Chapter 8 #2
I reach between us, thumb finding her swollen clit, rubbing tight circles while I fuck her harder.
Her full tits bounce with every stroke, nipples tight and begging.
I can’t stop staring at the way her body takes me—wide hips spread wide, thick thighs quivering, that soft belly I’ve dreamed about for years jiggling so sweetly every time I bottom out.
“You’re gonna come on my cock, wife,” I rasp, teeth gritted, sweat dripping down my back. “First time you ever take a man and it’s me. Gonna flood this pussy so deep you’ll feel me for days. Come for me—now.”
Her walls clamp down like a vice, rippling, milking me as she comes with a broken scream of my name.
The sight of her—head thrown back, beauty mark trembling, blue eyes locked on mine—shatters me.
I bury myself to the hilt and explode, groaning like a wounded animal as I pump rope after thick rope of cum into her, filling her so full it leaks out around my cock.
I collapse over her, forearms braced so I don’t crush her, but I don’t pull out. I stay buried deep, still twitching inside her, forehead pressed to hers while we both fight for air.
“Mine,” I growl against her lips, voice wrecked. “My wife. My woman. Say it again.”
She smiles, dazed and glowing, fingers sliding through my hair. “Yours,” she breathes. “All yours, Zac.”
Damn right she is.
When I finally pull out, she whimpers at the loss. I roll onto my back and pull her against my chest before she can feel the cold air where I was. Her whole body is trembling — not fear, not cold. Something deeper. Something that doesn’t have a name yet.
Silent tears track down her temples toward her hairline. I catch them with my thumb and don’t ask. Sometimes you don’t need to ask. The tears mean something shifted. The tears mean she’s feeling everything all at once.
I hold her for a long time. Just breathing. Her heartbeat against my ribs, fast at first, then slowing, syncing with mine the way it does when she falls asleep. But she’s not sleeping. Her fingers trace the hair on my chest, slow circles, like she’s drawing something only she can see.
“Stay right here,” I tell her. I kiss her forehead and ease out of bed.
She makes a sound — small, protesting — and reaches for me. Her hand catches my wrist and holds.
“I’m coming right back.” I press my mouth to her knuckles. “Thirty seconds.”
The snack plate is on the nightstand where I left it.
Crackers, sliced fruit, the water glass and pitcher.
I bring everything back to bed, settle against the headboard, and pull her into my lap.
She curls there like she was made for this exact position — her head against my shoulder, her bare legs across my thighs, the quilt pulled around her shoulders.
I hold a cracker to her mouth. She takes it, chews, and then the laugh comes. Shaky. Wet. Real.
“You cut fruit,” she says.
“I cut fruit.”
“While I was in the bath. You were in here cutting strawberries and changing sheets like some kind of—” She waves a hand, searching for the word. “Sexy, terrifying Boy Scout.”
“I heated your bathwater on the stove too.” I hand her a slice of apple. “In case you forgot.”
“I didn’t forget.” Her voice goes soft. She takes the apple and eats it slowly, and I watch her jaw work, her throat move when she swallows. My come is still between her thighs. My marks are on her hips. And she’s eating fruit from my hand like this is the most natural thing in the world.
I pour the water and hold the glass for her. She drinks the whole thing in one go, throat working, and I refill it without being asked. She takes the second glass slower, her eyes on me over the rim.
“How do you do that?” she asks.
“Do what?”
“Know what I need before I know I need it.”
I take the glass from her, set it on the nightstand, and pull her tighter against my chest. She smells like sex. Like me. The cocoa butter and vanilla are still there underneath, but the top note is mine — sweat and skin and the particular smell of a woman who just came screaming my name.
“Four years is a long time to study someone,” I say.
She’s quiet. Her fingers find the rope-burn scar on my forearm and trace it. The fire pops. The cabin settles.
“I’m not going back,” she says.
My hand stills on her hair. “Back where?”
“To the valley. To the apartment. To being the girl who waits for permission.” She lifts her head and looks at me, and her blue eyes are red-rimmed and fierce and absolutely certain. “The contract says thirty days. I’m telling you now — I’m not leaving in thirty days. I’m not leaving, Zac.”
The words hit me somewhere below the ribs. Not I’m yours — she already gave me that. This is different. This is a woman who spent her whole life being kept, choosing to stay. Not because someone told her to. Because she decided.
My throat closes. I press my forehead to hers. Breathe her in. My hand spreads across the small of her back, holding her against me.
“Then stay,” I say. My voice is rough. Wrecked. “Stay and never leave this mountain.”
“Okay.” She smiles. It’s the real one — the one with the snort, the one where her beauty mark shifts and her eyes squeeze shut. “That was easy.”
“Easiest thing I’ve ever done.” I kiss her forehead. Her wet eyelashes. The salt on her cheekbone. Then her mouth, slow, tasting the tears she hasn’t wiped away. “Forty-one years of getting it wrong. And then you walked up my driveway with three suitcases and no plan.”
She settles back against my chest. I pull the quilt higher around her shoulders and hold her while the fire burns low, feeding her crackers and fruit when she opens her mouth for them, pressing my lips to her hair every few minutes because I can. Because she’s here. Because she’s staying.