Chapter 10 #2
“Fuck, it feels… so damn good.” He rocks his hips up a few times. “And I get to see you above me looking all…” He sucks in another hoarse breath.
“How do I look?”
“Beautiful and… and soft and curvy and… all mine.”
I’m already washed with pleasure and excitement, but his words add a new wave of warm feeling. “Yours?”
“Aren’t you?”
He’s really asking. He wants to know.
“Well, yes. I guess so. As long as you’re mine too.”
“Of course I am.” He reaches up to cup my face. “Who else’s would I be?”
I beam down at him. He’s right. He’s my husband. He’s never acted like this—been this person—with anyone but me.
We belong to each other as much as to ourselves.
After a minute of smiling at each other, I roll my hips. “So how should we do this?”
“I think we can figure it out.”
He makes an upward thrust. It feels good so when he does it again, I match it with a pump of my hips.
“Yeah, that’s gonna do it,” he murmurs. “Keep doing that. Fuck, it feels so good.”
I’m really liking it too, so we sustain the motion for a few minutes.
“Yes, that’s real good.” His eyes are moving hungrily from my face to my breasts. “I love how you’re all eager and bouncy above me. My honey cake.”
He only calls me his honey cake occasionally and only in bed, so every time he does feels special.
Being called bouncy normally would have embarrassed me, but it actually gets me going even more.
I accidentally speed up the rhythm because I like how the sensations are building beneath my belly.
It’s like it is before I come but different. Deeper. Achier.
Mason matches my speed, thrusting up faster and harder. Because I’m on top, I can control my position and the depth of the penetration so it doesn’t feel rough or uncomfortable.
I like how wild he feels right now.
I like how wild I feel too.
We’re so enthusiastic that we rock the bed. My hair is tossing all over, and I’m starting to sweat. Even my thighs are getting tired, but I don’t even care. It feels like I’m getting somewhere, and I want it.
Desperately.
“Fuck, Teresa. I’m gonna lose it soon.”
“Hold on. Hold on.” I whimper as I add a roll into my pumping, desperate to get there before it’s too late. “I’m almost there.”
He lets out a groan and releases my hip with one hand, moving it to my swollen intimate flesh. He finds and rubs that very best spot.
Combined with everything else, it catapults me into an intense explosion of sensation, the pleasure slamming into me in wave after wave.
I gasp and cry my way through it as my inner channel clamps down hard around Mason’s shaft. He lets out a loud exclamation as he jerks a few last times.
Then he comes inside me in several hard spurts.
I really like it when he does that. Like it’s tangible proof of the pleasure he takes in me.
We rock together for a couple more minutes until our bodies have softened. Then he pulls me down into a soft embrace that causes him to slip out from inside me.
We’re both perspiring, and there’s a lot of fluid spilling out from inside me. My thighs and lungs are burning.
But I don’t care.
I’ve never felt like this in my life.
“I’m sure glad you found that book,” Mason drawls after several minutes of recovering.
I giggle. Then giggle again. Then I can’t stop.
He’s chuckling too as he hugs me tighter. He brings me up higher so he can nuzzle my messy hair. “Tonight maybe we can try that hands and knees position.”
A half hour later, we’ve managed to get up and dressed just as the sun rises.
I let the chickens out and feed them before I go help with the milking.
I now regularly do Genevieve and Vera and Millicent.
And I’ve been practicing with one of the more temperamental ones—Lola.
She didn’t like me for the first couple of months, but now she tolerates me okay.
But I’m hesitant because I’m afraid she’s going to kick, so I haven’t managed to complete her milking all the way yet.
Today I do though.
Mason is supposed to be milking one of the other cows, but I know he’s watching me from the corner of his eyes. He’s sitting very still as I milk Lola, the liquid spraying into the container with each squeeze.
I try not to get tense because the animals can pick up on those vibes. But as I complete the last of it, my hand is shaking slightly.
In rising excitement. Not in fear.
Lola gives a little huff as I let her udder go and pat her side. I stand up carefully and bring the pail over to the large refrigerated container to pour it in.
When I’ve finished, I turn around at Mason, beaming and clapping my hands.
He’s grinning back. He opens his arms, and I run into them.
He grabs me, swinging me around in a big hug.
“I did it! I did it!”
To someone else, successfully milking a temperamental cow might not be much of an accomplishment. But it’s a real victory for me.
Mason is laughing openly as he swings me around again. “You did great.” When he puts me down, we stand smiling at each other. “I’m proud of you.”
I have to admit the truth to him. “I’m proud of me too.”
The following week on Thursday market day, I’m having a really good day.
We have a new kind of cheese to sell, and the villagers are loving the samples and buying a lot of it. It’s just after noon, and we’re almost out of the stock we brought with us.
Mason is proud of the cheese. He’s been working on it since he moved back to take over the farm, and he’s just now gotten it to a point where he’s satisfied. He’s holding on to his typical matter-of-fact manner, but I can read small signs in his face and posture now.
He’s proud of himself. As proud as I was last week when I managed to successfully milk Lola.
He’s been in a particularly good mood for the past week and a half.
He’s enjoying all the sex we’ve been having since we started trying out different positions.
We’ve averaged twice a day for ten days now, and even after we used up all the positions described in the book, we’ve been experimenting with arrangements we make up in our own heads.
It’s been fun in a way I never would have expected a regular life could be. And it’s not just the physical pleasure I’m enjoying.
I feel closer to Mason. Emotionally. Closer than I’ve ever felt to anyone—even Annabelle. He’s been talking to me more. Over meals. In bed after we have sex. Even during morning chores and cold afternoons when there’s nothing else to be done outside.
It’s not as if life here has gotten miraculously easy. We both work hard, and some of our efforts never pay off in any satisfying way. But it’s different than it was. I’m happy when I wake up in the morning and look forward to the day.
Even as a child, I never experienced anything like it.
Mason is feeling the same way. Or at least something similar. It’s plain as day on his face and in his behavior.
I can see it even now as he stands behind our stall and talks to the butcher.
Bill came with us today—he enjoys sitting at our feet, snorting out dropped crumbs and accepting the occasional scratch behind his ears from villagers—and now he’s having a snuffling interaction with the butcher’s dog.
Bill has been as happy as Mason and I have been. He’s even stopped sleeping on the porch and moved into the house to sleep near the heater in the living room.
Maybe he’s simply cold, but I think he’s feeling like he’s part of the family now.
I hope so.
Mason and I think of him that way too.
So all in all, I’m in a good mood today, and it’s not dimmed in the slightest by the knowledge that Lorraine and Aria are sending me covert glares in turn from over at their stall.
I was their drudge, and I’m not anymore. Of course they aren’t happy about it.
I don’t much care anymore.
I’m only half listening to Mason and the butcher’s conversation since it’s focused on the quality of beef this year, and when I catch a familiar face coming this way in the crowd, I smile and wave.
Gregory, the freckled guard who asked me to marry him years ago, strides over with a lopsided grin.
I move out from the stall so I can chat with him without disturbing Mason’s conversation.
After the preliminary questions about the health of ourselves and our spouses, he tilts his head down and asks, “So how’s life with Mason? Are you happy with your choice?”
“Yes,” I say, surprised that anyone would even ask. “It was a great choice. Life is good. Much better than it was.”
“That’s not surprising.” He shoots an annoyed look toward Lorraine. “I still haven’t forgiven her for how she rejected me.”
“Oh no. You’re not… I mean, I thought you were happy with—”
“I’m happy. I ended up with someone good. But there was no reason for her to tell me no like that, especially when you were on board with it too. You could have been spared years of bad treatment, and I think we could have made a success of it.”
He’s not being pushy or inappropriate. As far as I can tell, he’s simply reflecting on the past with matter-of-fact authenticity.
And he’s right. If I’d married him back then, I could have gotten out of Lorraine’s house years sooner. We might have had the three children that Gregory and his spouse have now. I think we would have been able to get along just fine. It wouldn’t have been a bad life.
But for some reason I’m relieved—vastly, astonishingly relieved—that I didn’t marry him.
Not because there’s anything wrong with Gregory, back then or right now.
But because he’s not Mason. And I don’t want to be married and go through life with anyone but Mason.
“Sometimes people do wrong things that hurt us, but it still ends up getting us to where we’re supposed to be. Maybe that’s what happened back then.”
“Maybe so.” He glances back toward Lorraine’s stall. “But that doesn’t mean I forgive her.”
I laugh. “You don’t have to. I’m not inclined to forgive her either. Not that she’ll ever apologize.”
“The world would have to flip upside down for that to happen.” He’s chuckling too, but then his eyes move to the side, over my shoulder, and his expression changes.
I look to see Mason coming toward us. Frowning.
I haven’t seen him frown like that in more than a week.
“Hey, Mason,” Gregory says with his normal laid-back friendliness. “All I’m hearing today is about that new cheese.”
Mason nods but doesn’t reply. He puts an arm around my waist, moving me farther away from Gregory and planting his body between us.
It’s strange. Him moving me that way. And his expression doesn’t make any sense.
Does he not like Gregory or something?
“The cheese is delicious,” I say, smiling and trying to return to good humor. “Mason is so good at it.”
Mason still appears to be stewing. He’s looking between me and Gregory. “What was funny?” he asks in a mutter.
Gregory arches his eyebrows, and my mouth falls open as I stare at Mason. He sounds almost rude.
“We were just chatting,” I say, managing to maintain a mild tone despite my astonishment. “About the past and how things have worked out for us.”
“What about the past?” Mason’s voice is almost growly.
I have no idea what’s gotten into him. It doesn’t make sense. It doesn’t fit with who I know him to be and how he’s been acting today and the past couple of weeks. I look from him to Gregory and back.
Gregory bursts out with a choppy sound. “I wasn’t making a move on her,” he says through his laughter. “Give me some credit for decency. And for not being stupid enough to pick a fight with you.”
Mason just scowls at the other man.
“W-what?” I look from one to the other again. “Is that what you thought?”
He doesn’t answer. Just breathes heavily as he turns his gaze to me.
“We were talking. In fact, we were saying that things worked out better for us not getting together. How could you even think otherwise?”
He still doesn’t answer, but the tension on his face has softened slightly.
“You were really jealous?” I ask in a different tone. “About me?”
“You shouldn’t be surprised,” Gregory drawls with one more lackadaisical grin.
“Never seen a man change so much as he has since he married you. It’s like he woke up from sleepwalking.
But I’m going to make a speedy retreat before he decides to get mad at me again.
I’ll see you around.” With a wave, he turns and walks away.
I wave in return but then look back to Mason. I don’t move as I wait for him to say something.
“I didn’t know,” he mutters at last.
“What didn’t you know?”
“You were all soft and smiling with him, the way you are with me. The… the honey cake way. I thought…”
“You thought I wanted him for a husband? How could you possibly think that? Things have been so good between us.”
“I know.” He’s shaking off the bristles now and staring self-consciously at the ground. “I don’t know what happened. I’ve been real happy. You’ve made life so good for me. Then I saw you two talking, and I got hit with this wave of…”
“Of what?” Now that he’s talking to me, I’m not worried anymore. In fact, I can’t help but like how he reacted. Just a little.
“Possessiveness. Or something. Like he was going to snatch you away from me. I didn’t…” He gives me a wry, upward look. “I didn’t like it.”
I giggle. “Well, it sounds kind of silly to me, but who’s to say I wouldn’t feel the same if I saw you talking all sweet to Aria the way you talk to me?”
“Why the hell would I talk to Aria that way?”
That makes me giggle again. “I hope you wouldn’t.”
“And what do you mean, talk sweet? Do I talk that way to you?”
“Yes.” I’m blushing now. And shifting between looking at him and looking at the ground the way he is. “Like right now.”
“Oh. Okay.” He reaches over to take my hand, squeezing it in his big one. “Then you must be talking sweet to me right now too. And all I’ve got to say about it is that you better not talk this way to anyone else but me.”