Chapter 3
Kim
"How far is it to town from here?" I wonder aloud, as Cade and I bump along in the cart on the way to the nearby settlement.
"A few more minutes," he replies, half-glancing over his shoulder towards me. His sister must have spoken some sense into him, because he seems a lot less reticent with me than he did before. Perhaps he’s finally figuring out that I haven’t dropped in from another time just to make his life that much harder, the way he reacted when I first turned up.
"Thanks for doing this, by the way," I offer him, hoping I can keep the conversation flowing. I spent most of last night tossing and turning, trying to piece together what the hell happened and how on earth I am going to get out of it.
But I’ve concluded that, whatever it is, I’m up to my ears in it now, and the best I can do is accept it. Might be a slightly more extreme version of the break I had intended to take before, but hey, maybe it’ll do me good.
At least, that’s what I have to tell myself if I don’t want to go crazy.
"Needed to pick up some things anyway," he replies gruffly. I press my lips together to keep from shooting back with some smart comment about how he could at least pretend not to hate my company.
But I have to remind myself where and more importantly, when I am – I can’t just be the same woman I was before, not if I want to get along without causing trouble.
He pulls the horse to a halt outside what appears to be a small saloon, with a few other horses lined up outside, their reins wrapped around makeshift wooden posts to keep them in place.
He offers me a hand to help me down, and I take it, trying not to focus for too long on how rough and strong his grip feels against my skin.
"So, where are we going, exactly?” I ask, as I adjust the dress again. Lucy was kind enough to lend me something to wear, but she’s a whole lot smaller than me and I barely got this thing on in the first place.
"Mrs. Yang," he replies, jerking his head along the street. "Other end of town. Come on..."
He takes off and I have to rush to catch up with him, glad, at least, that I still have my sneakers to keep my feet from getting too sore.
"So what exactly is it that you do out here?" I ask, gesturing around. He glances at me out of the corner of his eye, nonplussed.
"What do you mean?”
"I mean, do you have a job? Or-"
"I work the allotment attached to the house," he replies, gesturing back over his shoulder towards the place we just came from. "Sell vegetables here in town."
"Oh, that’s cool," I remark. "So you live off the land, then?”
"Everyone does," he replies, and I laugh.
"Sorry, yeah, I guess they do," I concede. "It’s all just...kind of new to me, that’s all."
"New to you?" he asks, frowning slightly.
"Yeah, where I came from, things were a little more convenient," I explain. No harm in making conversation, right? He might not exactly be forthcoming with the back-and-forth, but if I’m going to be living under the same roof as him for the time being, I need to find a way to get on with him.
"So what did you do, then?" he remarks, the first bit of genuine interest he has shown in me all this time. "Before you came here?”
"I’m a teacher," I reply, without thinking. I feel a little twist in my stomach as I realize that I am still referring to it in the present tense, as though I might get back to it at any instant.
"I work for a college," I continue, figuring I should just tell the truth. "I teach English literature to students there."
He raises an eyebrow, a slight smirk curling the corner of his lip.
"That’s a whole lot of education for a girl like you."
"You think so?”
"I know so. Doubt most of the men in this town would be able to say they went to a university, let alone the women."
He doesn’t sound put off by it, even if he does seem a little surprised. I shrug.
"Well, guess I could put them all to shame then," I reply, keeping my tone light. "Provided we keep the conversation about books."
He chuckles.
"Don’t let any of the men hear you talking like that," he warns me. "Can’t imagine many of them would be pleased to hear a woman saying she could outhink them..."
"Well, then, they should put the effort in to be smarter," I fire back. This time, I’m rewarded with a real laugh, the kind that seems to bubble up from some place deep inside him. He looks back towards me, and his face is warm with a big-ass grin, the kind I can’t help but return.
"Maybe you could have a look through our books," he remarks. "My momma was always a big reader, she kept a hell of a collection."
"I’d love to," I gush, and I mean it. One of the reasons that I got into this line of work in the first place was because I adored historical literature so much, the connection it gives us to times past. Why not make the most of this weird situation by reading as much as I can?
Hell, when I go back, I might have a little more perspective to bring to my teaching.
It doesn’t take long till we arrive at Mrs. Yang’s - she takes the clothes I was wearing when I arrived here as payment, rubbing the fabric with interest between her thumb and forefinger, before she sets about getting me fitted with a dress.
She tugs and pulls me this way and that, sticking pins through a petticoat that she fits to my body – it doesn’t take long till she’s found a dress that will do for me, making a couple of quick alterations while we wait next to the counter for her to be done.
"Thanks," I murmur to Cade, once the dress is tucked into a satchel and hanging over his shoulder. He shrugs.
"Lucy’s right," he remarks. "You’re going to need something to wear, if you’re going to stick it out here..."
As we head back to the cart, I notice a few people glancing in my direction. I shift a little closer to Cade as we walk, trying not to catch anyone’s eye.
"Why are they looking at me like that?” I mutter to him, and he peers around, as though he had hardly noticed it in the first place.
"Probably just wondering where you came from," he replies. "Not many new faces around here. Well, not till recently, anyway..."
He doesn’t elaborate any further on that and I think better of pressing for more. He seems like the kind of guy who will talk when he’s ready and not before, and I am not going to go insisting he share everything that’s in his head.
"I doubt they’d believe me even if I told them," I mutter, mostly to myself.
"And what would you tell them?" he asks, as he reaches the cart, planting a hand on the horse’s neck as though in greeting before he tosses the satchel into the back.
"What do you mean...?”
"Why’d you end up all the way out here, if you were teachin’ at some university?”
"Oh, uh, my boyfriend cheated on me."
He turns to me, incredulous.
"Your boyfriend?”
"My...the man I was betrothed to," I reply, trying to put it in a way he might understand. "Turned out he was...seeing another woman at the same time as me. Well, a few other women, actually..."
He snorts.
"What an asshole."
I can’t help but laugh.
"Yeah, he really was," I agree. There’s something relieving about hearing someone else talk about him like that, as though it’s confirming everything that I’ve been thinking all this time.
It's hard for me to believe that I didn’t deserve it on some level, given how hard I worked, but the way Cade talks about it, it’s like it should be obvious.
We head back to the house, where Lucy has already left to run some errands. I take the dress upstairs, and slip out of the one I’m wearing to try it on.
And it fits a whole lot better – the light blue fabric flares out around my feet, the bodice fitting me neatly rather than crushing me into place.
But, as I try to reach behind me to do up the ribbons, I wince – I can already feel myself straining my shoulder to try and make it fit, and any more pushing and I’ll wrench the damn thing out. I need help.
And there’s only one person who can give it to me.
"Cade!” I call out. Now that we’ve gone some way to bridging the gap between us, I figure he won’t balk at actually giving me a hand. A moment later, I hear footsteps outside the door, and it cracks open to reveal him on the other side.
"What is it?”
His sleeves are rolled up, as though he was in the middle of something – his forearms flex with muscle, and I do my best not to let my gaze linger on them for too long.
I’m not used to being around a guy like this, a guy who works with his hands, who has his strength written all over his body.
"I need help getting this done up," I reply, gesturing to the back of my dress. "You think you can help?"
"Never been good at this stuff," he warns me, as he makes his way towards me. As he stands behind me, I am suddenly distinctly aware of the warmth on the back of my neck from his breath, the smell of him filling the air around me.
I know I shouldn’t even let my mind stray in that direction, but there’s something about it I can’t deny, something about it I don’t want to be done with, at least not so soon.
"Dammit," he mutters, his mouth so close to my ear that I can feel the grunt of his breath as well as hear it.
"What is it?" I ask.
"I need to start from scratch," he replies, as he starts to undo the ribbons. "You’ve made a mess of this..."
"Sorry," I blurt out, but he shakes his head.
"I probably will, too," he murmurs in assurance, as he starts to slowly undo the ribbons, tugging them apart. When he reaches the bottom, the back of the bodice gapes open, and my bare back is exposed to him – even though I’m still wearing more clothes right now than I was when they picked me up on the side of the road, I can’t help but feel distinctly naked.
And, I notice, his hands still for a moment – his fingertips graze along my spine, sending an explosion of tingles flooding my entire body.
I draw in a sharp breath, unable to hold it back, and out of the corner of my eye, I can feel him looking at me.
He makes no move to continue his work on the ribbon, leaving me there, the dress gaping at the back, his hands against my skin. ..
And, before I can think twice, I move back against him, letting his hands slip beneath the dress – it falls away as he slides his hands around my waist, his mouth coming to the curve of my neck, his breath hot against my skin.
I don’t know what I am doing, but I know sure as hell that I don’t want it to stop, and, as he turns me around to face him, I can see in the darkness of his gaze that he feels the exact same way.
He brings my face to his, kissing me hard, the kind of kiss that sends whatever doubts I’m still clinging to vanishing from my mind.
The dress has pooled at my feet, all but forgotten, and the only thing I can focus on is the way that it feels to press myself into him, to lose myself to him entirely.
I might not have any idea what I am doing here or how I ended up here or how in the name of holy hell I am going to get out – but right now, as his tongue thrusts into my mouth, I know that I don’t even care.
He moves me back towards the bed, the two of us tumbling on to the small frame together – I run my hands along his neck, his shoulders, his back, feeling the strength of him right there, the promise that he could do anything he wanted to me.
Maybe I’d like him to. No matter how dangerous it might be to give myself a reason to stay, as our tongues come together, I can’t do anything other than let myself get lost to the pleasure.
His hands grope and grab greedily at my waist, my thighs, my hips, and I tip my head back as he trails his mouth along my throat, eyes flickering open just long enough to see the dark, wanting expression on his face.
I can’t remember the last time I felt someone want me this badly, and there’s nothing in the world I want more than to let him show me just how far that goes.
His hardness grinds against me through his pants, and I slip my hand down clumsily to feel him through the fabric. He grunts against my mouth as he feels me touch him, and swiftly brushes my hand aside to undress himself urgently.
I lift my hips to his, words falling away to useleness as some primal part of me demands him inside of me.
In the soft light pouring through the window, I watch as he takes himself into his hand and guides himself against me – I groan as I feel the pressure of him at my entrance, almost shockingly new, but impossibly exciting at the same time.
I wind my arms around him tight, pulling him on to me, lifting my hips to envelop him in one motion, and listen to the deep groan of pleasure that escapes his lips as we come together for the first time.
The feeling of it, the sensation, is one thing – but the knowledge that this man wants me so completely is all it takes for me to lose myself entirely to this moment.
I grasp his face in my hands and bring his lips to mine once more as he begins to move inside of me, his body driving into mine with the same regular motion as the wheels of the cart beneath us.
Our breath mingles and our chests rise and fall in the same moment as though we are entirely in sync with each other.
His teeth catch on my lip, sending a start of pain and pleasure through me, and he grabs my hips to push me down on to the bed. As he begins to fuck me properly, hard and fast, he grinds against my clit with every motion.
It builds the pleasure inside of me with every thrust, pushing me further and further and closer and closer to that point of no return until it feels like everything else has fallen away, until-
Until it hits me. I cry out, praying to God that Lucy is still far enough away from the house that she won’t be able to hear me.
My body shudders beneath his as I grab his arms and hang on for dear life.
He lets out a low growl into my ear, plunging deep into me one last time and then stilling himself there, allowing the convulsions of my body to take him over the edge and into his release.
I feel the warm flood of his seed within me, and, on instinct, I wrap my legs around him, pulling him into me to contain every inch of him for a moment.
Our mouths crash into each others once more, and I cling to him for dear life, stars exploding at the corners of my vision and the breath tearing from my lungs. ..
And it strikes me, all at once, that I might have more reason to stay here than I first imagined.