033: The Hills

"Yes." Kell agreed as they moved ahead to pay and then to retrieve their food. Kell drove up into the hills near the Bountiful Temple, and without a word parked at an overlook on a main street, gazing out over the valley, the grasses blowing in the breeze, and the lovely white spires of the temple.

"Would you care to hear the story of my first encounters with women?"

Maille almost choked on her food. "No. No, I don't want to hear them."

"Little prude. Friends at some point, begin to confide in their friends."

"I'm not that kind of friend." She said immediately, and he sat back against the leather seat and chewed his hamburger thoughtfully. "Does that make me incapable of being your friend in your opinion?"

"Incapable?" Kell repeated with his mouth full. His eyes searched hers and finally he shrugged. "I don't find you incapable of anything, Maille Mann. I told you before to simply be who you are, and we will let our actions and experience of each other be our guide. I still believe that. It was you who seemed to want the words today. I was letting you know I am willing, should you still want the words."

Maille blew out her held breath. "No, you're right. I think it is best if we let time take its course."

"May I ask you something? Your personal friends? How do you know them?" He kept his eyes trained out on the hazy vista below them, the lake in the distance, the giant airfields of the international airport.

Maille closed her eyes to avoid the instant pain that statement caused her. This had been a topic of anxiety for her recently as she'd begun to realize that the band was breaking up, and she would need to start a new life. The Mann Girls typically were each other's friends. They didn't have the myriad of outsiders others might. They had cousins, and more cousins, and family friends. It had been a testament of this concept when Megan had married Stevie, a boy they had all considered a cousin all their lives. There was no blood between them, nothing to bind them, and no concerns about genetics. But everyone knew it was unconventional. They'd been raised practically as siblings.

"Tell me, tell me, tell me." Kell demanded.

So she told him that the Mann Girls weren't good at friendships. That they were sheltered and kept out of mainstream society, even though they had a band and had dappled in the entertainment field, they were still very sheltered.

Kell nodded, listening carefully, and then rubbed his thumb over the back of her knuckles. "You tell me of the Mann Girls, as if they are an entity. They are not, Maille Mann. You are just you. You are unique and alive and different, and utterly appealing."

Maille swallowed hard again. That a person, not just any person, but a man--- not just any man, but this man, found her any of those things was beyond her comprehension. That thumb rubbed her again comfortingly and Maille let herself look up into his gaze. He was completely serious. He slowly brought her knuckles up to his lips and hesitated there, watching her.

"Wait, wait. That is another level entirely." He murmured and opened his car door, pulling her through on his side, over the gear shift and out to land on the dirt overlook.

He grabbed her hand and pulled her to the edge of the pounded dirt drive, where it lowered itself to a sloping grassy knoll, leading out like a children's soccer field. Homes dotted the far side, and a few trees. The temple rose majestically in the background.

"Sit." He commanded imperiously, and Maille found a place she felt she could sit on the ground overlooking the mountain, the temple and the city below. The wind now blew down the canyon behind them in cool gusts, carrying the sounds of children playing in the street farther up the way. Seagulls flew in a lazy circle above them.

Kell lowered himself to the grass, not beside her, touching her leg so intimately as he always had before, no this time, he sat behind her, framing her with his body. She couldn't see his expressions, and she felt incredibly exposed knowing he could see her, and she couldn't see him, but suddenly the firm pressure of his chest against her back blocked the breeze, and warmed her, where she'd not even known she was chilly.

His legs framed hers, and his arms now came around her arms, and rested on top of her drawn up knees. His chin pressed into her shoulder blade.

"Maille." He murmured low in her ear.

"Yes?" She blurted too cheerily, masking the sudden nervousness she felt.

"Relax, love." He pressed his chin in alternating circles, and breathed against the fabric of her lightweight shirt. But his fingers stayed planted firmly over hers.

"Kell----."

He pulled her hair aside, and nuzzled her neck softly under her ear. "Maille, you are just you, no sisters define you. You have your own beliefs, your own standards, your own perceptions, and what you feel lacking in, I promise you, will develop over time with experience. Don't be afraid to experience anything you choose to."

"Is that your motto, Kell?" She started to turn to face him, not understanding the soft nuzzling he administered, and how it made butterflies in her stomach flutter. But with one finger, he guided her face to the front allowing himself access to her skin.

"Yes, love. It is my motto. I follow as many dreams as I have means, I allow myself to experience as many things as I can. I try to help people understand themselves. Care for themselves as the varied and richly cultured creatures that they are."

His words struck a chord inside her. As did his facial hair as it scraped against her sensitive skin. What was he doing to her?

How? Why?

"Is that---." She cleared her throat. "Is that what you're doing for me? Teaching me about myself?" She turned her face again, this time to stop his ministrations that were causing such deep stirrings inside her. "Because I'm a creature?"

His arms tightened around her middle, his legs pressed her into the ground, the right one riding up and over her, pinning her against him, as he grated his chin into her collarbone and growled low, reverberating in her chest, as she giggled.

"Maybe you're the creature!" She squirmed to get away. Kell rolled with her in his arms finally straddling her, pinning her fingers to the grass as he looked down at her.

She was panting from her exertions, and laughing as she thrashed back and forth playfully. When she looked up, Kell's face and torso were silhouetted against the background of brilliant sunny sky and clouds, and nothing else. Maille drew in her breath sharply--- his eyes were barely visible in his tanned and ruddy cheeks, and the dreads he sported completely masked his appearance otherwise. It was too bright to see anything more than his teeth grinning at her.

"You believe I am the creature?" He growled into her face, his breath reflecting the animal style onions he'd just ingested.

"Yes! You are the creature!" He had her wrists pinned to the soft grass, and he supported himself over her, but Maille could still feel the way his legs now framed her hips and outer thighs, the way his knees pressed against her sides. This was utterly unprecedented in her experience, but hadn't Kell just said to allow herself to experience many things?

Did he mean even roughhousing with a gay guy?

She tilted her head to see his face better, suddenly wanting to imprint this moment in her mind forever. The moment when she decided she was her own girl. She was a member of the Mann family, but she was uniquely herself. And this man, this incredibly astute and wise man, was helping her find out who she wanted to be.

Kell stared down into her sparkling brown eyes, and finally smoothed the wispy hair that had escaped her braids. He let his fingers slide down, down her slender throat, to cover her heart above her breast, where he could feel the steady beating with his light touch.

So innocent. So naïve. So lovely.

Did she really not suspect how she affected him?

Those wide eyes anticipating his every thought, his every move. She really didn't know how effective that kind of attention was?

He dropped his forehead to hers, staring into the one cyclops eye this view afforded them. He could feel her fluttery pulse with both hands, the one holding her wrist above her head and the one he kept over her heart.

"I am the creature, lovely maiden, and if you wish to remain----."

She rolled him off her, using a move she had learned in martial arts training growing up. He wasn't as domineering as he thought. Nor had he been holding her very effectively. But she stepped lithely away and noted that his keen gaze realized that she'd not just slithered and slid away, but used a move. His eyes narrowed.

"Remain what?" She stood far enough away that he couldn't reach her easily, and poised to run if he made any false moves. Her compact little curves, accentuated by her hands on her hips, and her braids swinging around her shoulders, that dimply grin making her look as if she thought she had one up on him.

"Remain in my company---." Now he let his eyes gleam in anticipation. "You will want to run!"

*****