20. Forrest
TWENTY
Forrest
I hadn’t been back to Miller’s Bluff since before Sophie died.
That night, we drove out to the spot where me and my twin brother Emmett tried weed for the first time and looked up at the stars. Emmett had cried that night—said he missed our parents.
I’d told Sophie all of that as we lay down on a blanket and stared up into space.
And now I was going that direction again…this time with Willa.
She held my hand as we drove up the hill, past the springs and waterfalls that ultimately fed Holt Creek.
The bluff had been named for the mill that had been here once—a waterfall crashed down from it, into a pool where it was nice to swim in the summers.
Willa was just starting to show, her belly slightly swollen under her long blue dress.
I’d told her what this place meant to me.
“You good?” she asked. “We can turn around.”
“Yeah, I’m good,” I said. “Just…do you mind if I talk about her?”
“Not at all,” she said. “I wish I could know her.”
I let out a long breath.
“This is…this is a spot where a lot of stuff has happened,” I said.
“Sophie—I never liked to talk about my family, and she insisted on reconnecting with them. I’d run as far as I could from Holt Creek when I went to college—not because they were ever unkind, just because I’d come here first when everything was so raw—and this was one of our first visits back. ”
I paused, took a long turn around the hill.
“Aunt Peg loved her,” I said. “Guess she gets along with everyone, though. But…it felt good. And it felt hollow too, because I never got to introduce her to my mom.”
Another pause. Willa was still listening.
“Sophie never actually met my brother Emmett. He ran even further than I did.” I glanced at her. “I hope you’ll get to meet him.”
Willa’s mouth twisted in a smile. “I’d be pretty offended if he didn’t at least make the effort, given I’m gonna have his niece in about…oh, six months?”
“Damn straight.”
I laughed, and it felt easy. I hadn’t laughed like that much at all before Willa showed up.
The truck crested the hill and the bluff opened up in front of us—the limestone shelf jutting out over the dark valley, the waterfall a white thread in the moonlight below, and above it all the Hill Country sky reminding us just how small we were.
I backed into a spot in the little lot at the end of the road—there were trails around here, swimming holes, the works—and we just looked up.
“It’s so beautiful,” she breathed.
I wasn’t looking at the sky; I was looking at her. “Don’t I know it.”
I got out of the truck and rounded the hood, opening her door for her. She slid out into my arms and we moved to the back of the truck, where I’d stashed a rolled-up blanket just for this purpose.
I climbed into the bed first, unrolled the blanket, then reached out my hand.
“Come on up,” I offered.
She took my hand and joined me.
We lay down together, her tucked against my side, the sky enormous above us.
"Tell me more about Sophie," she said. "Something you haven't told me yet."
I thought about it.
"She used to talk to strangers," I said.
"In line at the grocery store, at gas stations, anywhere.
Full conversations. I used to get so impatient and she'd just—" I shook my head.
"She'd get back in the car knowing this stranger's entire life story.
Their kids' names. What they were worried about.
" I paused. "She said everyone was carrying something and the least you could do was let them set it down for a minute. "
Willa was quiet for a moment.
“Is it weird that I miss her?” she asked.
I laughed, even though it hurt. “Well…given you didn’t know her—”
She propped herself up enough to look at me. “I know you,” she said. “And she’s in here.” Her hand splayed out over my chest. “So I know her.”
I reached up and pulled her down for a kiss.
I didn’t want to overwhelm her…just wanted her to know how much it meant to me. That she wanted to know Sophie through me, that she wasn’t asking me to forget or ignore the woman I’d once loved.
Sophie wasn’t going anywhere.
Willa wasn’t either.
She made a soft sound against my mouth and settled closer, her hand still on my chest. It was strange…
the thought struck me, not for the first time, that Sophie would have loved her.
Would have teased me. Would have said something sharp and funny about the fact that it took me three years and the strangest possible circumstances to find my way back to wanting something.
I kissed Willa harder.
She pulled back from the list long enough to look at me, her eyes hooded now, nearly silver in the moonlight.
Then her hand started moving.
Down my chest…across my stomach. To the waistband of my jeans.
“Willa—” I started.
She paused. “You don’t want to?”
“I want,” I said, laughing. “Trust me. I just—” Her fingers found my zipper and my brain shorted out for a second. “Are you sure? Out here?”
She bit her lip. “Forrest…this is on the list. Don’t you remember?”
I snorted. “Hard to forget.”
“So…under the stars. And in the truck. Two birds with one stone, right?”
“You planned this, didn’t you?” I asked.
“Not planned so much as realized I could take advantage of an opportunity,” she said. “You gonna make me ask twice?”
“No,” I said. “Absolutely not.”
She grinned and I sat up and yanked my shirt off. Willa was pulling her skirt up her hips, taking her panties off—tossing them in the truck bed. I needed to remind myself to get them so they didn’t end up on the highway somewhere along the way.
I pulled her into my lap, and then I felt her…grinding against my cock, my hands on her hips, her belly between us.
Fucking hell, she was so fucking pretty.
I was so goddamn lucky. And I’d never, ever felt lucky.
“Hi,” she whispered, resting her forehead against mine.
“Hi yourself,” I whispered back.
Then I reached between us…lined myself up.
Thrust inside.
Willa’s breath caught in her throat as she sank down on me, my own eyes sliding shut at the tight clench of her wet pussy.
“Look at you,” I rasped. “Couldn’t even wait to get home.”
She bit her lip, rolling her hips…pulled herself up, then buried my cock inside her again. “You said especially the truck.”
“I did.” I thrust upward and she gasped. “Didn’t say anything about being in a public parking lot.”
“There’s nobody here.”
“But there could be.” I gripped her hips and set a slower pace than she wanted, felt her frustrated little moan vibrate against my throat. “You’re bad…fucking your fiancé out in the open where anyone could drive up at any moment.”
“Forrest—”
“Taking my cock like this.” I thrust deeper and she arched back, one hand braced on the bed beside her, completely unguarded. “Pregnant and needy and begging.”
She laughed breathlessly. “You brought me here.”
“I did.” I pulled her back down to meet me and felt her clench. “Best decision I ever made.”
She stopped laughing.
Her hips found the rhythm she wanted and I let her have it, watching her move against the Hill Country sky—her hair loose, her belly just showing, her face gone slack and open in the moonlight—and I gripped her hips and helped her along and thought that I had been half-dead for three years and she had fixed that without even trying.
"You feel so good," I said low. "Every single time."
"Forrest—" Breathless. Her nails in my shoulders.
"Right here." I thrust up hard and she gasped. "Keep going. Don't stop."
She didn't stop.
She rode me slow and deep, taking her time the way she did everything now—like she was allowed to have it, like she'd decided it was hers and wasn't giving it back. I watched her face and kept one hand at her hip and brought the other up to her breast and felt her breath hitch.
"That okay?" I asked.
"More than okay," she managed. "Don't—don't stop doing that."
"I'm not stopping anything." I rolled her nipple between my fingers and felt her clench around me and bit back a groan. "You're going to make this very difficult for me."
"Good," she said.
I laughed low. "Brat."
She grinned and did it again, clenching tight, watching my jaw go hard. I gripped her hip and thrust up and the grin dissolved into something else entirely.
"There it is," I said.
"Shut up," she breathed.
"Make me."
She leaned down and kissed me hard and I kissed her back…
and we found the rhythm again, deeper this time, both of us chasing it, the truck bed warm under us and the night warm around us and the waterfall running somewhere below and none of it mattering except her weight in my lap and her mouth on mine.
She pulled back gasping.
"Forrest—I need—"
"I know what you need." I slid my hand between us, found her clit, watched her whole body jerk. "Right there?"
"Yes—yes—"
"I've got you." I kept my thumb moving, kept thrusting up to meet her, watched her come apart degree by degree. "Look at you. Six months pregnant and out here taking everything I've got." I pressed harder and she cried out. "Best thing I've ever seen."
"I swear to God if you stop—"
I thrust harder and felt her start to shake. "Come on, Willa June. Give it to me."
She came with her head thrown back and her fist in my hair and a sound that disappeared into the Hill Country dark, long and rolling, her whole body shuddering through it.
I kept my hand on her and worked her through every second of it until she collapsed against my chest, still clenching around me, breathing in pieces.
"Forrest," she said against my throat.
"Yeah."
"Your turn."
We were both laughing as I flipped her over, rolling her onto her back…looked at her in the moonlight, with those cornflower blue eyes.
As I fucked her so hard I couldn’t see straight.
“Willa,” I groaned. “God…fuck…”
“Who’s bad now?” she somehow managed to wrench out. “Fucking your pregnant woman out in…oh god…out in public—”
I laughed.
“You,” I said. “Still you.” I thrust deep and felt her gasp. “Still your idea.”
“Worth it.”
I looked down at her—her long, dark hair in spirals all around her, her lips parted, the curve of her belly between us—and felt something beyond desire, beyond want, beyond joy.
“Willa.”
“Yeah?”
I braced one hand beside her head and found her breast with the other, rolling her nipple between two fingers. “Look at me, Willa.”
She opened her eyes to look at me.
“I love you,” I wrenched out. “Gonna love you for the rest of my damn life.”
She came at those words, at the combination of thrust, sensation, longing—and I came with her.
We kissed through it, swallowing each other’s names, breathing into each other’s lungs. Willa’s legs wrapped around my waist and she hung onto me in the dark, nothing but the stars overhead to see.
And then it was done…and it was just beginning. The future as pretty as the Hill Country stars and the woman I loved.