Chapter 36 Hope
Hope
“Good morning,” Zane says softly, waking me up. “I brought you a cup of coffee.”
“Mmm.” I slowly blink my eyes open, smiling as the sweet dream Zane I was just frolicking with dissolves into the just as sweet and very real Zane.
Who I frolicked with last night, under the moon.
“I could have gotten that myself,” I murmur as I push myself up.
“I know, but I like to take care of you,” he says. “Just like I did last night.”
Heat flames in my cheeks, even though I just had a similar thought.
“How do you feel this morning?” He drags a hungry gaze down my body again. “Sore?”
I shake my head and drag in a rough breath. And I tell him the truth. “Empty.”
“That so?” He reaches for me, his fingertips grazing the side of my neck before he cups my nape, holding me as he leans in for a kiss. “Need to be filled up again, pretty girl?”
I nod jerkily. Shame wants to roar to the surface, but I don’t let it.
I liked having Zane inside me. I liked it so, so much. I want it again, as soon as possible.
He smiles before he kisses me.
Slow. Sweet. A little dirty.
“I’ll take good care of you, I promise.”
He always does.
In every way. I vaguely remember him getting up with Bellamy, letting me sleep a little longer.
Now, my daughter is nowhere to be seen, and for the first time in her entire life, I’m not worried about that.
In the distance, I hear the clatter of people in the kitchen.
Zane’s family taking care of my daughter, because she’s now their family, too.
He tugs on his moustache. “We have some pasture maintenance work that’s becoming urgent. Will you be all right on your own today if I’m in the field?”
It’s time we get back to work for real.
“I’ll be all right,” I promise him.
He scoots back and pushes the sheet down to my hips so he can kiss my tummy. “You be good for your mama today, you hear me? She wants to keep you secret a little while longer.”
I ruffle Zane’s hair as he nuzzles the tiny bean inside me, amazed at how much he likes my pregnancy. Feeling blessed on every level.
That thought carries me through the day, while Zane is out in the fields working on water lines and solar pumps.
While he’s gone, I help Luna in the greenhouses. All day I yo-yo between feeling like I’m floating on a cloud to free-falling through space. It’s like the morning sickness I’m trying to hide but on a cosmic level.
A wonderful, heady, but also disorienting secret to be keeping.
In the afternoon, I retreat to the more solitary task of processing our excess greens into freezer cubes before I return to the house to get dinner started.
Oh, the irony of how domestic my life is here. How much I bristled at it when Derek tried to force this kind of lifestyle on me. But he wasn’t working all day in fields, either. It’s way easier to hustle to get dinner made for Zane when I know he’s spent all day breaking his back for his family.
For us.
And when he gets back, he does his own laundry before he has a shower.
Over dinner, he watches me in a way that feels like a caress.
That heady, floating and then falling and then floating again feeling returns.
After Bellamy’s bath and two stories pulled from the book about animals of the Rockies, she’s still not ready to close her eyes.
Zane appears in the doorway with a small stack of books. “I found a few more options for bedtime reading.”
I slide over, making room for him to sit on the edge of the bed.
At first Bellamy wants to climb on him as he shows her the books, but once he starts reading, she lies down next to me.
He has a good voice for bedtime, and before long, both of our eyes are drifting shut.
When I wake with a start, Bellamy is fast asleep, and the shower is running next door.
My pulse picks up as I slide out of bed. I know exactly where I want Zane to fill me up next.
He says my name when I open the door, a low, inviting growl. I leave my clothes on the floor and step into the steam, into his arms.
There’s no talking after that for a bit.
He pins me to the tiled wall, his mouth on mine, his cock thick and hard against my belly as his hand drifts between my legs.
He groans when he finds my clit, when he feels the way I react to his touch.
He’s in no hurry, kissing me and stroking me until I’m slick.
And then teasing me, rubbing us together on the outside, his cock sliding against my clit as he ruts it up between our bellies like a trapped snake, his balls slapping against my aching, eager entrance.
I squirm higher, pressing my arms on his shoulders, trying to climb to the tip of him so it can notch where I want him the most.
He yanks me back down again.
I laugh and rock my hips, chasing what I want.
I pant against his mouth, a wordless plea. Please, Zane.
He drops to his knees and puts his tongue there instead. His thumbs hold me open in a way that makes my clit throb.
“That’s it,” he says against my sex. “Can’t have my girl rushing to do something too quick. Gotta make sure you taste ready.”
His voice is thick, and as he works his tongue over my very ready flesh, he closes his eyes and takes a big, deep inhale.
The burning need inside me turns into an absolute inferno. “Zane, please.”
“Tell me.”
“I need you inside me.”
He thrusts his tongue deep.
It’s good, but it’s not big enough.
I rock my hips, desperate now.
“That’s it, yeah.” He sucks on his lips as he stares up at me. “You taste ready for my cock now, gorgeous.”
Surging to his feet, he lifts my thigh over his hip, creating space to notch us together.
I wind my arms around his neck and cling to him as he sinks inside, stretching me open, filling that aching, empty want inside me. Promising me a satisfaction I never knew before him.
This is different.
It’s different because it’s Zane, it’s different because we’re standing up, and in the shower. It’s very different because I can taste myself on his lips as he slants his mouth across mine.
But mostly it’s different because of why I want this.
I let my hormones get the better of me more than once, chasing a hungry feeling that never got satisfied properly.
Now I know that as good as it feels for Zane to ease himself into my body, being thick and hard and taking up space, I know it’ll feel even better after, once he’s flooded me with his release and he keeps holding me.
This is different because it’s everything. It’s want and satisfaction woven together.
And the sound he makes when he’s finally nestled deep between my legs, cock buried to the root, is the best thing I’ve ever heard. A low, possessive, claiming growl.
“Mine,” he adds for clarity.
“Yours,” I promise.
“You don’t need to feel empty anymore.” He nips at my lips as he starts to move.
Slowly, pulling his thick shaft out an inch, then thrusting deep again.
Punctuating each thrust with a promise that’s about so much more than sex.
“You’re always mine, you understand? I’m the man you come to when you’re feeling empty.
” Thrust. “When you want a kiss.” Thrust. “When you need a hug, or—” His voice breaks, and he snaps his hips. “—if you’re feeling scared, too.”
I rock my hips, meeting his thrusts, working myself against him as I get slicker. “Zane…”
“I want to be all of that for you.” Thrust. “Let me take care of you.”
My head rolls back and his mouth drops to my neck, sucking and nipping. I work one hand between us, getting my fingers on my clit.
“That’s it,” he growls. “Rub your pretty little cunt as I fuck you.”
“Faster,” I beg.
He gives me faster.
“I’m going to—”
“Fuck,” he grunts. “Me, too. Make me come with you. Milk my cock, that’s my girl.”
I tighten my leg around him, slamming myself down his shaft, and he grabs my ass, pulling me tight as he goes rigid, words devolving to primal noises as we find a rough, wild release together.
After, he keeps holding me. After, there’s still so much pleasure.
After, it continues, because it’s different, because he loves me, and he cares about this part just as much.
“I thought it would be hard to let you into my body,” I whisper as he gently washes me under the warm spray. “But it’s just wonderful.”
He wraps his naked body around mine. “Fuck, I like hearing that.”
“It’s easier than the rest of it.”
“What does that mean?” He asks it softly, with curiosity, not judgement.
And because I know it’s safe, I tell him about my domestic feelings earlier, and how conflicted I am sometimes about raising Bellamy in the country—but not here. I don't have any conflicting feelings about the ranch, or Zane. And that’s a little complicated to sort out in my head.
“It’s funny,” he murmurs when I finish spilling my guts. “Because I think you trusted me with all of that before you trusted me with your body.”
I guess I did. I knew subconsciously that Zane was safe before I could intentionally make the choice to give myself to him. With all of it. My fears and my needs and my body. And my children.
“We’re going to figure it all out together.” He kisses my forehead. “But I’m glad we don’t need to do much work to figure out sex. I want that to be an easy joy for you.”
Which is reason enough to slide to my knees in the shower and show him just how easy and joyous it is for me to love his body with mine.