The Weather Outside is Frightful
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This is the second in a series of "sexy vignette"-style microfiction I've been trying to get better at writing erotica. Please chime in with criticism!
"The Weather Outside is Frightful," by Rob Baird.
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Rae set out two mugs for the hot chocolate, as though adding the second might make him appear. When she took her mug and sat on the sofa, watching out through the window that looked into the valley, she consciously left a space next to her. Eyes closed, she imagined it; the warmth of his body, and the pressure of his paw against her as he pulled her into an embrace she could never help but return.
When she opened her eyes again, she was alone on the sofa. It wasn't really surprising.
Dan was an architect; that was how they'd met, back fourteen years ago in school. She'd been struggling with her drafting homework, and he had offered to help. She smiled at the memory - his big paws guiding hers over the thin paper, showing her how to get the curves just right. She'd gotten a solid A in the class, and it had confirmed for her a love of engineering. They met again the following semester, and this time he had asked her for coffee. The way he had smiled, warm and charming, removed any hope of resistance.
So they had gone into private consultancy together. At first, they had simply been partners. After a whirlwind trip to see a demonstration of green architecture in Arizona, however, he had taken both her paws in his own and asked her to marry him. Nobody who knew them could've doubted the outcome. Now they were inseparable - like a coin split into two halves, neither could be envisioned without the other.
He had been working overseas for the past three months, on a project in Dubai, and they had kept in touch only through instant messengers and phone calls. Neither had been sufficient, and now it appeared that the separation would see no immediate resolution. Rae knew that he was back in the States, but his return coincided with what the news had called the "storm of the century" for the Coast Range. White, wild, and blinding, the snow was driving down in a relentless sheet. Her cell phone had abruptly lost reception an hour before, but the last text message she had sent him told him to wait until he could travel safely; that after three months she could bear to hold off a little longer.
It was only partly true. She could, yes, but her heart ached, and as she looked out and into the blizzard she found herself cursing it. Snow. Damn the stuff - no matter that he was a snow leopard, nor that so was she. It was cold, and it was wet, and it was keeping Dan at the airport. She sighed, and went to heat up some more milk.
The knock was solid, and at first it startled her so much she nearly dropped her mug. She set it carefully down and padded over to the door, her slippered feet soft and soundless against the cold hardwood floor. When she opened the door there was a gust of wind and snow, and it took her a moment to notice the figure standing there - a tall, ghostly apparition in a long dark jacket. Snow dusted his face and clung to his whiskers obstinately. It framed his features - his short ears; his ghostly blue eyes. His smile.
"Hey, Wolf." It was a fond, playful nickname. The second night he had spent in her dorm room, Dan had learned that she'd only brought one CD from home - Duran Duran's Rio. She had told him that "Hungry Like the Wolf" was her favorite song, and he had teased her mercilessly.
And of course, when she found out that he owned a guitar but couldn't play it, keeping it around for mere effect, she'd returned the favor in kind. So there was only one proper response to his use of her pet name, and she cried it aloud in sudden delight. "Django!" Then she hugged him tightly, pulling him into the warm house and kicking shut the door.
Inside, where the fire crackled merrily, the snow melted swiftly from his face. It still prickled her nose when she pulled herself up to kiss him, passionately, and it soaked into her fur as her arms wrapped tightly around him, crushing her body against his. When she let him speak again, he grinned. "Sorry I'm late."
"I told you to stay in the city if the roads were shut down," she said, chiding him halfheartedly. It was hard to scold someone when you were so glad to see them that you thought your heart might burst.
"The roads weren't that bad until the turnoff to 20." He shrugged off his heavy trenchcoat and hung it up, turning back to her. Beneath the coat he wore only a thin, button-down shirt. It clung smartly to his body as he moved, accenting his chest and the muscles of his torso. When he turned, she thought she could see the dark outlines of his spots. She had memorized their positions long before.
In the time it had taken him to step inside and take his coat and boots off, the milk had heated; she turned the gas off and mixed two mugs of hot chocolate, adding in a dram of Irish cream to each. "You stayed safe - right?"
"Well..." It was the answer she'd known he would give. Dan had never settled down, really; he was still brash and daring. He took risks, when he thought the rewards were right. "The car's in a snowdrift just past the turnoff for the bridge."
"That's a mile and a half from here. You could've frozen to death." She narrowed her eyes at him, trying to get him to look suitably contrite.
Instead, still holding the mug, he pulled her close. She felt the warmth of his body; the strong beat of his heart. "It seemed like it was worth it." Her ear was flattened to his chest, and the way he spoke rumbled gently. "Ninety-four days without seeing you..."
"It could've gone to ninety-five."
She was lying, and he saw through her - but he never said it. "It could've. But instead I'm here, and you're here, and we don't have to worry about things like that." His broad paw sought out hers, taking it in a warm, firm squeeze. When she returned it, at length, he led her over to the sofa and took the place she had saved for him; the place he always sat.
Rae joined him, and leaned heavily on his side. "How was Dubai?"
"Hot and dry. Full of bright lights and glamor. It was beautiful, if you stayed in the right places. I couldn't wait to leave."
She turned to him, and took a sip of the hot chocolate, her breath carrying the steam towards her husband's face. "Couldn't wait to leave? Why?"
"I was working on one of the tallest buildings in the city. Monumentally interesting and innovative... completely green and computer-controlled. A marvel of modern technology. And you know the only thing I could think about? The only thing I could think about was a little cabin in the Alsea river valley with a wood-burning fireplace and stone walls."
She leaned on him, then, and they looked out over the valley together. When the snowfall ebbed, as it did at brief moments, it was possible to see the dark shadows of the trees. Then it returned in force, and the scene became a white blur. It was as though the world stopped at their window. As though the universe was composed of a gently crackling fireplace, and a worn sofa, and two people who were incomplete when separated. By the end of the hot cocoa, they were no longer watching the window.
Dan's paw found hers again, and she intertwined her fingers with his. She turned, and as if it had been choreographed his lips were there, a warm, firm touch on her own. As their muzzles locked, Rae put her arm around him, feeling the heat of the man's body and the tension of the muscles in his back. There was a dull clank of enamel on wood as one of the mugs fell, completely forgotten; neither noticed. It could be tended to later.
She felt his tongue, probing at her lips, and she parted them to accept it. She watched, as the rogueish brightness of his blue eyes faded into something more tender until they looked like slate, deep and passionate and loving. His broad paws caressed her, as if making up for lost time. Rae could not have given voice in words to how much she ached for him; it came instead in a low murmur of encouragement, sighed against his muzzle.
Not that they needed to talk. When she unbuttoned his shirt, he lifted his arms up to let her remove it, and she repaid the favor in kind. It was an unspoken trade. She felt herself stiffen involuntarily at the touch of a paw, warm and searching and eager, caressing her chest. She wanted to close her eyes, to live in a world of darkness, defined only by his touch. But she was enraptured, watching his face as he drew away from her lips; as his gaze became more pointed - hungrier. As his spine arched, until there the sudden touch of his lips, closing about her sensitive right nipple.
She moaned, then - couldn't help it. She could see his thick tail lash at that sound, such a primal response that she moaned again, and her fingers pressed down and through the plush, luxuriant fur of his frame. He seemed so stark; so masculine, a body of light and the dull shadows of his rosettes, a body that drew forth her breath in increasingly urgent gasps.
There was a paw, strong and insistent, unbuttoning her jeans and pushing them down. She didn't need to tell him to do that, either, and though it was inevitable still she longed for each movement in the seconds before it happened. Before his fingers slid underneath the thin material of her panties, searching for her; before she felt him touch her, his finger probing the wet lips of her sex. Her legs parted for him, beckoning him, and now she did close her eyes. The gasp that spilled from her lips was wanton, and she heard him growl in answer.
She wriggled and kicked, knocking the jeans into the coffee table, where they scattered the carefully arranged magazines. Nervous energy had ordered them; now it was being put to better use, and her body thrummed with it. He was slow, lingering; taking his time at every step until the last possible second where she might've begged for it. There was a brief departure, and a rustling of clothes. Dan put his arms around her, then, guiding her down to rest on her back, and as his body pressed to hers she could feel the bare fur mingling.
He shuffled above her, and she felt his muzzle close to hers again, holding her there as his hips quested, and when his tip brushed against her he rocked forward and down, staking his claim to her body in a swift, deep movement that made her cry aloud. She had not forgotten the feeling of her mate, deep inside her, but it seemed as he took her that she might've forgotten how good it felt. She gave herself willingly over to the moment. To the sensation of being filled with rigid, living flesh; to the sound his breathing made against her lips as he let out a quiet moan that made him seem, in that one, single moment, almost vulnerable.
Then he was moving. Hard, fast, urgent strokes - as though three months of separation could be bridged in a fierce clash of primal emotions. She arched up, trying to meet him as he bucked within her, trying to draw him deeper. He drove himself powerfully into the warmth; the welcoming heat of her body, and each thrust left her gasping with delight.
She opened her eyes to watch his expression as his pace quickened. She could see the tension building; his eyes were narrowing, his short ears flattening in concentration. He was panting roughly above her, and in glimpses she could see his tail, lashing quickly behind him. She cried his name aloud, watching his ears flick with the call and his eyes go unfocused.
Even in the depths of his passion he kept his rhythm smooth and she felt her emotions rising, building to a head she could not have staved off even had she desired to. Rae was shuddering, now, with each thrust. She could see one of the black rosettes of Dan's fur, along his upper side, and she traced along it with her thumb as her paws gripped him, fidgeting. He didn't stop. There was no possible end but the sating exultation of release.
She found it first. Her muzzle opening as she tried to draw breath, she found instead that she could utter only a short cry, a keening wail of bliss and satisfaction. Pleasure, raw and unalloyed, took her in waves that broke down her resolve until she could hear herself as if at a great remove, moaning giddily. She gripped him, over and over, and at the height of her peak she felt him stiffen as well. Then there was a sudden wet heat, spurting deeply within her, and her kitten was gasping in the abandon of climax. She could hear the fabric of the sofa strain, as his claws raked it, and his hips bucked to drive each pulse deeper. Even when he slumped against her - a heavy, reassuring weight - she could feel his shaft, jerking lightly, until at last there was nothing but pure stillness, broken only in the panting of two souls, completely spent.
Dan's voice returned before hers. "I love you," he said, his muzzle nudging the base of her ear. It was so strained, almost desperate in its passion, that she could not have doubted him for an instant. "God, Wolf, but I love you."
His fevered movements - and her own claws - had mussed her husband's soft, thick fur. She smoothed it, now, fingering the black spots lovingly. She kissed his ear, holding him close as he slowly softened within her, relaxing in her embrace. "You know, I counted every single sunrise when you weren't here to wake up next to," she murmured. "And every sunset there was only one pair of eyes to see..."
Now that his breath had returned, her husband tinged each exhalation with a rumbling, warm purr. "It was the same in Dubai," he said quietly. "All those buildings, those expanses of water and sky... Nothing but shades of grey. We can't do this again, Rae."
"We can't," she agreed.
"But for now..." His paw caressed her side as if to reassure him of her presence. She thrilled at the touch, and curled her tail around his own, a closeness that saw him draw his head back until he could look at her with the devilish grin he had perfected. "We have each other, and the cabin, and the rest of the day together. That is just about perfect."
"'Cept for the weather," she said. Outside snow was coming down more heavily again, and even the fence that marked the boundary of their property had vanished.
"The weather is what makes it perfect." Dan's nose rubbed hers as their lips met again briefly - tenderly, an exquisite, lingering touch. "Can't go anywhere... have to keep occupied..."
"Maybe..." She was succumbing rapidly to his grin, and to the touch of his fingers. They were stroking her hips, now, insistently. Her paws wandered his back, the earlier laziness ebbing as she found his hips. She squeezed there, and he ground against her in a reflexive press that was so exhilarating she felt compelled to draw it from him again. "Could've been done without a blizzard."
"Could've. But why the waste the opportunity? Let it snow." He kissed her deeply, so hungrily that when he finally pulled back they were both out of breath again, and he repeated the kiss over and over, as punctuation. "Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow."