Fervent Desires

Chapter 7 - The Cabin

I looked at my watch nervously as I waited outside Erica’s apartment. It was a three story brownstone in Harlem. The streets looked fairly quiet for a Friday afternoon. 

“Are you sure she’s coming?” whined Vaughn, shifting impatiently in the driver’s seat.

“Don’t be ridiculous, of course she is,” I snapped, looking up at the building again.

At least I hoped she was. We had already been waiting for thirty minutes.

“I’m so sorry to keep you waiting,” said Erica as she entered the car. She looked incredible. Her hair was slicked back into a pony tail and she wore jeans, a t shirt and sneakers. She could make anything look sexy. 

“No problem,” I said quickly. “We barely noticed.”

I caught Vaughn rolling his eyes in the rear-view mirror. “Nope, only long enough for you to miss your flight,” he muttered. 

“Shut up Vaughn,” I quipped. I could see the blush creep up in Erica’s cheeks. “Don’t worry, we’ll make it,”  I said, putting my arm around her. Erica sunk into my embrace. Her body was warm against mine. I fought hard against the urge to kiss her, not wanting to give Vaughn the satisfaction. As soon as he had found out I was taking Erica on the camping trip he had insisted on taking us to the airport. Nosy bastard!

The flight to Montana was uneventful, it was Erica’s first time in first class and I allowed her to enjoy every moment of it. She got excited about the littlest things and I loved that about her. She had a level of innocence that was practically nonexistent in my world.

We arrived on schedule; it was a little after 9:00 pm and I knew everyone was already at the cabin waiting. We piled our bags into the jeep and headed toward Flathead National Forest. The road was dark and if it wasn’t for the bright lights of the jeep we would be completely alone in the darkness.

“So tell me about your friends,” asked Erica, peering into the darkness up ahead.

“Well first of all I neglected to tell you that this was a couples’ trip,” I glanced over at her, she had a skeptical look on her face. “Don’t give me that look. They’ve been trying to get me to go for the longest and I couldn’t refuse this time, I didn’t want to be the fifth wheel. I usually take Vaughn on these things but he hates camping,”. I tried to explain hurriedly. Erica was quiet for a minute, then she burst out laughing.

“So you want me to pretend to be your girlfriend?” she asked between bursts of laughter.

“When you put it like that-”

“What do I get out of this?” she cut in.

“What do you want?”

“You owe me,” she smirked, “to be collected at a later date.”

“Fine, Deal! But you better make it convincing,” I took my hand from the steering wheel and reached for hers, she took it and we shook on it. 

“Deal!” she echoed.

“So my friends” I continued “you’re gonna love them. Lydia is an architect, she’s the motherly figure of the group; her wife is Cynthia she’s a school teacher and one of the most patient people I know, they live in Arizona. My friend Kendall is a pediatrician and he’s dating Kyle, he’s a designer they recently moved to L.A. on account of Kyle’s budding fashion career,” She looked at me with interest as I gave her the rundown of my friends.

“Wow you guys all come from different backgrounds,” she commented when I was finally done.

“Yup we're a pretty diverse group,” I responded. “I met Lydia and Kendall at summer camp when we were younger. We’ve been great friends ever since.”   

It was about 9:30 when we pulled up to the cabin. We had hopped out of the jeep and began grabbing our bags when we saw an excited Lydia hurrying down the steps to greet us. 

“Finally!,” she squealed as she pulled me into a hug

“Lydia this is-”

“Erica!” She yelled, pulling her into a hug as well “It’s so nice to meet you, you have no idea how long it’s been since Taylor brought a friend around.” She gave me a wink as she said so.

“Lydia!” I cut in, why were my friends always embarrassing me? I looked up to see the rest of the gang approaching.

“Don’t mind her Taylor, she’s had one too many glasses of wine,” commented Kendall as he pulled me into a hug as well.

“I suppose everybody has heard about Erica by now,” I said giving Lydia a knowing look, which of course she pretended not to see.

They all took turns welcoming Erica and introducing themselves. I squeezed her hand reassuringly as everyone exchanged pleasantries. “Dinner is getting cold!” exclaimed Lydia,  grabbing one of our bags and heading inside. Erica pulled her coat snugly around her as we walked into the cabin. “I know it’s freezing in here; but someone forgot to have the place heated up,” explained Lydia and she shot an accusing look at Kendall.

Kendall gave us a sheepish look. Clearly he’d gotten several earfuls from Lydia; I shoved my hands into my pockets to prevent them from freezing. “I swear it must be warmer outside,” I teased.

“Not helping Taylor,” Kendall whined, clearly wanting the conversation to end.

“We have a nice fire going in the sitting room,” Kyle came to his boyfriend’s defense, "we’ll be having dinner in there.”

We all went to the sitting room where we had a lovely meal of roast beef, courtesy of Kyle. Lydia talked all through dinner about her various projects, stopping from time to time to ask each of us what we had going on. It was midnight before we finally left the sitting room and headed upstairs to bed. The cabin was still chilly as the warmth had not made its way upstairs.

“Are you sure we shouldn’t just sleep in the sitting room?” Erica asked as we climbed into bed together.

Though the idea was tempting, I wanted to be alone with Erica for what I was about to attempt next. “Lydia is an early riser and you do not want to be anywhere near her when she does. I love her but that woman is quite the talker,” I quickly said to discourage her.

Erica shuddered as we slid into bed together. I have no idea if it was from what I had said or the fact that we were so close together. I could feel the warmth radiating from her body and instantly started to get aroused.