37. Strawberry Wine – Riggins
Hours later, I walk up the stairs to where she’s playing loud music in the first finished room. I lean against the doorframe as I watch her draw another green line, adding a few leaves before cleaning off the brush and adding pink to it, painting a flower to the top. She’s good at this, decorating and designing. When we were young, she loved making our small space more fun, making it ours.
Whimsical, she called it.
She wanted to live somewhere whimsical and fun, a clear contrast to her childhood home, I think.
Finally, she notices I’m in the doorway, her head picking up to look at me and smile.
She’s so fucking beautiful like this, her hair in a ponytail, a swipe of paint on her nose.
“You’ve got a little…” I say, placing the extra cans of paint I brought upstairs down on the floor and walking toward her. “Right here.” My finger taps on her nose where a streak of light blue paint is. “You’re a mess,” I say, laughing at her. “Maybe we should just rescue your clothes.”
She laughs, free and clear, filling the empty room with much-needed life. “What?”
I don’t explain with words instead I get to my knees on the cloth tarp beneath her and pinch the old Atlas Oaks tee between my thumb and forefinger. “It’s Vintage, OG Atlas merch. You can get good money for this,” I say with a smile. ”Wouldn’t want to get paint on it.”
She sets the brushes down and lifts her arms, surprising me. But I don’t look a gift horse in the mouth as she lets me take off her shirt, revealing her small breasts and flat stomach. I toss it in the corner.
“Not enough money in the world to get me to sell that,” she says. “You see, years and years ago, my husband made it for me.”
I ignore the way my heart skips a beat with her words because it’s the first time she’s acknowledged me as her husband outside of an argument or trying to patch up my torn knuckles. Instead, I remember the time when she was 15 and the band and I decided we wanted to give a real go at this. We were playing small venues and kids” basements and a few shows at the Atlas, but we really only had one true fan.
Stella.
So, for her 16th birthday, we made her a stack of Atlas Oaks Shirts.
“Besides, how is taking off my shirt supposed to make less of a mess?” She’s in just a pair of boy short underwear because she didn’t want to get paint on another pair of pants.
I follow suit, taking off my tee so I’m just wearing my jeans. I try to fight a smile when her eyes trail over my body as I toss my shirt in the pile with hers. Then I bend, grabbing a paintbrush with green paint on it, stepping closer to her.
“Don’t you dare.” I move forward. “Riggins,” she says in warning, but I get closer still. She tries to scramble back, but I get her with a swipe of color across her stomach. “Riggins!” The shock doesn’t last long, though.
Quickly, she grabs a brush, dipping it in blue, and comes back at me, hitting me in the shoulder. I laugh, taking off my pants so they don’t get destroyed, and then I go after her, swiping more paint across her nipple.
“Ahh! You’re going to get it,” she shouts.
We move like this for a while, chasing each other with paint brushes and swiping color across our skin before I decide I want more, putting mine down and grabbing her. We faux wrestle for a bit until finally, I have her exactly where I want her.
“I win, which means I get to do whatever I want to you,” I murmur against her lips. Even now, though, she’s stubborn.
“What makes you think you win?”
“You’re pinned beneath me, Stella. I think that means I win.” She glares and I can’t stop laughing. “Now, I’m going to move, but my prize is I get to paint a picture on your stomach.” Her eyes go wide with heat and excitement and I have to force back yet another a laugh.
God, when was the last time I laughed this much? The last time I was this free? Probably well over seven years ago.
“Not with my cum, Stell. Maybe next time. Now close your eyes so it will be a surprise.” She scrunches her nose in irritation, and again, my laugh echoes around the empty room.
“Now be still, Stella.” She giggles, but it turns to a low moan as the cool paintbrush moves across her belly and closer to her pussy, then way. She tries to look down, but I push her face up again.
“What are you doing?” she asks.
“I’m making art, Stella. Be patient.” I continue, grabbing more paint and liking the heated sigh that leaves her lips as the cold paint touches her skin again. Enough that I decide she deserves a prize for being so good, moving my fingers between her legs, gently rubbing her clit. When her hips buck, I tut at her, moving away from her with a smile.
“Riggins!“ Her eyes start to open.
“Closed, Stella. Keep your eyes closed and stay still while I make you my masterpiece, or you’re never going to come.” She groans but closes her eyes again. I brush a few more swipes of the paint against her belly, watching her muscles tense and flex as I do until I’m done.
“You can look,” I say and instantly she opens her eyes, moving to her elbows and looking down.
“Riggins loves Stella,” she says quietly with a small smile at the messy letters I wrote on her skin. “You’re kind of a softie, you know.”
“Mmm, would a softie do this?” I ask, moving my fingers to her pussy and sliding them in. A quiet ahh! leaves her lips.
I finger her, watching her body accept me, listening and feeling how wet she already is, and my free hand moves to my cock, starting to stroke as I watch myself work her.
“Oh, fuck, Riggins,” she says, eyes stuck on where my hand is pumping my cock. “God, that’s so hot.”
“You like that? You like seeing how fucking hard you make me?” Her eyes move to me, then back to my cock, and she nods. I crook my fingers inside her, and she moans again.
Perfect.
She’s absolutely perfect for me. My balls tighten just watching her, knowing I’m the one bringing her pleasure, but I refuse to come anywhere but inside her.
“Stella”
She starts coming, her back arching, her body shaking as I press into her spot, but I don’t stop despite her coming. Her moans turn frantic like she can’t handle what’s happening to her, and one of her hands slams frantically into the pallet of paints.
I can’t even laugh.
Especially not when that hand, coated in pinks and purples, moves to her breast, grabbing and tugging at her nipple.
And not when she screams my name, a second hard climax ripping through her. I realize the first was just an intro, but this one now controls her. I keep jacking my cock, edging myself as I watch her body convulse as she frantically moans my name, stopping only after I move my hand away.
Her body goes limp. “I’m not done with you, Stella,” I say, and she lifts her head, quirking a brow at me. I smile as I use my soaking hand to coat my cock, sliding it up and down, twisting at the head, and groaning as I do. Her mouth drops just a bit, watching, and I watch the fire in her reignite.
“God, a fucking dream you are. Ready?” I ask as I line myself up with her dripping wet pussy. She nods, and I slide in slowly, inch by inch.
When I’m planted inside, I look in her eyes.
“You’re mine, Stella. This place, it’s ours. This life? We’re going to share it.” She opens her mouth to say something, but I pull out and then slam back in, her eyes drifting shut with pleasure. My hand moves to her clit, rubbing quickly because I know I won’t last long, and she needs to get there again. “I’m going to fuck you every day, listen to you moan my name every time I make you come. We’re going to live a good life from here on out, Stella.”
Her hand moves to my forearm, planted on the ground beside her hips, smearing paint and squeezing, a silent confirmation when words won’t work.
I move one of her legs up, letting it drape along my shoulder, and we moan in unison at the new angle, the new depth. It makes her pussy squeeze me even tighter.
“Fuck, Stella. You feel so fucking good. I love this pussy. Is it mine?” She nods, but that’s not enough. “Use your words, Stell. Tell me you’re mine.”
“I’m yours, Riggs,” she moans. “All of me is yours.”
Her words take me over the edge, the way she quivers around me, the way her small tits bounce each time I pound into her.
“Come for me, little star,” I say through gritted teeth, my eyes locked on where my cock is disappearing in her cunt as I fuck her. “Now.”
It’s all it takes. It’s all it ever seems to take these days, a rough demand and getting my cock deep. Stella screams my name, the empty room making it echo in the most erotic symphony I’ve ever heard, and with it, I bury deep, groaning her name as I spill inside of her.
“I love this room,” she whispers, breaking the silence. We’re still on the floor of the room, the old sheet all bunched beneath us. There’s paint in her hair, splotches and splatters, and a few smears from my hands, but somehow, it looks good, great even. She looks free and easy.
She looks like mine.
Especially when I see the paint dried on my one hand, the hand that matches the handprint on her hip where I held her. Our bodies are a map of what happened in this room not too long ago, where my fingers traveled and where hers moved; her breasts are covered in a happy sunshine yellow, and her belly is filled with shades of pink and red.
I’d take a photo, but I know I’ll never forget the way she looks right now.
“Yeah?” I ask, my fingers starting to trace some of the swirls and dots, committing them to memory.
She nods. “The light is great, but it’s the quietest room in the house. It is far enough from the kitchen and living room that if someone’s down there, you can’t hear anything really. I used to hide up here when they were doing work in the kitchen, could barely hear when they left for the day.” I hum but don’t speak, hating that she did even a part of this house alone, that my touch isn’t on every update she made to it.
The place we once thought would be ours.
But I’m shaken from that with her next words, words she clearly doesn’t overthink much because her body stills when she says them, like she wishes she could take them back or is hoping I didn’t hear them.
“I always thought it would make a good nursery.”
But I do hear the words.
Her body doesn’t move a centimeter as she waits to see if I heard her or understood what she was saying, what she didn’t mean to reveal.
It’s like she’s worried it will anger me or that she’s crossed some line, which is fucking insane because she’s Stella, and I’m Riggins, and we were always meant to be here, to be us. To be in this house talking about nurseries and which rooms would be best for one.
It just took us a fuck of a lot longer to get here than I anticipated.
“How many?” I say, the words low as I try to leave my pain out of them, the pain of knowing we lost seven years before we could have this conversation.
“How many?” she asks, confused, like now that she accidentally spoke out loud, she’s careful with her words to make sure it doesn’t happen again.
“How many kids do you want?”
“I—”
“Twins are in your blood, which would be cool. I always loved seeing you and Evie, your bond. I hated not having siblings, so I definitely don’t want less than two. I think three would be good, but I wouldn’t be the one carrying them.” My hand splays over her belly, suddenly incredibly intrigued by the idea of her swelling with our child.
God, where did this all come from?
“Three?”
“Well, yeah. If we had twins, though, maybe four. The third would always be on the outs, not having that bond. But what do I know? Maybe that’s not how it works.” She lets my words work through her mind, confused still, and I fight a smile, knowing it would just annoy her.
“You’re… you’re talking about babies.”
“I mean, I’m not talking about dogs. Though, I do want another of those, too. Gracie’s getting old.” Her face somehow gets softer, as if she can’t believe this is happening. “You were talking about nurseries, and I don’t think you meant plants.” My mind starts working, and suddenly I’m nervous.
“Unless you were, with all the light talk. I just?—”
“No, no. I was…” There’s a pause before she finally touches me, her hand covering mine over her stomach.
God.
That feels so good. So goddamned right.
“You had it right. I just… I’m surprised.”
“Why would you be surprised?”
“We never…” There’s a pause, and she licks her lips before moving forward, where she clearly doesn’t feel comfortable. “We never talked about this kind of stuff back then.”
“Yeah, but we are now,” I say, a million different things in those few words. I wonder if she knows what they mean to me, if she understands fully.
Because suddenly, it feels like there is a future for us.
And it’s going to be beautiful.
Two days later, when she finishes painting her flowers, and I’ve finished getting some of the paint off the hardwood, I notice a new frame in her bedroom with a piece of the cloth we fucked on.
God, I love this woman.