Chapter 22 #2
“I’m not worried about the farm. I was worried about you. I’ll worry again when you leave to patch the fence and every time after that. It’s sort of part of the deal at this point. I’d go with you and help if I could.”
“Once the melon is here, you’ll have plenty to do. I’ll have you out there plowing the fields. Patching fences. The whole nine yards,” he says in a deadpan tone.
“Plowing the fields?” She purses her lips.
“Yep. Both of you. The baby, too. Gotta start ‘em young. If she can’t run a tractor before she walks, we’re failing.”
“You’ve got jokes now,” she teases.
“So many. You ain’t seen nothing.”
“Okay, we were having a moment, but now I’m about to shove you off this porch.”
He snorts under his breath, leaning in to pepper a soft kiss to her lips. “Seriously, I’ll be careful, and I’ll be back soon.”
This is their life now. Even after six years, it never gets easier to watch him leave. The dead will always be here in some capacity. They’ll spend most of their spare time fortifying barriers and gathering supplies. It’s still safer than anywhere else.
* * *
By the time Emma is in bed later that night, and Wyatt has finally returned from fence repair duty, Addison can’t lock their bedroom door fast enough.
She doesn’t bother taking her shirt off, opting for the easiest route of shoving her pants off her legs after searing her lips to his in a fierce warning.
He needs no other encouragement to follow her lead. Backing her up until her legs hit the bed and her back finds the mattress.
“You gotta promise me something, okay?” he says.
“Okay.”
“You have to tell me if I’m too rough.”
She nods, instinct spreading her legs in invitation. “I promise.”
The sound of him fumbling with his zipper is obscene, then firm hands grab her hips to tug her to the edge of the mattress before filling her completely with a single, deep thrust.
There’s nothing slow and sweet about what they’re doing now, not like this morning, when they lingered together for what felt like forever.
The whole day has been foreplay in itself, and she’s more than ready. Doesn’t hesitate to rest her ankles on his shoulders, while she loses all ability to do anything but squeeze her eyes closed and revel in the sensation of her body bouncing in time with his efforts.
He’s found a spot that has her toes curling until she’s certain she’ll burst, and the haphazard mashing of his thumb above where they’re joined triggers the relief she so desperately needs.
Her legs shake, and muscles clench, that telltale rush of warmth within her signaling that he’s not far behind.
He leaves her quickly, if only because his knees buckle as he collapses onto the bed beside her. “Fuck.”
Finally, she is sated and comfortably numb.
For now.
They crawl up to the pillows and tangle together, his breath still ragged.
“I like it fast,” she muses. “Not all the time, but apparently I like that sort of thing now. It’s kinda blowing my mind.”
Enjoying sex and learning what she actually likes has taken time and effort. After her husband left, the assumption was that she’d be celibate the rest of her life. Imagining anyone touching her again only prompted revulsion.
What she would have missed, she thinks with a wistful smile.
The corner of his mouth twitches up. “You like all these secret quickies, huh?”
She nods, still reeling from the realization that she could want it like that at all, let alone come as hard as she has. “I wonder if there’s anything else I like, but don’t know about yet?”
“If there is, we’ll find out.”
That’s when her face cracks, and the most ridiculous thought creeps in. “We can’t be together after the baby comes. It’ll be six whole weeks until I can…how am I gonna last six weeks?”
He brushes the hair off her forehead with a gentle smile. “Six weeks ain’t forever. We’ll be plenty busy changing diapers, cleaning up vomit, and rocking her to sleep when she’s crying. I can’t wait for every part of that.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. Besides, I don’t care what we’re doing so long as we do it together…you’re my best friend,” he says earnestly. “We could watch paint dry, and I’d be happy.”
“Are you comparing our baby’s entertainment value to wet paint?”
“No!” he snorts.
“Best friends?” she teases after a pause, unable to keep from poking at him.
“Here we go.”
“No, no, I like the sound of this. It’s a shame we can’t get matching tattoos. It could be a whole thing.”
He lunges for her, blowing into her neck until she laughs. “You think you’re so funny, don’t you?”
“I’m delightfully hilarious.”
She may enjoy fussing at him, but the last thing she wants is to crush such a beautiful idea. So, she cups his cheek when he leans back, forcing herself to be serious so he knows she means every word. “You’re my best friend, too.”
* * *
When Addison wakes the next morning, she’s overcome by horrified panic as a rush of liquid floods out onto the bed. “Oh no.”
“What? What’s wrong?”
She flings the covers back, revealing ruined, soaked sheets.
Wyatt’s sharp inhale tells her he knows exactly what this means, but she states the obvious, anyway.
“My water broke.”