Epilogue
The tent went up in about forty-five seconds.
That was her time, not mine. She'd gotten good at it—better than good. She could pitch, stake, and fly the same tent that had beaten her senseless five years ago faster than most people I'd hiked with.
"Still got it," Stacia said, popping the last stake into the ground. She stepped back, hands on her hips, and looked at me like she expected applause.
"Pole sleeve went left to right," I said.
"Pole sleeve always goes left to right." She wiped her forehead with the back of her hand. "Wyatt wanted to come, by the way. He threw a fit when I dropped him at your mom's."
"He's two. He throws a fit when his cracker breaks in half."
"He sat in his high chair for ten minutes this morning, staring at his oatmeal like he was reading it."
"He was assessing the situation."
"He was waiting for me to put brown sugar on it."
Same clearing. Same flat patch off the logging road, same rhododendron wall, same hardwoods.
Late July again, the air thick and sweet with honeysuckle and warm pine.
We came back every year—just the two of us.
The anniversary trip, she called it, though it never fell on the exact date.
Close enough. The woods didn't keep a calendar.
Stacia's graphic design business had taken off. She'd been one year from finishing her degree when she walked away from it, moved to Wildwood Valley, and started picking up freelance work within weeks.
Her mother brought up the diploma every Thanksgiving. Stacia still didn't regret it. She was good at her job. Better than good. She was the kind of good that came from finally doing something that was hers.
The bucket list was framed on the wall in our cabin, right by the front door. She'd never crossed anything else off. She didn't need to. The list was complete—not because she'd done everything on it, but because she'd stopped needing it. She knew how to want things now. She did it every day.
I strung the bear hang while she laid the sleeping bag out flat—same spot, middle of the clearing, under the open sky. When she was done, she walked over and leaned her shoulder into mine.
"I want another one," she said.
I looked at her. "Another tent? One's plenty."
She elbowed me. "Another baby."
My hand found the small of her back. She was watching the tree line, where the first fireflies were starting to drift up from the ground in slow gold pulses.
"Yeah?" I said.
"Yeah."
I pressed my mouth to her temple. "We do have the place to ourselves."
She turned her face up to me. Same eyes, same mouth, same expression I'd seen in the dark the first night—open and unguarded and sure.
"That was the idea," she said.
I kissed her slow and deep, tasting the salt on her lips and the faint sweetness of the lemonade we’d shared earlier. She melted into me instantly, her hands sliding up my chest, fingers curling into my shirt like she still couldn’t believe this was real after five years.
I turned her around in my arms until her back pressed against my front, her ass nestled perfectly against my already-hard cock.
“I have an idea,” I whispered into her ear.
One arm banded across her chest while my other hand dipped beneath the waistband of her thin shorts and panties.
She was soaked. My fingers slid through her slick folds, circling her swollen clit before dipping lower to push two fingers inside her tight heat.
Stacia moaned, low and needy, her head falling back against my shoulder.
“That’s it, baby,” I whispered, lips brushing her neck as I curled my fingers and stroked that spot that always made her shake. “Let me feel you.”
She rocked against my hand, grinding her ass back against my erection in desperate little circles.
Every roll of her hips dragged her soft cheeks along my cock through my shorts, teasing me mercilessly.
I was so hard it hurt, throbbing against her as I worked her closer to the edge.
Her breathing turned ragged, little gasps and whimpers spilling out into the humid night air.
“Duff…oh…oh,” she moaned, her voice breaking.
Her hand came down to cover mine, pressing my fingers deeper as she rode them. I could feel her pussy starting to flutter, tightening around me in rhythmic pulses.
“Come on, Stacia,” I growled against her ear. “Let go. I want to feel you come all over my fingers.”
She shattered with a sharp cry, thighs clamping together around my hand as her orgasm ripped through her.
Her whole body trembled against me, hips jerking, soft broken moans falling from her lips while her pussy clenched and fluttered wildly.
I kept stroking her through it, drawing it out until she was whimpering and oversensitive.
When she finally sagged back against me, I withdrew my hand and turned her to face me again.
We stripped each other in a heated rush—her tank top and bra, my shirt, her shorts and panties, my own shorts and boxers—until nothing was left between us.
Naked under the summer sky, skin glowing with sweat, she took my hand and led me to the sleeping bag spread out in the middle of the clearing.
Instead of lying down, she dropped to her hands and knees, arching her back and looking over her shoulder at me with that bold, hungry look that still wrecked me every single time.
“I want you to fuck me like this,” she said, voice husky.
I groaned at the sight of her—ass up, back dipped, pussy glistening and ready. My cock throbbed painfully as I stroked myself once, twice, then stepped forward and lined up.
I pushed into her in one slow, deep thrust, burying myself to the hilt in her tight, wet heat. Stacia moaned loudly, pushing back to take every inch.
“Damn, you feel perfect,” I rasped, gripping her hips as I started fucking her in long, steady strokes.
The sound of skin meeting skin mixed with the cicadas, her soft cries rising every time I filled her. Her back arched deeper with every thrust.
After a while, she nudged upward, rising onto her knees so her back pressed against my chest. I wrapped one arm around her, holding her tight while my other hand found her clit again, rubbing tight circles as I drove up into her.
“Right there—Duff, please—” she gasped.
I felt her start to tighten again, her pussy gripping me like a vice.
My own orgasm barreled toward me, heat exploding down my spine.
I buried my face in her neck and growled her name as I came hard, pulsing deep inside her while she clenched and milked every drop from me, her second orgasm crashing through her at the same time.
We collapsed together onto the sleeping bag in a sweaty, trembling heap, her back still to my chest, my cock still buried inside her as we caught our breath. The fireflies drifted above us, the night air finally starting to cool against our overheated skin.
The heat held on past midnight the way it always did in these mountains. The fireflies were still going—lighting the rhododendron the same way they had the night I found her fighting a tent she couldn't beat.
Soon, Stacia was asleep against me, her breathing slow and even. I listened to the creek and the cicadas and the woods doing their night sounds, the barred owl calling from somewhere on the ridge.
Same clearing. Same woman. Everything else, bigger. Fuller. More than I'd known to want.
I wasn't going anywhere.