Chapter 16: Tahoe II

Something tickled my balls, and with a start, I jerked awake.

“Mmph!” somebody squeaked, promptly choked, and pulled away to start coughing.

The sound of a girl’s anguish woke me up FAST, and I sat up to find out what had just happened. Belle was bent over, eyes bugged out and her tongue lolling out of her mouth as she pounded her chest and coughed violently to clear her throat.

“Oh, crap, Belle!” I exclaimed. “I’m sorry! What happened?”

She held a hand up to me, palm out, while she dry-retched before coughing exactly twice more. After that, she started to catch her breath and begin gasping for air. A few seconds later, she managed to burble, “That did NOT go the way I had planned.”

“What happened?” I asked again.

Mari, lying on her side facing away from me in the same position we’d been spooning in the night, mumbled without turning around or even opening her eyes. “She wanted to wake you up with a blowjob, remember?”

“Oh.” Only then did I realize I must’ve unconsciously thrust upward, shoving my dick into Belle’s throat when she wasn’t prepared for it, hence the choking. I reached out to rub her spine. “B, I’m sorry.”

She shook her head and wiped tears from her eyes. “Not your fault.”

“C’mere. Let me make it up to you.”

“Nuh-uh. I’m giving you a wake-up blowjob, and that’s final.” With that, she shoved my chest so that I fell back down, coughed once more, and then bent over my lap again. Soon, her lips and tongue bathed my prick in warm wetness, and I sighed while enjoying the oral love my beautiful little Annabelle chose to give me this morning.

Mari, meanwhile, rolled over sleepily and laid her head on my chest. She smacked her lips and hummed happily to once again be in direct contact with my skin. She had REALLY loved falling asleep with me spooned behind her, and I had loved it too. Her body was just made for spooning, her derriere nuzzling into my crotch like a puppy settling into her favorite pillow for a nap, and I’d fallen asleep cupping her big left breast in my right palm.

Belle, on the other hand, had cuddled with me initially when I’d been on my back trying to hold both girls at the same time. But she just couldn’t quite get comfortable, no matter how she adjusted herself. Finally, she ended up scooting away from us to have her own space and eventually nodded off on her own, freeing me to roll over and curl up with Mari instead. Combined with her interrupted morning blowjob, things certainly weren’t going the way she’d dreamed.

In the end, though, I got to stroke my Annabelle’s hair while she gazed at me adoringly with those pretty, pale green eyes while her face bobbed up and down my shaft. And even though I was barely touching her (nor was she touching herself), she looked like she had a mini-orgasm at the first taste of my cum gushing into her mouth.

Eventually we were all roused awake. Actually, Sam orgasmically screaming her bloody head off woke up the rest of the house; that girl seriously could not be quiet. Mari and Naimh started making breakfast for everyone, we got changed into our ski gear, and then headed out to the slopes.

For a so-called “ski trip”, the actual skiing activities weren’t particularly memorable in comparison to everything else we’d done on the trip. Nobody was a complete novice, as most of us had been to Tahoe with our families somewhat regularly over the years, and even Naimh had skied once on a family vacation in Europe. At first, the six of us stayed together and warmed up on the bunny slopes. Sam and Zofi naturally paired up, as did Belle and Mari. Naimh was only too happy to wrap herself around my arm and make out on the chairlift.

The gorgeous redhead was absolutely stunning. Her dark blue jumpsuit fit her like a glove, especially when she got the zipper over her sizeable chest. She kept the furry hood up for warmth, even over her cute beanie, but let her long red locks hang out through the front. But when we got back in line to take another ride up the mountain, she pulled her sunglasses above her forehead, dropped the hood, and wrapped her arms around my neck for a tongue-filled kiss. We heard a wolf-whistle a second later, and I glanced back to see a couple of guys flashing “shaka” signs at me.

“Dude, your girlfriend is smokin’ HOT,” one of them complimented.

Rather than correct him, I smirked and replied, “I know.” And then I went right back to making out with my ‘girlfriend’. The four girls of the BTC were just in front of us, and they glanced back giggling.

But as nice as it was to be paired up with Naimh, we separated after the first two runs. She was the least-experienced skier of all of us, and while I’d shepherded her through those first trips down the mountain, I was itching to challenge myself on the more difficult runs.

So we split into two groups of three: Naimh, Mari, and Zofi would stay on the easier slopes while Sam, Belle, and I took the Mountain Express all the way up.

Sam took over Naimh’s “girlfriend” role immediately. She wrapped herself around my arm, made out with me on the chairlifts, and generally stuck to my side like there was a physical tether attached to our waists. She was a GOOD skier, probably even better than me, but she had me take the lead and followed to make sure she never got ahead of me. If I fell, she’d pull up next to me and wait. If she fell, which she only rarely did, she’d catch up to me pretty quickly. And every now and again we’d both pull over to the side and wait for Belle to catch up to us.

During those moments, Sam was quick to move in close, wrap her arms around me, and start a new makeout session. One time, we did so underneath a chairlift. And lo and behold, the “shaka” guys were passing overhead.

“DUDE! You’ve got TWO smokin’ hot girlfriends?” Shaka One called out.

“Wait, does the redhead know about the blonde?” Shaka Two asked.

“Dude, does the blonde know about the redhead?!?”

“Shit man, what if we just busted him? Sorry, bro!!!” Shaka Two yelled backwards as the chairlift kept pulling them higher up the mountain.

Sam and I had a good laugh about that.

If Belle minded all the attention Sam was giving me, she didn’t show it. Still, she happily accepted kisses going up the next chairlift when I decided I needed to pay her more attention as well. But as we got halfway back up the mountain, she pulled me close, whispered, “Let Sam have this today. Go back to her.”

“What about you?” I asked softly.

“I’m still satisfied from breakfast,” she replied, with an eye waggle that told me she wasn’t talking about Mari’s instant pancakes. And she promptly turned me around so I could make out with Sam instead.

Sam was more than happy to have me back.

The group rendezvoused for lunch, overpriced burgers and chili fries not feeling so expensive when you considered that we weren’t paying for the cabin. When it was time to hit the slopes again, though, Belle surprised us by saying she was going to rejoin the other group.

“What?” I gave her a look, silently asking if me kissing Sam so much was making her feel like a third wheel. Belle gave me a mysterious smile, shrugged, and explained, “It’s clear that I can’t keep up with you two. I know you’re itching to just smoke a black diamond, Matty.”

Zofi frowned, looked thoughtful, and commented, “There’s a euphemism somewhere in there, I just know it.”

The girls laughed, and soon we were on our way.

Fifteen minutes later, Sam and I wound up in the boonies at the top of a run serviced by a single old and creaky two-person chairlift. This far away from the main runs, the area was the exact opposite of crowded and full of fresh powder. We stood all alone atop the crest of a small hill, taking in the breathtaking view of the snowcapped scenery with the deep blue water of Lake Tahoe in the distance. For a moment, it felt like we were the only two people in the world.

The wind picked up and blew through Sam’s long platinum-blonde hair spilling out the back of her cute beanie, and she looked unimaginably gorgeous as she glanced back at me over her shoulder with a twinkle in her eye. “Last one down is a rotten egg?” she teased, taking hold of her ski goggles and pulling them down over her eyes. “One-two-three-GO!!!”

“Hey, that’s cheating!” I squawked as she tore off down the mountain. I quickly dropped my own ski goggles and tore off after her.

Despite the challenge, Sam actually pulled up a few hundred yards down. I pulled up alongside her, and we briefly talked about how to attack the run, miming turns with our hands. In the end, that first run was a bit exploratory. Sam and I skied through a little conservatively to make sure there weren’t any big surprises that might wipe us out. The second run we took at full speed, each of us crashing more than once but having a great time while doing so.

The third run blew my mind.

Well ... not exactly my MIND.

Sam told me she wanted to lead, and I was perfectly amenable to letting her. She set a blistering pace on the top half of the run, but crashed her landing after jumping a cornice. I was moving so fast after my own landing that I couldn’t stop until I was a good twenty yards further downhill.

Rather than ski down to continue her run or even just join me, Sam instead skied off the trail and into the trees nearby. I was worried that she was hurt, so I stepped out of my skis and carried them with me as I traversed the hill at a slight angle, heading for her position. For some reason she’d disappeared from view.

Belle had worn a hot pink snowsuit which made it easy to spot her wherever she went, but Sam was clad in all black, which really made her platinum blonde hair stand out. The suit blended into the shadows of the trees, however, and while the tree trunks themselves were reasonably spaced apart, you couldn’t see more than three rows into them before the overlapping trunks and branches blocked one’s view.

“Sam?” I called, a little confused.

“I’m over here,” she called back, not too far away.

“Are you hurt?” I asked in concern.

“No, I’m fine. Just come over here.”

“What’s going on?”

She giggled. “You’ll see.”

I kept walking and spotted the track marks of her skis. Following them another three rows of trees into the forest, I came to a stop when I saw that she’d taken them off and set them aside. And that’s when she stepped around the side of a particularly large tree trunk, put her hands on her hips, and grinned at me.

Sam’s snow jacket was open throat to tails. Her vest had been unzipped throat to tails too. And she’d pulled both her thermal undershirt AND sports bra up around her neck. In short, Sam’s big boobies were out in the open and her nipples were rock hard in the cold. I could even see goose bumps on her skin.

“Come warm me up?” she asked coquettishly.

“Are you serious?” I gaped.

“Matty, stop thinking and come HERE,” she stated a little more urgently. “I’m getting COLD.”

I quickly hurried up to her, bit my glove fingers to help rip them off, and promptly planted my hands right on top of her naked breasts. She shivered but smiled as I started fondling to my heart’s content, knowing that my warm sweaty hands had to feel much better than the cold mountain air.

At the same time, she pulled my face to hers for a frenzied kiss, and we made out like that for a minute or two. Neither of us had taken our ski goggles off, so the chunky things bonked into each other now and again. And after I had enjoyed her tits for a while, I yanked down her sports bra and thermal, saying, “As much as I loved that, I don’t want to risk you getting frostbite on your nipples.”

Sam giggled and started zipping her vest. “Drop your pants,” she said matter-of-factly.

“Excuse me?”

Sam gave me an ‘I think you heard me’ look. She was used to me obeying her directives.

Blinking, I dropped trou, looked around rather awkwardly to make sure we were completely out of view, and then backed up to the tree trunk, making sure I was on the exact opposite side from the trail.

While the air had made her tits cold, it practically froze my balls in less than two seconds. Fortunately for me, Sam didn’t leave me hanging (literally) for long. She squatted before me, and without the use of her ice-crusted gloved hands, she leaned forward, slurped my cold and mostly-limp penis into her mouth, and started going to work.

Once inside the warm confines of Sam’s mouth, my dick rose quickly. Within a minute, she was bobbing her head back and forth along my elongated shaft instead of just suckling the whole thing, and the repetitive contrast between hot mouth and frigid air was definitely a new experience.

I didn’t hold back, not wanting to prolong the amount of time we were exposed out here. It was cold and even though not many people came down this way, I didn’t want to get caught with my pants down (literally). Clearly, Sam wanted the thrill of giving me a blowjob out here by a ski trail, and lasting any longer than two minutes wouldn’t necessarily make for a better experience. Her lips were cold but her mouth was hot, and the view was even hotter. For some damn reason, Sam didn’t even take off her fucking ski goggles, and the sight of her flowing platinum blonde locks draping down from her cute beanie, with her eyes still covered by the goggles, was certainly unique, if nothing else. At least the lens wasn’t mirrored, so I could still see her eyes.

“Oh, you’re so fucking hot,” I groaned when she took me as far as she could go and sucked powerfully. Thankfully, she wasn’t testing her gag reflex trying to deep-throat me, instead blowing me for maximum pleasure right from the jump. Her full lips were a tight seal of pleasure, a shield containing warm ecstasy against the cold air, and when she stuck her tongue out and managed to tease my balls, I grunted, tensed up, and came.

Sam pulled back until only my cockhead was still in her mouth. She visibly flinched when the first shot impacted the roof of her mouth, but she swallowed quickly and bent forward, drinking down everything else I could give her. My vision swam, my legs turned to jello, and only the threat of my bare ass landing in the snow made me keep upright. Finally, I finished spurting, and Sam had consumed every last drop.

Perky and energized, the beautiful blonde snow bunny popped up and grinned at me. “Love you!”

With a silly grin, I replied, “Love you, too.”

Beaming proudly, Sam kissed me quickly, pulled her gaiter over her mouth and nose, and then helped me get my pants back up. I was still gloveless, although I’d tucked my hands inside the sleeves like a turtle head pulling back into its shell during the blowjob, so it was easy for me to get fastened up again. But she still got back into her skis before I did, and after flashing me a wink, she called, “Last one down is a rotten egg! For real this time!!!”

And then she tore off down the mountain.

“Really? Behind a fucking tree?” Naimh exclaimed in amazement. She was wrapped around my left arm on the couch back in our cabin as Sam regaled everyone with the story of her blowjob on the mountain.

“My butt was freezing by the end of it,” I muttered with a bit of a scowl as I took a drink from my tumbler, but chuckled and grinned afterward.

“Bet you loved every second of it,” Belle drawled with a laugh.

“Definitely a first for me,” I agreed. “Especially since Sam kept her goggles on the whole time.”

“You mean?” Zofi asked in confusion, but then aped having goggles on her face with both hands over her eyes while miming a forward and back head bobbing motion with her mouth in an ‘O’ shape.

Mari laughed so hard she tipped over onto Belle’s lap and didn’t immediately come back up.

Naimh raised her glass in a toast to Sam. “You’ve got an imagination, I’ll give you that.”

Sam saluted back and took a sip of her drink. After that, though, the room lapsed into silence. It had been a long day on the mountain, and we were all pretty tired. The alcohol wasn’t giving us any energy. If anything, Mari looked rather sleepy drunk, and even Sam was dragging quite a bit.

“A question for everyone,” I began several decibels louder than normal conversation. Bleary-eyed Mari looked like she had to wake up just to pay attention. “Did everyone get in enough skiing today? And by that I mean: Do we really need to go back tomorrow?”

Belle leaned forward and dropped her elbows onto her knees. “What are you suggesting?”

I shrugged. “I’m suggesting we skip going back to the mountain tomorrow and just sleep in.”

Sam frowned. “Kind of a wasted opportunity being up here and all. We all came here to ski, didn’t we?”

Naimh licked her lips and snuggled in tighter to me. “You may have come here to ski. I just came to be with my friends.” She emphasized the last word by pecking my cheek.

Mari giggled and said to Sam, “You just want to go skiing again because you’re the only one who can keep up with him on the slopes.”

“No, no,” Sam said defensively, holding up a hand palm out. “Not the motive, I promise. But if we don’t take advantage of being up in the snow, what else are we gonna do?”

“We can still get out and enjoy the snow,” I reasoned and pointed to my left. “The beach is a few blocks that way, and it’s a snowy beach probably well-suited to building snowmen and taking pictures. The cabin has a big shovel and a foam sled, so we can drive up into the hills a bit and see if we can’t find a nice place to build a sledding run. Those are the sorts of things we can all do together as a group.”

“NOW you’re talking.” Zofi plopped her wine glass onto the coffee table. “No more feeling like a cow on ice trying to ski.”

I blinked and let my eyes run up and down Zofi’s svelte body. “Nobody would EVER call you a cow.”

Zofi blushed and smiled coyly at me.

Naimh raised her hand. “I vote sleep in and build a snowman tomorrow.”

Mari’s hand shot up. “I vote sleep in no matter what we do after!”

Belle shrugged. “I’m good whichever way, actually.”

Zofi raised her hand. “I vote NOT skiing tomorrow.”

Sam raised her hand too. “I’m good with not skiing actually. Matty and I covered the whole mountain. And I think I’ve got bruises on top of bruises. Ugh.”

I sat up straight and offered, “Backrub?”

“OOH, yes please.” Sam raised her other hand, drink tumbler and all, managing not to spill anything.

“I call ‘next’!” Belle chirped.

“‘Next’!” Zofi called.

“Jus’ lemme sleep,” Mari moaned.

I glanced back at Naimh, the only one who hadn’t said anything. She gave me a mock innocent look and said, “What? I’m spending the night with you tonight. I intend to get a LOT more than a backrub.”

The girls laughed, and Sam got up rather gingerly from her armchair and started walking into the second bedroom, tugging at her sleeves along the way.

I frowned. “Where are you going?”

“We’re doing this on my bed,” Sam stated wearily as she pulled her pajama top off entirely, leaving her completely topless.

I chuckled, patted Naimh’s knee, and went to follow her.

Ten minutes later, Sam had actually fallen asleep face-down across her mattress. She looked so peaceful, with a bit of a smile, utterly relaxed after a long day’s exertion.

Belle, who was going next, jerked a thumb back out of the room. “Loft. Now. And you don’t stop until I look like THAT, got it?”

I chuckled. “Got it.”

After ten minutes of steady massage, Belle conked out in the loft alongside Mari, who had fallen asleep on the bed beside us just watching me rub down her half-naked best friend.

I then returned to the second bedroom to find Zofi waiting for me. She’d gotten Sam tucked underneath the covers, the blonde curled up on her side facing away from us, not quite snoring but making a rhythmic noise nonetheless. Zofi wasn’t quite so exhausted that she fell asleep like the other two, but she was feeling quite relaxed AND satisfied after first getting a back massage and then asking me to slide her pajama shorts off and eat her to an orgasm. I’d been happy to throw her legs over my shoulders, suck her hard little clit into my mouth, and curl a finger inside her in a “come hither” gesture until she squeaked and came. Unlike her current bed partner, Zofi COULD keep quiet if she needed to.

I was pretty rock hard by the end of that, but when she saw the tent in my pajama pants, Zofi just patted my bulge, saying, “Save it for Neevie.”

I looked down at her, remembering the sight of her lips wrapped around my prick from just last night.

Zofi seemed to sense what I was thinking, and she giggled, saying, “I love it when you look at me like that. But seriously, save it. I promise last night won’t be the last.”

So it was that I returned to the master bedroom with a rather large erection. Naimh sat up in bed in her pastel purple pajamas, reading a book. She looked up at my arrival, her emerald-green eyes glittering as they zeroed in on my crotch. “Is that for me?”

“All for you tonight. Everyone but Zofi fell asleep.”

“Happy Christmas to ME.” The horny Irish redhead dropped the book onto the nightstand and beckoned me forward with both hands.

I closed the door behind me for all the good it would do, if the walls were as thin as the girls had said. “Let’s try to keep it down tonight, huh? Let the others sleep?”

Naimh shrugged. “No promises.”

I chuckled and approached while she tapped her chin speculatively, muttering, “Kiss the boy first or suck his dick first? Decisions, decisions...”

I laughed, dropped myself onto the bed beside her, and opened my arms, making the decision for her. Naimh quickly rolled into my embrace, our lips meeting firmly but not hurriedly. I felt much the way I had whenever she came to my house alone, without all the other girls around. Just me and the most gorgeous thing I’d ever seen.

Her tongue dived into my mouth like a hunting osprey while my fingers went to the buttons of her pajamas. I had loved the teasing glimpses of bare titflesh I got through the gaps of the too-tight material, but now I wanted the soft cotton GONE and out of my way. Meanwhile, Naimh’s hand slipped into my pajamas so she could wrap her fingers around my hot and throbbing shaft. We made out like the pair of horny teenagers we were, and once I divested her of the pajama top, I ripped my own shirt over my head so I could feel her big 34DD tits pressed up against my bare chest.

At the same time, I slipped my hands into the back of Naimh’s bottoms and palmed her buttcheeks with both hands. She moaned into our kiss, let go of my dick, and settled her crotch over my rod so she could start dry-humping me. A second later she broke the kiss, moaned, “I can’t wait. I need you in me. Now!”

I nodded since that sounded like a great idea to me, and she abruptly rolled off me so she could yank down her pajama bottoms and panties. I was doing the same, and five seconds later, she climbed right back on top of me in the same position she’d just been in, only this time there was absolutely nothing between her neatly-trimmed pussy and my rock hard dick.

I can’t term what she did next as “dry-humping”, since the horny redhead’s pussy was juicing out of control and literally painting my rod with lubrication. But she only did that three or four times before snaking her hand between us, elevating my cock, and notching it into place. Then after putting both hands on my shoulders, she picked her head up, closed her eyes, and crooned in rapture as she slowly backed up, filling herself with Matty-dick in one slow, prolonged movement.

And then she rested. Naimh had never seemed quite as tired as the other girls. Perhaps she had more endurance than them, or perhaps she simply hadn’t exerted herself as much as they had. Perhaps she’d been conserving energy knowing that tonight was her night alone with me. But that didn’t mean she was bright-eyed and bushy tailed. We were both a little worn down from a long day on the slopes, and for a long while we simply rested like that, Naimh cooing happily as she relaxed atop my chest while skewered on my cock.

“I wish I could do this every day with you,” she muttered softly, her Irish lilt intoxicating. “Lying here ... naked ... feeling you so deep inside me. It’s ... incredibly fulfilling.”

“I wish that too.”

“Is this what it would’ve been like as your girlfriend?” she asked quietly. “Cuddling close. Nobody else around. Falling asleep in your arms? I get the impression your mam wouldn’t mind you having a girlfriend sleep overnight. I mean, she’s letting all of us have three nights with you.”

“You’re probably right.”

“Would that be okay with you? Even after we go home? Can I have more nights like this? Just the two of us, together, the way we should’ve been months ago?”

I turned my face to look at her. She was tall enough that her face was more or less at my level on the pillow, even while skewered. Her emerald-green eyes sparkled as she stared intently into mine, and with the waves of her brilliant red hair cascading around her face in the dim light of the lamp on the nightstand, I couldn’t help but mutter, “Good fucking lord you’re so beautiful.”

Naimh grinned, showing off sparkling teeth as she kissed me quickly. But she pulled back a second later and said, “You didn’t answer my question.”

It took me a moment to remember, but I finally replied, “Yes, I would love that, actually. But...” My voice trailed off.

“I wouldn’t hide it from the girls, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

I shook my head. “Wasn’t worried about you hiding it. Neither of us would ever keep a secret from them. I’m just thinking about The Rule.”

“Everything in balance?” Naimh shrugged. “I’d be perfectly fine with letting the others have overnights with you, so long as -I- get overnights with you. I’m not asking for much. Just one night a week, perhaps? One night to fantasize I’m the girlfriend we both always wanted me to be? Like tonight?”

“Is that what you want?”

Naimh nodded. “I’ll never betray the BTC. I promise you that. I will never do anything to take you away from them. I’ll do whatever I can to help bring Alice back to us. But...” Now it was her turn for her voice to trail off.

I brushed her hair back from her face and gave her a quick peck on the nose. She closed her eyes, and I was surprised to see a tear rolling down her cheek. But before I could say something about it, she opened her eyes and spoke again.

“I love you, Matty. I’ve been in love with you forever. It breaks my heart that I can’t have you. But...”

“Shhh...” I soothed her and kissed her quietly, keeping my lips firmly pressed to hers until she stopped shuddering and calmed down. Only when she finally began kissing me back with greater intensity did I break away and look her straight in the eyes.

“One night,” I told her. “Tonight, it’s just you and me. You’re my girlfriend, and I love you. I’m not taking the BTC away. Our friends are still our friends. But for tonight, right now, there’s nobody else here but you and me, okay?”

She started crying then. “I’m your girlfriend? You’re my boyfriend? And you love me?”

I nodded and kissed her quickly. “I love you, girlfriend. Now will you please make love to me?”

Tears streaming down her face, Naimh shook her head in the negative, grabbed my head, and seared my lips with a kiss so hot I was surprised I didn’t catch on fire. She broke away just as suddenly, growling, “No. I’m gonna fuck the hell out of you!”

As it turned out, it was the other way around.

She didn’t “keep it down”. I’m pretty sure Naimh woke up the whole cabin, actually. But unlike last night with Belle and Mari, nobody came to the door to watch. The others left us alone.

We started by making out while she ground her clit down against my pelvic bone, but once she got heated up she started riding me roughly, trying to “fuck the hell out of me” as it were. She planted her hands on my chest and really humped her body up and down, clenching her inner muscles for my pleasure. I started making sucking faces then, and with a laugh the busty redhead bent over so I could grab onto her big tits and slobber all over them.

I wanted to pound her then, so I rolled us over, wrapped her legs around my waist, and started pistoning in and out of her pussy at a rapid pace. She clutched my neck and crooned in my ear, and when my abs started to slow down, she husked, “Fuck me deeper.”

So I relocated her legs up and over my shoulders, bending the gorgeous girl in half beneath me so that I could take really long, powerful lunges. She grunted and groaned and moaned about how hard I was hammering her and how great it felt. And then she kissed me and whimpered, “I love you so much.”

I kissed her back, fucked her even harder, and she tightened up and came, moaning her ecstasy into my mouth.

Then it was my turn. She slipped her legs off my shoulders and grabbed them behind her knees, spreading herself open wide for me. “Take me,” she husked in a gravelly voice.