Chapter 9
Dalton
The soft sound of singing pulls me from sleep. I blink open gritty eyes, my body feeling used and exhausted. It’s the same way I feel after an intense day spent working the grounds at the retirement community.
When I glance around, I can’t find the source of the sound. The noise isn’t coming from my alarm clock radio or my phone. It’s coming from my bathroom.
That’s when I remember Bree was here. Bree spent all night at my place, wrapped up in my bed. We alternated between long talks and making love for hours on end before she fell asleep exhausted in my arms.
While I watched her sleep, I wrote her another love letter.
Dear Bree,
You made me smile again today. It wasn’t anything you said or did. It was when you crossed my mind. All I had to do was think about you, and I was smiling.
It’s not something I’m used to. It felt foreign on my face, but you’re waking me up.
You’re making me think that this is love.
That scares the shit out of me. But lately, I’m thinking maybe some things are worth taking a risk for.
If I showed you who I am, would you let me hold you? Touch you? Kiss you?
Sometimes, I look at you and the need to touch you is an ache deep in my bones. I feel like I can’t go one more moment without putting my hands on you, without showing you how much I care.
Would you like that? I’d like to imagine you would. In my fantasies when I reach for your hand, you twine your fingers around mine, and we spend decades just like that, walking through life hand in hand.
We have a day where you walk toward me in white, and I promise you my love in front of the whole world. Because you’re my whole world now. You’re the one I orbit around.
Then one day, not too long after all that white, we’re bringing a little one to the cabin, a tiny girl with your same heart-stealing smile. We’ll introduce her to life and make sure she grows up strong and confident and loved. So very loved.
Centuries will pass, and the historians will talk about how there was never a place where so much love was felt as that tiny cabin where we raised our babies.
That’s the future I see with you. That’s the future I want.
If you could only love me back.
Forever yours,
Dalton
I glance over my words in the morning light and decide this letter will be unsent. Instead, I tuck it away in my nightstand before I saunter toward the bathroom. Immediately, I’m engulfed in a wave of hot, wet heat. It’s like a sauna here.
I spot her through the misty shower door. Her outline has my cock hardening. She’s beautiful as she tries desperately to balance on one leg and sings some pop love song.
I swing open the shower door. She squeals, partly in surprise then in delight when she sees me. Her whole face lights up, and I feel like the luckiest man on the planet.
“Good morning, sleepyhead,” she says.
I grunt and step in. The stall is far too small for two grown adults, but I make it work by pressing her back against the shower wall and stealing long, slow kisses.
She calls my name urgently as my hand finds the apex of her thighs. I cup her soft mound, delighted to find her already slick with arousal.
“Damn, you’re wet,” I say.
She whimpers. “I kept dreaming about you all night long.”
I didn’t think it was possible, but my cock is even harder now.
Careful to keep her supported so her weight doesn’t go on her injured leg, I slide into her wet channel. I grip her ass and bounce her on my cock until she’s clawing at my back, sobbing my name and screaming through her release. I follow her over the edge with a roar.
Afterwards I clean her up in the shower then dry her body gently with a towel and wrap her in one of my shirts. It’s tight around the chest because she’s got huge tits.
There’s something about seeing the shirt strain, buttons nearly popping off with every breath she takes, that has me wanting to toss her back on the bed and rut into her again.
But the one part of my brain that’s not a total caveman reminds me that she’s been here since last night, and I haven’t fed her.
“Can I have a tour now?” She asks, oblivious to my internal struggle.
“As soon as we have breakfast.” I take her hand and tug her into the kitchen where I feed Max and Rex their usual breakfast. I spring for the good stuff that gets delivered in a box every month and claims to be human-grade food. Only the best for my guys. “What do you normally have for breakfast?”
She gives a shrug. “Just black coffee. I’m not much of a breakfast person. Too many calories.”
I stalk across the kitchen until I’m standing directly in front of her.
I put my hand under her chin and tilt her face up to see mine.
I hate the dark blush on her face like she’s ashamed of her size.
“That’s not how we do things here. In this cabin, you eat a hearty breakfast because you have a beautiful body that needs good food to power it. ”
“Okay,” she murmurs softly.
“Now tell me what you like.”
“I’ve always preferred oatmeal,” she says, so I make her a big bowl of oatmeal with maple sugar. I watch over her, making sure she eats every bite.
I give her a soft squeeze on the thigh when she’s done. “Good girl.”
She squirms in her seat and calls my name softly. I stand from the table abruptly before I can drag her into my lap. I have to show her that there’s more to me than just the caveman who wants to touch her constantly.
“Let me get you on that promised tour. Obviously this is the kitchen.” I gesture around it. “I’m still in the process of updating the appliances, and the countertops and the walls, and well, pretty much everything.”
Part of me wishes that I had everything already done so I could give her the perfect place to live. Another part of me is glad that it’s not finished yet because she can put her touch on it now. In fact, she can decorate it however she wants.
She can come up with her own vision, and I’ll just be the man who makes it happen for her. The idea makes me happy, and I realize I’ve never had someone to build plans around.
I bring her into the living room, showing her the single leather recliner and TV. Looking around, I realize it’s a little sparse. Heat crawls up my neck. “I never really planned on having visitors.”
She flashes me a cheeky grin. “Well, then I guess when we watch TV, I’ll just have to sit in your lap. I’ll try not to wiggle too much.”
She saunters down the hallway, throwing me a little grin over her shoulder, and I’ve never wanted her more.
I follow after her, watching as she opens the two spare bedrooms. One is completely empty and another just has a few boxes.
I never really had a place to call my own, and there was no reason to collect furniture or household goods. But now that she’s here, I’m realizing for the first time in my life I’m going to have a home. The thought sends an odd bolt of warmth through my chest.
She finishes her inspection of the house. “What’s your favorite room?”
“Oh, that’s easy,” I tell her and lead her outside to the front porch. I pat the railing. “Just finished sanding and priming it a few days ago.”
She spies the cans of white paint in the corner. “Do you happen to have an extra paintbrush?”
My heart swells. “You want to help paint the place?”
She shrugs, and for a moment, she looks uncertain. “Unless you’re worried I’ll make a mess.”
I give her a slow grin. “I’m looking forward to spending my life with your messes.”
She rolls her eyes, grabs a paintbrush, and gets started on work. I watch her for a moment, appreciating her beautiful curves in motion. The way she reaches up high, the way she bends over to refill her roller, careful to keep her balance in that boot.
“Are you going to watch me forever, or are you going to help?” she finally asks.
I chuckle, take a paintbrush of my own, and begin working on the opposite side of the porch with her right here with me. I can see our future together so clearly, but it’s not enough to just build a life I love. It also has to be a life she loves too.
“What have you always imagined your life looking like?” I ask her.
“What do you mean?” she asks.
“Well, like marriage, kids, where you’re going to live, that sort of thing.”
“I want a big family with a lot of kids,” she says.
“I want to marry a good man and live a simple life somewhere quiet, out in the country. Maybe like a little cabin in the mountains.” She pauses there when she realizes I’m staring at her and drops her gaze.
“I didn’t mean in your cabin necessarily. I mean, this is all so new and—”
Before she can finish the sentence, I stalk across the porch, grab her hips, and pull her close to me. “Oh, pixie, I want you to picture your whole life here. Right here with me.”
Then I press a kiss to her lips. A claiming kiss to show her exactly who she belongs to and where she belongs. She’s meant to be mine, and I need her to know it with this kiss. I don’t stop kissing her until she’s gasping for oxygen and lightheaded.
Her voice is filled with wonder. “Wow. I think we should stop painting and go back into the bedroom.”
I chuckle. I want that more than anything, but if I take her to the bedroom I’m going to get her naked. I want to hear more about her hopes and dreams, how she wants to raise a family. So, I pat her on the ass. “Get back to work. We’ll play later.”
“Only if you promise,” she sings.
I grin down at her, pick up my paintbrush, and start work again. Max and Rex are in the front yard, roughhousing together. “How many kids are you thinking?”
“As many as I can have,” she says. “I want my kids to have lots of siblings. I read a study once that said your siblings are the only people that walk with you through every season of life, and I thought that sounded kind of nice. I want my kids to have friends for life. People that walk with them and love them, that cheer them on and celebrate them. Friends that are their biggest defenders and also tease them just a little bit. I think that would be special. What about you?”
“I’ll give you a million babies,” I say right as I reach the middle of the porch where she is.
We’ve both been painting from opposite ends, and now, we’re meeting in the middle.
I see she’s missed some of the high spots on the posts.
I lean up to get them, and that’s when I feel it. The dab of paint on my arm.
I whirl around. She dances just out of my reach, her movements slowed slightly.
“You’re going to pay for that,” I say with mock sternness, carefully keeping the amusement from my features. I must fail at it because she gives me a big grin.
“Make me,” she says. Then she takes off down the porch, in a hobble run that steals my heart. I give her a ten-second lead, listening to the soft breeze carry her gentle laughter as the sun shines through the trees. This is a perfect spring day.
When I’ve given her plenty of time, I jog down the steps and follow after her. She tries to zig and zag, laughing the whole time.
She doesn’t get very far in that boot before it nearly trips her. But I was close. I stayed just far enough away that she never realized I was within arm’s reach.
When I see her trip, I grab her. The momentum’s already working, gravity pulling us both down.
I twist so I take the brunt of the fall, landing on my back. But it doesn’t hurt because her soft curves are on top of me, and she’s giggling still.
“How exactly were you planning on making me pay for it?”
“Oh, I’ll find a way,” I tell her as I put a hand on her back and raise my head to press soft kisses to her lips. “I’ll find a way to make you pay all night long.”