by Iris Morland
“And then I met Jeremy,” she continued, “and I thought we’d stay in Chicago forever. But that didn’t happen.”
Adam stopped himself from asking more. Grace had mentioned that Joy had had a boyfriend—fiancé?—but Adam knew nothing more than that. He wondered if this Jeremy had something to do with her moving away from Chicago to a tiny town like Heron’s Landing. Gently, he asked, “What happened after that?”
She shrugged, but he could see the tension in her face. “Things didn’t work out, I guess. And now here I am.” She tried to smile, but he could tell this wasn’t something she wanted to talk about.
Adam touched her arm. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s over and done with.” She sipped her wine, and then asked, “What about you? What was your wife like?”
For some reason, he hadn’t expected her to ask about Carolyn. It felt so strange, talking about his wife with the woman he’d kissed and pleasured last night. Strange, yet…not. His family had a tendency to avoid the subject of Carolyn, and he found himself wanting to talk about her. She’d always be part of his life; acting like she hadn’t existed wouldn't make his grief over her death disappear.
“Carolyn was one of those people who everyone liked. Kind, funny, generous. She was about your height, but with blond hair.”
Joy smiled. “Where did you meet?”
“In college. We took a business class together, and I sat behind her. She said no to me twice before she agreed to go out with me. She wore a blue sweater and her hair in a bun on our first date. I’ll never forget it.”
The moment turned silent, but not awkwardly. Sadness filled him, but also, an odd sense of, well, joy. He’d been lucky to know and love Carolyn, and although he’d always miss her, she was gone. The first months after Carolyn’s death had been a haze of grief and anger. Adam could barely remember those months. As time passed, though, the haziness of the grief had transformed into a day-to-day sadness, an ache that would never go away. The smallest things broke his heart—eating her favorite dish, watching a TV show she liked—and sometimes he didn’t know if he could go on.
But time had gone on. The grief would always exist, no matter how many years passed. Adam also knew that he’d never be the same person as before, but he’d be okay. He’d survive.
Now, though, he stood with this woman, a woman who was very present and alive and beautiful in her own right. Her bright hair, and bright eyes, the freckles scattered across her face, her nails painted a bright red, and even the strap of her blue bra coalesced to make her seem like a fanciful creature, too lovely for mere mortals to gaze upon. He wanted to trace the lovely angle of her collarbones, kiss the inside of her elbows, tease the skin of her slim ankles.
“You remind me of a fairy,” he found himself saying.
She laughed, caught off guard. “A fairy? Do I have wings sprouting behind me?”
“No, but you’re a creature who’s hard to catch and harder to find. And you’re all colors and light.” He brushed her cheek with his thumb.
Her chest rose, pushing her breasts up, and he had the urge to bury his face there. Lick her and taste her and inhale every inch of her. “I never knew you were so fanciful,” she murmured.
“Only with you.”
He kissed her, setting his wine glass on the counter behind her. She didn’t taste like a fairy, though: she tasted of woman, flesh and blood and heat and silk. After stripping off his t-shirt and hers, he backed her into her bedroom. They fell onto the bed in a tangle of limbs, and he hardly knew where he began and she ended. His thumbs brushed her hipbones; she shimmied underneath him, her breath fanning his cheek.
That was when she unzipped his jeans and, taking his hardened cock into her hand, he tipped his head back and groaned. He watched her pale, slim fingers encircle his cock, which grew larger at her ministrations. She stroked him, at once tightly and like a butterfly’s wing, and it was absolute torment.
She moaned a little underneath her breath. “I had a feeling you were packing, but you, sir, exceeded my expectations.”
“I’m glad not to disappoint.”
She smiled widely, climbing on top of him, letting go of his cock. He almost protested, but then he forgot about it when she smiled, her teeth flashing, as she unclasped her bra and let it fall down her arms. She tossed it behind her before cupping one breast. He watched, enthralled, as she played with her breasts, tweaking a nipple and moaning as she did it. His cock bobbed in front of her, and he almost tipped her over to take over.
“Jesus Christ, Joy,” he ground out. “Let a man live, will you?”
She took his hand, placing it over her pounding heart. He stroked down her sternum, his fingers brushing the underside of one breast. Softness, heat, pale skin. It was straight out of a fantasy, this fairy woman playing with herself on top of him.
She then moved down and, her face level with his groin, licked the length of his cock. He bucked, pleasure piercing through his limbs. If she weren’t careful, he’d come just from her light touch.
Joy swirled her tongue around the head, sucking him briefly. He cursed; she grinned. She continued licking and sucking and when she fondled him, too, he could feel his balls drawing up into orgasm.
He tipped her over onto the bed, looming over her. “Playtime’s over,” he said.
He pulled off her shorts and underwear while she reached into her bedside drawer for a condom. She ripped it open and rolled the latex down his cock. He kissed her, their tongues tangling. He parted her folds, and he groaned at how wet she was. He knew she deserved a lengthy seduction, but it’d been too long. He hadn’t had sex since his wife died, and the desperation filling him couldn’t be ignored. And as Joy lifted her hips against him, saying his name, he knew she was as desperate as he was.
He positioned his cock at her entrance and pushed inside. Stars burst behind his eyelids, and Joy gripped his shoulders. A bead of sweat rolled down his face, and when she reached up and licked it, he shuddered.
Adam thought to wait for her to adjust, but he couldn’t. At Joy’s small cry as he thrust out and slammed back into her, she couldn’t wait either. His rhythm was jerky, frantic, but Joy just wrapped her arms around his neck and held on. She worked herself on his cock, and they chased their mutual pleasure. He bit her shoulder, and her nails dug into his shoulders.
“So wet, so tight,” he muttered, not even knowing what he was saying at this point as he thrust inside her. “You drive me crazy.”
She laughed a little, but then moaned as he brushed against her clit. “Don’t stop. Don’t you dare stop. I’m so close.”
Words were lost at this point. They kissed and their teeth clashed and it was eager and messy, and the bed hit the wall in time to their rhythm. Adam felt his orgasm coiling, a spring about to release, and he lifted Joy’s legs for a deeper angle.
Her eyes widened as he fucked her this way, and then she moaned loud and long. “Oh my God, Jesus Christ, fuck me, God!”
He grinned, making sure to keep her legs up so he could thrust against that one particular spot. Wetness coated his cock, and the sounds of their joined bodies coupled with the sound of the bed hitting the wall created the most erotic experience of Adam’s life.
Joy didn’t say anything more. Instead, she tipped her head back further and further, her throat exposed, and as Adam scraped his teeth along its length, she shuddered. She made a low sound. And then her body erupted: full body shivers that coalesced into her sheath contracting around him in urgent pulses.
He thrust his tongue into her mouth as she came, and then only a few moments later, he was coming, too. He swore, feeling his balls draw up and then his entire body filled with intense pleasure. He jerked inside of her, his hands gripping her legs, and it went on and on and on. So long that he felt a little dizzy as he began to come down from the high.
“Jesus Christ, Joy,” he said. He collapsed next to her, trying to catch his breath.
She stretched an arm over her head, smiling slyly,
languid and gorgeous in the dim light. “That was nice,” she murmured.
He barked out a laugh. Nice? How about transformative? But seeing her sleepy, sly look, he pulled her close and kissed her collarbone, her ear, any place he could find. She wiggled and laughed, and then sighed.
Time seemed to come to a standstill. Adam couldn’t stop touching her, even though he wanted to sleep for a week. But when Joy turned onto her stomach, her chin on her hands, he felt himself harden as he gazed at her pert little ass. Would he ever stop wanting this woman?
“I think I’m going to take a shower,” she said, licking her lips. “Wanna join?”
His idea to fall asleep went straight out the window. He picked her up, tossing her over his shoulder, Joy squealing.
11
J oy smiled as she finished the last paragraph of her story about River’s Bend. She planned to reintroduce the subject to Adam later that day, especially now that the vineyard was expanding into events. Mostly, though, she was giddy about everything else that had happened recently: Adam, sex, kissing, Adam, sex. Lots of sex. Adam had come over every night for the past week, and each time they slept together, it was unlike anything Joy could describe.
The sex wasn’t hours-long or intense, acrobatic Tantric sex that you could base a series of erotica novels off of. It didn’t involve sex swings (although Joy had joked about getting one) or giant dildos or even anything other than oral and your traditional penis-vagina sex in various positions. But being so close to Adam, touching his body, his hands running down her body, the way he felt inside of her? She had a difficult time describing all of the various emotions that ran through her mind each time they had sex. And she was the writer.
But adjectives, verbs, nouns—they all failed her. The sex possessed a language entirely its own, one that Joy was only learning as the days passed. Sometimes she’d see something in his gaze that caused her heart to contract, and when he curled his fingers into hers, she never wanted to let him go.
She was, she thought wryly, becoming rather maudlin in her old age.
Today, though, Joy finished this first draft of her story about the vineyard, one that featured the beginning of it doing events, and she printed off a copy before heading to her car. She could’ve sent Adam a copy electronically, but he was a dinosaur at heart and probably didn’t like to read anything on a screen. That was something she loved about him.
Joy stilled at the thought, her hand above her car door handle. Love? Adam? L-O-V-E? She shook her head. No, she liked certain things about him. She liked the way he kissed her, and how he brought her new bottles of wine. She liked his hands and the dark hair running along his forearms. But nothing about love, not real love, not the love she thought she’d had with Jeremy.
She winced at the thought of her ex-fiancé. Jeremy had been texting her more and more lately, wanting to talk to her about…she didn’t even know. What was there to say? He wouldn’t apologize, yet he wouldn’t leave her alone, either. It was as if the thought of her daring to leave him after he’d cheated on her flew right over his pretty, narcissistic little head. She’d considered changing her number, but part of her didn’t want to admit his messaging her posed a problem. Plus, changing her number would signal to him that he was getting to her, and Joy preferred to win a battle of wills at all costs. Was it stupid? Yes. But at least she’d win.
As she pulled up at River’s Bend ten minutes later, all thoughts of her ex fled her mind. The day shone bright, with the temperature hovering at a bearable eighty-five degrees. For late July in Missouri, that was practically sweater weather. When she got out of the car, pushing her sunglasses on top of her head, she watched as Adam walked toward her.
And, because she was an idiot, her heart pounded so hard her body buzzed.
“Good morning,” Adam said, bending down to kiss her. “I didn’t think you got up before ten o’clock most days.”
She smiled sweetly. “If I get a chance to bother you, I’ll get up before the sun. It’s my number one goal in life at the moment.”
“How comforting. Dare I ask why you’ve driven here and how you’re going to torment me?”
“Maybe in a bit. Get me some of that amazing coffee you make. Oh, did the pastry chef make beignets this morning?”
Adam brushed a thumb across her collarbone. “So mercenary. No beignets, but we do have donuts.”
“Perfect. Lead the way to my baked goods.”
She laughed when he pinched her ass, and in revenge, she promptly slapped his ass. Since when had this playful man come out? When she’d first met Adam Danvers, he’d been irritable, rude, and perpetually constipated (so Joy had assumed). Now, though, he grinned at her and pinched her on the butt like some teenage boy. What was next, a teddy bear and balloons to commemorate sleeping together for an entire week without killing each other?
Joy’s phone buzzed, and pulling it out, she saw that Jeremy had texted her. Again. Can I call you tonight? it read. And then the kicker: winky face emoji. A winky face! The man must have balls of steel to send her a winky face.
She must’ve made a face, because Adam stepped up and asked in a low voice, “Something wrong?”
She jumped. “No, nothing,” she said as she stuffed her phone into her purse. “Just a stupid text from a friend. So where are those donuts you promised?”
Adam peered at her, like he was going to say something, but right then Kerry bounced up to them.
“Joy! How are you? Are you here for the wine-tasting class later?”
Joy smiled, ignoring Adam’s look of confusion. “Nope, just here to bug your boss. Although I’ll have to do the class sometime. Anything to drink more wine, right?”
“I’ll tell you a secret: Leah serves way more wine on Mondays, mostly because she hates Mondays. I’ve seen patrons have to be carried to their cars afterward.”
“Noted.” Turning to Adam, Joy said, “Be sure to sign me up for Monday’s class, would you?”
He rolled his eyes. “Kerry, don’t encourage her. Let’s get you some coffee before you do something stupid.”
As they walked away from the younger woman, Joy whispered, “Like sleep with you? Is that stupid enough?”
She had to bite her cheek to keep from laughing when he snapped the back of her bra like a middle school boy before leaning down and saying, “Watch your mouth, or I’ll make you pay later.”
“I can’t wait.”
Joy found the coffee quickly enough, and she found herself watching Jaime and his staff prepping for the day. Jaime called out stations, telling his sous chef that if he burned the duck again he’d burn him, and mostly Joy was surprised no one started crying. Jaime had brass balls, she realized, and she sipped her coffee, admiration filling her. She liked a guy with balls, and Jaime was as confident as any person in that kitchen.
“What are we having today, Jaime?” Adam asked, taking some donuts from a nearby counter.
“Hey, Adam. Roast duck with garlic broccolini in white wine sauce, plus raspberry tarts.”
“Raspberries again?”
“Yeah, because somebody—” a glare at one of the staff “—ordered twenty pounds instead of two, and now we’re trying to use them up before they go bad.”
Joy couldn’t help but piping up. “You know if you soak berries in vinegar for a bit, they’ll last longer?”
Jaime turned to her, an eyebrow raised, as if shocked anyone would give him tips in his kitchen. Joy, though, merely smiled widely at his expression.
“You don’t say?” Jaime said.
“Yep. Try it and let me know how it works for you.” She snagged a donut from Adam and began munching on it. “Great donuts! See you all later.”
She and Adam eventually made their way to his office, where Joy sat him down and made him tell her everything about doing events at the vineyard. He still seemed like he’d rather eat rocks than talk about weddings and bridal parties, but Joy could only be excited. She loved weddings. The dresses, the flowers, the invitations, t
he food, the shoes, the jewelry—everything. When she’d had to cancel her dress order when Jeremy cheated on her, she’d been so mad that only a large bottle of wine had stopped her from finding Jeremy and choking him out.
“We’re currently in talks with two local brides,” Adam explained. “They both seemed interested. We’re going to start small, see how it goes, and continue from there.”
Joy pulled out the story she’d written and handed it over to Adam. “I know you think journalists are Satan’s minions, but I would still highly recommend allowing me to write about River’s Bend. It’ll be free publicity. How could you say no to that?”
She had to admit, she was still a bit nervous about his reaction. He may have apologized, but that didn’t mean he was cool with the idea yet, either. As she held out the papers, he stared at them like she was handing him a dismembered arm in a box. She set them on the desk with a pat.
“Adam, have you ever considered talking to someone about your fear of free publicity?”
He glared at her, but it was tinged with amused exasperation. “Has anyone told you you’re a giant pain in the ass?”
“All the time. Doesn’t change the fact that I’m right.”
He grunted.
Silence fell, and Joy fidgeted. “Look,” she finally said. “I know you aren’t super into writing about the vineyard or whatever. I don’t get it, but I know it’s a thing now. Just, at least think about it. Okay? Make a pros and cons list even.”
He picked up the papers, glancing at them before setting them next to him. “I’ll read through this. Thank you for letting me see it first.”
She rolled her eyes, but couldn’t help but smile, too. This exasperating man was going to be the death of her.
Her phone sounded again, and a chill went through her. And then it sounded again, and again. Message after message. Adam looked at her, and then said, “You going to answer that?”