“Everywhere,” she whispered.
He chuckled, low in his throat, then turned back to the corn and started hacking away the ears with barely restrained ferocity. In complete agreement, she picked up her pace as well, heedless of the leaves slashing her hands and arms as she grabbed wildly at the corn.
They were practically running by the time they reached the end of the row.
“You take the wagon to the drying shed,” she told him. “You’ll see how Susan has been laying the ears out to dry. Just do the same thing. I’ll get two jars of salve and a blanket and meet you in the middle of the cornfield.”
“In the cornfield? Not back at the barn?”
“That’s where Susan will go looking for us if she decides to come outside for any reason. I don’t want her finding us before we get our relief.”
Matt’s eyes widened. “Definitely not. I’ll meet you in the cornfield.”
Ally nodded, then added, “Go slow. I don’t want you hitting a rut and bruising the corn.”
“Don’t mind me. You just be waiting in the cornfield when I’m done. Preferably naked.”
She sucked in a quick gasp. After all the veiled comments, he’d finally said it.
He raised his eyebrows. “What? You know that’s what we’ve been discussing since this afternoon.”
“I know. I just never expected to hear you come right out and say it.”
“Then let me fix that. I want you, Ally Nichols. I want you hard, and fast, and seven ways ‘til Sunday. I want to hear you scream my name as I make you come harder than you’ve ever come in your life. And I want to use every single one of the condoms I tucked into the glove compartment of my truck before I headed over here this morning.”
Ally trembled beneath the force of his passion. Her breasts tingled, her nipples tightening in anticipation of his hands and mouth upon them, and her sex steamed with moist heat, already opening for his deep penetration.
“I want it, too,” she whispered.
“Then why the hell are we standing here? The sooner this corn’s put away, the sooner we can get started. Go.”
Ally turned and trotted over to her workroom, the ache between her legs making it impossible to run. She quickly gathered up the jars of salve and an old plaid woolen blanket. She also filled a small bag with black sunflower seeds. Matt would never see them in the dark, and she wasn’t about to let the power of their joining go to waste.
Her arms full of supplies, she arrived at the clearing in the center of the field well before him. She spread the blanket on the ground and placed the jars on top of it, then quickly pulled off her clothing. Folding it neatly, she tucked it out of the way in one of the corners of the clearing. Then she cast a quick circle, reinforcing it with sprinkled sunflower seeds.
“Spirits of the air, your warm breezes encouraged my seeds to grow. Spirits of the sun, your fiery warmth encouraged my seeds to grow. Spirits of the rain, your gentle droplets encouraged my seeds to grow. Spirits of the earth, your nourishing soil encouraged my seeds to grow. The corn has been harvested. I thank you all.”
She held the last handful of seeds cupped in her palms, and lifted them to the sky.
“Goddess, mother of earth and sky, you nurtured the seeds planted in your body, watering them with your milk as rain, strengthening them with your blood and pain, birthing the seeds into rows of corn, crops that are harvested, from your body torn. Bless the corn, now harvested, and the winter wheat soon to come. Let it grow in your love.”
She flung the seeds into the sky, so that they peppered the ground like rain. Carefully, she opened the circle between the blanket and the central aisle of corn, and waited for Matt to arrive.
The door of his truck slammed in the distance, then before the echoes faded, she could hear the rustle of his passage as he raced down the aisle toward the clearing.
He burst into the clearing, stumbling to a stop as his eyes widened, fixed on her naked body.
“God, you’re beautiful,” he whispered. “Even more than I imagined.”
“You imagined me naked?”
He just nodded, his hot gaze never leaving her body. Ally stretched provocatively, pulling off her ponytail holder and running her fingers through her hair. Matt’s throat worked, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down as he stared at her gently swaying body.
“Well?” she asked. “Aren’t you going to get naked, too?”
“Right.” Matt ripped off his clothing. Fortunately, the sturdy jeans and T-shirt were designed to withstand such mistreatment. The fine suit she’d first seen him in would have been torn to pieces. As it was, his boxers weren’t going to be good for anything but a dust rag after this.
He finally freed his rampant cock from its confines, releasing it into the night air. Long and thick and already lined with raised red veins, she wondered how much larger it would grow when the salve took effect. Her legs trembled, her body shuddering as she imagined him forcing his way inside her. It had been so long since she’d had a lover.
“We’ll have to go slow,” she warned. “It’s been a while.”
He groaned. “You’re going to kill me.”
“Only a little death.”
Chapter Five
Matt walked slowly across the clearing to where Ally waited on the blanket. He passed through the doorway she’d opened in her circle, and with a subtle gesture of her fingers, she closed the circle behind him.
He bent down and picked up one of the jars of salve.
“Ladies first.”
Before she could comment or protest, he unscrewed the cap, dipped up a handful of the pale green cream, and slapped it between her breasts. She squeaked, startled by the sudden cold.
Then he started smearing it into her skin. Long, slow strokes, using the heels of his palms to push the cream up her chest to her neck and shoulders. He stepped closer, the tip of his erection brushing against her quivering stomach muscles.
And then the salve took effect. Ally tipped her head back and moaned as sheets of fire cascaded over her body. Her shoulders radiated heat, as if she was suffering from a third degree sunburn. But it wasn’t painful. More like being in a sauna, except she was baking from the inside out. Her stiff and sore muscles were liquefying.
Matt rubbed more salve on her arms, kneading the cream into her aching biceps and triceps, working it into the skin around her rotator cuff.
The tips of her breasts rubbed against the rough hair on his chest, scraping her overly sensitive skin like sandpaper. Her nipples beaded, instantly hot and hard, and she swayed against Matt again, torturing herself with the contact.
His cock pulsed against her stomach, or she pulsed against his cock. Ally wasn’t sure which, and didn’t really care. Matt’s hands were slathering the salve on her back, now, each long stroke pressing their bodies tighter together. She felt the hot moisture gathering between her legs, the pulsing throb of her vulva, aching to be spread for his entry.
She widened her stance and pressed against him, flexing her hips to slide her wet heat against his cock. Matt groaned and grabbed her ass, pulling her tight against him.
“You said we had to go slow,” he panted.
“I know.”
“This isn’t slow.”
Ally wriggled, desperate to feel his hot, heavy length inside her. Now her ass was on fire, too, the heat blazing deep into her core. “I can’t help it.”
“Damn it, I don’t want to hurt you. And I didn’t put the condom on yet. But you’re driving me crazy.”
“Take me, Matt. Please.”
He groaned. Stepping back just enough to reach between their bodies, he grabbed his cock and pushed it down, between her legs. But his hand was still covered in salve.
Matt gasped, then let out a shaky moan. “Oh, God. Too soon. Too much.”
Grabbing her thighs, he clamped them tight around his cock. He thrust once, his cock cradled by her thighs instead of deep inside her where she wanted him to be. Then he thrust again with a shout of a
nimal satisfaction, spouting like the garden hose. Ally whimpered. She was burning up, melting with need. And he’d already come.
“Get down on the blanket,” he rasped. “And spread your legs.”
She did as he ordered, the rough wool of the blanket spearing her back with thousands of sharp needles. The cool night air wafted across her steaming vulva, chilling her and heating her at the same time.
Matt dipped his fingers deep into the jar of salve, then slid them between her slick folds. His thumb rubbed her clit, massaging the creamy salve over and around the hood, then smearing it over the pulsing bud.
Her blood burst into flames. Every heartbeat made her clit throb with agony, hot and needy.
Ally arched her spine, crying out, trying to drive the aching bud harder against his hand. Trying to find some relief. But he’d moved on.
Now his fingers were stroking up and down her wet nether lips. Ally’s hips trembled uncontrollably, tears streaming down her face as she gasped and moaned. She was burning alive. Spontaneous combustion. All she wanted was to reach orgasm before the fire killed her.
His fingers thrust deep inside her tight vagina, and she clenched her muscles around him. Hard. The salve on his fingers mingled with her lubrication, coating the inside of her channel. And it soaked in.
Ally screamed, throwing her head back and arching off the blanket. The sensations were doubled, tripled, increased beyond her ability to measure. Matt’s fingers moved deep within her, but she lost the capacity of understanding what he was doing or what his movements meant. A second orgasm tore through her on the heels of the first. Then she was burning out of control, an inferno blazing with light and heat, and she lost herself in the whispering flames, coming again and again until her exhausted body collapsed, trembling and unable to move.
Hours, days, years later, reason reasserted itself. Her awareness drifted back into her body, called from whatever plane of existence upon which it had been languishing.
Matt was lazily stroking her hip and thigh with one hand, while with the other, he plumped one of her breasts so that he could lick and suckle it.
“What are you doing?” she whispered.
“Waiting for you to wake up.”
“How long…?”
“Ten, fifteen minutes, tops.” He rolled away from her, wincing as he got slowly to his knees.
Holding out the second, unopened jar of salve, he said, “And now that my blood’s not on fire, I hurt. Fix me, please.”
Ally smiled at his plaintive tone. Kneeling behind him, she began working the salve into his back. He groaned in pleasure as she rubbed it into his rigid shoulders, then into the knotted muscles of his arms.
Her hands tingled, but she knew the trick of applying the salve. It gained its full potency as it dried. So long as you kept fresh salve on your hands, you would feel only mild warmth. Which was good, because her muscles were still more liquid than solid. It wouldn’t take much to tip her over the edge.
“Lay down,” she ordered.
Matt collapsed onto the blanket, his head pillowed on his arms. When she applied the salve down his spine to his lower back, then massaged it into his ass, he gave up all attempts to be macho. He writhed against the wool beneath him, moaning and begging.
Ally savored the feel of his firm ass, flexing and straining beneath her fingers. Then, just as she’d imagined, she let her hands glide to the sides, over his hips. She was no longer suffering the effects of the salve, but touching and caressing him was heating her blood all over again.
“Roll over.”
He obeyed immediately. His cock was fully erect, although not as thickly swollen as it had been earlier, and his eyes were glassy and unfocused.
“Where did you put the condoms?”
“Pocket. Jeans. On ground.” He lifted one arm and pointed vaguely in the direction of the clearing’s entrance, before his arm flopped back onto the blanket.
Ally stood. “I’ll be back in just a minute.”
She opened the charmed circle, and hurried out into the clearing to hunt for his discarded jeans and the packages of condoms in the pocket. The condoms had spilled onto the ground when he tore his clothes off. She grabbed a handful, then hurried back to him, sealing the circle behind her again.
Her fingers were shaking so badly, she tore the first condom when she tried to unroll it. Matt groaned in despair.
“Don’t worry. I brought more.”
The second one rolled smoothly over his jutting cock, and Matt sighed in satisfaction as the latex gripped him. Ally’s inner muscles were as relaxed and liquid as her other muscles, and offered no resistance when she positioned herself above him and sank onto his cock.
Her sigh matched his groan.
Slowly, she rocked on him, moaning with pleasure as his cock pressed against the sensitized walls of her vagina. Matt grabbed her ass, urging her to move faster, as he thrust upward.
Soon she was riding him, rising and falling on his cock as she rocked back and forth, as if she was posting a trot. But no horse had ever felt like this between her legs.
She bent forward, changing the angle of his entry slightly, and braced her palms on his chest. With her fingernails, she flicked his nipples, wringing a harsh groan from him as he bucked wildly beneath her.
Matt’s hips surged off the blanket in a final heave and he cried out, his cock trembling inside her as the condom filled with his seed. That sent her over the edge, and she convulsed in her own release, collapsing on top of him.
When she opened her eyes and sat up, his limp cock slid out of her, brushing her clit with one last teasing caress. His eyes were closed, and his breathing was regular, if labored. Matt was down for the count, lost as she had been earlier, and wouldn’t be aware of anything she did for at least another five or ten minutes.
Carefully, she slid the full condom off him, then rose to her feet, holding it up to the sky.
“Father of life and growth, you willingly give your life each season so that your children grow strong. You give your passion, that your children will not falter. Now, with your death, let your children bear fruit. We gather the harvest, celebrating your death, knowing that you but wait to give life to the wheat that follows the corn.”
Ally turned the condom inside-out, anointing the cardinal points of her circle with Matt’s seed, now transformed into the life-giving force of the Lord of the Harvest. Grateful for his gift, she knelt in prayer before banishing the circle, her work here done.
And when Matt woke, his muscles soothed and relaxed as hers were, and no longer burning with urgency, they made slow, leisurely love on the plaid wool blanket, until all the condoms were gone.
* * * * *
Matt spent the next day in a blur. He spoke to clients, negotiated deals, and followed up with his contractors as if it was any other Monday, but his mind kept returning over and over to Ally, and the mind-blowing sex they’d shared.
It wasn’t just the hyperaware perceptions he’d experienced under the influence of that salve of hers. Even after their first frenzied coupling, when the burning in his blood had settled to a pleasant warmth, the sex with her had still been better than he’d ever had.
And it wasn’t as if the lovemaking had been a rare, superior performance, on either of their parts. There’d been the usual fumblings and mistakes that new lovers always made as they learned each other’s bodies. Yet somehow, none of that had mattered.
He’d always enjoyed sex, the focus on his body, the thrill of the buildup, and the final rush of release. But it was a pleasure in the same category as a fine gourmet dinner, or a hard-fought game of one-on-one basketball.
What he’d experienced with Ally had transcended that. It was no longer simply about enjoying the moment. It was more than that. What had him so befuddled and bewildered was that he wasn’t sure what more there was.
Shortly after three o’clock in the afternoon, the answer came to him in a sudden rush of clarity. He was in love with her.
He
stared sightlessly at his Day Planner. That changed everything.
As always, change must be accounted for in the plan.
Matt flipped to the section of his Day Planner reserved for long-term goals, and selected the page detailing goals for his personal life. The second major goal on the page was “Create a loving family,” followed by its subgoals “Get married”, “Have children”, and “Raise children with devotion”. Nothing about who he planned to marry. When he’d implemented the goal at the task level, he’d chosen to ask Cece to marry him, since she was the logical choice.
She wasn’t the logical choice any longer. She wasn’t even a valid choice, now that he knew what true passion was like. Fortunately, she wasn’t his only choice. He could ask Ally.
His heart leaped at the thought, but he’d long since learned to discount his emotions when making important plans. He drew a line down the center of a pad of yellow legal paper, and began listing the pros and cons of Ally’s applicability as a potential wife.
On the Pro side, she was intelligent, beautiful, and easy to talk to. She was a hard worker, good with children, and devoted to her family. On the Con side, she wanted to return to school, didn’t want to get married, was an outsider to the town even after two years, and wouldn’t leave her sister and niece until she knew they would be okay without her. He hesitated, wondering if he should include that he didn’t know how she felt about him, then brushed the thought aside. He’d find out how she felt when he asked her to marry him. If he asked her to marry him. He was still evaluating his options, developing his plan.
In his heart, he’d already decided. But that was what he wanted. What he would actually do was what he reasoned out as the best course of action, without being led astray by his wants.
He addressed each of the Cons in order. She wanted to return to school. He ran a real estate development business, not a farm. His business would not collapse if she wasn’t present 24x7. So she could spend some time away, attending classes. Much of what graduate students did was independent research for their theses, and she could do that at home. After all, he had plenty of land. He could find someplace for her to build a greenhouse or plant test crops.
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