Chapter 4
Chapter Four
SAM
S am pushed the thoughts from last night out of his head as Iris spoke with the bike rental attendant at Orchard House. Her smile was warm, and those dark blue eyes looked navy in the afternoon sun as they laughed. Her sweater hugged her body and he ripped his eyes away, thinking of how hard she’d breathed last night as they listened to moans. How the outline of her breasts moving in the dark room were still etched in his memory.
He shook his head to clear it and walked his bike out to the dirt trail. As they buckled their bike helmets in front of Orchard House, Iris’s face went pale.
“You okay there, Bertone? Think you can handle the wild and rugged terrain of a mile of dirt path down to the apple orchard?”
“Sure,” she said, shrugging it off.
“We can skip it, you know. Do something that doesn’t involve dead fruit on the ground and a truckload of bees.”
“No, this is part of the experience. I need to write about it.” She stared straight ahead with a serious face, psyching herself up for it.
He swallowed a chuckle. She wouldn’t appreciate him pointing out how adorable she was. “When’s the last time you rode a bike?”
She shrugged and tightened her helmet more. “I mean, college, but you know. There’s that whole saying about how you don’t die when you try it after ten years.”
Sam kicked up his kickstand and pushed off. He looked over his shoulder, waiting for Iris, and saw her feet still planted on the ground.
She stood, concentrating, staring in front of her, trying to get the courage to move forward.
“Put your feet on the pedals. C’mon, we’re losing daylight.”
“I’m coming,” she grumbled. She put one foot on the pedal and caught her balance.
She lifted the second onto the other pedal and looked triumphant, but as he watched in horror, she forgot to push forward. She slowly fell like timber into the bushes next to her.
“Push!” he called far too late as a strangled yell came from within the decorative bushes surrounding the backyard of the inn.
Don’t laugh. Don’t laugh, he thought as he biked back to her.
“Maybe try to pedal next time,” he said, hopping off of his bike. Her bike wheel slowly spun in the air, and he found her arm in the bushes, pulling her slowly to standing.
“Apparently, that metaphor is shit,” she said, a twig stuck between her helmet chin strap and her hair. She was completely frazzled but, goddamnit, pretty fucking cute.
It had always been easy to put her in the not-datable box because she’d always been with Bart, the opportunistic fucker. He’d seen a good thing sophomore year of high school and stayed with Iris through college. Sam didn’t creep on other people’s girlfriends, but now…maybe she was fair game.
“You okay?” he asked, still trying to bite back the laugh.He pulled the twig from her hair.
“Yes,” she said primly, responding as if she knew she looked ridiculous.
“That’s the slowest I’ve ever seen someone fall.” She chuckled with him, despite herself. “Why didn’t you take your foot off the pedals?”
Iris wiped the dust off of her pants. “I forgot it’s not like spin class. I’m usually clipped in.”
“Well, the last time I fell off my bike, my dad told me I had to get back on immediately because otherwise I’d be terrified of it. So, on you go.” He shooed her toward the bike still on the ground.
“But your dad’s an asshole.” She grimaced at her banana-seated enemy.
“Yeah, tell me about it,” Sam scoffed. Iris knew of what she spoke, but it turned out his asshole dad was right about this one thing.“Unfortunately it’s Larsson’s family rules.”
She grumbled as she picked up the bike and hopped on. Sam grabbed the back of her bike seat for stability.
“You’re gonna put both of your feet on the pedals while I hold you steady, and then you’re going to push. And if you need to stop again, what are we going to do?”
“Take our feet off the pedals.”
“Louder for those in the back,” he yelled.
“Take our feet off the fucking pedals,” she yelled back.
“Language, darling,” he said as an older couple walked by.
“Ugh!” was her delicate reply.
“Annnnd…aim away from the bushes!” he said, pushing her bike off as she pedaled away.
“I’m doing it!” she called with excitement, wobbling from side to side. He pedaled harder to catch up with her.
A half hour later, they wandered through the orchard as Sam snapped photos. Iris walked back from grilling an orchard worker about the apples.
“This is not an exposé, Iris,” Sam said as he focused his lens on the bikes against a tree as the sun set behind them.
“I want to add color and specificity to the article. I can’t say, ‘The apples were juicy.’ I have to say, ‘The Macintosh, in-season, Grade A apples were tart and had juicy hints of the berries grown next to them.”
“Okay, Virginia Woolf.” He changed the focus on his lens. “Either scoot into the shot or out of the shot. Your shadow is in my view.”
She scurried behind him as she snacked on an apple.
He’d already found himself taking a few candids of her as she’d spoken with the orchard worker. His lens tended to drift to her face as strands of her wavy brunette hair danced across her forehead in the breeze.
Iris had this ruddy, healthy complexion that belonged outdoors. She wasn’t made for an office. She was made to experience the world, for adventure.
“How are the photos coming?” she asked, not looking at him.
“Gorgeous,” he said, his lens again finding her face as she was backlit against the sunset. She turned around to see him and stuck her tongue out. “Or at least some of them.”
“Hungry?” She lifted their picnic supplies.
“Starving. The breakfast buffet only had grits by the time I walked down this morning.”
He unfurled the picnic blanket with a whuff and laid it on a table under the arch of two apple trees. Lazy bumble bees buzzed through fallen apples and wildflowers around them.
All in all, this was a pretty great way to earn a living.
Iris spread out their food, already picking out her pickle and putting it on his plate and grabbing his hard-boiled egg and putting it on hers.
“Hey,” he said in surprise.
Her eyebrow quirked with a knowing look. “Did you grow a love of hard-boiled eggs since the last time I saw you?”
“Surprised you remembered. That’s all,” he said, impressed. “Thanks baaaaabe .”
She smirked as he crunched into one of the pickles.
The day turned idyllic as the sun began to turn everything golden in the late afternoon.
And to think he’d woken up yesterday morning, miserable with a hangover, thinking his life was amounting to nothing. Now here he was less than 48 hours later, sitting on a bench in a beautiful orchard with a beautiful woman, getting paid to do what he loved.
The silence settled between them as they ate their early dinner. He bit into an apple that had been picked off the tree five minutes earlier. It was warm from the sun—tart, juicy, sweet.
A lot like the woman across from him.
He wanted to know where she stood. Was she still engaged? Was she getting the ring resized? Shit, maybe she was married. Didn’t some people have to get the engagement and wedding rings melted together when they got married?
“So no ring?” he said, choking on his sandwich as the question stumbled out of his mouth.
“That happens when you break off an engagement,” she said nonchalantly with a brief, sardonic smile.
Jackpot.
He swallowed, trying to play it cool.“I’m sorry. That sounds hard. How did he take it?”
She picked at her food. “He broke things off, actually.”
This time he really choked on his sandwich. It slid down into his throat like a rock.
“ He broke it off?”
She had been together with Bart since their sophomore year of high school. Bart was the human equivalent of a walking beige flag.Bart was fine, but nothing like the go-getter spitfire full of sparkle across from him.
“He never wanted to set the date,” she said, picking apart her sandwich, taking the crusts off. He loved that she still did that. “He said I was ‘pressuring him’ after five years of being engaged, and then decided to finally end it. That was two years ago.”
He’d felt some strange relief. “I can’t say I’m sorry, but it sucks he wasted your time.”
Her back straightened, a thought visibly passing over her face.
Oh shit. Did I say the wrong thing? Maybe she’s still in love with him.
“Thank you,” she said with genuine appreciation. “He did waste my time.” She looked at him with a narrowed gaze, trying to suss something out in her head—he knew that look. “Why did you agree to this gig?”
“I heard I got to hang out with a woman who hates me and thought, ‘Sounds like a neat way to spend two weeks.’”
“I don’t hate you,” she said softly with a shake of her head. “You irritate the shit out of me because you’re so competitive.”
“Just because I won our ‘how many apples can you pick into your basket as fast as possible’ competition, doesn’t make me competitive.”
“You cheated. You’re taller than me.”
“Grabbing a branch and shaking it is not cheating.”
She rolled her eyes at him as he laughed at himself, hearing the competitiveness in his tone.
She shivered as a breeze blew past them. It was cooler here than in Boston, and Iris had always been cold-natured.
“Come on.” He grabbed their trash and walked over to a nearby wastebasket. “I got all the photos I need for now. Let’s go back inside.”
She picked up her bike with a sidelong glance at him.“You still didn’t answer the question. How does a Peabody-nominated photojournalist who’s covered international conflicts find himself on a train to Vermont with little ol’ me?”
If only she knew. He sighed as he walked to his bike.
He hadn’t shot that many international assignments, actually. He’d ridden the coattails of a couple of splashy gigs. But he’d gotten tired of trying to mentally compete with his father, famed Pulitzer-prize winning author. He wanted to settle into a life that was his own rather than chase awards anymore. Maybe a role at Discover & Dwell could be it.
“Because Bertone, sometimes you want to be with the person who makes you irritated beyond reason.”
She threw a middle finger at him again as she got on her bike. Gritting her teeth and pushing off with a vengeance, she wobbled so hard that he sucked in a breath, waiting for her to crash. But he knew Iris, and she was not to be underestimated, whether it was on a last minute deadline or on an endearingly wobbly bike.
Maybe it wouldn’t be so easy to grab that full-time role after all.
* * *
A moan crawled through the air and through Sam’s skin as he lay on the cool grass under an impossibly purple sky. His cock stirred as heavy breasts pressed against his face and Sam moaned back, sliding a tongue between them. Plush and heavy, they felt luxurious. He craved more. Fuck, he’d never tasted something so perfect. Salty, like a living sea. Crashing waves and sea wind whipping around them, they intertwined together as she rode his cock up and down.
Iris’s face was twisted in delicious agony as she rode him hard, every curve bouncing so hard that he’d come if he looked any longer. Yes . She fucked like she lived—passionately. He rolled on top of her and into a feather bed in one fell swoop.
Somehow a fire crackled behind them now in a cobblestone cottage.Her tits were lifted into the air, firelight licking over them. He salivated at her dusky nipples. Licked his lips and thought only of them. Of burying his cock between them.
But she shoved his head down, and he ate, and ate, licking so she arched under him. He pinned her down, not wanting her to miss a lick. Her nails raked into his hair, keeping him in place. He was made to eat her pussy. Her tart, needy taste made his hips thrust involuntarily.
“More, Sam, more,” she chanted again and again. He sucked her clit, wanted to push her higher, make her remember him. Claim her so she’d never go back to before, wherever before was in this moment.
She was his, his, his , as he sucked harder and her cries went higher. Thick thighs clamped his ears as she broke under his tongue, until he couldn’t take it anymore.
He stood up to where she was on the editorial desk now, the setting having moved as though by magic. Her pussy was out and her skirt piled around her waist. They’d get caught so he’d have to be fast.
He grasped her ankles together in the air, playing with her pussy, sliding a finger in and out, getting her ready. She arched her back, papers sliding everywhere, but for once, she didn’t care. Just needed him like he needed her.
“Fuck me, Sam,” she pleaded. He wanted her to beg . To want it as much as he did. He circled the head of his cock at her entrance, still holding her legs in the air pressed together where anyone might walk by and see her thick, round ass hanging off of his editorial desk.
“Say it,” he growled. He pushed his cock in an inch and she squeezed.
“I…” He pinched her clit. “I always wanted it to be you,” she sobbed. And he slid into her, tight and wet.
She clenched around him, permanently. He’d live here forever now, he realized, and he grasped her thighs, pressing her calves against his face with a rapturous smile. He pulsed once, twice. “Fuuuuu?—”
Sam shot up panting out of bed. A sheen of sweat covered his body.
Where the fuck am I?
He got his bearings. Dark room. Hotel?
No, inn.
Not having sex. His cock throbbed, hard as a rock. He hated his weird, intense dreams that made no sense.
Iris slept safe and sound on the other side of the bed with a solid foot between them.
He wiped a hand down his face, leaning over to catch his breath. Jesus. H. Christ. He hadn’t had a sex dream in years . And never about someone he knew, only a vague sense of feelings and lust.
He lay back down. Maybe it’s a one-off. Just a few days since I handled things and all my hormones are fucked up because I’m living with an annoying goddess.
Closing his eyes, he tried to drift off back to sleep. But images of dream Iris riding him flashed in his brain. He’d have to learn how to handle this so it didn’t get out of hand. He generally didn’t fantasize about real people when he jerked off. Too weird when he saw them later. He needed a clear division, and his brain needed to get onboard.
He tossed and turned for an hour until he finally gave in at 4 a.m. and went to the bathroom to think of anyone but the woman beside him.