Chapter 18
18
Ben doesn’t hesitate. There’s no worry in his gaze, no mistrust in the set of his shoulders or in the soft smile he gifts me. I lead him from the tent and into the darkening night. There is a line of rich purple on the horizon, the last vestige of day, but I am not afraid of the night. Not anymore, not when the scent of growing things is in the air. Not when the moons glow whitely in the blue-black sky, lighting our way.
We walk hand in hand, south into the plain. The grass is soft and cool, welcoming us with gentle touches.
“Where are we going?” Ben asks.
I say nothing. I can barely think over the ache of need in my core, the way I want his hands all over me. But not in a tent. Not inside.
I need him here, out here under the sky and among the grasses and the blooms.
When we’re out of sight of camp, I stop and turn to face him. He’s perfect in the moonlight, the planes of his face illuminated in pale blue. I glance down at his gun. His left hand rests there, loose and casual. Is it a habit, or doesn’t he trust me?
“Ben,” I murmur, lifting a hand to gently run my fingers down his front. His chest is firm, filling out his t-shirt so perfectly.
He smiles slowly, like something’s falling into place. The hand on his gun relaxes, and he lets it fall to the side. “Jones. What is it you wanted to show me?”
The grasses bend to us like praying congregants. Like eager souls lined up to enter paradise. They touch me, reverent, and with every brush against my legs, a ripple of desire runs through me and clenches at my core. I have never needed anything like I need Ben right now.
But he’s no longer looking at me. He’s studying the grass. “So pretty,” he says, extending a calloused hand to brush across the blades of green.
I shudder at the touch. It’s like lightning straight to my inner thighs. I’m so turned on I might explode. I can’t speak, or I’ll moan his name.
“I’ll never get over this,” he says, now caressing the grass with both hands. He bends to look more closely. “How it follows my movements. Like it’s saying hello.”
I watch, wordless, enraptured. He extends a finger in the moonlight, running it up and down one of the silver-green blades of grass, slow and gentle. As he does, the grass shivers, curling toward his hot skin. All around him, the flora bends and reaches and aches to touch him. I ache to touch him. But I can’t interrupt this.
“It’s beautiful,” he breathes. He looks out over the plain, up at the moon, then back to the undulating grass. He lets out a long breath. “God. It’s so beautiful.”
When he finally straightens and turns to look at me, my chest aches. His gaze is a reflecting pool of love, a depthless well of unconditional adoration. But is it for me, or the Planet?
“It’s probably nothing to you, a genius botanist,” he says, running a thoughtless hand over the grass. My skin heats. “You know, this Planet…”
I move closer, and he doesn’t step away. I need him, but I don’t want to frighten him away with my eagerness, not before I know he’s mine.
“The Planet?” I prompt. I’m not afraid anymore. How could I be, out here, under the endless sky?
“It’s different than I expected. I see why your mother spoke so highly of it, even though…” he swallows. “Sorry, I—”
“It’s okay.” Say it. Give yourself to me. I need you.
He shakes his head. “It’s just that I’ve never seen something this beautiful.” He’s looking right at me when he says it. “Humanity’s last hope. You know, I was nervous to come here, but…”
I lift a hand to cup his jaw.
He inhales sharply.
“But what?” I ask.
He leans down, his lips brushing mine. I feel his heartbeat through his shirt. “But it turns out I kinda love it.”
There.
My fingers tangle in his hair and I drag his mouth to mine. I can’t help the little moan that escapes me in the heated collision. I’m already soaking wet, desperate for more, but I’ll let him take his time. I don’t know what he wants from me, but I’m willing to give him everything. Every inch. And by the time he’s done, he’ll be utterly mine. And I’ll be his.
He kisses me rough and hard, like he needs to devour me now, right now. I feel exactly the same. His mouth is desperate on mine, his hands pulling me into him. I relish the press of my body to his, my breasts against his chest. Our legs interlock; hips perfectly aligned.
He takes hold of the back of my neck in one hand, holding me in place while he rolls his tongue inside my mouth. I swallow his groan, frantic with need. There are too many clothes. There is too much between us. I need his skin to meld with mine. I need him deep inside me. I need to become part of him.
As if reading my mind, he undoes my jacket, pushing at it until it falls from my shoulders and into the grass. Then he hooks his fingers under the hem of my shirt, lifting it up and over my head. “Fuck, Jones,” he mumbles, licking and nuzzling my bare breasts with his mouth while fumbling at my belt. “You’re so beautiful. I need to touch you. I have to feel you. I need to know how wet you are for me.”
I bite the inside of my mouth. He finally gets my pants unzipped and shoves them down to my knees. He doesn’t waste any time, sliding his hand between my legs, pressing his fingers to the underside of my panties. I can’t help the way my hips jerk into his touch, just as he groans low in his throat.
“God, Jones, you are wet for me. You’re soaking.”
I respond by rolling my hips down onto his hand, greedy for friction. Please. Give it to me. Give yourself to me .
“Shh, shh,” he murmurs sweetly, pushing my panties aside with rough fingers. He slides one finger up and into me, curling it slowly at the knuckle, and I could scream at the sudden indescribable pressure. “Is that what you wanted?” he asks. Then, quietly, as if to himself, his finger working slowly in and out: “You’re so tight. So fucking tight, Jones. I knew you’d be.”
The plain ripples like a storm-torn sea. It’s true night now. The line of purple on the horizon has faded and gone. There’s nothing but moonlight and the blazing hot need at my core, this desperate ache for Ben, for all of him, until there’s nothing left.
He slides another finger in to join the first, and I arch my back in white-hot pleasure. If he wasn’t holding me up with his free arm, I would be gone. I would melt into the soil and rot, pushed to the edge of desire for eternity by the maggots and worms in my carcass.
“Jones,” he orders. “Look at me.”
I can’t help but obey. I’ll let him take the lead, let him march willingly into me until we’re one, until we’re both drowning deep where no one can save us. His gaze holds me with a warmth, a want, that I’ve never felt before except with Ben. I’ll do anything he wants.
The grass undulates around us, dancing, whipped into a frenzy that mirrors ours. It strokes the backs of my thighs with feather-light touches. The coil of pleasure in my core grows to an impossible ache.
“I have been mooning over you,” Ben rumbles, breathless, plunging a third finger deep inside me as I cling to him, my arms thrown around his neck, “since day one.”
He kisses me like it’s the last thing he’ll do before he dies. It’s a relentless, euphoric crash of lips and teeth. He pauses just long enough to say, “I wanted you before I even met you.”
I feel like I’m floating. The grasses ripple around me, coiling at my thighs, reaching up, caressing me alongside Ben’s fingers. And then his thumb brushes my clit, once — fuck — twice — I’m so close — and then he presses down, holding pressure there, his fingers still deep inside me, the grass stroking my hot skin, and I nearly lose it altogether.
“Wait,” I gasp against him, pulling away.
The night goes cold for an instant. The grass recedes. Our gazes meet, and I realize what Ben thinks — that I changed my mind.
“I’m sorry,” he rumbles. “Are you—”
“Shh,” I say. “I want you inside me when I come.”
His already lust-filled gaze darkens further. He engulfs me again, his mouth on my neck, my ear, nipping at my breasts. As if spurred by his action, the grass surges around me again, sweeping along my most intimate parts, and I groan in barely contained ecstasy.
I fumble at Ben’s pants, the belt buckle clanking as I pull it free. I unzip his fly and pull down his briefs. His cock springs free, gorgeous, and brownish pink. He groans my name as I wrap a hand around his length, testing his girth. He’s perfect. I look up and see that he’s watching me, the want in his eyes incomprehensibly hot.
“Jones—” he groans.
I need him. I need him to fuck me. I need him inside me, filling me up. I want him dripping out of me, hot and thick. He’s mine . Grasses reach for us, caressing us. Touching Ben in the ways I can’t with only two hands. The gentle blades of green coil up against me, teasing my entrance, and I bite back a moan of pleasure.
This is how I’ll have him. Here, in the plain, under the moons and the sky.
I kick off my boots and pants, and then Ben lowers me until I’m straddling him, naked and soaking. The plain pulses around our bodies, watching, participating. I lower myself over Ben’s erection, the unspeakable sensation of his tip at my entrance, teasing. I’m taut and ready.
Down here, my knees in the dirt, it’s all too easy for the grass to curve toward us, to gently stroke our skin. I feel soft pressure against my breasts, and I know it’s the plain. The Planet.
I lower myself onto him slowly, so slowly. The slide of him inside me is so overwhelming. He fills me up so perfectly that I can’t see, can’t breathe, can’t think.
Ben’s thumbs brush my nipples, then his mouth, his teeth, and I throw my head back. My hair mingles with the green all around us. This is where I belong. I feel like I was born here, and I’ll die here. He’s nearly bottomed out inside me, our bodies moving together in perfect unison. My wet core tightens as our fucking grows frenzied. He licks my nipple, and I gasp.
The grass convulses all around us as my climax approaches.
Ben repeats my name like a prayer.
“Jones,” like I’m a goddess.
“Jones,” like I’m his world.
“You take me so well,” he praises as my ecstasy begins to crest. “You’re so good,” he breathes, and everything at my core begins to tighten in all-consuming pleasure. “So perfect. So perfect.”
All of my pleasure, my pent-up want, this ache I’ve borne for Ben for over a year, tightens to a singularity. My vision blacks out.
Darcie bathes in the moonlight. She’s at the edge of a shallow river, up to her hips in the water. Silver-blue light glints off the slow drift of the river’s current. She’s completely naked, her breasts heavy with desire. Her eyes are closed, one hand rolling a nipple between two fingers, the other in the water, down between her legs.
Her breaths are shallow. Short, sharp gasps fall from between her full lips. She bites down on her lower lip, like the pleasure is too much. Like it might drown her.
“Yes,” I gasp, and I feel Ben and the Planet inside me, beneath me, all around me. Ben is close, too. So close.
Darcie . Come with us .
Darcie lets out a long, breathy moan, just as I lose control. I’m rising with the headiest pleasure I’ve ever felt, an orgasm that spans between souls, between stars.
As I ride the wave, Darcie disappears beneath the water.
I’m crying out, and I don’t know whose name I’m gasping. Ben’s, Darcie’s, or something else entirely. I’m under the water with Darcie. I’m in the river, rolling my hips. Ben is deep, deep inside me, just about to come, his hands gripping my hips, guiding me, holding me there at the apex of perfect pleasure.
Darcie’s back arches as she sinks to the riverbed, her hand still between her legs.
I scream, undone, overwhelmed, on fire , as Darcie sinks into the mud. As she, too, screams, her face a twisted rapture. Down, down, her body descends as if the ground is opening up to take her into its womb, a birth reversed.
As she disappears below the mud, her expression is the purest bliss.
I shudder as the last of my orgasm rolls through me. And when I open my eyes, Ben is crying out, digging bruises into my hips with his fingers as he fills me, overflowing. The plain waves all around us, brushing us with want, and my skin is on fire.
I want Ben like this, always.
After a time, the world fades into focus.
My face is buried in the crook of Ben’s neck, his pulse still racing. He smells like sweat and soil. The back of my neck prickles. I sit up, still straddling him, his cock still deep inside me. I splay a hand on his chest to hold myself steady, sucking in a breath.
“Ben,” I murmur.
“Mmm?” he mumbles, still blissed out on sex, still hard. He reaches up as if to touch my jaw with languid fingers and pauses. His gaze looks past me, to the grass all around us.
Only it’s not just grass. It’s a blaze of moonlit flowers.