Long is the Way

I felt Jan's hands come around me in a tight embrace as we kissed.

Several moments later though, when I tried to pull back a bit and couldn't, I heard and felt a startled sound from her. Then there was a steady pull against my lips as she tried to pull away... and couldn't.

I started to laugh and I heard her do the same.

Ever so slowly I felt my lips start to pull away from hers as I ran my tongue against the inside.

"Ow, ow , ow!" Our lips parted with a feeling like skin tearing

We stepped away from each other then, looking at the others face, we both just died laughing.

We started the long walk down when we finally got our breath back from laughing. We decided to forgo setting up camp again. The break in the weather, that had happened just before we woke this morning was still holding. Best to make use of it while it lasted.

It lasted, in fact till we got to the camp the others had set up.

The older of the two guides had developed altitude sickness, and the younger one had walked him down the mountain. Back to the runway on the glacier. The younger man and a second guide they were flying in, were going to come back and help the men they had left behind guide-less to reach the summit.

I, all but exploded when I heard this.

The two experienced mountain guides had left their party on the side of the mountain. On the side of Denali!

I checked through the members of the group and found evidence that at least two more were starting to have problems with mountain sickness.

With the help of Jan and myself, we broke that camp and got the group of businessmen moving back down to one of the lower base camps we had used. We made it there but only by walking through a storm. Two days later when the storm had passed, the guide came walking into that camp, demanding to know why they were all down here. I lost the rest of my composure then.

I would not have been surprised if they heard me yelling back at the lodge!

Jan finally got me calmed down. In the end we, Jan and I, took the two sick men with us, and I guided them down towards the runway. The "real" guides took the rest of the climbers back up the trails to the summit.

It was in the late morning, after hours of that long walk down, that the unthinkable happened.

A compacted snow bridge dropped out from under me! I fell the length of my guide rope into the crevasse with a ton of snow and ice following to battering the hell out of me. I hit the side of the wall and then a chunk of ice, the side of a car, hit me a glancing blow to the side of my head sending me into darkness! Jan and the other two climbers got me pulled back up and together they carried me on an improvised sled around the crevasse and down the rest of the way to the plane.

I have no memory of this.

No, my memories were from a far darker time, a far darker place. A place of shattering glass, screaming, squealing tires, and the thick crunch of impacted cars. Then a soft sound entered my dreams. A whimper, so quiet as to be almost nonexistent, barely a sound, unheard,... till it stopped. I screamed out my wife's name in the darkness, but got back not even an echo. Wendy? Wendy, please answer me! Dreams? No those dark mental images from the Id have no right to be called so benign a name.

* * * * * *

I awoke slowly seeing the pale yellow painted walls of the lodge. I took in that I was lying on one of the big fur covered sofas that ringed the huge common room fire pit.

My eyes came to focus on the pile of hair in my lap. I gently brushed Jan's soft hair back from her face. The mountain had taken a temporary toll on my lovely cousin. Her face was badly sunburned. I could also see several scrapes and cuts I hadn't noticed before.

Looking around I wondered why I was here. What had happened? Memories of falling were fuzzy, mixed in with dreams from the crash, but they becoming clearer as the pain began to make itself known.

My head was killing me. Touching the back, I felt a bump the size of a small egg.

Hearing footsteps on stone, I looked up to see a man in a park ranger uniform come into the room. He carried a large first aid kit. He smiled to see that I was awake.

"Well, not dead after all. Guess I can't check your pockets for loose change," he said, setting the box next to me on the sofa.

"Only if you buy me dinner first, dearie." I joked then regretted it as the pain in my head spiked. Jan moaned in her sleep, and moved her head on my lap. Almost as if she had felt it as well. I soothed her temple till she quieted while the ranger got out some bandages and ointments.

"Any blurred vision?" he asked pulling out a pen light.

"Nope. No other signs of a concussion either. Just a monster size headache."

He nodded in sympathy.

"Well, the lodge has a doctor on call if there is a medical emergency so if you do start to see any symptoms let them know. I can leave these here with you if you like but other than a few normal bumps and bruises you seem healthy."

Nodding slowly, I agreed with the diagnosis, if not the fact he could make it without checking me out any more than he had.

"I would recommend a warm shower and a long nights rest in a bed. Then a big meal and a lot of soaking in the hot tub to get the chill out your bones. Oh yeah, if you notice a slight lightheadedness, giddiness even, that is just the oxygen rush from descending the mountain so quickly after being up there for so many days." He closed back up his red and white box.

His perkiness and minimal medical training was getting on my nerves. I nodded and watched him leave.

"Is he gone?" I heard asked from by my crotch.

Looking down at my beautiful cousin's tired, wind burned face, I smiled. Absently I brushed her hair back out from her eyes.

"Thank you." I said softly as it suddenly hit me that I owed this woman at least my life.

Her fingers lightly pinched my in the side below my ribs.

"Don't you ever scare me that badly again." she told me, turning her head a little rubbing a cheek against my thigh. "When you dropped, and that rope grabbed me, I thought we were all going to go in. I just hit the ground. My ice-ax caught and then I was screaming for you." I heard a sniffle. "And you didn't answer."

"I'm sorry," I said.

"You should be, you jerk."

Brushing her hair back from around her ear I followed her hair line down to her collar and then back, letting my finger drift.

"That tickles," she said.

Catching the side of her neck and shoulder I massaged where they met, to be rewarded by a low moan.

"And that?" I asked with a grin.

"That feels incredible."

I let my fingers toy with her hair, tickle her neck, or massage her shoulder as my mind drifted to the days behind me. The time with her in that wind rippling tent. When I heard a soft snore from her I smiled. At first that she did that when she slept had bothered me. No woman I had ever been around had ever snored. Now as I listened to her, I knew that it was something I would miss about my lovely cousin... should anything happen to her.

How easily it cold have been her that had fallen, or that night when the thunder had not been just thunder. What if an avalanche had taken us down the hill that night? So far from any rescue. The hours of digging it wold have taken to find her buried under all that snow. If I even could.

Just how very reckless she and I had become in this last year. Doing one thing after another as if the two of us were trying to check off a bucket list before we died. I thought then of my late wife, and of her lost husband. How much those two would love to have had the time that we have been so very carelessly spending.

"Jan? JAN?"

"Humm?" she mumbled more than half asleep.

"Let's get something to eat and head up to bed."

"Okay," she agreed sleepily, but would have clearly been happy foregoing dinner and sleeping here.

When she got up, I needed her help getting to my feet. I moaned with every step I took, the old pains from the car wreck more than their normal constant discomfort. After a step or two, Jan squirmed in under my arm and took some of the weight off of my left leg.

"Come on Gimpy, I've got you," she teased.

I nodded to the truth of that as I let her lead me to the hotel's restaurant.

Awakening slowly my mind searching for the sound of the wind on nylon ,and not finding it. I opened my eyes and blinked at the dim light coming from out of the half closed bathroom door. The still-damp towel I had dropped lay there holding it open. That I had been tired enough to sleep with that much light on spoke volumes about my exhaustion.

Then I heard that soft snore.

Turning over on my bed I saw the curved side of my cousin, her back to me so she was faced away from the light. Her hair, its normal bird's nest, was spread across the white pillows. I searched my fatigue-fogged memories but could not remember her being here when I went to sleep. As I heard that soft rattle of breath though, I was glad she was. Lifting the sheet, I slid over against her back, curling my arm over her side and pulled her into my chest. Protectively. She made a soft murmur of contentment and snuggled back against me.

I was nearly back to sleep when I felt her take hold of my hand and move it up her stomach to rest my palm over her breast. I awoke just enough to place a soft kiss in her hair and to give her breast a soft squeeze.

"Babies don't sleep so well." That was the movie line that came to me when I felt myself drifting up from a soft, slightly erotic half-dream. That there was a woman curled in my arms all warm and so very feminine was a reawakening of old and distant memories. Memories that normally would have been painful, but at that moment were not. As I moved a little, I felt Jan stir. She looked over her shoulder at me and smiled.

"My bedroom seemed empty. I figured you wouldn't mind the company." She shifted her hand and pressed her fingers into the back of my hand making me hold her breast tighter. "Beside without these to hold onto how would you sleep?"

My hand moved with a mind of it's own then, fingers drifting down till they found her nipple and gently circled it.

"Not nearly so well," I said as I let my fingers play. Jan smiled after a second and then her lips twitched. "What's so funny?"

My cousin turned then, squirming in my arms till she was pressed up against me. Somehow, without paying attention to it, I had managed to slip my hand around her back and my palm came to rest just above her waist. Her face just inches from mine, that smile was now very clearly seen. Her pert lips twitched.

"What?" I demanded.

To answer, her hand slipped down my stomach to slide under my... under my... my... nothing! I must have fallen into bed without even taking the time to put on the sweat pants I normally sleep in. How I had made it through the night without severe leg cramps, I have no idea. Then her hand was stroking the length of my cock. Oh, my god the feel of a woman's hand on me... after so many long endless hours without that strange, delicate touch.

"Someone is very happy to have me sleeping here, next to you. But then this hard fellow and I have been getting to be good friends for the last week. He's been greeting me almost every morning." I saw her eyes light up in a wicked look even as her smile became a grin. "One would almost think you were having naughty ideas about your cousin, with how often I've woken up being poked in the back."

There was no thought behind my next action, it just happened. I was there, she was there, her hand was on me, she was in my arms... our lips were together. No simple peck or even a lingering kiss but a full on assault of lips mouths and tongues. Her hand left my cock even as I felt her shift her weight and swing her leg over my waist. Suddenly I had her astride me and my hands were all over her hard muscled back, caressing valleys and curves, then her ass was in my right hand, as soft as any could wish. My left was buried in those silky curls, keeping her from breaking the kiss.

Not that she had any intentions of doing that. From the way she doubled, then redoubled her pressure against my mouth she had no intentions of ever stopping.

I wanted to take the lead. I wanted to be the skilled lover I had shrived to be with every woman since the fumbling mistakes of my first. But my lovely cousin was not any of the women I had been with before. She was a different animal in every sense of the word.

Aggressive! Demanding, while at the same time offering physical promises of pleasured moments to come with every shift of her weight, every move of her hip. Every nibbled tease from her lips as they slid from my mouth, to my jaw, then down to my throat. Her teeth nipped at the line of my collar bone, and then I hissed as she found my nipple and gave a hard bite, followed by a gentle pressure and a tongue bathing.

She sat back. Looking down at me her face flushed, her nostrils flaring to bring more air to lungs that excitement starved. She caught the bottom edge of her shirt and sent it sailing away into the corner of the room. Jan ran her hand down my bare chest, fingers tracing swirled patterns across old scars, and then her nails were lightly scratching down the trail of thin hairs towards my bellybutton.

"Sorry," she said after a second.

"For what?" I asked, not understanding.

"Any pain I'm about to cause you. You're a mess of bruises. This may hurt but I need you so badly, I can't make myself be gentle."

Her hand was on my cock again, sliding those card dealer's hands over me. Fingers capable of slipping an ace, thumbing a king, maneuvering a queen to their liking had me firmly in control. Jan reached down between us and caught the edge of her panties. I felt the silky cotton cloth on the side of me, when she lifted her self up and maneuvered me, till I felt wet lips brushing the head of me. Then a deep, wet warmth surrounded that head, and before I could so much as moan, I was sliding into her.

"Oh, Jan." I mumbled her name mindlessly, as I felt her body heat engulf me into its tight embrace. Then there was no me outside of her and her hips gave a sudden forward pop. Oh my god, how to describe that feeling? The tightness got tighter, but opened up for me to go deeper at the same time. Muscles rippled down the length of my cock, but I could hardly tell where it ended and she began.

As I leaned back into the pillows of my bed, I felt a mortal contentment. That primitive animalistic urge within me was being satisfied, but this was more than that. As I watched her grinding herself on me, taking her pleasure from the length of me inside her, I felt again that elation I had felt when we stood together upon the top of the mountain. That feeling that came from knowing that not even something so massive and ancient as Denali could stop me if I wanted to get to the top. That feeling came to me as I watched Jan's breasts bounce, her head tilt back, her stomach muscles ripple.

At once, so very much there in the endless moment and yet feeling almost mentally detached from myself, I watched as my cousin began to edge her way towards a summit of her own. A climbing of another type of mountain than cold rock and ice. One of warmth and soft comfort. A mountain of physical need versus physical pleasure. That desire to reach the very peek and that suicidal desire deep inside to fall off of it.

Sitting up, I wrapped her in my arms as I felt her body contract around the length of me. The deep moan from her as she clutched at me, clawing at my head to hold it tight to her chest. I was buried, smothered between her breasts. There was a shiver in her thighs and a second moan far deeper and more guttural left her throat. Somewhere in that sound I recognized my name. My name being said in the heat of orgasmic pleasure. It had been so long since I heard that sound. I wanted to weep at the beauty of it, to cry my eyes empty at the awesome sight before me. I again felt as if I was upon the top of Denali, looking out over the world.

I rolled us as she went limp in my arms. My needs making demands that I hoped my body could endure. The fierce driving desire to cum had me in its grips and I wanted to do so many things. To push into her, to drive into her, to seek that final release, that endless moment before the slight disappointment that it was over would settle in.

With every thrust I felt a stab of pain, from my leg. With every building second towards my orgasm I felt my head pound harder. As white-hot pain flared behind my eyes, I let neither of these distract or deter me from what I wanted. I drove on, through my pain to the pleasurable goal I had in sight. Need drove me on, moment by moment, towards the ending I desired.

I moaned, but it was not from pleasure.

Then soft hands were on my chest, bringing me to a halt. I opened my eyes, blinking to see the face of my cousin. For a moment there it had felt almost like another woman had been under me. One that had been many times, but would never be again. I hoped that my face hid that thought from Jan, even as I had to wonder if she had been thinking of her husband, Morgan.

"Slowly, James." She giggled a little. "Why not let me take the lead from you? I can get you there without so much pain."

With her directing me, I found myself upon my back again. Then with a smile she leaned down and took me into her mouth.

The pleasure was of course different so it was almost a resetting of the mind, but she settled in as I relaxed and the pain faded. Given her fury from earlier, I was surprised at how tenderly she treated my cock now. Soft kisses, gentle licks, a pressure bite that left me craving more even as she gave it.

"Oh, Jan."

As she licked and nibbled then took me between her lips and gave the whole length of me a tight lipped caress, I closed my eyes and floated in the moment. Under her skilled mouth even that endless moment would have been too soon. I wanted this to never end. To be frozen here in this second in time, with the pleasure building to the very end.

My orgasm, when I arched my back and moaned in denial of it, was like a release of every last bit of energy I had. What a mountain, in all its cold, frozen majesty, could not take from me, my cousin did with her warm mouth. To the highest valley and the tallest summit, to the very peak. I climbed, and climbed, clawing to reach that point. Only to summit and fall tumbling back down, cushioned not by hard ice, but soft snow white pillows that caught me and tried to carry me off into a land of not frozen ice dreams but soft warmth.

I heard the soft chuckle, then felt wet lips touch mine.

"Sleep, my sexy cousin. I'll go see about breakfast." She placed a second kiss upon me and moved off the bed.

* * * * * *

The heat as I sank into the hot water flooded my every muscle and bone to the very marrow. Then I let my back settle into the gently curved seat and the water jets hit my spine. The moan from me then was almost a repeat of one I had made earlier.

I opened my eyes to watch Jan slide into the hot tub next to me. Her body, covered in a smattering of her own bruises, disappeared beneath the churning water before lying next to mine.

"So..?"

"So what?" I asked as the question came out of no where.

"So where to next? White water rafting the Colorado River?" Jan leaned her head on my shoulder. "Maybe a photo safari of Africa. That could be fun."

"At the moment, from here back to my bed is about as far ahead as I've been planning." I leaned my head over till it rested on hers. "I'm sure that a bit of time in here will do wonders for my ability to sleep."

Jan chuckled.

"Cousin, if you think you're going to be getting any sleep in that bed any time soon, you're sadly mistaken. You have a very demanding woman to keep sated." I sucked in a gasp of air as her hand curled around my balls. "And I'm just getting started with what I want to do to you."