by Jordan Bell
“I like this.”
“I haven’t been much of a girly-girl since I was like, twelve. To this day I forget to cross my ankles and my mother has a stroke. Ask me how long my lecture was about not wearing pantyhose today. Go on. Ask.”
He straightened and took my waist in both hands and pulled me in between his knees. “Nah, I like you just like this.”
I stroked his hair from his face and leaned down to kiss the top of his head. He smelled like evergreens.
“I’m sorry I’m late.”
“Don’t worry about it. I knew you’d have trouble escaping the women once they got to gossiping. I may have been away six years, but not a lot changes around here.”
I grinned down at him. “They all wanted to offer their grandsons to me. They’re like these crazy little old lady pimps.” I affected an exaggerated deep country accent and gestured to the empty space beside me. “We heard you’re very single. You’d like my nephew. He still lives at home. That’s not a problem is it?”
Jason laughed and pulled me closer. He touched his forehead to my stomach and inhaled the scent of me. “I hope you turned them down. I’m not ready to leave just yet.”
A shiver of pleasure ran through me, and fear too. I tried not to let my anxiety show when I asked, “When do you leave, Jason?”
“Come on.” He stood suddenly and whisked his hat and bag into his arms. “Let’s go inside.”
I followed him in. He went through the kitchen and headed up to my bedroom. I stopped to feed Mystic who’d gotten trapped inside all day and seemed pretty unhappy about it. She mewled and stomped around my feet. I rubbed her scruff and when I stood up, my eyes fell on the white box on the kitchen island.
Like a sleepwalker I circled the island and came to stand in front of the blue box with the invitation still resting inside. I picked it up, rubbed my thumb across the linen stationary. One month. Four weeks. He’d probably leave after the wedding. When had my anxiety shifted from Jonathan and Bailey to the departure of my temporary lover? I couldn’t remember. But I also couldn’t shake the truth that reading the date and their names side by side didn’t elicit the sickness and anger it once had.
“Cassidy?”
His voice echoed through the dark house. My name in his voice didn’t sound quite so foreign anymore.
I found him in my bed, shoes off, stretched out down the middle. He had his cowboy hat pulled down to cover his face, arms tucked beneath his head. I grinned and toed out of my shoes and shimmied my panties down my hips before climbing onto the bed with him. His shirt stretched tight across his sculpted chest. I swung a knee over his hips and straddled him un-self-consciously. He caught me when I settled into his body, his hands feeling for my knees, thumb caressing along the inside of my thighs.
“Mmm, what have we here?” I nabbed his hat and tossed it behind me into the dark recesses of my bedroom.
He gazed up at me as his hands disappeared under my skirt. I fisted his t-shirt. He sucked in a breath when he discovered I wore nothing beneath my dress.
“Flirt,” he accused and nudged his bulge up between my legs. “Sit back.”
I scooted so that he could free himself with a lazy flick to loosen the button then drop his zipper. I reached for my bed side table for a condom.
Jason was already hard when I unwound the condom down his shaft. He hissed and shifted in my hands and I took great pleasure dressing him. His member went rigid beneath my fingers.
“C’mere,” he murmured, took my hands in his and helped me climb higher onto his body so that his slightly curved shaft was positioned just behind me if I only sat back. “Ride me, Cassidy.”
“Thought you’d never ask.” I smiled as I lowered my mouth to his. He strained to kiss me but on top I had all the power and it left me feeling a little heady and euphoric. I sucked his bottom lip between my teeth and kissed him sparingly as I reached between us to take his member and guide it between my legs.
Jason fingered my thighs, stroked and squeezed them like he didn’t know what to do with himself while I held all the cards. I sat back and he stretched me open, sticky lips enveloping him as I descended down his rigid, unrelenting cock. He went in like I was made for him, slick and slow, until I was seated to the root and very thoroughly filled up by him.
There was something deeply intimate about having him inside me and our clothes still on, the action hidden by the fall of my dress. He held my thighs and hips and I rocked and lowered myself against him. We were very quiet for once, breathing only, soft moans muffled at the back of our throats. We moved together lazily, rolling and grinding for what felt like hours.
Once in a while he’d suck in a breath and arch his hips to meet mine, our bodies would collide and I’d feel a match struck all the way up to my fingertips. His hands touched me, explored me, grazed along my sensitive clit only to flit away to spread my thighs or grasp my bottom.
Every grind, ever gasp, every slick thrust went in slow motion until the slow burn enveloped my thoughts. Until we were rushing to finish clumsily, bursts of surprise became laughter as I rode him to orgasm. I could feel his hands shaking against my skin, his beautiful blue eyes disappeared from mine as he arched and strained to climb inside of me.
My fingers stiffened, my head fell forward, and the match finally caught and enveloped me in an intense heat as I came soundlessly moments later. Shaking. Wordless. Overwhelmed.
###
I woke hours later with him curled into my side. He touched his mouth close to my ear as if to whisper a sweet nothing.
“You snore.”
“You are not charming.” I shoved him and rolled onto my stomach and buried my face in my hands. He laughed sleepily and I peeked at him through my fingers. “Tell me about New York.”
He smiled without opening his eyes, caught somewhere between the real world and dreamland. I tucked my hands near my face and watched his eyes flutter beneath his eyelids.
“I thought there was a rule against talking,” he murmured.
“This isn’t talking,” I said matter-of-factly. “It’s foreplay. A brief interlude between positions.”
“Tease.”
I wanted to tell him that in a few weeks I’d be homeless and I didn’t know if I wanted to stay in Castle Creek or explore the world. I’d never thought of myself as an explorer before now, but I could become one. I could do my job from anywhere there was internet.
I needed something irresistible to latch onto to give me hope that there was something else out there for me once I lost the farmhouse. But I couldn’t bring myself to tell him any of that and shatter the quiet, blissful sanctuary we’d created around my bed.
“Mmm, it’s…loud.” He rolled closer to me and settled a hand over my half covered thigh. He traced the words across my skin with the pad of his thumb while he spoke. “The lights, the cars, the people…it’s a very sleepless city. Not like here. The lights never go out and there aren’t ever any stars. There are too many people and the weather gets weird trapped between all those skyscrapers.”
“Oh.” That was not the irresistible temptation of adventure I’d hoped he’d paint for me. If that was the world outside my farmhouse, I didn’t want it.
“But…” Jason trailed off for a moment before cracking open his sleepy eyes. Such a beautiful shade of blue, muted now in the dusky twilight. “There’s this energy we don’t have here. Everyone has purpose and ambition and you can feel it. It’s progress and ideas and hope.” He rubbed his eyes and settled back down into his pillow. We were so close I could feel the heat on his skin. “I don’t know, it sounds ridiculous. It’s an engine of change and it’s amazing what can happen when you put that many minds in one place. I like being a part of that.”
“You sound like you miss it.”
“I do.” He traced the contours of my face with his eyes and briefly his fingertips hardened against my hip as if he were about to pull me to him. “I miss Castle Creek when I am away. They are both home.”
&nbs
p; “How long are you staying? I mean, you have a life you have to get back to, right?” The question on my mind for weeks came tumbling out before I could shove the words back in.
I didn’t want to know. I did. I didn’t.
Jason opened his eyes again. His smile vanished behind his serious gaze. “You mean, do I have a girlfriend I have to get back to? Several maybe?”
Color flushed my cheeks hot and dropped my heart into my toes. I lowered my eyes to stare at the white sheet between us, a sliver of space an ocean wide.
“I didn’t mean that.”
“I was a kid, Cass. In high school? I was a dumb kid who had all these beautiful girls throwing themselves at him and all these people clamoring for his attention. His approval. That kid didn’t know what he was doing. He was foolish and had no idea what to do with girls anyway. Hey.” He put his hand on my face and tilted my chin up so that I was forced to meet his eyes. Even gentle, his grip was strong. “I am a grown man now, not a foolish boy. I don’t have anyone in New York and I haven’t been with anyone else since I’ve been home.”
I blushed and caught his thumb against my lips and kissed it. “I’m sorry. It’s not even any of my business. I like that this is uncomplicated. I need that. I guess I still see you as the boy I knew you used to be. I thought…I don’t know. I don’t know what I thought.”
Jason slid in closer so that there was no more space between us. He stroked his thumb across my lips and watched closely as it mapped its course. “Tell me what you thought.”
My breath caught. The way his rumbling voice went straight down my spine to concentrate between my legs left me feeling electrified.
“God, Jason, I don’t want to tell you.” I swallowed and tried to pull away from his influence but he held me still and trapped and his eyes didn’t blink as he waited for my admission. “I thought you mustn’t have changed if you were willing to sleep with me.”
There. Embarrassment made it hard to breathe. I hated him knowing I was weak against my own self-doubt.
In one swift movement he had me on my back and straddled my hips. His erection, even after hours of sticky wet sex, began to harden against my stomach.
“Willing? Understatement.”
###
The shrill vibration of Jason’s cell phone clattering across the night stand brought his kisses to an agonizing halt. He sighed against my mouth and rolled off. He snatched up the phone when it started shrilling a second time.
“Hey, it’s me. Everything ok?” He settled on the edge of the bed with his back to me. I resisted the urge to run my fingers along his body as long as I could and while he listened patiently to the voice on the other end of the phone line, I climbed onto my knees and strung my fingertips across the flat planes of his shoulders. He arched cat-like in response, a soft hiss escaping through his teeth before he reached and captured my wrist over his shoulder to hold me still.
After a quiet hmm, he released me suddenly and sat up.
“He what? No, tell Tommy to go to hell, but don’t let Garton shoot him. I’m on my way. I’ll be there in less than ten minutes.”
Jason ruffed his hair aggressively and hunched forward into the phone. Tension rippled across his shoulders.
“It’s really not your business where I’m at. Deal with it until I get there.”
Jason hung up on the caller, probably Jonathan, and for a moment I thought he might throw his phone across the room, but instead he let out the tension and allowed his phone to fall into the sheets beside him.
“Is there anything I can do?” I asked quietly, not that I had any idea what that might be. He didn’t answer right away and he didn’t turn around. I waited, kneeling behind him, wanting to touch him but not knowing if I should.
Finally he sighed, slapped his hands on his knees, and stood. When he turned I saw all of him, beautiful and so strong. Too strong for the distress I saw in his eyes or the worry that furrowed his brow.
“I have to go. Again. I’m sorry.”
“If there’s anything I can do…”
He took me up suddenly in his arms and buried his face in my hair. His whole body felt tense, reaching towards me even as he pulled me into him. He knelt on the bed with one knee and inhaled deeply at my throat.
“Wait up for me.”
The hollow space in my chest throbbed painfully beneath his husky voice. “Yes,” I promised. “Of course.”
I reached to touch his face, but he pulled away before I could. I sat back on my heels, mute and dumb as I watched him collect his clothes and shove all his emotion deep down so that no one outside my bedroom could see them.
“Apparently my Uncle Tommy showed up and offered to buy the farm from my grandpa.” Jason shook his head as he laced up his boots. “Offered far below its worth. Garton didn’t just refuse, he pulled a shotgun on him. Then my uncle threatened to have him committed. You can about imagine how well that went.”
I groaned. I could imagine Garton, the full six and a half feet of him, swinging the shotgun around like a crazy, cartoon hermit. It had something to do with the land or the water, but these Midwest men had fire in their veins, unlike the rest of us mortals. They lived forever, quiet and self-determined, until threatened and then hell hadn’t the carnage of a Nebraska man protecting his own.
“He’s lucky Garton threatened first.”
“Jonathan hounds grandpa for the farm every day, but we all know Jonathan has no head for it. Uncle Tommy’s trying to rob him blind and not even being all that sneaky about it. Honestly, I don’t blame him for wanting to disown us all.”
Jason stood up, shoved his wallet into his back pocket and returned to the bedside to stand in front of me.
“And you?” I asked. “What do you want for him?”
“Retirement. I think he should sell the farm, not necessarily to family, and move into town with mom. She’s offered to turn the second floor into an apartment. He’d have access to his friends and his family and he could let someone else take care of the land who has a vested interest in it.”
“But?”
Jason frowned. “Right now I’m the only one he’s willing to talk to because I haven’t made any demands of him. If I tell him what I think he should do, he’ll believe he has no one on his side. I have to let him make the choice for himself.”
“Maybe you should tell him exactly that,” I said carefully, well aware of how precarious this moment was. It was definitely more than sex. “Sometimes…sometimes making decisions about your life means listening to the people who are most important to you. The people who will spend their lives along side yours. He respects you, Jason. He’ll listen. You said it yourself, he’s not a child. He knows he can’t keep up how he used to, but no one is giving him an option he thinks he can live with. Maybe that should be you.”
“You don’t know my grandfather very well.” He hesitated like he was going to bend down and kiss me, but instead he ran a hand through his hair and headed for the door. “I’ll think about it.”
10
____________
Shabby chic. That became the wedding watchword. In a lapse of good judgment, and also because Jason was kissing his way up my leg from my toes, I’d have done anything to get my mother off the phone when she called to ask if she could host the wedding salon at my house. I hung up the phone and let it fall from my fingers to the floor without a clue as to what a wedding salon even was and it wasn’t until Jason and I’d gotten out of bed hours later than I even realized I’d agreed to host one.
Apparently, a wedding salon was a fancy term for sitting in the same room with twenty gossiping women, a pound of glue sticks, a flour sack of glitter, and enough mimosa mix to drop an elephant. It meant I let every Blue, every King, and every bridesmaid into my home to build romance from tulle, candles, and pennant banners. The same people now prepping for Bailey’s wedding had also been a part of prepping for my wedding. There was a lot more alcohol in the house this time around.
I self-exiled to th
e front porch swing after everyone had arrived with a craft project under one arm and a mimosa in the other. The orange juice, admittedly, was mostly for color.
The warm sun struck my bare toes while in my lap I wrapped blush pink ribbon around white envelopes. The envelopes were to be hung from the rafters of the barn where guests could hide a hand written love letter from a secret admirer or a kind note to brighten someone’s day. Later, when the slow dances began, guests would be invited to pluck them down. Love letters from strangers. It would have been a very sweet, romantic idea if it didn’t make me gag a little. Each letter I tied off felt like a needle through my heart.
I blamed Jason for discovering that kissing and sucking on my toes made me go momentarily blind and delirious for putting me in this situation.
“You’re a brave girl,” Jonathan’s aunt Judith said to me later when she needed a smoke break. Aunt Judith gazed across the fields towards the King farmhouse and plucked absently at a thread that I suspected would soon unravel her knit shawl if she kept it up.
“Or stupid. I may be that instead.” I shrugged into my lap. “I considered smothering them in their sleep, but Sheriff Gibbs is already mad at me.”
Aunt Judith snorted on her cigarette and blew the smoke out through her pursed grin. “The best retaliation would be to get yourself a new man and absolutely smother yourself in him. Hell, get two or three. Nothing will make you feel more like a woman than having three voracious lovers.”
I grinned. “You know this from personal experience?”
“Oh sweetheart, the stories I could tell would curl your toes.” Aunt Judith stubbed out her cigarette and touched my ankle. I could feel her wrinkles against my skin. Her over abundant smile turned serious. “We were all sorry to hear. I want you to know. You’re a good girl and we’d have been proud to have you in our family.”