10. Flint
Ten
Flint
R emember her by? Just like that, I slam back down to earth with all the force of a burning comet. I don’t want to remember Marigold—I want her by my side for every day of my life. I want my ring on her finger and her thighs clamped permanently around my skull like earmuffs, and I want to bring her coffee on our deck every morning.
Marigold smiles up at me, pink-cheeked and breathless, her bare chest rising and falling as water droplets streak down her body. I’m blocking most of the spray, but she’s still getting rained on down there, and Christ, she’s so beautiful that it’s hard to look at her. Can’t believe what she just did for me, and how good it felt.
That damp, mussed hair—a darker shade of blonde when it’s wet. Those freckles and those plump pink lips and those eyes. Those big, blue eyes that haunt me whenever I’m alone. I don’t want the memory of this woman, I want the real thing.
“What?” My head crackles with static, while my heartbeat has slowed way down. Each anguished thump rattles my ribs, while the hot shower pounds against my back. “What do you mean, when you’re gone? You’re leaving?”
Marigold’s smile fades. She shifts her weight where she’s still kneeling at my feet, her fingers twisting together in her lap. “Well… yeah. Eventually. That’s what tourists do, right?”
And I know she’s not playing games or trying to punish me for my careless words. She’s not that type. It’s worse than that—Marigold has really taken what I said to heart.
Fuck. Me.
Just a tourist. Those are the stupid words I hurled at her earlier, when she’d come out looking for me in the middle of a mountain storm, risking her own hide to make sure I was safe. She crashed into me on that dark trail, so small and vulnerable in my arms, and I lost my damn mind.
Yes, I was so worried for her that my brain shut down. Yes, I’d have died if anything happened to Marigold.
But that’s no excuse for what I said—and now my dream woman is talking about moving on, leaving me behind in this valley to mourn what could have been.
“No.”
The word rasps out of me, and now we’ve got matching husky throats. What a pair. Smacking the shower off, I lean down to help Marigold to her feet, scanning her body for injuries one more time. Need to be sure.
“But—”
“No.” Leading Marigold out of the shower, I pluck her towel off the hook and wrap it tightly around her body. It’s no good warming her up only to let her stand around shivering now.
“No, tourists don’t leave?” Marigold scrubs a droplet of water off her eyebrow, her face scrunched up with how confusing I’m being. The steam’s thick in this room, and I can’t breathe. So long as she’s leaving me, I’ll never breathe right again.
“No, you’re not a tourist.” Marigold sighs and looks away. I catch her chin and turn her back to me. “You’re not just some person passing through Starlight Ridge, Mari. You’re mine. ”
And maybe this little speech would be more impressive if I weren’t naked as the day I was born, but damn it, I’m making do. Can’t waste another single second of time with Marigold thinking… what she thinks.
“Yours,” she says flatly, fiddling with a loose thread on the towel. Her shoulders sag. “While I’m here, anyway.”
“No.” Lord give me strength, because it’s not Marigold’s fault that she’s having trouble believing me right now. I’m the one who stomped around all summer without saying a word about how I feel, just hoping she’d figure it out by osmosis. I’m the one who screwed everything up when we were finally making progress. “You’re mine, for as long as you want to be. For as long as you’ll have me.”
Marigold’s laugh is strangled. “Flint, what are you saying?”
“Marry me.” The words tumble so easily from my mouth, and they’re unplanned, but I don’t take them back. Not when they feel so right, so good, and hearing them out loud makes the tension bleed from my shoulders. Why hide how I feel? Why try to play it cool? I’ve tried that for the last few weeks, and now Marigold’s talking about leaving. “Marry me and stay. That’s what I’m saying.”
Her chin wobbles. My little artist looks like she doesn’t know whether to laugh, punch my shoulder, or cry.
“That’s insane,” she says, her toes scrunching against the bathmat.
“Maybe.”
“People will say we’re crazy.”
I nod. “They surely will.”
“You barely know me.”
Fuck that. Drawing Marigold against my chest, I wrap my arms around her body and kiss the top of her head. “Yes I do.”
Because sure, there are details I don’t know yet, and surprises left to uncover—but I know Marigold. When we first laid eyes on each other all those months ago, something deep inside me sighed with relief, already knowing that she would be my home.
“Oh my god,” she mumbles now, letting me lead her out of the steamy bathroom and over to the sofa. The bed might be more comfortable, but the sofa’s near the fire. Warmth comes first. “Oh my god. I can’t believe we’re doing this.”
A smile breaks over my face, my cheeks aching with relief. I bundle my girl down onto the sofa, dragging a knitted blanket off one arm to toss it over her legs. “Is that a yes?”
Marigold presses her lips together and nods. She’s squirming on the sofa, fidgeting with nerves and excitement, and when our eyes clash—lightning strobes outside the window.
“I love you.” On second thought, I tear that blanket away and throw it at the wall. The towel follows, because fuck bundling up in layers to keep warm. That’s what skin-to-skin contact is for. “Christ, I love you so much. More than I ever thought possible. Come here, sweetheart.”
Marigold sniffles and smiles, but she’s shoving at me too, pushing me to sit down on the sofa and let her crawl into my lap. That weight settling over my thighs anchors me to the moment; lets me live in this dream. “Seriously, Flint. I’ve never seen you this chatty.”
Yeah, well, turns out I’ve got a lot to say—to Marigold, anyway. Thunder rumbles outside the cabin, rattling the walls and drowning out my heartfelt confessions to everything but her ears. I tell her how wrecked I was the first time I saw her; the way I’ve barely thought about anything else but her for months; the way she’s woken me up and made me feel alive again.
When I’m done pouring out my heart and soul, Marigold beams, reaching between us to notch my hard length at her entrance. She’s slick already, hot and wet and inviting, and it takes every ounce of my willpower not to thrust inside her already.
Don’t you dare , I tell myself. Not gonna rush this moment for anything.
“Yes,” Marigold declares, the fire crackling behind her. She’s bright and happy and calm, like tonight’s drama never happened at all. “Yes, you big grump. I’ll marry you and stay.”
But we both hold our breath as Marigold sinks down on my cock. Both groan and gasp and grip each other tight, reveling in how goddamn good it feels, how perfectly we fit, how this thing building between us is a force of nature, as strong as the storm crashing against the mountainside.
Marigold’s hips roll, her knees wedged into the sofa cushions on either side of me, and with every drag of her body along my shaft, my gut clenches tighter and my nerves sing out.
So good.
So electric. So right.
She feels it too, especially when I find her clit with my thumb, rubbing that sensitive bud until she tosses her head back with a cry, slamming harder and faster down onto my lap. Frenzied and wild and so, so perfect.
“No more running into storms,” I grit out, sweat trickling down my spine as I thrust up into the tightest heaven. My heart booms in my chest.
Marigold grins up at the ceiling, and her nails dig into my shoulders. “We’ll see.”
And I growl and grab her hips, slamming so deep inside that she cries out, while Marigold laughs and pants and gives as good as she gets. If this is how we settle scores from now on, I’ll have to tease her more often.
“Come inside me,” Marigold gasps, playing her trump card, as white static fills my brain. I rub her clit in steady circles, pulse racing in my wrists, my throat, my cock, until her body flutters around me and clamps down hard. Thank Christ.
There’s barely any time to celebrate the victory—I’m coming so hard it hurts, my insides wrenched, filling my girl up with long, primal spurts until it spills out of her and drips on my thighs, while she gasps and bucks and moans my name. Shuddering on top of my lap as she jerks with pleasure.
Our bodies have locked together so tightly, it’ll be a wonder if we ever come apart.
But hey… maybe I never want to.
* * *
Two years later
“Move your elbow a little. Just, like, an inch to the left.”
The spring breeze ruffles my hair as I obey.
“Okay. So now… maybe look up? And smile?”
The sunshine this morning is bright and dazzling, and I can feel the awkwardness of my expression as I attempt a squinting smile up at the clouds.
Marigold snorts. “No, forget the smile. Go back to the broody default.”
Now that I can do. Awkward smile dropping away, I scowl up at the clouds like they’ve made a mess of my bar.
“That’s it,” my wife whispers, her pencil scratching at her sketchbook. The breeze catches the pages and tugs at the corners, making them flap, but she’s used to drawing outside by now, pinning the pages in place with the side of her hand. Marigold’s a mountain pro.
We’re on the deck of our cabin, two mugs of coffee steaming away on the low wooden table between us. Birds flit between trees all around, visiting the feeders I keep stocked in the branches. The sun’s warm and bright, the sky is vivid blue, and it’s another day where this mountainside is so goddamn beautiful that my insides ache.
There are a lot of those days lately. When I mentioned that to Marigold the other day, she laughed and said maybe it was all a change in perspective.
Could be true—because nothing, not even the rugged landscape, is more beautiful than the woman curled on the bench seat opposite me. A few months into her pregnancy, Marigold’s bump is just starting to show, but it’s still small enough that she can fold up her knees and draw in that cramped little ball position. Her blonde hair is braided over one shoulder, and her mouth twists as she concentrates.
“If someone hikes up that path and finds you sketching me with my shirt off, they’re gonna think it’s a weird sex thing.” A bee buzzes past my ear, and my jaw ticks but I don’t move to swat it away. Not when Mari’s sketch is only half done.
“Maybe it is a weird sex thing.” My wife smirks down at her sketch. “Time will tell.”
Heat moves through me at that, slow and languid, but I don’t move a muscle, not even when my cock starts to harden in my jeans. She can tease me now, but I’ll be the one laughing later when I’ve wrung three orgasms out of her in a row and she’s reduced to a quivering mess.
“Don’t draw my bulge,” I say.
Marigold’s laugh is light and musical—my favorite sound in the whole world. “Don’t pop a boner when I sketch you, then.”
My throat clears loudly. “You flirted with me.”
“Did I? That doesn’t sound right.”
Sunshine glints gold in Marigold’s hair, and she smiles happily as she sketches me for the thousandth time. By some miracle, she’s not bored of drawing me yet, and you know what? I hope she never is.
Because this is it: the spring flowers blooming, the fresh mountain breeze, the dramatic peaks and the cotton wool puffs of cloud high above. Our cabin, our deck, our coffees. Our life.
This is the top of the world.
* * *
Thanks for reading Pushed to the Peak! I hope you liked it. :)