Page 92 of Power Play

Quietly, so I didn’t wake him and have to explain why I couldn’t stay in his room another minute, I crept out the door. Shutting it silently behind me, I made my way down the creaky old staircase to the living space downstairs.

I checked on Tess who was sound asleep in the bottom bunk, arms and legs flung every which way, before crawling into my own bed, pulling the sheets up over my body and laying there feeling the thrum of my blood between my legs. I cupped a hand over my pussy as if to remind myself that it was still my body. Sore and tender, yes. But I was still me.

So why did I feel so different?

“Kit, psst, Kit.”

I opened one eye to see Tess beside my bed, wearing her pajamas and carrying the bird book we’d bought at the bookstore the other day.

“Hey Tess,” I said. I closed my eyes but smiled at her. “What time is it?”

“I don’t know. But I think there’s a Great Blue Heron on our patio.”

My eyes flew open. “What?”

“I’m serious!” she whispered, like the heron might hear her. “You have to see.”

Well, I did have to see. I flung the sheets off my body and pulled on a pair of shorts and sweatshirt over Liam’s t-shirt. We stepped out of the bedroom hallway to the main room with the windows out onto the back patio and the beach beyond.

The sky was a bright blue but the sunlight was the thin watery sunlight of dawn. I didn’t even bother to look at the clock. Too depressing.

“Look!” Tess cried, jumping silently beside me, pointing wildly out the window where indeed there was a gigantic bird at least three feet tall, holding itself still and looking right at us.

“Oh,” I said, startled. “That’s… that’s a Great Blue Heron.” It looked like an alien. Shaggy feathers all down its front but those piercing eyes looking right at me as if to say… I know what you did to poor Shrek last night.

Tess collapsed onto the floor, the book open in front of her. “Did you know that they’re wingspan can be up to six feet wide?”

“I did not.”

“And the female lays the eggs but the male sits on the eggs during the day.”

“Didn’t know that either.” I stepped closer to the window, trying to get a better look and see if there wasn’t another bird out there. But my movement startled the heron, and it took off with a tremendous rustle of gray blue feathers. Its wingspan was no joke.

“Oh, no!” I cried, watching it soar up into the air. “Sorry, Tess,” I said, but she was running past me to the window, where, over the trees and the dunes between our house and the beach, a whole flock of birds rose up into the air, circled, and then resettled on the beach.

“What were those?” she asked.

“They don’t look like seagulls,” I said. Slowly we turned to each other, each of us thinking the same thing. I pulled open the screen door and she took off running. I shut the door behind us and followed.

Two hours later Liam found us sitting in the sand, the book open on my lap as we discussed everything we’d seen today. We were new at this birding thing but I could tell we had a natural gift.

“Good morning,” Liam said, as he stepped beside us. He handed me a cup of coffee and I looked up at him with complete and utter gratitude.

“Liam!” Tess cried and then regaled him with stories of herons coming out of the sky to catch birds and tiny little sandpipers with black beaks and bright red eyes digging shells out of the sand. “And eating them!” she said, acting out some of her favorite parts of the wild world of birds we’d watched this morning.

“You’ve had quite a morning,” Liam said, sitting down beside me.

“We have,” I said, my voice shrill and weird. I was trying so hard to pretend to be cool but all I could think about was him between my legs telling me I was such a good girl. Which led me to thinking about how his cock felt in my hand. The way I’d made myself wet for him. And that, all I wanted to do in the world, was lock myself in that bedroom with him for the next five hours so he could really fuck me.

I didn’t think too much about why we hadn’t gone there last night. It was like we were getting used to each other again. Maybe testing some limits first. He’d certainly tested mine.

“Kit,” he breathed. “What in the world are you thinking about right now?”

I whirled to face him, only to find him studying my face.

“You blush when you’re turned on, by the way,” he said quietly. Tess, who’d gone up to the edge of the water to look at the prints left in the sand by all the birds, wasn’t paying any attention to us.

“I’m not thinking anything,” I said, unable to not be awkward.

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