Embracing Ellie: Chapter 28

It surprised Danny she hadn’t considered it. Why else would Hemi still be here at the cabin? Why wouldn’t he just “tap in” and let Hemi leave? He guessed Ellie thought this kitchen meeting was only a farewell. Thank you for coming.

Coming. Had Hemi come? Had Ellie?

The possibilities delighted him in the darkest ways—but he feared Ellie might have had enough of her husband’s scheming and was looking forward to Hemi’s departure.

Ellie set her cocktail down on the counter, saying, “Oh?”

He saw Ellie’s expression, saw the look in her eyes. The only reservation his virginal wife held restricted an exuberant response—no misgivings about continuing what she’d started with Hemi during the daylight.

And of what she’d started: how far had she gone? Ellie was virginal only in the sense that her beloved husband Danny had been her only partner ever. Was that still the case? The way this provoked so much excitement should frighten him, but it didn’t.

Hemi said, “You thought I was on me way out?”

Ellie said, “It’s just . . . You’re all dressed and everything.”

Hemi chuckled. “I was helping Danny carry in the stuff he brought. I wasn’t going out in the cold and snow the way he found me.”

Ellie’s mouth twisted, and Danny assumed it was guilt. Hearing that Danny had found Hemi naked in bed with his wife embarrassed her, despite the hard work it had taken for Danny to make it all happen and still make it fun and exciting for Ellie. Yes, when he’d arrived, Hemi was awake, hearing the snowmobile approaching, and he found Hemi shirtless, wearing unbuttoned jeans and revealing he most certainly wore no underwear. He’d just got out of bed with Ellie, wearing nothing. Jealousy shot through him like a jet boil, yet the pot only simmered, then reduced to a sickly sweet caramel that hardened his member. Seeing a tanned and muscular stud coming out of a bedroom where his wife lay face-down, spread-eagle, and exhausted drove a spike of horniness through him he’d never felt before. He’d peeked in to see Ellie under the sheets, knowing (hoping!) she was naked, too.

Ellie changed the subject and asked what he’d brought, and he told her and showed her, lifting items out of the box and opening the fridge. He’d brought food and beverages and clean clothes and all sorts of goodies in a trailer pulled by the snowmobile he’d rented from the mountain cabin’s resort office. Hemi watched them together, mostly watching Ellie with a smirk. Danny read the smirk as an appreciative one, ogling Ellie and wanting more of her. That also set Danny off, a lit-fuse rocket blasting away in the wrong direction, but a direction with an amazing view.

Ellie returned near her cocktail, hands still tucked into her long sleeves, and reached to pull it to her. She sipped it, hair hanging in her face, hiding her features. She traced one side behind her ear and set her drink back down. She looked to Hemi like she might say something but then lost her nerve. She looked now at Danny, and her features stretched as if she might burst into giggles. She shook her head and hid her face in her sleeve-covered hands. “Danny, you are so crazy.”

Danny tried to alter the mood and put things into a forward motion, smiling, sipping his cocktail before saying, “No one’s told me what I missed.”

Ellie smiled again and then shared a look with Hemi. Hemi sipped his drink.

Ellie said, “You really didn’t send him anything?”

Hemi shook his head no.

Danny said, “Some pictures from the hot tub.”

Ellie said, “Did you like them?”

He could see she was tentative and hopeful. He said, “How could I not? You were in them.”

Ellie grinned and cocked her head. She said, “Did you want to see some more pictures?”

Before Danny could answer in the frantic and eager affirmative, Hemi stopped him, saying, “Nah, nah, hold on now a second. It’s all happening so fast.”

Danny said, “So fast? Do you know how long it took me to get here?”

Ellie laughed into her cupped hands, muffled by her sweatshirt sleeves. “It took you eighteen hours. Where the heck did you go?”

Danny said, “I didn’t go anywhere. I just hung around and waited.”

“Waited for . . . ?”

“Waited for exactly what happened.”

Hemi said, “But you don’t know what happened.”

Danny said, “Isn’t anybody going to tell me?”

Ellie was more bashful, twisted up with anxiousness, putting one foot over the other and practically squirming. She said to Hemi, “Give me your phone.”

Hemi resisted. “Hang on a sec there, Ellie. He’s been in charge the whole time. Don’t you see what you’ve got now?”

Ellie said, “What have I got?”

Hemi said, “You got him where you want him.”

“You want to make him play now? Play my game?”

“You got it,” Hemi said.

“Boy, that sounds like fun,” Ellie said slyly, showing Danny her cute face. It melted his heart. How could somebody be so cute and yet so devilishly sexy at the same time?

Danny said, “What do I have to do to get a look at these pictures? Can’t you just give me a hint what happened? If something happened.”

Hemi said, “Something happened.”

Ellie covered her face with sweatshirt-covered hands and groaned, then swept her hair and held the back of her neck. Her eyes were bleary; her cheeks red. She said, “Yeah, something happened.” Her tone had gone quiet and timid again.

Danny frowned. “Was it good or was it bad?”

Hemi scoffed and laid a hand over his chest as if he were an offended Victorian lady. Like he couldn’t be bad at . . . 

At what?

The thing you’d asked him to provide.

And Ellie giggled again, saying, “No, it was good. It was weird, but it was good.”

Danny and Hemi spoke at the same time, saying, “Weird, how?” They shared a look and then chuckled.

Ellie bounced on her toes. “Weird, because it wasn’t my Danny.”

Hemi said, ”But you thought it was good, yeah?”

Ellie rolled her eyes around, cheeks puffing out, lips slimming. She nodded, then exhaled. “Yeah, it was good.”

Danny’s heart was racing now. He said, “You’ve got pictures?”

Ellie looked to Hemi for permission. “Can’t we show them to him?”

Hemi set his empty cocktail down, dabbed his lips with a paper towel, and leaned back against the counter with his large hands curled on the lip. He looked enormous in the small space with his bulk and his height and his muscles stretching out the flannel shirt. He said, “What’s the point of looking at pictures when you’ve got the real thing? All three of us here, and all three of us are just wasting time, you ask me.”

No one said anything, their mouths working around in smirks and smiles.

And then Danny said, “He’s got a point.”

Ellie brushed her hair back again and held the back of her neck. “I guess he does.”

Hemi said, “You can look at pictures when you get home.”

Danny went light-headed, bracing himself on the counter’s edge. He said, “We’re really going to do this right here, right now?”

Hemi said, “All this work you’ve done, and you gotta ask that? You made this happen, mate.”

Ellie looked at him sideways. ”Yeah,” she said. “You made this happen, mate.”

Danny said, “I guess I did.”

Hemi said, “You’ve been brave up to now. You’re not going to give in, are you?”

Danny looked at his beloved darling, his high school sweetheart and his best friend for almost twenty years. They had a great life together, and he never had a bad minute with her. He’d done so much to separate her from him today, and let her spirit soar, to let her explore all kinds of things neither of them ever thought would be possible. Things that were twenty times greater—a thousand times greater—than bungee jumping. Now it was him standing on the precipice of a cable car, and Ellie was the one teasing.

He held up his hands and ran his thumb over the fingertips. He said, “I’ve gone all pins and needles.”

Hemi said, “It’s not a heart attack, is it?”

Danny chuckled, still thumb-rubbing. “Not yet, it isn’t.”

Ellie said, “Does it feel good?”

Danny put his hands in his pockets. “I feel good,” he said.

Ellie said, “Do you really want to do this right now?” and scrunched up her nose.

Danny swallowed and found it took some effort. He gulped and then nodded. “Yeah,” he said. “I reckon.”

Hemi said, “There’s the Kiwi spirit.”

Ellie said, “Should we . . . I don’t know. Do you want to maybe . . . Do you want to get in the hot tub?”

Danny shook his head no, and Hemi said, “I don’t feel like toweling off again. Why prolong what all of us have waited so long for?” He looked toward the bedroom where Danny had discovered them.

Ellie said, “I don’t know.”

Hemi teased her. “Are you shy now, Ellie?”

Ellie raised her chin, regarded Hemi and shook her head no.

Hemi put out a hand. “Why don’t you come over here and stand by me?”

Ellie scrunched up her nose again and gave a wary look Danny’s way, like she was waiting for confirmation. Danny gave it to her, nodding once. They both smirked.

Ellie said, “Are you sure?” and Danny nodded one more time.

Ellie braced herself, then took two steps to join Hemi on the other side of the kitchen, where he still leaned his butt against the counter’s edge. She looked very small against him, her head at his shoulder height. Danny’s heart thudded when their hips touched. Hemi circled his arm around Ellie’s waist, his large hand resting on her pajama-bottom hip. He said, “Why don’t we just show him what he missed?”

And Ellie said, “We’ve already done that.”

Hemi chuckled. “You want to try something new?”

Ellie said, “Don’t you?”

Hemi nodded. “You want to kiss me?”

Ellie looked shocked, her eyebrows rising, and Hemi looked at Ellie, but spoke to Danny, saying, “She doesn’t like to kiss.”

It touched something in Danny’s heart, picturing Ellie and Hemi together today and Ellie getting close to kissing this other man but balking, shying away. It was lurid and provoked jealousy, but it sparked warmth for his sweet partner.

Hemi said, “Least not on the lips.”

Danny’s knees weakened once more. Not on the lips, but somewhere else.

And now he watched as Ellie made some sort of decision, moving her body against Hemi’s, the movement’s origin beginning at her feet, lifting her lithe body up onto her toes. He wished she wore something skimpy so he could see the shape of her beautiful legs.

What she was doing was apparent, yet somehow he still watched dumbfounded. Her hand went to rest on Hemi’s large flannel chest, and as her lips drew nearer to Hemi’s, she closed her down-turned eyes. Hemi’s hand swept across Ellie’s waist and to the small of her back.

Your wife’s back! Your Ellie’s back!

Ellie angled up her chin, stretching out her neck, and Hemi lowered his mouth to hers, their lips combining in a slow kiss. An exploratory one. Learning how each other liked it.

Ellie’s hand dropped lower and Danny jumped, thinking his wife was going to take a grip on Hemi’s denim bulge, but instead Ellie sent her hand up underneath Hemi’s flannel and T-shirt, her bare hand traveling Hemi’s naked skin underneath the cotton. Her knee raised up Hemi’s thigh, and Hemi’s hand dropped lower to cup her bottom. The sight’s eroticism scared the hell out of him, but his eyes stayed glued while blood whooshed in his ears.

Their mouths worked against one another, faces rocking, Hemi’s free hand taking Ellie’s upper arm while her hand still stroked bare muscle under the shirt. The room was quiet but for gentle wet smacking and his own pulse. Cotton rubbed against cotton as Hemi and Ellie grew more heated. 

Ellie’s hand lowered and Danny watched it reappear below the hem of Hemi’s untucked working-man’s shirt. And now Ellie didn’t disappoint. Her small hand cupped the large denim bulge between Hemi’s legs, kneading the ample masculine flesh beneath while Hemi groaned into their kiss.