by Kinney Scott
Home, he liked that Ashwood was home to her. “I need to talk to you, and it just couldn’t wait.”
“Is everything all right, did something happen at home?”
“I think it will be.” He bent to take another kiss, “This is nice, Pete’s place is homey, but it also seems a lot like you. These photographs? Did you take all of these pictures?”
Natalie scanned the walls, pictures of Mt. Rainier, Puget Sound and details of boats, hung throughout the condo. “Yes, grandpa was always my greatest fan. I guess I won’t have room to hang all of these in my tiny home, so these will be bound for storage. Seth, I love that you are here, but I still don’t know why.”
Seth pulled her to sit on the sofa. Keeping contact, waiting to collect his thoughts before he attempted to explain. “When you left on Saturday, I went over to The Northside…my first mistake was sitting alone at the bar instead of hanging out with the guys. Second mistake, several shots of whiskey.”
Taking Natalie’s hand in his, “My ex showed up. I didn’t even know she was in town.” When Natalie attempted to pull her hand away, Seth just gripped tighter. “We have a history. Chelsea and I have kept in touch since the divorce.”
Preparing herself for the worst, she blinked hard to fight the heat of tears, “Yeah I know, Kels told me about Chelsea, actually warned me I guess.”
“Nothing really happened. I mean nothing that half the town didn’t see. You will probably hear versions of this from your friends, but I needed to tell you the truth. After I drank several shots, I do remember dancing with her, vaguely.”
Seth looked at their entwined hands to gain a little emotional distance. “Later, she was dancing with some tourists. You know, grinding it out on the dance floor. And shit, I really couldn’t care less, she probably left with them later that night. These guys, there were two of them, had her pressed between them. Anyway, hell, I was wasted, got pissed, and tried to pull them out of the Northside to beat the shit out of them.” He raked his free hand through his hair, but still avoided looking into her eyes.
“Wade and Kent drug my ass out of there, dumped me off at the shop, where I woke up this morning on the couch in my office with a pounding headache feeling like…like I betrayed you. God, Natalie, please let me make this up to you.”
Natalie stirred from beside him on the couch. She moved over him to settle on his lap straddling his hips between her thighs. After deeply kissing Seth, she gazed into his surprised eyes, “So, let me get this straight. You defended a woman you have a long history with, from scumbags who were grabbing her ass in front of half the town.”
His eyes lit as he realized the depth of her understanding, “yeah, but…”
Natalie covered his lips with her fingers to finish her thought. “Seth, I won’t play second to her. If you decide to see her while we are together, what we have is over, but what happened doesn’t even come close to crossing that line.”
Taking her by the nape of her neck, he kissed her as if his life depended on it. “She’s nothing but a memory now, completely locked in the past. Natalie, I see my future with you.”
Sliding her hands beneath his shirt, her fingers teased each firm dip and rise as she caressed her way up to his warm pecs. Reaching behind his head, Seth slid his t-shirt off in one fluid move. Chest bare, he watched Natalie study the contours of his body. I don’t deserve her, he thought, but I refuse to live without her.
Natalie’s warm lips made contact with the hollow of his neck, in response he tipped his head back and slid slightly forward on the leather couch. At the warmest spot between her thighs, she felt him lengthen across her slit as she pressed soft against hard, arching her back to enhance the contact. Hands fisted in an effort to control the desire to touch her, Seth encouraged her exploration.
White teeth nipped at his small tan nipples, followed by nuzzles in the dusting of hair on his chest. Wrapping her hands around his bicep, she stroked each corded muscle leaving his cock desiring the same firm attention. Seth flexed his hips, grinding her through layers of clothes.
Watching his reaction, Natalie slowly released each button on her blouse, and coiled her hands behind her own torso to find the hooks on her bra. His control unleashed, as he used the shirt and bra to secure her hands behind her, elbows back, breasts straining forward, in a bound state. One hand secured her lower back and she arched back into his strength. His lips and teeth sucked and pinched each nipple to an almost painfully erect peak. The electric sensation somehow transmitted to the tip of her clit.
Canting her hips forward, Seth rocked her across his steely shaft, her moans increasing as he continued the onslaught at her nape and each nipple. She pressed into him, seeking a release that built with each swaying arch. As her cries became desperate, his body begged to invade to give her precisely what she needed, but not yet. This would only be the first of many orgasms that overtook her tonight.
Seth chose to penetrate her mouth with his tongue, plunging in just as his cock anticipated. Hips grinding, lips trembling, fingers pulsed across her nipples as she bucked her release across his shaft, her keening cry swallowed by the thorough assault on her lips. Easing her forward, once her movements had slowed, Seth grasped her legs and stood to wander down the hall, until he found her bed.
CHAPTER TWELVE
The next morning Seth woke to the smell of coffee and bacon. At first, he was confused in the new surroundings. Until he recognized her feminine touches, filmy curtains, and a purple comforter that reflected Natalie’s personality. On the desk sat a picture of two kids and a woman all wearing shorts and t-shirts, tanned and smiling on the deck of a boat. Must be her mom and brother on her grandfather’s boat. They looked happy.
Seth slid on jeans, went to the bathroom and found a toothbrush before meeting Natalie in the kitchen. “Smells fantastic.” He grabbed a hot slice of bacon and ate it in two bites.
“Good morning, you slept late.” She smiled up at him as he slid a hand round her waist.
He looked around for a clock, “wow, eleven! You wore me out last night,” he said giving her shorts clad butt a caress. “I feel fantastic, do you want to show me around Seattle, or should we entertain ourselves here?” Seth added stealing a kiss before snagging another slice of bacon.
“Are fried eggs okay?” he nodded yes, chewing bacon, and sitting on a stool to watch her move around the kitchen. Why does watching her cook make me feel so satisfied?
“If you want, we could spend the day at Alki Beach. I checked the schedule, there’s a home game this evening… what do you think?”
“The beach and baseball, with my girl? Couldn’t be better. Maybe we could find a secluded spot on the beach where I could have my way with you.”
“In Seattle? Impossible!” She laughed as he wriggled his eyebrows. She loved this playful side of Seth almost as much as the dominant streak he showed her last night.
After breakfast, and a shower, Seth took one look at her and couldn’t resist messing her up. Smooth tanned legs, shorts stretched tight across her round ass, the outline of her bikini top under the bright teal tank, “there is no way I’m keeping my hands off you in that string bikini. Let me get this out of my system now or the beach could be a disaster.”
He pinned her back to his front, peeling the tank off. Then spun her around to take in the view of those two tiny triangles cupping her breasts. “Beautiful.” He kissed the swell that pushed out from the top of the bikini. Natalie waited for Seth to plan his attack. He grabbed her ass, and she hopped up wrapping her legs around his waist, carrying her to the living room.
The strings of her bikini unfurled. All clothes were quickly peeled away. Seth sat naked on a chair, cock standing at attention as Natalie lowered, easing her pussy to take him inside her hot wet channel. “Feels. So. Damn. Tight.” Seth growled, controlling the pace with his hands, his fingers digging into the flesh of her hips.
Pistoning her body, in a motion that raked her clit across the hard plane of his lower abs, she ar
ched her back, as tension mounted. “Almost there” she moaned, grinding and wrapping her heels around the legs of the chair to gain purchase. Nipples begged for attention, and Seth drew one bud into his mouth, sucking first then biting, heightening her pleasure. After a few more strokes of her bundle of nerves raking across his body, Natalie soared into an orgasm that drenched his cock in a tight fist of spasms from her heat.
His powerful thrusts began to tighten his balls as the slow climb built at the base of his spine. He lifted her again. Fingers grasped the swell of her curved hips as he plunged her onto his shaft one last time. The deep penetration bathed her channel in hot jets of his seed. Curled against his chest, breathing in labored unison, they both began to laugh aloud. That was the best way to start a day in Seattle.
***
Smoothing coconut sunscreen on Natalie’s sun warmed back, had Seth focused on baseball scores and construction to keep the tenting of his shorts from becoming an embarrassing problem. No matter how much he took or gave to Natalie he never felt satisfied. Could he ever get enough of her?
They grabbed dinner at a small spot that served clams, oysters and fried fish, enjoying the feast on a picnic table near the beach. “Are you sure you want to leave Seattle? It seems perfect.” He asked, wondering how she could possibly leave this behind.
“Warm summer days are great, but when the rain sets in, the days seem pretty dark. The cost of living is incredibly high. I felt like I was constantly working just to survive.”
“But is that a problem any longer?”
“I guess not. Still, without Grandpa Pete here, it has lost any sense of being home. I don’t know if I’m cut out for life in a big city.” She longed to tell him her news, and plunged forward even though she worried that he might be uncomfortable with the change. “There are a couple of things that have happened in the last few days that I want to share with you. One is great. The other, not so much.”
First, she relayed the information concerning her father, and his letter to pursue money from her grandfather’s estate. Seth clenched his teeth. How could a man neglect his family, ignore his own daughter, and then expect money? Natalie’s wounded expression tore into Seth. He simply could not understand how a parent could intentionally cause pain to his own daughter. He longed to right all of those wrongs, and heal her wounds.
Quickly she moved on to her other news. Her face lit up as she began to talk about the lake property. “I never expected to be so blessed. The property on the lake is so unexpected. I feel guilty, because my happiness about this land that grandfather gave to me, only comes after he’s gone. I wish we could have enjoyed it together. I would have loved the opportunity to make great memories with him at the lake.”
“Maybe the reason he kept the land a secret will make sense later on.” Seth pondered why Pete wouldn’t have done more with the property.
“Actually Elsa knew about it, she just assumed he had sold it a few years back.” She stared off across the water, watching a ferryboat leave a wake as it crossed Puget Sound. “At this point I feel like I have too many choices. It’s a lot to take in.”
“Take all the time you need. There’s no need to rush.” He stood, leaned across the table and stole a sweet kiss.
Baseball, taking in the view from the Space Needle and canoeing on Lake Washington filled the next two days. Seth played the role of a tourist, while also answering emails and guiding his crew when they had a stray question. By the time Thursday night rolled around, the pace of Seattle had begun to grate on him. Traffic, noise, pollution and too many people crowded his mind.
Natalie sensed the shift, and offered to go back to Ashwood with him now. “I’m anxious to get out of here too. I don’t know why I didn’t just call Molly and Mandy to have them drive my truck back to Ashwood. We might have left even sooner.”
“I was thinking about that. Why don’t we let them take my truck back to Ashwood? I’d like to take a different route home, if you’re game for a little side trip. I noticed that Pete’s garage has some pretty sweet camping gear in it. How would you feel about taking a couple of nights to get home?”
“Let’s get out of here first thing tomorrow morning,” Natalie smiled, as Seth pulled her close for a kiss.
***
Early the following morning Seth drove into the sun, travelling Eastbound on 90. Within an hour, the environment transitioned from lush green to brown and arid. This stark contrast never ceased to surprise Natalie’s senses.
The air prickled with heat, smelling piney and dry. Seth turned south outside of Ellensburg, travelling roads that she never knew existed. Narrow blacktop transitioned to graded gravel as they began to climb in elevation. He opened a gate, drove his truck through and closed it behind them. Following a river, they trekked through twisted pine, cottonwood, and prickly pear cactus. “We won’t be able to hike too far off main paths. There are too many rattlesnakes here in the brush.”
Seth parked the truck off the road on a wide bank overlooking the river. “I hope you are okay roughing it. We will need to boil water. There aren’t any bathrooms. Some public areas around here have them, but those are crowded with people floating the river. This land makes up the western side of a parcel owned by Wade’s family. They mainly grow hops on a portion of it, south east of Yakima.”
“Hops for his beer? I guess that makes a lot of sense.”
“Yes, he just uses a small fraction of the crop that his father harvests. Wade does have some input on new hybrid research at their farm.”
Setting up camp didn’t take long. A deep calm pool on the bend in the river provided an escape from the sweltering sun. Swimming across to the opposite sandy bank, Seth lay on a rock next to Natalie they had doused with water to take the edge off the heat radiating from the stone. Dappled sunlight, broken by a scrubby twisted tree, gave a little shelter to their spot where camp had been set.
Seth dug through the cooler for sandwiches and fruit they had prepared that morning. “It’s hard to believe we are only about 150 miles from Seattle. The contrast is so drastic. I definitely prefer this.”
“Actually I do too, it’s almost easier to breathe, and it’s not the lack of humidity or even the clean air. It’s the space. Ashwood has the same effect, when I get out of town a little bit. Maybe that’s what drew me to the tiny house idea. To try to escape the crush of people. I find being around more and more people lonelier somehow. I don’t know, Seth maybe now I’m just not making sense.”
“Natalie, I get it, I feel the same way.” He stole a quick kiss again, as he cleaned up the food, and grabbed each of them a bottled water before storing the cooler back in the cab of the truck. As she shot pictures of the arid rocky landscape, two red winged blackbirds landed in the tall grass on the opposite bank, bobbing in the breeze. Seth scrambled up a boulder to jump into the deep pool on the river.
Natalie decided to take off her bikini top to even out her tan. Her golden body, with lighter triangles on the soft mounds of her breasts, drew his eyes. For a moment he could scarcely breathe, she was so perfect. So beautiful. So mine. She opened her eyes, adjusting again to the sun, and found him staring at her from his perch on the boulder.
Moving to the bank, she shimmied out of her shorts, and walked nude into the river, the water swirling around her waist, sunlight caressing her goddess-like image. Seth jumped in, stripped and tossed his trunks to the bank. Cool water, hot sun and his delicate kisses worshipped every inch of her body.
Complete dark followed the sunset quickly against the edge of the mountains. Seth built a fire that burned brightly. Sounds of animals mingled with the murmur of the river, lulling Natalie. Her eyes began to drift shut as she leaned against Seth near the fire. “How can I be so tired? It’s not even ten yet.”
“Come on, it will feel good to stretch out in the tent. We will wake up at first light and head for home. Thank you for sharing this trip with me. Today was perfect.” Later, he lay in the tent, listening to her gentle breathing as she slept ne
xt to him. He hoped he could soon find the courage to tell her how he felt. To tell Natalie he loved her.
***
Early the next morning Seth cut across his uncle’s land to reach the highway that ran parallel to the Columbia River. As they moved out of the arid hills, irrigated crops began to dominate the land. Eventually fields gave way to apple, cherry and pear orchards. Closer to Wade’s family farm, tall trellises towered over them, supporting acres upon acres of hops. “I’ve never seen a hop field before. These are beautiful. Do you think your uncle would mind if I took some pictures?”
“I’m sure it would be fine, let me know where you would like to stop.” Seth slowed the vehicle when Natalie chose a wide spot in the road to climb out.
She pulled out her camera, “can we walk into the field?”
“No problem, just watch for snakes,” he warned. “Just let me know what direction you would like to go, and I’ll lead the way.”
She didn’t venture too far to find just the right light to capture pictures of the angled lines running up the tall poles. The heavy vines where already beginning to run horizontally along the top. Seth let her know that harvest wasn’t until September. “Why did Wade move to Ashwood to start his brewery? Why not stay here?”
“Some of his reasons were practical, some personal. He wanted a pure water source, and the house he bought on Mosquito Creek had that. Without going into too much family dirt, let’s just say Wade and his Dad don’t always see eye to eye. Spending too much time together has not always been the best idea for those two. Wade comes over to help with harvest, and of course he visits his family on holidays and reunions.”
“I’m glad they have found a way to make it work. Wade obviously loves brewing, and the farm is a connection I would assume?”
“Yeah, and his dad appreciates his input on developing new hop strains.”