"yes," he urged. "take the pleasure you deserve, laura," he added, kissing the hand that had just touched her clit. she grinned and parted the soft, thick skin of her mons, finding her clit standing at attention and ready for explosion. a few strokes down to her hot cave, where mike thrust in and out and moaned and clenched, and she had liquid to move and circle, to -

she ground into him, the feeling so maddening, pounding beautifully into her cervix. and then she just...tipped over. that was it, and the release was there with very little warning, her hitched breath and sudden clamping the only clue poor mike had. "oooooohhhh!" she moaned. she hollered and wriggled and thrust back, hot cream and sex bursting as their juices flowed, gushing.

"the heat! you are so warm, so - " fading out, mike's voice disappeared but he bucked up, fucking her hard and fast as he drained himself of his orgasm, too, their bodies twitching and pushing against each other to use whatever the laws of physics would give them. her body made her come repeatedly, her flesh too weak to manage anything but release.

he pounded and pounded, she slammed back, he stroked her belly, and took one hand to tweak her right nipple, the pain mixing with the thrusting and the explosion to make her scream an animal sound - and then it was just a tired feeling, all cock and slick and mouth.

they slowed, little clenches from the remainders of their sex slowing down. the sounds of nature filled her ears, layer by layer - birds. a buzzing. a pinch. she smacked a mosquito off her shoulder and then relaxed. laura was still full of him as mike relaxed, trapping her, their wetness and his muscled body all she felt now. she had no thoughts, her body surrendered, everything good, all complete, all chaperoned by the winking sun.

neither said a word. not one. by the time laura realized they needed to leave, the sun had begun to set. had they really just relaxed there, naked as the day they were born, for hours - just staring at each other, watching the clouds, feeling the wind whip their sated skin? time disappeared, and as they reluctantly dressed in the sunset's glow, she decided not to say anything until he did. perhaps this was more spiritual than she knew possible, and speaking would end whatever this was.

mike packed and carried all their gear in silence the entire walk down to the trailhead's parking lot, where both their cars sat, expectant and a bit miffed, like parents of children new to the dating scene. laura laughed at the sight of their abandoned cars, the only ones in the lot, and mike just looked at her quizzically.

he remained silent, but stepped forward and kissed her cheek gently. "third date?" he whispered in her ear. she grinned so widely her cheek hit his.

"i'll take that as a yes," he whispered, then strode to his car, popped the hatchback, carefully placed the backpack and picnic goods, closed the trunk door and climbed in his car, watching laura carefully.

by the time they both pulled out of the parking lot and made their respective turns, laura's face was covered with tears.

some things were just too personal to share even with her best friend. laura was going steadily mad and if the itching didn't stop she was going to scream. rubbing her butt against her kitchen chair wasn't working, damn it - why on earth had she ever bought vinyl covered seats? with good old upholstery at least she could have scratched her butt in a way that gave her some friction - and some relief.

this itching was slowly penetrating her every conscious move, making her one big, non-stop twitch, and she'd only been conscious for an hour. two cups of coffee hadn't helped. finally, josie, who had finished four cups to laura's two, cocked her head and said, "what in the hell are you doing, laura? you look like a nine-year-old boy who just had an ice cream fest and a few shots of espresso."

"i am just not comfortable." understatement of the year. rub rub rub.

"did you pick something up from one of the two guys you fucked within twenty-four hours?"

ouch. "oh please, it wasn't within twenty-four...and you can't get...oh, i don't even want to go there. shut up, josie." she reached behind and scratched her ass.

"you're scratching your ass in public. i mean, man - "

"we're not in public - we're in my apartment."

"i am public. i am a human being."

"no, you're not. you're my best friend."

"you...what is going on?" now laura couldn't help herself and start to scratch her breast. her nipple was throbbing with the hot, torturous itch that plagued her ass as well. "why on earth are you scratching your boob?"

"because it itches."

"come on laura, that's not what i meant." josie's exasperation showed in her tone and, finally, laura couldn't stand it anymore. she stood up, pulled her pants down, pulled down her underwear halfway and reached for the tube of hydrocortisone cream that she'd shoved in her purse to take to work.

"laura, oh, my god."

"what?" laura twisted around and stared at her own ass. yup. it wasn't any better this morning. what had started out as a series of small mosquito bites was now a minefield of red, hot flesh, swollen up into these enormous hive-like bites. when she had returned home from her date with mike, she'd realized pretty quickly what had happened. while making love outside in nature, in a field, on top of a mountain, with the most incredible view possible - both of nature and of mike's body - had been earth shattering, quite literally, the reality of nature had set in.

in her butt.

she had about fifty mosquito bites all over her ass down her legs, up her chest, and one had managed to land on her left breast areola. those zaps? those zings of pleasure? not arousal! nature's vampires.

as she smeared the hydrocortisone cream all over the top of her ass, josie just shook her head and laughed, folding in half as she held her gut, tears streaming down her face.

laura tried pointedly to ignore her but couldn't help it. "it itches."

"oh, laura, that is awful. on your boob."

"yeah, i know." she pulled her pants up and went over to the kitchen sink to wash her hands. "how do you think it feels?"

"well, i don't know how it feels. i've never fucked somebody on the top of a mountain where a bunch of mosquitoes decided to feast on me." she snickered. "if a mosquito bites you in the ass is that some way...is that nature's version of oral sex?"

"oh, stop it."

"you don't have any on your, you know - on your hoo-ha?"

"hoo-ha? who calls it a hoo-ha?"

josie fanned herself."you know me. i was raised in virginia, i'm a good old southern lady."

"lady? yeah, right. like you're a lady."

"take some benadryl for that, you'll thank me."

"but benadryl makes me sleepy."

"really? i mean, because, if you don't do something more drastic you're going to go to work and you're going to look like a hyena who ate twenty-five mexican jumping beans. you're a lot better off looking like you're just a little sleepy or hung over on antihistamines."

laura thought about that one for a minute. it's not like she had a really busy work day. could she just call in sick? oh, no. the monthly management meeting was today. shouldn't really have to do anything, but she had to be there.

"yeah, you're right. maybe if i take some benadryl, it'll make it easier to get through the monthly meeting anyhow."

josie nodded. "so, laura," she laughed. "was it worth it?"

laura reached down her v-neck into her bra and found the offending bite, scratching it furiously, knowing full well that at this rate, she was going to break the skin but at least that would give her some sweet relief. "yeah. it was worth it, but next time i'll wear a bug spray instead of perfume."

mike sat in bed staring up at the ceiling, counting the little holes in the tiles yet again, for what felt like the thousandth time. actually, it probably was the thousandth time. he'd done it over and over and over ever since jill died a year and a half ago. except this time, he was doing it to keep his mind occupied, not to keep his mind distracted.

he was doing it because it was something habitual, something rote, something that he just could slip into so that he didn't have to deal with the actually messy emotional aftermath of his date with laura. it had gone so much better than he ever could have expected. he never intended to sleep with her. and he certainly never intended to make love to her at the top of that mountain on that blanket.

yet he had and he was glad.

the last time he and jill had made love had been right there. while he wanted to reclaim the space with someone new, he hadn't planned to do it in quite that manner. laura moved something inside of him. her soft curves, her joyful laugh, the way that she focused and her face melted into passion as she came. it all was so overwhelming and too intense.

mike needed to talk to someone about laura. how intoxicating. how calm. how lush. how sweet. how - him. it was as if someone had hand-sculpted the perfect woman for him and forgotten to tell him that this was what he really wanted. no, she wasn't jill. and no one ever would be jill. that was ok, because it had to be ok. he didn't have a choice.

always assuming he would never, ever fall in love again, mike hadn't considered the idea that he might find a different love - one that was no more, nor less, than what he and dylan had with jill. could life with laura be as good? better? different? the sex had been astounding, though he could do without the damn mosquito bites. next time he would take her to his cabin.

next time. he didn't care that he was getting ahead of himself. but then...dylan probably thought he had a next time, and laura had shut him out. what was that about? he knew dylan was tormented by her silence, but he couldn't exactly ask her about it, now, could he? not without blowing his cover. cover? what the hell, mike? he asked himself. this wasn't some cia movie or fbi plot. he wasn't the center of a sting operation or an undercover drug bust.

he was, however, being deceitful, and that felt very, very wrong. laura had no idea that he and dylan were a - what? what were they, exactly? explaining their relationship hadn't been an issue with jill. they just fell into their life as a threesome, as uncomplicated and easily as any other twosome. he and dylan weren't gay. not quite. but they weren't straight, either. they had tried, before jill, to each date separate women but that first encounter, back in high school, where they both lost their virginity to the same girl had cemented their needs. what they wanted was the power of three, and it made them both complete.

dating one woman, sleeping with one woman, was pleasurable. hell, laura had certainly proven that! already, though, he felt a longing for more. he imagined dylan did, too. the complication now, though, was that laura was spurning dylan and deepening her relationship with mike.

in the short term this was fine, but in the long run...what could he do? how could he mend the relationship between dylan and laura to make the triad complete?