(18+) RED (Complete)

Ch. 40: Bare

I gasped to myself. Those were the exact same words he sent me in the very first text. And now he obviously wanted to recreate the date we never had.

My heart pounded hard in my chest. He meant it. He really wanted to start fresh. He wanted to make things right from the beginning, and he had been trying to prove that all night. Of course he had been teasing and flirting, but I guess that was how he was. At least around me. But he hadn't done anything more. He'd accepted my decision to move slow, maybe too slow, and for that I admired him so much more. Other guys would have left long time ago, which probably would have been for the best. At least in this case. But Michael...

Michael stayed.

Next to the deep red dress was a stack of other clothes, and from what I could see, there were a pair of pajamas, a pair of jeans, a white t-shirt that probably was the same kind he always had, a cotton jersey, and...

"Oh, thank God! Underwear."

I immediately got rid of my soaked panties and bra, and put on the set of beautiful silk and lace, which not surprisingly was red as well. And I blushed thinking that he would know exactly what I was wearing underneath. But for some reason it made me feel special. I don't think anyone else would do all of this for a girl they didn't date. Most guys probably didn't even do it for the girl they were actually dating.

As soon as I'd put on my dress, I wished I had a mirror to see how I looked. Instead, I grabbed my phone so I could take a selfie, but found that it was a little too dark to really see much on the pictures either. Oh, well. Then I looked closer on the screen, and my attention was drawn to the text and the three missed phone calls I'd received sometime in the past few hours.

The number was unknown, and it didn't say any name on the text message. It was probably someone who had the wrong number, because the text told me to stay away from social media. And if they knew me, they would know that I'd deleted all of those a long time ago, so that wasn't a problem at all. So I put my phone away and decided to enjoy the rest of my time together with Michael, without further interruptions.

"Wow," I heard Michael silently exclaim to himself, when I left my tent. Then he closed his mouth, swallowed and stood up to help me over to the bonfire. I could see our sticks that now were accompanied by a large bowl of marshmallows, and they were literally screaming my name from where they stood on the ground between our primitive arm chairs. I looked around to see if there was melted chocolate to dip them in, but there wasn't. Oh, well. Everything else was perfect. Especially Michael. And it was first then I noticed that he was wearing red as well. And on his way over to grab my hand, he placed a black fedora on his head and looked sharp as ever.

"You should wear red every day, babe. You look stunning."

I couldn't help it. I blushed so hard I was sure my cheeks were glowing.

"So do you. I-I mean... Handsome. You look handsome. Incredibly... Hot. Uhm... Handsome."

Gosh. What was wrong with me? We'd been together for almost an entire day. Why was I nervous now all of a sudden?

"Thanks," he giggled, and led me to the bonfire and helped me sit down. Neither of us had shoes on, so it looked a bit funny being dressed up this way. But since we were outside in the wild, it felt completely right. There were no boundaries, and there shouldn't be.

"Do you like marshmallows?" he asked.

"Who doesn't?" I replied with a cheeky smile, and grabbed three that I immediately pierced with my stick. Michael did the same, but I could feel his eyes on me most of the time, even though his marshmallows melted so they dripped into the gaping flames. He didn't eat much of them anyway. And as soon as he saw me put down my stick, signaling that I was full, he stood up in front of me with something in his hand. A long stemmed, red rose. Then he held out his other hand and looked at me with eyes so intense that they stole every ounce of air in our proximity. I failed to breathe. I failed to think. In summary, I failed to function at all.