EPILOGUE
Cord
I thought I knew every inch of silence on this mountain, but the silence had changed. It wasn’t empty anymore. It was full of the sound of Poppy’s soft, rhythmic breathing and the way she sighed in her sleep when she tucked her curvy body against mine.
I lay beside her, propped up on one elbow, watching the dawn light filter through the cedar branches outside the window. I had things to do—important things—but staying here, next to her, if just for another minute was the most important thing.
She shifted, her eyes fluttering open.
“Well, hello, mountain man.” Her dark eyes were still slumbrous with sleep, but there was mischief in those dark depths.
Her hand slid under the cover, her small, warm palm finding my cock.
It was already semi-hard just by being beside her, but the second her fingers wrapped around the base, I went rock-solid.
“Why don’t we stay in bed for a little while longer, bossman?
” She sat up, the sheets falling away to reveal her heavy, perfect breasts.
She leaned down, pressing a kiss on my collarbone, her hair brushing against my stomach.
She kissed her way slowly down my chest, even as her hand started to pump me, slow and deliberate. “I’ll make it worth your time.”
She leaned lower, her breath hot against the head of my dick, her lips parting as if she were about to take me into her mouth right then and there.
Every instinct I had told me to bury my hands in her hair and push her toward my rigid length. Let her pleasure me before I buried my face between her legs. But I had three months of secret work waiting for her at the top of the ridge, and the sun was hitting its peak.
“Not yet.” I caught her chin, gently tilting her face up. My thumb brushed her lower lip. “As much as I want to see you on your knees, that sweet mouth wrapped around my cock, baby, I have something else for you.”
“Better than this?” she teased, her thumb raking over the crown of my cock, catching the bead of pre-come.
“Different,” I groaned, even as I pumped into her grasp.
Once, twice. I cursed getting out of the bed as she giggled.
I grabbed the flannel shirt and leggings she’d been wearing before I stripped them off her last night.
I tossed them to her and grabbed my own clothing.
“Get dressed. Now. Before I change my mind and keep you in this bed until next Tuesday.”
She pouted, but she dressed, grumbling about bossy mountain men the whole way out the door.
We walked down toward the greenhouses, hand in hand, the air crisp and smelling of earth and pine. A big green tractor stood near the equipment shed. I hopped up, starting the engine.
“Are you going to let me ride on your big green tractor again, Cord?” she asked, her voice full of flirty innuendo. “I really enjoyed it last time.”
Before I could answer, she was climbing onto the ladder and straddling my lap, just like last time. Her pussy pressed against the bulge in my jeans. “Tease,” she giggled.
“I’m not a tease.”
“True. If I remember correctly, you were quite proficient in driving the tractor…” she trailed off, biting my ear. “… and fucking me at the same time.”
I kept one hand wrapped around her waist and swatted her ass with the other as I moed the tractor forward. “Behave.”
“Oh, that’s no fun.” She braced both hands on my shoulders, grinding her hips against mine. “You’re awful tense. Sure you don’t want to pull over?”
“I’m driving a five-ton piece of machinery.” My arms were on either side of her, keeping her safe as my hands gripped the steering wheel behind her back. “Stop grinding on me, or we’re going to end up in the ravine.”
“Promises, promises,” she whispered, but she settled against my chest, her head tucked under my chin as we crested the final rise.
As we neared the edge of the plateau, I slowed the engine. “Close your eyes.”
“Cord—”
“Close them, Poppy. Trust me.”
She sighed but did as she was told, her long lashes resting against her cheeks.
I steered the tractor to the very edge of the ridge, where the land fell away into a natural bowl that caught the full force of the Montana sun.
I cut the engine. The silence of the mountain rushed back in, but it was different now. It was alive.
I hopped off the tractor and reached up, taking her into my arms. I walked a little ways before setting her on her feet, but I didn’t let her go.
“Okay. Open them.”
Poppy opened her eyes, and the breath left her body in a long, shaky gasp.
Below us, the entire slope was a sea of red. Tens of thousands of poppies were blooming in a riot of color, their petals delicate and bright against the rugged mountain rock. It was a defiant, beautiful explosion of life in a place that had been gray for too long.
Just like my life before her.
“You... you did this? The seeds I saw in the shed... the irrigation lines you were working on at night...”
“I wanted you to have a place that was yours,” I said, my voice thick. “I wanted you to see that you didn’t just come here to work. You came here to bloom. I planted every one of those for you, Poppy.”
She turned in my arms, her eyes shimmering with tears. “It’s the most beautiful thing anyone has ever done for me.”
“It’s just a start.” And it was. As sappy as it sounded, I wanted to give this woman the moon and the stars. Hell, the whole damn universe.
The wonder in her eyes was enough to sustain me for a lifetime, but I needed to feel her. I needed to plant myself in her right here, in the middle of the beauty I’d built for her.
I reached for the buttons of the flannel shirt, my hands steady now. I peeled it back, exposing her heavy breasts to the morning sun. I leaned down, my mouth finding her nipple, suckling deep until she let out a broken cry.
“Cord.” Her hands were frantically working at the zipper of my jeans.
I stripped her out of the leggings, my gaze traveling over the lush, wide curve of her hips and the dark, damp curls between her legs.
My clothes followed as I laid her back among the flowers, the red petals a stark contrast to her cream-colored skin.
I went down on her right there, my tongue finding her pussy, tasting the sweetness and the heat of her until she was thrashing in the flowers, her fingers digging into my shoulders.
“Please,” she sobbed. “I need you inside me.”
I didn’t make her wait. I knelt between her legs, my cock thick and throbbing, and drove home with one deep, possessive thrust. She arched her back, her pussy clenching around me so tight it was almost agony.
I moved with her, a slow, powerful rhythm that matched the swaying of the flowers around us. I watched her face—the wonder, the pleasure, the love. I wasn’t just her first anymore. I was her everything. And she was mine.
Later, as we lay there, under the vast Montana sky, I knew the mountain had finally given me its greatest treasure. The woman in my arms.
I hadn’t known I was waiting for her. That was the thing. A man doesn’t know what’s missing until it arrives. For me, it came in a dusty sedan, with a smart mouth and curves that made my hungry.
The brooding mountain man was gone. I was just a man who had finally found his home in a field of poppies.