A Baumgartner Reunion Ch. 04

"I can't believe she's even old enough to have a boyfriend." I leaned in to whisper my words to Gretchen as we cuddled together on the couch. Gretchen's head was tucked under my chin as we shared both a spoon and a pint of Haagan-Daas—just like old times.

"Time didn't stop when you left, you know." Janie tossed the length of her honey-colored hair over her shoulder and gave me a long look before turning her attention back to both the movie and her boyfriend.

"Ouch," I winced, blinking back tears when Henry gave me a sad, sympathetic look from where he was stretched out on the floor near his sister. Of course I hadn't meant for Janie to overhear me, but it seemed as if the girl had superhuman powers when it came to listening, especially to anything I said.

"Teenage hormones," Gretchen whispered, spooning a big bite of cool chocolatey goodness into my mouth. "She can't help it."

"Shut up, Gretchen."

"Come over here and make me," Gretchen retorted, matching Janie's snotty tone.

"Hey, come on, it's a good part." Janie's boyfriend glanced at us, frowning. Brian was a good-looking kid, no doubt about it, tall and tanned and dark-haired. He reminded me of Doc in a lot of ways, especially the sharp, mischievous look in his eyes. He didn't miss much, that one, and I'd felt his eyes on me more than once during the course of the evening.

"Then pay attention to the movie instead of feeling up my sister," Henry snapped, nudging Janie from behind with his foot. She stuck her tongue out at him over her shoulder and snuggled closer to Brian. Something was going on under the blanket the two lovebirds were covered with, I was sure, but in the absence of the girl's parents—Mr. and Mrs. B. had gone to bed early—I had been pointedly ignoring it.

"You still want me to make some popcorn?" Brian nuzzled Janie's neck, leaving feather light kisses there and over her chest. She was wearing a halter top that left the tops of her breasts exposed above the blanket.

"Please?" Janie smiled up at him, and I felt a tightness in her chest. It was the same look Janie used to give me as a little girl when she wanted something, the sweet puppy-dog eyes and slight pout. Except she wasn't such a little girl anymore, was she?

Brian leaned in to kiss her and I swallowed hard as I saw their tongues touch, Janie's body arching into his, her arms twining around his neck. The boy had to be hard as a rock, laying so close to Janie like that under the blankets—and who knew what was going on underneath them? The thought made me flush, and it wasn't from embarrassment, even if I tried to convince myself it was.

"Anything for you, baby," Brian murmured into Janie's hair.

"Not the microwave kind!" Janie insisted, wrinkling her nose at him as Brian got up. I couldn't help but see the bulge in his shorts, even though they were denim and enveloped him in quite nicely. "Real popcorn. With real butter."

"I can make it, if you want to stay and watch the movie," I offered to Brian from the couch.

"No, thank you." Janie's head snapped toward me and her eyes narrowed. "I don't want your popcorn."

"Real popcorn with real butter, coming up." Brian turned and headed toward the kitchen while Janie snuggled back under the covers, curling her arm around so she could rest her head on it.

"Here." Gretchen plied me with more ice cream and I attempted a smile as I took the creamy bite. "It's almost gone. We're such pigs."

"Oink," I agreed, watching as Henry lifted the edge of Janie's blanket and slid underneath it.

"What are you doing?" Janie sighed as Henry slipped an arm around her waist.

"I'm cold." Henry settled in behind her and Janie sighed again, but accepted him spooning her, snuggling her back against his chest and twining her fingers with his.

"You'll have to move when Brian comes back."

"I know." Henry shrugged, glancing toward the doorway where Brian had disappeared. I could hear the whir of the air popper. "You smell like coconut."

"My shampoo, I think," Janie murmured, her eyes on the screen where Tom Cruise was playing, of all things, a Nazi.

"It's nice," Henry breathed, dipping his face a little closer to Janie's head.

"Last bite," Gretchen said, scraping the spoon across the bottom of the ice cream carton. "Want it?"

I shook my head, frowning as I watched my former charges snuggling together on the living room floor. I had noted and tolerated Brian's advances—Janie was old enough, and he was her boyfriend, after all. But this? Henry and Janie were brother and sister, but they were lying together like... like... I glanced at Gretchen, who appeared unaffected by their closeness. Obviously this happened all the time. But for siblings, it seemed like they were too familiar, too...intimate. Much more than I was comfortable with.

"Quit being so mean to Ronnie." Henry's whispered words weren't meant for my ears, and I knew it, but I heard him anyway. Janie didn't answer him, her eyes on the television screen, but I saw the way her jaw tightened. "She loves you, ya know?"

"Funny way she has of showing it," Janie breathed, tossing the blanket aside as she stood.

"She's so impossible." Henry sighed as his sister stalked out of the room, joining her boyfriend in the kitchen.

"She hates me." I was surprised at how steady my voice was.

"She doesn't hate you," Gretchen countered, leaning over to put the ice cream container on the coffee table. "She's just mad. She'll get over it."

"Does anyone else want popcorn?" Brian poked his head through the doorway to inquire and I smiled at him.

"No, thanks."

"I do!" Gretchen waved her spoon at him. "Me! Me!"

"You're going to get fat." I laughed, pinching at Gretchen's nonexistent stomach.

"Gretchen can out-eat me and Brian put together," Henry scoffed, shaking his head. He stood and announced, "I'm gonna get a Coke," before heading toward the kitchen.

"I don't know where you put it." I watched Gretchen as she stretched, cat-like, her top pulling up out of her shorts to reveal a tanned expanse of belly.

"I have a hollow leg." Gretchen smiled as she slid back against the couch cushions, the blanket pulling down to reveal the length of her tanned legs.

I raised an eyebrow. "I don't remember that."

"What do you remember?" Gretchen cocked her knee and traced a line with her finger down her inner thigh toward the hem of her shorts.

"Quit," I hissed, glancing toward the kitchen. Gretchen wrinkled her nose at the warning and ignored it, using her finger to slide her shorts aside a little, revealing the fact that she wasn't wearing any panties. Her pussy lips were shaved smooth, and I glimpsed the familiar pink. "You're bad."

"I know." Gretchen moved back under the blanket, her hand sliding up my bare thigh, her words whispered close to my ear. "You make me wanna be really, really bad."

I groaned softly when Gretchen's fingers pressed the seam of my jean shorts, rubbing there.

"Popcorn!" Brian announced, coming back into the room with two full bowls, followed by both Janie and Henry. Gretchen eagerly reached out to take one and settled happily next to me, already munching.

Brian flopped on the floor beside Janie, who sat on the floor stirring popcorn around in the buttery bowl.

"Did we miss anything good?" Janie asked, licking butter off her fingers.

"It's a Tom Cruise movie," I snorted. "There couldn't have been anything good to miss."

Janie turned to look at me, making a face. "Don't be mean to my Tommy."

"Who are you now, Rosie O'Donnell?" Henry scoffed.

"Do I look like Rosie O'Donnell?" Janie glanced over her shoulder at him, her blonde hair a cascade down her bare back. She was still wearing the bikini she'd swam in earlier in the day and Henry's eyes swept over her, darkening.

"No, sweetie, far from it." I frowned when I saw Henry's very unbrotherly look. "Besides, I think Tom Cruise is too old for you."

"Ha. He married Katie Holmes, didn't he?" Janie tossed a kernel of popcorn into the air and caught it quite delicately on the pink tip of her outstretched tongue.

"She was a child bride," Henry grumbled, popping the top on his can of Coke and taking a long, loud sip.

"Well, I'm not a child," Janie countered, but she was looking not at her brother, but at me.

"I know," I murmured, but Janie had turned her attention back to the popcorn, the movie, and her boyfriend.

Brian hushed us with, "I can't hear the movie!" and I refrained from further comment about Tom Cruise's acting ability when Gretchen's fingers slipped under the edge of my cutoffs.

Being under the blanket made me feel entirely too warm, but I didn't dare throw it off, and Gretchen's teasing made me even hotter. I thought the end of a movie, Tom Cruise or otherwise, had never come soon enough.

* * * *

"Want to go up to my room?" Gretchen whispered as she slipped under the covers and spooned me from behind. I murmured something indefinitive in my sleep, snuggling back against her nakedness in spite of myself. The house was quiet and dark, and I didn't know how long I'd been sleeping on the pull-out sofa in the living room. Henry had fallen asleep before the movie's end, and when Janie and Brian decided to go out after it was over, Gretchen had woken him and sent him off to bed.

When it was just the two of us, Gretchen helped me pull out the couch bed, and we'd said goodnight. But when she bent her head to my ear to whisper, "I'll come down later," as Janie and Brian got ready to go—I didn't say no. I already knew what was going to happen. Whatever resistance I'd managed to hold onto had disappeared.

"What time is it?" I murmured, blinking in the darkness. Gretchen slid her hand up under my t-shirt, stroking the soft skin of my stomach.

"A little after two." Her lips found the sensitive spot behind my ear, the one she knew made me melt, and I did just that as her tongue made fat lazy circles there.

"We shouldn't be doing this," I whispered, tilting my head anyway, to give her better access. "Did Janie and Brian come back yet?"

"I don't know." Her hand moved up to cup my breast, and I gasped when she thumbed my nipple. "And I don't care. I can't wait any longer. I've been thinking about you all night."

"They don't let him stay overnight here, do they?" I asked, turning in Gretchen's arms, trying to distract her.

"No." She sighed, recognizing my tactic, but she grabbed my hip and pulled me toward her, twining her long legs with mine. "Not that Janie hasn't asked, but the Baumgartners wouldn't let him. His parents are staying at the Marriott."

"He seems like a nice kid." I tried to ignore the way her hand moved over my hip, stroking lightly, her finger edging at the elastic of my panties.

"He is."

I closed my eyes as she began to feather kisses over my cheeks, pressing my lips briefly with her soft ones before kissing a trail down my throat. I couldn't concentrate, although I kept trying.

"Gretchen, can I ask you something?"

"Mmm?" She didn't really answer me as she licked the length of my collarbone, making me shiver.

"Do you think...have you ever wondered if something's going on between Janie and Henry? Something that...shouldn't be going on?" I voiced my concern hesitantly and waited.

"What kind of..." Gretchen's head came up and she frowned at me in the darkness and then laughed. "No! Of course not."

I swallowed and shrugged. "They seem...awfully close."

"They are close," Gretchen agreed, tugging at my shirt, leaving it pushed up that way just under my breasts as she shifted and began kissing my ribcage. "But, Ronnie, come on, they're brother and sister!"

"I know that, but..." I sighed softly as she made a fast circle around my navel with her tongue. "You know... Mr. and Mrs. B are so free... sexually, I mean... ohhh!" Her fingers had found my nipples beneath my shirt, rubbing back and forth over the material the way she knew I loved. I couldn't believe she'd remembered. "I just wondered if maybe..."

Gretchen squeezed both my nipples in her fingers. "I've never seen or heard anything."

I gasped and bit my lip as she nibbled her way along the edge of my panties. "What about tonight, the way they were laying together on the floor?"

"They do that all the time." Her fingers were rolling my nipples now, teasing, her breath hot on my mound as she settled herself between my thighs. "It's just the way they are."

"I guess..." I breathed, trying to remember my concern, trying to remember what or why I was even questioning things. "Maybe... oh Gretchen..."

Oh god, her mouth! My body remembered her mouth like it was yesterday, and she wasn't playing anymore as she pressed her tongue against the wet crotch of my panties. "Oh god... oh... maybe... maybe...I'm just being a prude."

"I know." I could hear the smile in her voice. "We're going to have to fix that."

"You're doing a pretty good job."

"I can do better."

"I know you can."

The memories rushed in almost as quickly as my pussy flooded with juice as Gretchen nuzzled my panties aside and probed me with her quick, pink tongue. Everything was so familiar, the press of her hands spreading my thighs, the soft noises she made as she delved deeper into my flesh with her mouth.

We'd spent the better part of a year as roommates and lovers and even if I'd tried to block it out—and I admit now, I had tried—it all came back in a warm, wet deluge as we writhed together on the little pull-out couch-bed.

"Lick me, too," she begged, shoving her panties down her hips and positioning herself above me. "Oh please, I want your tongue, I love your tongue on me." Her mouth was already buried in my pussy again, my panties gone now and my legs spread shamelessly wide, my hips rocking up.

It was dark, but not dark enough that I couldn't see the wet spread of her smooth, shaved lips, the glistening heat of her flesh drawing me in, warming my cheek as she rolled her hips around and around. I explored her with my fingers first, rubbing the thick hood of flesh covering her clit, making her moan against my pussy.

Oh god, she was so good. She knew just what to do with her mouth, and I gasped when her fingers slid into my wetness, first one, then two, her tongue never leaving the sweet spot at the top of my cleft. Her scent was making me dizzy with lust, and I wondered if the soft spread of her thighs ended at the apex of heaven...or hell.

"Please, Ronnie," she moaned, spreading wider, lowering her pussy toward my mouth. "Oh, god, I've missed you so much, baby, please, please..."

Her pleading voice, her body so soft but insistent on mine, were more than enough to convince me. Still, I was tentative, licking through the wet folds of her flesh first, getting used to her taste, then savoring it. Her tongue lashed against my clit again and again, sending me to dizzying heights, toward a place I couldn't breathe, couldn't think, and didn't care.

"Oh yesss!" She shuddered with the first touch of my tongue to the sweet button of her clit and I began to lick her, slowly at first, moving the nub of flesh back and forth, then faster as she began to rock and moan. I could feel her breasts pressed against my belly, her nipples hard, and I squeezed my own, sending shockwaves down to my aching clit.

"Gretchen," I managed to whisper in the darkness, the flutter of her tongue about to send me over, and she knew the sound and feel of me about to come, she knew, because she quickly focused her efforts, her mouth covering my mound and sucking hard on my clit. "Ohhh fuck! Ohhhh!"

I remembered where we were and tried to be quiet, burying my face in the musky taste and smell of her pussy to muffle the sounds of my orgasm as I bucked underneath her. I shuddered with the sensation, my pussy throbbing, but she didn't let up, her mouth fastened tight, sucking every last bit of my climax from me.

"Stop, stop," I begged, pushing my hips up, trying to free myself, the feeling too much now. She turned quickly, not letting me transition from floating, distant pleasure to more immediate thoughts, straddling first my thigh, and then shifting so her pussy rubbed teasingly against my own still pulsing one.

"Remember this?" she whispered in the dark, and I broke, then, nodding, reaching for her. I couldn't deny it anymore. I remembered... everything. The taste, the smell, the feel, the sound of her, and there was nothing that could keep me from her now.

"I missed you so much," I confessed, pulling her close, kissing her deeply. She made a soft noise in her throat as our tongues touched, her hips moving in slow, distracting circles.

"I'm sorry," I gasped when we broke for air and she sat up on me again, rocking. "I was so stupid... just young and stupid..."

Gretchen pressed her fingers to my lips. "Shh. You're here now. It doesn't matter."

I didn't quite think that was the truth, but I didn't argue as she pulled my hands up to her breasts and rubbed her pussy against mine, back and forth, the wet, aching sound of our flesh filling the room. Her nipples were hard and I rolled and pulled at them, making her rock faster between my legs.

"Make me come," she whispered, as if I were doing anything—she was doing all the work, riding faster, harder, her breath coming in shallow gasps. "Oh please, oh baby, now, now, now..."

I squeezed her nipples hard and she arched, quivering as her climax began, her pussy trapping the heat of it between us, her body bucking, giving it to me, as if she could force her orgasm into or through me somehow. I held her as she came, when she collapsed onto me, breathless and still trembling, her body covered with a fine sheen of sweat.

"Oh my god," she murmured, cuddling into me, pulling the covers up over us both. "I forgot..." She kissed my cheek, my chin. "So good..."

"Mmm," I agreed, closing my eyes and trying not to feel the wave of guilt that washed over me suddenly, trying not think about TJ, trying to remember that he'd given me permission to be doing this, reconnecting in just this way with an old friend...and lover.

"I don't want to lose you again." Gretchen's voice was small and my eyes opened at the sound. I didn't know what to say to her. I had no idea where any of this was going...and maybe I didn't want to know. But I was filled with regret for hurting her so long ago, and wanted, somehow, to make it up to her.

"I'm sorry," I whispered, hugging her shoulder, pulling her close so I could kiss the top of her head. "I'm just so sorry."

The silence stretched and I stroked her hair, wondering what she was thinking. I didn't know how she couldn't hate me for finding some guy and taking off on her like she'd been some bad dream I didn't want to remember. I hated myself for it, I realized, glad for the darkness covering the red heat of my cheeks.

"I'm going back to school starting in January," she declared, sounding proud.

"You are?" I smiled. "What for?"

"Photography."

I nodded, smiling now, too, remember the amazing pictures she took. The Baumgartners' Christmas card was always one of Gretchen's photos.

"Wow. Good for you, Gretchen."

She shrugged. "Can't be a nanny forever."

"I guess not," I agreed.

"I'll be in California for two years," she confessed, snuggling closer. "But I don't want to lose touch again, like we did..."

I sighed, shaking my head. "It was my fault..."

"I don't care," she insisted, kissing the top of my breast and sliding a leg over mine. "I just don't want to lose touch. Promise me."

"I promise," I whispered. "I'm so sorry."

"Stop." She lifted her head to look at me. I saw the glint of her eyes and wondered if she had tears in them, like I did. "I love you, Ronnie. I always have."

"Yeah," I choked, kissing her and feeling one of her tears—or was it mine?—slip between our lips. "I always loved you, too."