For those who are interested, there's a Touch Therapy: Prologue which sets up the events in this chapter. I'd characterize it as 'all foreplay, no fucking,' but if you're interested, it's there. Hey, some of us LIKE foreplay!
*
Greg and his dad had polished off half of an extra large pepperoni, and were only twenty or thirty minutes away from the end of
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly
, when the front door flew open and bounced off the adjacent wall with a dull thud.
Robert hastily brushed the pizza crumbs off his T-Shirt, mumbling "Uh, oh, the girls are home. Stash the porn and clean yourself up."
Greg responded with a half hearted "Har -- de -- har har. . . gosh pops, you're such a stick," and then laughed more genuinely as 'pops' lunged at him with a grimace and dug a forefinger under his ribs, driving the breath from his lungs.
"Stop, stop!" he coughed, thrashing about.
His dad, assuming an evil villain voice, just poked him harder, saying "Oh hoh! The ungrateful brat dares to mock the mighty bringer of pizza! Such insolence must be repaid with great pain, and suffering, and. . . " he ran out of evil monologue and broke the bit off abruptly, letting Greg catch his breath while he caught him by the scruff of the neck and gave him an affectionate shake. "You better get ready for bed kiddo, you got school in the morning."
Greg snapped him a mock salute and a quick 'Sir, Yes Sir!' and then carried the pizza box into the kitchen. As he was transferring the pizza into Ziplocs, he could just make out Elaine's voice from the front of the house, the sound of packages, and the thump of shoes being tossed into the hall closet. It felt, Greg thought, like 'normal' family sounds, and for a moment he felt a pang of sadness that it would not last, and that it had come so late. Eighteen now, and a senior in high school, it was only a matter of months until he headed off to college.
As Greg headed back into the den and started to arrange the futon for bed, he saw Rachel pause at the foot of the stairs, whisper something quietly into her mother's ear, and then give Elaine a quick good night peck on the cheek. Rachel turned toward him then, favoring him with a quick smile, and walked through the kitchen and into the den, which doubled as his bedroom. She picked up the other side of the blanket he was holding, without asking, and began to help him shake it straight and tuck it into place.
"Mom said it was O.K. if I stayed up a bit longer and watched some TV with you."
"Fine by me," Greg said, eyeing her as he fluffed a couple of pillows. "Grab the other end, and help me put it back in couch mode."
Rachel waved this suggestion away "No, just leave it down. I'll prop myself up on some pillows. That way, if you fall asleep, I can just sneak out without waking you up."
Greg strongly doubted that he would be able to sleep with Rachel lying next to him in his bed, no matter how innocent the stated purpose, but he nodded dutifully and fished a few more pillows and a couple of throws out of a chest in the corner. Rachel caught them, then flounced onto the left side of the futon without hesitation, snuggling in under the throw and patting the mattress with her right hand. "Well come on, then," she said, "the remote's on your side. Fire up the Netflix."
Greg did as instructed, paging through the instant queue until Rachel slapped his leg excitedly and said "That one!" He forced himself not to roll his eyes and groan "Oh sure, brooding sexy vampire boy. What else," and seconds later they were watching Angel.
When Greg woke, it was much later. The room was darker now. The TV was on, but the show had ended and the screen was rolling through an assortment of screen savers. He was on his left side and, he realized, with some shock, Rachel was spooning with him. Her back and butt were pressed back into his chest and groin, and her head rested on his left arm. Her right hand was closed loosely around his right wrist, pressing his open palm against the bare flesh of her stomach where her t-shirt had hiked up.
Her t-shirt? But she'd been wearing . . . Greg eased up on his left elbow, careful not to disturb the sleeping girl, and realized that she was now wearing clothing similar to his own. She had stolen a t-shirt and a pair of boxers out of his linen basket.
Her face was relaxed in sleep, and her lips, slightly parted, were puffing light warm breaths onto his bicep. She was also drooling a little, and Greg was shocked at the sudden surge of emotion that welled up in him as he looked down at her somehow childish form. Then she mumbled something in her sleep, shifting against him, and transformed immediately into a creature that was anything but childish.
The thin fabric of the borrowed T-shirt stretched tight against her breasts, bringing startlingly dark areolae into sudden relief, and her butt ground into his groin in a way that drew him to abrupt and focused attention.
'Holy crap,' he thought, as he stiffened almost instantly. He tried to pull gently away from her, but she mumbled in her sleep again, drawing his right hand tighter, and consequently lower, against her naked belly. His boxers fit her only loosely, and as her hand drew against his wrist, he felt his fingers slip inside the waistband.
'oh man. If she wakes up, I'm so screwed. She will --not- understand this.' Heart hammering in panic, Greg tried once again to gently disengage. Rachel shifted again, rising slowly into wakefulness, and then suddenly froze as she became fully conscious.
