“Wooo!!!” The loud yell from a single spectator broke the spell, initiating a cheer that erupted from the shore and easily carried out to the boats, both celebrating and thanking them. Most applauded, but Katie didn’t have any interest in releasing her prey, and Carson didn’t seem to object either. She turned to him.
“Thank you for that, Carson. That was more amazing than I ever could have imagined.” She pulled a tissue from her pocket and dabbed at her eyes. It was one thing, she thought, to get a little emotional at such profound beauty, but the situation did not call for real tears.
“My pleasure. This is the third time I’ve seen it, and it impresses every time.” His grin was a little smug at having chosen their evening so well, but Katie figured he deserved his self-accolade. “Now we just watch and enjoy.” The crowd, clearly reaching the same conclusion, quieted down, and soon the only thing anyone could hear was a few murmurs of brief conversations.
Katie looked back to the spectacle as well, eager to enjoy more of the splendid scene. Carson also seemed to understand the power of the moment, and joined her in silent observation.
The sky grew darker by the minute, and as her vision adjusted, more and more stars appeared. Katie recognized only a few, mostly from her childhood, but after locating the Big Dipper, Polaris, and what might have been Mars (it looked kind of reddish to her), she was kind of lost. It didn’t matter, though – the tiny pinpricks of light only added to the magnificence of the larger ones below, as if the boats were effervescing their display into the night. She noticed an airliner passing overhead, probably in preparation to land in Philadelphia, and hoped the people on board could see the boats. If they could, they were probably wondering exactly what was going on.
But the beauty came with a price, and that price was the ever-increasing cold. Try as she might to ignore it, the chill crept through her clothes and started worming its way through her flesh to her bones. Based on what Carson had said, there was probably at least 45 minutes until they lit the bonfire, and she wouldn’t be able to hold out that long. Her discomfort inspired an idea.
“Are you getting cold?” she whispered, already knowing the answer. She could probably make a fire with his hand if she had some kindling.
“No, I’m fine. Actually, I really like this temperature.”
“Well, I’m freezing. And, since you brought me out here, it’s your job to keep me comfortable.” She stood abruptly and pulled her chair away from Carson’s. “So make room.”
“For wh –“ Carson could not finish even this simple phrase before Katie half-smacked, half-shoved the inside of both of his ankles, making a space for her to squeeze her butt down into the chair right between his legs. She wiggled upwards a little until her ass was pressed up against his crotch.
Carson tensed up, his hands raised away from her like she was a stripper giving him a lap dance in a high-end gentleman’s club and he was showing the bouncer he wasn’t touching her. “Um, what are you doing?”
“Getting warm, dingus. Problem?”
“No, I guess not,” he replied in a careful voice suggesting he was thinking of what to say next, “but don’t you think we might break the chair?”
Katie turned and looked at him, her face purposefully aghast. “Excuse me?! I weigh 122 pounds! Are you suggesting I’m fat?”
“Oh man,” Carson muttered to himself, clearly seeing his mistake. “Of course not,” he said to her in a louder voice. “I didn’t mean that. I meant that, with just me, I’m pretty close to the weight limit of the chair, and even a slim young woman such as yourself might put us over the top. Even if you weighed 30 pounds.”
“Not bad,” she said, giving him her best smile once more. “You’ve got a knack for talking your way out of things when you say something stupid.”
“It’s a good skill to keep in your back pocket.”
“I’m impressed.” She turned back to face the water once more and leaned back, letting her head drift towards his right shoulder so as not to give him a mouth full of hair. “And we’ll just have to risk the chair collapsing, because you need to warm me up.”
Carson complied, wrapping his powerful arms around her upper body and kicking off his boat shoes so he could capture her feet within his. “Mmmm,” she breathed, letting him know she was pleased with everything he was doing. She shimmied her rear end around, ostensibly to get a better position, but she also managed to confirm the bulge between his legs was as substantial as it appeared when she first saw it at the house. She smiled to herself. Things just kept getting better.
They returned to silence. At first, Carson held his arms stiffly in place, as if afraid he might crush her with the sheer weight of them, but as time passed she felt their weight press down on her a little more. She wanted to tell him she wasn’t fragile, that his size and weight wouldn’t hurt her, but suspected his reticence was not entirely for her benefit. Most men would rub her arms a little or draw little patterns on her exposed flesh with their fingers, and maybe a few of the more aggressive ones
