he was desired. Both sexually and as a person.

I’m sitting on his bed trying to give myself a pep talk. I’ve never done anything like this before. Drunk or sober. The blow job was contextual and I was curious and wanted to make him feel good too. I didn’t start anything, I just eagerly participated, walking along the path he had already paved. And that was after me getting pleasured onthreeseparate occasions without me showing him I was attracted to him and that I wanted to make him feel like he was making me feel.

I’m just going to pretend I’m an actress in the production of my life. I’m going to act like I’m confident and sexy and seductive even if I don’t even remotely feel that way. Doesn’t matter. I do feel strongly that Grayson deserves actual recognition and reciprocation for the way he’s loved on me this month. No matter how this turns out, I owe him that. Not in a weird exchange of goods type of way, but because I respect him and care about him and I have not shown him that.

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