Then he dropped on to the bed next to her and took her into his arms. “Cass, I knew this would happen, and I knew I’d have to deal with it, and now’s a good time. We’ve got some breathing space before harvest, and the contractors won’t be here for another two weeks. What has to be done can be done without me. Best I get this over with once and for all.”
She walked him to the car. “When will you be back?”
He folded her in his arms and gave her a long and lingering kiss. But she could feel his distraction; feel that he was already gone. “As soon as I can, Cassie, as soon as I can.”
She stood in the driveway for a long time after his car disappeared over the hill, arms wrapped tightly around herself like she was cold, even while the sweat dripped down her back. Was his father right? Was he tired of life on the farm, but didn’t have enough guts to tell her? Was it Maggie pulling him back? She shoved all those thoughts out of her head. He was her husband. It would be all right.
She went to feed the chickens.
*****
Unlike the last time, Simon’s trip to Chicago wasn’t a quick turnaround. A week passed, then ten days. Simon emailed her several times a day and texted. He called her in the evenings. The first couple of days there was delicious phone sex, but as the days drew on to two weeks, Simon’s calls were short and he was distracted. The texts and emails felt like duty rather than pleasure, and Cassie began to wonder more and more if Simon’s father had been right.
“He’ll be back, Cassie-girl.” Her father squeezed her shoulder and kissed the top of her head. Then he sat down next to her, pushing a plate of Joanie’s lasagne across the table to her. “Believe me, honey, I would have never allowed him to propose to you if I’d not known the man’s heart.”
In spite of her father’s reassurance, she blinked back tears. She wished she could be as certain.
“Eat, Cassie. You’re my daughter and not a bag of bones. Besides,” he said around a mouthful of garlic bread, “a farmer needs her strength. Hard work running a farm. If anyone would know that, Cassie-girl, you would.”
“And you, Daddy.” She reached across the table and squeezed his hand, but her efforts at a stiff upper lip failed and a fat tear slid down her cheek, then another one.
“Cassie, the man loves you. I may not be sure of many things in this world, but I’m sure of that. And back in Chicago,” he nodded in the general direction, “well, you met his old man. Poor boy’s gotta have a ton of baggage. Isn’t what the psychologists are calling it these days? He’s walking away from a lot, Cassie. And if the old man forces him to, he’ll break off everything for you. I know that as well as I know my own name.”
She forced a smile and wiped at her eyes. She wished she could be so sure. Simon had always seemed too good to be true, and she had always been the pragmatist in the family. She knew only too well that if something seemed too good to be true, it usually was. She shoved back her plate with an excuse and went down to the garden. It was too hot to do much even after supper, but anything was better than sitting around thinking of Simon and speculating.
After a few minutes of trying to pull weeds in the heavy heat, she gave up and found herself walking down into the little overgrown woodland near the swimming hole. It was cool beneath the trees and she looked up to notice that there’d be a fine crop of hickory nuts this year. She’d make her mother’s famous hickory nut banana cake for Simon. She was sure he’d love that. Christ! If Simon were even going to be there. Hickory nut and banana cake served with her mom’s special recipe hot cocoa. It was always a treat in the winter when she and her dad had come in frozen from doing the chores. Somehow it always made the dark winter days seem brighter.
Well, she doubted it would help cheer her much if Simon decided to stay in Chicago. Oh, she was sure he’d do right by her and her father as far as the farm went. He’d not leave them in financial straits. Though she had her pride. If push came to shove, she’d love to tell him to fuck off, that she didn’t need his damn money. And it wasn’t even about the money. It was about the dreams, the plans, the scheming they’d done together. She couldn’t bring those dreams to fruition on her own, and really, what good were dreams and plans if they couldn’t be shared?
She wiped at her eyes and leaned back against the rough bark of a hickory tree, then gave up and let the tears come. It was a marriage of convenience. She knew that. She’d known that from the beginning. And wasn’t Simon’s father right after all? Simon was willing to marry her because he wanted to play farm boy, and surely divorce was barely a minor inconvenience for daddy-big-bucks to pull off for his little boy. The farm meant nothing to him. But she had thought, she really had believed, that it meant something to Simon, that she had meant something to Simon. Tears gave way to sobs, sobs she’d held back for two long weeks, sobs that had been held back by a dam of hope that was crumbling with each day Simon didn’t come home to her.
Leaning with her back up against the tall tree sobbing her eyes out—as embarrassing as it was, that’s how Simon found her.
“Cassie? God, Cassie, are you all right?” Simon pulled her into his arms with such force that she gasped. “Your father told me what I put you through. Christ, Cass, I’m such an asshole. I never intended—”
She didn’t give him time to finish. Instead, she pushed away from him, squared her shoulders and blurted it out. “If you’re in love with Maggie, I understand. I mean we both knew this was a marriage of convenience, but I… I can’t share you, Simon. I’m sorry. I just can’t. Even if it means losing the farm, it’s either her or me.”
“Wha—” He froze on the spot, staring at her like she had two heads. “Cassie? What the hell are you talking about? Of course I love Maggie. Maggie’s my sister. She’s taking over Dennis Consolidated, and well, the two of us have had a seriously difficult time reconciling the old man to it. But Cassie, for fuck’s sake, that has nothing to do with you. You’re my wife, and I wouldn’t have married you if I didn’t intend to be a husband to you, to be faithful to you, to do my best to make you happy.”
He paused, and even in the fading light, she saw colour rise to his face, saw him swallow hard. “I wouldn’t have married you if I hadn’t believed that I could love you, that you might possibly learn to love me back.” He huffed out a harsh breath. “Hell, Cassie, I loved you before I even met you, just from what your father said about you, from your emails he shared from the little bits of you that are all over Fielding Farm. You’re the heart of Fielding Farm. I knew that before I met you, and I loved the farm from the moment I set foot on it. How could I not love its heart? I’m sorry. I should have told you about Maggie. I should have told you about the whole situation. I just didn’t want to drag you into it. I didn’t want you to see what a mess my family is.”
“Christ, my dad made it difficult. What should have taken a few days at most to settle, he brought the lawyers in on, and it got messy. He may have cut me off, as he says, but my inheritance, my trust fund, is from my mother, not him, and as much as he hates that, he can’t touch it. And my sister, well she’s the best thing that could ever happen to Dennis Consolidated. She’s got a mind for business you wouldn’t believe, but the old man is stubborn enough to think that a son should take over from his father, even if the son would rather be a farmer’s husband.”
He kissed her fervently on the lips, then pulled away. “I’m sorry. I should have let you know. I should have been more communicative, but as the old man drug things out, I found it harder and harder to concentrate on anything but getting everything sorted and getting home to you for good. I get kind of tunnel-visioned, I guess, when I want something really, really badly.” He squeezed her hand until bones popped. “You are my home, Cassie. And eventually my father’ll come to terms with that. But even if he doesn’t, Maggie and I have taken the choices out of his hands. We’re not children, and he has to let us have our lives. And he had to accept that my life, the only life I want, is with you, here on Fielding Farm.”
She
lifted her arms around his neck and pulled him to her, finding his mouth warm and yielding, responsive in ways that sent tremors down her belly and into her groin.
Gently, he pulled away. “I won’t leave you again, Cassie. I’m home to stay.”
She pulled him back to her so hard that he gasped for breath. “Good!” Her laugh came out more of a sob. “Because I need a good hand around here, Simon, and you are damn good with your hands.” She tugged his shirt from his trousers and quickly dispensed with the buttons, then shoved it over his shoulders to caress his pectoral muscles, feeling them tighten beneath her touch.
“You’re not bad yourself, wife.” His large hands cupped her breasts, and he slid his thumbs over her taut nipples before he caressed the curves of her hips and the roundness of her bottom. “I want this marriage to work, Cassie,” he whispered against the hollow of her throat. “I want everything about us to work, and I hope with all my heart that you want that too.”
Everything in her ached as he paused to shove off the shirt and drop it to the ground. He brought his hands to rest on her shoulders, then shoved aside the straps of her tank top and bra, pushing everything down until her breasts were mounded, nearly toppling from her clothing. Then, with lips, tongue and teeth, he traced the path along her collarbones and down her chest, lifting her breasts free from the constraining garments into his kneading hands. She watched through a faceting of tears as he took each nipple in turn, suckling as much of her fullness into her mouth as he could, then circling the stippling of her areole, with feather strokes of his tongue.
“Oh God,” she cried out. “I want… I want so much. I want so much for this farm. I want so much for us.”
“Then have it. Have it all. No one’s keeping it from you. And me, well I’m easy. You had me from the very first time I picked you up and tucked you into my bed sound asleep. I knew that’s exactly where I wanted you. I knew I wanted to keep you there.” He knelt in front of her, working his way down the flat of her stomach, pushing and shoving her clothing out of the way, tasting and nipping the goose flesh of the sensitive path down to her navel. There he nuzzled beneath the waistband of her cut-offs, fumbling with the fly until he had freed a path over the curls of her pubis. His hands slid to her hips, easing the shorts down, cupping, caressing, fingers finding pathways and valleys thickening and moist.
He slipped one leg out of her shorts and lifted it until her foot rested on his shoulder, then he trailed kisses from the swell of her calf up the inside of her thigh until his mouth met his fingers. For a second he knelt before her pouting vulva, fondling and stroking, holding her open to his hungry gaze. Then he released a sigh and the warmth of his breath sent shivers over her pussy and up her belly.
She whimpered softly at the lavings of his tongue—cautious at first, almost shy in its exploration. Then he grew bold, tongue darting, teeth nipping, lips suckling until his face glistened in the growing dusk with the sheen of her pleasure, and her legs gave way as she came.
He caught her. Making a nest in the leaf litter with his shirt, he lowered her onto the ground. She was still writhing and convulsing as though she didn’t belong to herself, but to a possessing spirit who lived only for pleasure.
She watched in fascination as he lowered his trousers, releasing his erection, the tip moist with beading pre-cum, then he offered her a shy smile, as though her were asking her permission, as though he needed it.
She opened her legs and lifted her hips, guiding him into her swollen opening until he filled her and stretched her almost, but not quite to the point of pain. And when she was so full of him there was no room for even a thought that wasn’t of him, he began to thrust and rock and rub, carefully at first, creating exquisite friction against the exposed node of her clitoris until it thrummed like a high tension wire.
The veins in his neck bulged as he gained speed and power, thrusting faster and harder. Then he gathered her still closer, his hands cupping her ass, pressing her to him, pushing still deeper until she was sure he would split her in two, and yet the thought of him stopping was unbearable, as the woods echoed with the cries of their pleasure.
When she and Simon returned from the woods hand-in-hand, her father was waiting for them on the porch. For a long moment, the three of them stood in silence watching the sun set over the tender spring green of the cornfield across the road.
“Did you two figure it out?” her father asked, eyes still on the sunset.
She nodded, as Simon pulled her close into his arms and kissed her ear. “We did. Yes.”
“Told you how it would be, Cassie-girl.”
She reached over and gave him a kiss on the cheek. “That you did. I should listen to my father more, I guess.”
He shrugged modestly. “Couples fight, then they make up. That’s the best part.” He gave Simon’s shoulder a manly squeeze. “You’ll get there. You’ll get there together.” He kissed her cheek. “Now if the two of you are all sorted and you don’t need me to referee, I’ve got a date with the hot woman up the road.” He straightened his collar.
“Joanie cooking you dinner?” Simon asked.
“Don’t know, don’t care,” Merrill Fielding said. “Maybe I’ll take her out. Maybe we’ll stay in. Either way, don’t wait up.”
More About K D Grace/Grace Marshall
Voted ETO Best Erotic Author of 2014, and a proud member of The Brit Babes, K D Grace believes Freud was right. In the end, it really is all about sex, well sex and love. And nobody’s happier about that than she is, otherwise, what would she write about?
When she’s not writing, K D is veg gardening. When she’s not gardening, she’s walking. She walks her stories, and she’s serious about it. She and her husband have walked Coast to Coast across England, along with several other long-distance routes. For her, inspiration is directly proportionate to how quickly she wears out a pair of walking boots. She also enjoys martial arts, reading, watching the birds and anything that gets her outdoors.
K D has erotica published with SourceBooks, Xcite Books, HarperCollins Mischief Books, Mammoth, Cleis Press, Black Lace, Erotic Review, Ravenous Romance, Sweetmeats Press and others.
K D’s critically acclaimed erotic romance novels include, The Initiation of Ms Holly, Fulfilling the Contract and The Pet Shop. Her paranormal erotic novel, Body Temperature and Rising, the first book of her Lakeland Witches trilogy, was listed as honorable mention on Violet Blue’s Top 10 Sex Books for 2011. Books two and three, Riding the Ether and Elemental Fire are now also available.
K D Grace also writes hot romance as Grace Marshall. An Executive Decision, Identity Crisis and The Exhibition are all available.
Website http://kdgrace.co.uk/
Facebook https://www.facebook.com/KDGraceAuthor
You Said
Tabitha Rayne
You brought me to the beach house. You brought me here. You said you’d fuck this thing out of me. You said you’d tear it from me by force and I believed you. My sex believed you. I got wet at your words and lay waiting, trembling, almost ashamed at the juices pouring onto the crisp new sheets as the waves lapped their own wetness onto the sand outside.
I’d waited. I’d believed you. And yet, here we are, days later, sun-browned and salt-kissed, and you haven’t done what you’d said you’d do.
I’m still me! I want to rage and pull you into me, force you to do it. But it’s like you think I’m too fragile to fuck.
Too fragile to fuck.
And that’s what hurts the most.
You think you’ll damage me but you won’t.
Here, I offer my hand into the darkness intending to pull you in, but you stroke my hair tenderly and roll away. All the money in the world can’t fix this.
I study myself in the mirror. I’m sure I don’t look any different. I rub in my lotions and creams after my shower and I’m sure I don’t feel any different.
Is it my smell? Do I smell different?
It’s you who’s fragile. I realise that now, not me
. Or maybe it’s both of us. I’ve arranged a special night tonight. You don’t know it yet but you are going to fuck this thing out of me and you’re going to do it tonight.
“How’s the lamb?” I ask, peering through my lashes over my glass of wine, taking a sip.
“Delicious,” you say and pause. Then, “are you sure you should be drinking?”
Seduction evaporates and anger flashes. I take a gulp forcing down the fury and answer.
“It’s full of anti-oxidants.”
You smile warmly and it reaches your eyes. “Sorry, I’m—”
“Overprotective?”
“Worried.”
“Please stop.” I breathe hard and take another slice of the tender meat, rolling it around in my mouth but it has suddenly lost its flavour. I decide to put this down to the gift-wrapped box sitting on the pillow and the excitement it elicits, not the exchange we’ve just had.
I was so proud of my afternoon bravado, stepping out into the seedier side of a town I’m unfamiliar with and finding my way back to our summer retreat.
You put your cutlery down and wipe your perfectly clean lips with your napkin, staring at me all the while. I melt. You have that twinkle. That hard, cut glass twinkle that I haven’t seen for so long now.
“You look nice,” you say.
“Nice?” I am incredulous.
“I mean, sexy. Gorgeous.”
That’s better.
“Let’s go through to the bedroom.” I am already standing in front of you, holding out my hand before I even realise it. Just these few steps are enough to let air to my panty-less crotch, cooling the moisture which has been seeping and gathering all day since I sneaked off and bought your present.
“What’s this?” you ask coyly, taking the silk ribbon and pulling it free from the velveteen case.
Sexy Just Got Rich: Brit Babes Do Billionaires Page 22