23 - Noah

23

Noah

I normally loved taking contract jobs in other areas. Most of these mountain towns were pretty small, and didn’t have the population to keep a full-time doctor. By occasionally filling in, I was helping people who sometimes went without medical care for weeks or months at a time. My presence made a legitimate difference in lives, and that was one of the most fulfilling aspects of my job.

But this time, going to Ouray meant two days away from Melissa.

It was torture. Much more than I expected. I considered coming up with an excuse as to why I couldn’t go, faking an illness or some other emergency. Anything to stay around Melissa for longer.

That would be lying, and that’s not who I was. But it was tempting.

Fortunately, I was busy in Ouray—the flu was going around, so I had no shortage of patients to care for. Still, Melissa occupied a large chunk of my mind while I worked. She was always there—the memory of her face, her scent, her touch .

God, her touch. Thinking about that distracted me more than anything else.

Yet I was bound by that universal rule about relationships: you never wanted to seem too eager. Even in something casual like this. So as much as I wanted to text her between every single patient, I held back. I kept my cool. I eventually did give in and text her, but just the once.

So it was a huge relief when she reached out to me as I was leaving this morning, asking when I would get home. And it was an even more pleasant surprise when I drove up to my house and found her waiting on the porch.

And when she insisted on following me inside, stripping her own clothes and joining me in the shower? It was confirmation that my infatuation with her wasn’t one-sided.

I don’t need to overthink things , I told myself as we toweled off. Melissa doesn’t play games.

“I think I have a problem,” she told me. “I got the wrapping on my ankle all wet.”

“You know what that means,” I teased. “Four more weeks of recovery.”

“Hey!” she replied indignantly. “This isn’t a groundhog situation. It’s only water.”

She was sitting on the edge of my bed, so I knelt before her and peeled away the wrapping on her ankle. The swelling had gone down a lot. In fact, it looked pretty damn good.

A jolt of panic hit me. If her ankle was healed, it meant she would be returning to her hike soon.

“How’s it feel?” I asked, slowly bending it to the left, then the right.

“Tender, but not bad,” she replied.

“What about this?” I tilted her foot so that the toes were pointing at the ceiling.

She winced. “There. That’s where I still feel pain.”

Relieved, I nodded. “It looks good, but yeah, you’ll still need some more recovery time. That tilting motion is where you need to be painless, because you’ll be bending your foot a lot like that while hiking uphill and downhill. Let’s leave it off while we kayak, but I’ll want to wrap it again when we get back.”

As we prepared the kayak, guilt replaced relief. I was a doctor. I shouldn’t be happy that she was still injured. That was antithetical to everything I believed in.

But as I watched Melissa’s slender form placing our picnic in the kayak, it was easy to forget all about my Hippocratic Oath.

It was a beautiful day in Crested Butte, a little warmer than it had been in Ouray earlier this morning. The sun was bright but pleasant, and the sky was bluer than usual. I breathed in the fresh mountain air and sighed happily as we began kayaking up the river.

“Happy to be back?” Melissa asked over her shoulder.

“You have no idea.”

“Do you dislike Ouray that much? Ouray and Silverton were two towns I was supposed to stop in on the Colorado Trail, to sleep in a bed and replenish my supplies. I’d heard good things about Ouray.”

“It’s a great little town,” I replied. “The Switzerland of America, it’s called. But there’s no place like home, you know?”

She chuckled. “Honestly, I don’t really know. I’ve lived in Toledo pretty much my whole life, but lately it hasn’t felt like home. Especially after my breakup. Being out here, seeing other parts of the country, makes me wonder if I should start fresh somewhere new.”

I perked up a little bit. “I can certainly understand. That’s why I moved out here from Denver when I got back from Afghanistan. I wanted a fresh start.”

“And are you glad you did it?”

“I’m happier than I ever thought I could be,” I replied honestly.

Melissa didn’t respond, but I could tell she was thinking about that. I began wondering if she was serious. Right now, this was just a fling with an expiration date. But if she was willing to move somewhere new when she finished the Colorado Trail…

I shook off the thought. I’d known this woman just a few days. It was insane to think about long-term plans.

But the thought stayed in the back of my mind.

We paddled along in happy silence for a while. That’s what I really liked about Melissa: I felt like I could be around her without needing to fill the silence with conversation. Our mutual presence was enough, a unique compatibility of shared activity.

After almost an hour of paddling, we pulled off at the same little riverbank as last time to eat lunch. I spread out a towel for us and sat down. Melissa immediately stretched her legs out across my lap like it was the most natural thing in the world. The physical touch, both casual and intimate, was soothing.

We chatted about my patients in Ouray, though I kept the details vague to protect their privacy. She told me about the ATV tour with Jack, and seeing Ash working at the barbecue place.

“He has a lot of jobs,” I said. “He’s never been the kind of guy who can work forty hours a week at the same place. He likes to spread it around.”

“Hmm.” Melissa chewed on her sandwich. “Hey, sorry about asking what he went to prison for.”

“No apology needed,” I quickly reassured her. “Thanks for accepting what I said. I can’t violate his trust.”

“I understand. I don’t like to tell people about my embarrassing traits. If I’d gone to prison, I would carry that secret to the grave.”

“Honestly,” I said, “you could always ask him.”

She barked a laugh. “Yeah, I’m sure he’d like that.”

“I know he gives off an intimidating vibe…”

“Understatement of the year.”

“…but he really is harmless. He just does that to keep people away. He let you borrow his favorite bike, something he treasures more than anything in the world. If you ask, maybe he’ll confide in you. And although I can’t tell you what happened, I can assure you that he didn’t go to prison for anything violent. He’s not a danger to anyone.”

She shrugged, but I could see the gears turning in her mind.

We finished our lovely picnic, then made out a little bit for good measure. Melissa was a great kisser, to the point that I was disappointed that we were at least half an hour from reaching my bedroom. Kissing was nice for kissing’s sake, though, and we eventually began the downriver journey home.

After passing by a home built on the river, we reached a secluded section that was surrounded on both sides by tall trees. It was my favorite part of the river because it was silent and peaceful. Melissa pulled her paddle out of the river and rested it in the kayak, then looked around at the scenery.

“Taking a break?” I asked.

She turned around in the kayak seat until she was facing me, then leaned forward to brush her lips against mine. “You could say that.”

And then her fingers went to my shorts, pulling the elastic waistband down.

“What…” I began to ask.

“Just keep paddling,” she said in a dusky voice. “

All protests died on my lips as her fingers wrapped around me. She gave me a squeeze and a gentle stroke, and in the blink of an eye I was as hard as the paddle in my hand.

“You don’t have to…” I said.

She shook her head. “I’ve been fantasizing about doing this all morning.”

I let out a long sigh as her tongue ran up the underside of my hard length, from the base up to the crown. My sigh turned into a groan as she wrapped her lips around the tip, sucking gently while continuing to stroke my shaft.

“That feels amazing,” I breathed.

“You have to keep paddling,” she said, looking up at me through her long eyelashes. “You have your job , and I have mine.”

The way she emphasized the word job while she resumed her blowjob drove me crazy with lust. I wanted to push her backwards, hike down her shorts, and drive into her with need. I felt like I would instantly explode if I did that, even though we’d just had sex two hours ago.

But her mouth felt so good, I was completely unable to do anything but savor it.

I paddled with the bare minimum effort required while she went down on me with an enthusiasm that turned me on just as much as the physical touch itself. Lips, tongue, and fingers worked in perfect synchronicity as she focused on her task, blonde head bobbing up and down with greater speed. I kept glancing out at the forest surrounding us, even though I knew this area was deserted. But even if it wasn’t, I wouldn’t have cared. She felt so good , better than I expected…

“I’m close,” I managed to grit out. I wasn’t even pretending to paddle, now.

She moaned around my hard length, adding a pleasant vibration to the blowjob.

My breath quickened as the pleasure ramped up. I was right on the edge of coming, that wonderful ecstasy going on and on. Then I was hurtled over the edge, past the point of no return.

“Melissa?” I said, her name a prayer and a curse. “Oh, Melissa, I’m… I’m…”

I expected her to pull away, but her lips tightened around me instead. That was the last realization I had before I exploded in pleasure, my entire body shaking and shuddering with sweet release. Melissa moaned with me as if my bliss was contagious, taking every drop of my come in her mouth.

I felt like I’d just run a marathon when I finally stopped coming. Melissa gave my crown one final kiss, swallowed the results of her hard work, and then raised up to brush her lips against mine. There was just a hint of salt on her tongue, which turned me on all over again.

“Yeah,” I managed to say. “It’s good to be home.”

Melissa roared with laughter as she collected her paddle. “I hope nobody is out in these woods, or they definitely would have heard you.”

“I couldn’t help it. That felt amazing. ”

She flashed a smile over her shoulder. “I enjoyed it just as much as you did.”

“I highly doubt that.”

“You can repay the favor when we get back,” she said casually.

As I resumed paddling, I thought to myself: I think I’m in love .