Chapter 5 #2
"But if you want to show up at six in the morning and plant groundcover wrong until I teach you how to do it right, then yeah, Beck. You can do that."
His eyes close. Just for a second. Then open, bright.
"I love you." He says it on his knees in the dirt with soil on his face and a badly planted thyme in his hand.
"I love you, Desi. I don't know when it started.
Might've been the porch, might've been the mug, might've been the first time you called me out on my own driveway with mud on your boots.
But I love you and I'm not going to buy your forgiveness.
I'm going to earn it. With my hands in the dirt. However long that takes."
"Get up."
He stands. My hands grab his shirt. Pull.
"I love you too, you ridiculous man."
His mouth finds mine. Warm, desperate, tasting like bad coffee because of course his espresso machine broke again and he made instant.
My hands are filthy. His are worse. Dirt transfers everywhere, smearing across my jaw when he cups my face, streaking his shirt where I grip fistfuls of fabric.
His tongue strokes mine and the sound I make vibrates through both of us.
"Inside." His voice is raw.
"Your house doesn't have a bedroom yet."
"You have a bedroom."
We make it to my cabin in under a minute.
Through the door, boots kicked off, his shirt over his head before we reach the hallway.
My tank top gone. His mouth on my throat, my collarbone, teeth scraping skin.
Hands on my jeans, pulling, shoving them down.
His follow. Boxer briefs pushed off his hips.
Hard already. Thick, flushed, straining.
He lifts me against the bedroom wall. One arm under my ass, the other braced against the plaster. My legs lock around his waist. The size of him against my bare skin, the press of his cock between my thighs, makes my head fall back against the wall.
"Condom."
"Nightstand. Left drawer."
He carries me to the bed. Sets me down on the edge. But he doesn't go for the drawer yet. He kneels.
Again. On his knees again. This time on my bedroom floor, hands on my thighs, spreading them, mouth pressing against my inner knee.
Then higher. Open-mouthed kisses trailing up my thigh, slow, deliberate, beard scraping sensitive skin.
His hands grip my hips, pulling me forward to the edge of the mattress until I'm open for him.
"Three days." He says it against my thigh. "Three days without you and I forgot how to sleep."
"Beck."
"Three days of my house feeling like furniture."
His mouth reaches me. The first lick is broad, flat, from my entrance to my clit.
My hands slam back against the mattress.
The second is focused, tip of his tongue circling the swollen bud, finding the rhythm my body responds to fastest because he learned it on the first night and filed it away with the same precision he applies to everything worth understanding.
Two fingers slide inside. Curling forward, pressing the spot that makes my spine arch involuntarily. His other hand stays on my hip, thumb stroking the soft skin beside my navel. Anchoring me while his mouth works me apart.
"I missed you." He says it against my clit, the vibration of the words almost as devastating as his tongue. "Missed the way you taste. Missed your voice in the morning."
My hand finds his hair. Fists. His groan vibrates through me and my thighs start to shake.
The pressure builds fast, three days of absence compounding into a need that has no patience left.
His fingers curl harder, his tongue flattens against my clit, and the orgasm breaks me open.
My back bows off the bed. His name comes out of me ragged, loud, echoing off the walls of my small bedroom.
He doesn't stop until my hand loosens in his hair and my breathing starts to slow.
Then he rises, opens the nightstand drawer, rolls the condom on.
Climbs over me on the bed, forearms bracing on either side of my head.
The weight of him above me. The breadth of his shoulders blocking the ceiling, the morning light, everything except his face.
"Look at me."
My eyes find his. Whiskey brown. Wet at the edges. Open in a way I've never seen from a man during sex. No performance. No technique. Just him.
He pushes in slowly. Inch by inch. My mouth falls open. My legs wrap around his waist, heels pressing into his lower back. Full. Stretched. Every nerve alive.
"I love you." He pulls back. Pushes deep. "I'm gonna keep saying it."
"Then keep moving while you say it."
He does. Long strokes that build heat from the base of my spine upward.
My nails drag down his back. His forehead drops to mine.
Our breath mingles, ragged, close. One of his hands slides between us, thumb finding my clit, circling firm, matching his rhythm.
The dual sensation winds tighter with every stroke.
"Right there." Breathless. "Don't stop."
His pace increases. Deeper. Harder. The angle shifts when he hooks one hand under my knee, pushing it higher, changing the geometry in a way that makes me gasp. Every thrust drags against the spot his fingers found earlier. His thumb keeps its steady pressure on my clit.
The second orgasm builds different from the first. Slower. Deeper. Starting somewhere behind my ribs instead of between my legs. Expanding outward through my whole body until I'm shaking underneath him, fingers digging into his shoulders, unable to do anything except hold on.
"Come for me, Desi." His voice is wrecked. Jaw tight. Fighting his own release to wait for mine.
It hits from everywhere at once. My whole body locks around him.
Back arched, legs clamped tight, pulling him deeper while the orgasm rolls through me in waves that won't stop.
He follows. Buried to the hilt, grinding deep, his face pressed into my neck.
The sound he makes is low, broken, surrendered.
Silence. Breathing. His weight settling onto me. Heavy. Right.
My fingers trace the muscles along his spine without permission from my brain. Slow. Following the ridges and valleys of his back the way I'd trace a topographic map.
After cleanup he comes back to bed. Pulls me against his chest. Tucks the blanket around us. My cheek rests against his heartbeat. Slowing down. Evening out.
"Stay," I say.
His arm tightens around my waist. His mouth presses against the top of my head.
"Couldn't leave if I wanted to."
My phone buzzes on the nightstand.
Margot:
Well?????
Me:
He was planting groundcover at 6am. Wrong spacing.
Margot:
that's the most romantic thing I've ever heard
Did you fix his spacing?
Me:
Gonna take a while. He's a slow learner.
Margot:
Sure he is. Love you, cousin.
Me:
Love you too.
Setting the phone down, I curl back against Beck's chest. His breathing has gone slow and even. Asleep. In my bed, in the middle of the morning, covered in garden dirt.
The roof still leaks. The stove still clicks three times. The hot water still quits at eleven minutes.
Everything is exactly right.