Jake Marleigh
Gravel crunches underfoot, birdsong fills the air and everything else is silent apart from their breathing.
The woody and sweet aroma of lavender dances around them as they walk through the field, late summer’s dusky sun beating on their backs.
They’re walking in step with one another, close enough that their arms occasionally brush, nervous glances stolen sideways.
Belle tries to keep her face neutral but the flush is already creeping up her neck.
She hears him inhale beside her and feels herself wait.
But he says nothing. She continues forward, counting the steps and the thuds in her chest. Jake brushes his hand through his hair, lost for words but racking his brain for something, anything, to say – he’s anxious that the date is ending and neither of them is doing anything to stop it.
Belle stumbles over a rock and Jake grabs her waist, catching her mid-fall, and now as the heat between her legs grows, she allows herself to face him.
‘This is …’ Belle starts.
‘Yeah,’ Jake replies, his free hand reaching up to move a strand of hair from her face.
He doesn’t pull back. He stays there, thumb resting under her jaw, and he looks at her the way people look at things they don’t want to forget – slowly and like he has all the time in the world.
Like he isn’t going anywhere. She can feel her pulse where his thumb rests, how it throbs, how it’s giving her away.
‘Why do I feel so nervous around you?’ she says, barely above a whisper. The eye contact is undoing something within her.
‘I’m the awkward one, who keeps making stupid jokes to impress you,’ he admits.
‘I hadn’t noticed they were stupid.’ She grins.
Everything goes quiet. Even the birds seem to have muted their calls. Belle and Jake stand there, very close, neither of them moving. The lavender is warm around them, and she is acutely aware of every inch of the distance between them. How much of it remains and how little it would take …
Jake breaks, his voice deeper than Belle has heard before, almost pained, whispering, ‘I don’t think I can keep pretending that I’m not—’
She doesn’t let him finish; she can’t contain herself anymore.
She closes the space between them, wraps her hands around his neck and kisses him.
The dampness between her legs grows. Their breathing gets increasingly heavier, and Belle pushes herself against him desperately. Jake senses the shift and pulls back.
‘Do you?’ he whispers.
‘Yes,’ she moans.
He takes her hand and leads her just off the path, through the rows of lavender to their side.
She watches as he removes the light shirt he has been wearing and places it on the ground, making a bed in a patch of lavender, surrounded by blooms but hardly hidden. He plants himself down, hungry eyes staring up, and says, ‘Come here.’
Belle crawls on top of his lap and straddles him, kissing gently at first and then more hurriedly, hungrier.
Her hips begin to move against his without her realising.
She feels the swell of him through the layers between them – her skirt, his jeans – and she doesn’t even care about acting desperate now; she can’t contain herself as she rocks against him.
Jake slides his hands under the trim of her top and lifts it slowly, over her head, and in that moment she’s the freest she’s ever felt.
Jake kisses her chest, holding her breast in his palm, circling her nipple, which she feels harden under his touch.
Without warning and with an arm still around her waist, Jake flips her around and places her on her back, her hair tangled in purple lavender.
Her skirt has risen and Jake looms over her, planting kisses on her chest. ‘You are so beautiful,’ he whispers as she stares up at the sky, feeling exposed yet without a care, her fingers running through his hair.
Jake’s kisses reach her stomach and his eyes find hers as his hands brush her inner thighs.
She watches him, wide-eyed, has to hold back her moans as he cups her with his palm, feels the heat of his hand through the cotton of her knickers.
He pulls the fabric aside. She hears his breath catch as he lowers his head and kisses her, slowly at first, then slips two fingers gently in – and her eyes roll back, mouth open, back arching as he works them deeper.
‘I want you,’ she whispers.
He doesn’t surface. She feels the groan against her before she hears it, low and deep, between the licks and her stuttered moans. She reaches down, latches on to a crease of his top with her fingers and pulls. He emerges from between her legs, lips wet, eyes dark.
‘I want you now,’ she whimpers.
He moves over her. She watches him unbuckle his jeans, watches him emerge, and the sight of him – finally, all of him – makes her breath leave her entirely.
He lowers his body and enters her, slowly, and then … Belle feels whole.
His elbows find the ground either side of her quivering body, his hands cradle her face and they look at each other, eyes hardly blinking. He moves deeper and she comes apart underneath him, her legs shaking, the lavender crushed beneath them, the scent of it enveloping them.
Belle thinks it’s ironic that the most passionate sex of her life so far is happening surrounded by lavender, a scent set to soothe. She worries it’ll evoke the feel of Jake deep within her, but that isn’t a bad thing. It’s something she’d like to be reminded of forever.
He collapses next to her, hair stuck to his forehead, and she curls towards him, skirt still lifted, her womanhood throbbing, still catching her breath.
‘I love you,’ she whispers as he pants beside her.