by Brill Harper
“Boone, step aside,” he tells me.
“I don’t think so. Go back to your diner and leave her alone.”
He peers around me. “Are you okay, Madeline? He’s not threatening you, is he?”
Before she can answer, I do. “You’ve got a lot of nerve.”
“We don’t always get along, but she’s my responsibility. I won’t have you intimidating or hurting her.”
Part of me is pissed at the accusation, but another part is grateful that he even cares about her that much. “I’m taking her out of this dump, and she’s done working for you for free.”
She steps around so she’s not behind me anymore. “I’m fine, Mac. Boone isn’t hurting me or intimidating me.”
“Madeline, I know I don’t always say nice things to you, but you know Vera and I don’t want bad things to happen to you. Are you sure you’re okay?”
I put my arm around her. “My wife is fine. You sure you’re not just pissed about losing your free labor?”
“Wife?” he says, his face turning purple. “You got married?”
“Yesterday,” Madeline says.
“Madeline, he’s just out of prison. He’s...”
“He’s my husband.”
Pride fills my chest. Heaven knows how much I’ve enjoyed saying “my wife” the last twenty-four hours. But hearing “my husband” from her lips shoots me to a new high.
Mac points at me. “You were a good kid and what happened to you was bad. But if you think marrying this young girl is going to fix it all, you’re not being realistic. And you’re just going to hurt her. What’s more...I’ve known your dad a lot of years, son. What do you think he’s going to say about this?”
“My dad is going to love Madeline.”
Mac shakes his head. “Good luck with that. You’re going to need it.”
Madeline
WHEN WE’D BEEN PACKING up the truck, I was excited about starting fresh at the farm. But now, as I walk up the front steps, I keep hearing Mac’s words in my head like a warning.
What if Boone’s dad doesn’t like me? What if he convinces Boone that his impulsive, rash decision to marry the girl from the diner was a mistake? What if they kick me out?
The house seems sad. Not sad like my horrible apartment sad. More like...it used to be happy and now it’s grieving. As we walk in, I can imagine it bathed in sunlight and awake with fresh air instead of shuttered up like only ghosts live here.
The wall of pictures stops me and my heart races, realizing that I’ve married Boone Barker! That everyone, including his dad, is going to think that I tricked him into it. Maybe I did? I mean, obviously, it was his idea. But maybe I was preying on him because he was weak and needy, fresh out of prison and missing the woman he was supposed to marry.
“You okay?” he asks me.
“Maybe we should have dated a few times. Like normal people. We don’t have to tell your dad yet. We can just be friends.”
“My dad is going to love you.” He reaches for my hand. “Is this about what Big Mac said? Are you having second thoughts?”
“Not about me.”
His face registers surprise.
“This is like a fairy tale for me, Boone. You swooped in and literally swept me off my feet and offered me a home and a family and orgasms. But what do you get?”
“A home and a family and orgasms,” he replies.
I almost laugh. Almost. “You can do so much better than me. You know you can. Boone, things are hard right now because you just got back. But you know everyone is going to come around. And you know women will be throwing themselves at you. And then you’re stuck with a woman you don’t even love and a forever you don’t want.”
His jaw squares and he’s trying to hold in feelings. “Give me one month.”
“One month?”
“Give me one month to show you this is going to work. If you still have doubts...well, I probably won’t let you go very easily, but we can at least discuss it then. But you give us thirty days and you go all in. You try as hard as you can to make it work and I’ll do the same and we’ll have a date in one month and decide if we can continue.”
“So we’re just planning to be married for a month and then we see how it goes?”
“I already know how it’s going to go. I just need to prove it to you. I’m not stupid. I saw how upset you were when you thought I was taking you back to the diner for good. But I also know you’ve had a shortage of people in your corner. You’re going to need more than just me saying words to show you that you’re not alone anymore. That it’s okay to invest in a dream.” He brings my hand to his lips and presses a tender kiss to it. “But you can’t hold back thinking the deadline is coming. You have to be brave and give yourself to this marriage like you mean it.”
“And the baby you’re hoping to make? What if you decide at the end of our trial marriage that you want out and I’m pregnant by then?”
“Are you afraid I won’t take care of you and my child?”
“Of course not. I know you’ll do right by us. But Boone, it’s a big complication. We should wait to conceive.” His eyes get big. “I know you’ve been celibate for five years. I’m not saying we shouldn’t have sex. I’m saying we should use protection. Try not to get pregnant.”
“That’s not going all in, sunshine. You can’t trust me a little bit, you have to trust me completely.”
“It’s the responsible thing to do.”
He shakes his head. “No, it’s not. I’m not wearing a condom with you. Ever. We just don’t have sex for thirty days. Until you’re sure of me, of us, we don’t fuck.”
Chapter Five
Boone
One week later
I’m the stupidest man alive. I had the best sex of my life a week ago, and I voluntarily put myself on a fast.
Other than sleeping in the room next door to my wife every night, married life is good. I’ve just been out working on the tractor, and I’ve come in for supper. I walk past the den where my dad is snoozing with a game on. Something he still does too much of. I step into the kitchen and find my wife bent over as she empties a dustpan.
I’m celibate, but I’m not dead. I grunt to let her know I’m there right before I grab a handful of that ass and squeeze. “Kitchen looks good.”
Since she’s not much for repairing machinery, she offered to do a deep cleaning of the kitchen while I worked in the shop. Every morning, we have breakfast together and discuss what we want to get done—either separately or together. We divide and conquer chores, or we finish them together. She’s my partner in everything. She’s informed me I need to not be sexist about “women’s work” and she’s right.
Also, I’m completely in love with my wife.
I can’t believe it myself. I knew I liked her. I knew I wanted her. I didn’t know how fast or how hard I would fall. It’s deeper than my feelings for Amy ever were. I don’t understand that either. I’ve known Amy most of my life. When we started dating, it seemed like everything was as it should be. I didn’t know I could feel more than I did. It’s like Madeline opened up a new section of my heart, one that I didn’t know existed. One that was made only for her.
She holds on to her reservations, but I have a gut feeling she loves me too. It’s still twenty-one days until I get back in that sweet pussy, but I have some ideas about that.
I told her I won’t wear a condom, and she told me she’s not ready to get pregnant. This past week, we’ve still been affectionate, but not sexual. I’m thinking that there was nothing in our agreement that states we can’t get each other off without risking pregnancy. And I’m aiming at seducing my wife. Tonight.
She turns in my arms and loops her wrists around my neck. “Hello there.”
I slide my hands down to her hips and my desire for her sings in my blood as I pull her into my erection and take her mouth with slow, drugging kisses. She whimpers helplessly into my mouth and presses into me as hard as she can. Good. Nice to know I’m not the
only one affected.
“Supper smells good.” I’m hungry for something else though.
“I fed Pops about half an hour ago. He’s a little grumpy about leaving tomorrow, but I think he’s still on board.”
“I don’t know how you convinced him to go to rehab. I couldn’t even get him to admit he was drinking too much.”
She runs her fingers through my hair, moving it out of my eyes tenderly. “He didn’t want to burden you with more problems. Once I got him to talk about your mom, he admitted she’d hate the way he’s become. He wants to make her proud. And you.”
I grab her hand so I can kiss her fingers. “I think it’s you he wants to make proud. Ever since we told him we were married, he seems to have perked up.”
She giggles. “Yes, he asks me about grandchildren every day. I...haven’t told him we sleep in separate rooms upstairs. That we’re doing a trial run.”
I squeeze her hand. “It’s not a temporary marriage, Maddy Mae. Just a temporary hold on making babies. There is nothing trial about this for me. You know that right? I’m more sure of us every day.”
“Thank you for being so patient with me.” She’s scared, I can see it in her eyes. Not afraid of me, but afraid of letting herself get too comfortable, too sure of her footing. If you don’t want too much, you can’t get hurt when it disappears. But every day, I can see her walls crumble a little. “It’s my job to take care of you and make you feel safe and happy. I have all the patience in the world for you.”
She bumps into my erection and raises her brows. “Not all of you is patient.”
“Yeah, well, you’re fucking sexy. I want you all the time. Besides, I’ve been thinking...” Her face falls. “Relax. I’m not changing the terms.”
“Sorry...what were you thinking?”
“I want to make you come, again.”
Her face registers shock. “You just said...”
I cup her face in my hands and dip down for a long, slow kiss. “Making you come won’t get you pregnant. I want to be close to you, like we were on our wedding night. But we don’t have to have that kind of sex. I need to taste you, sunshine. And feel your skin. I want to hold you when you fall asleep and see you first thing in the morning. It’s killing me to have a wall between us.”
“Okay.”
“Okay?”
She smiles at me like a woman who owns a man. “I want that too. I want that closeness. You know, if you would wear a condom—”
“Not happening. I want to fuck you more than I want anything else in the world, but not until you’re ready for my baby.”
“Well, I’m not.”
“Then we find our pleasure other ways.” I tuck the hair behind her ear. “There are a lot of other ways.”
She blushes.
“Tonight then?”
“Tonight.”
We eat supper, get Pops in bed, and sit down at the table to plan out some crop issues. She’s come up with an idea we want to explore. Instead of commercial crops, we’re looking at running a produce farm share program. It’s not as profitable, in a lot of ways, but we’re both concerned about sustainable crops and feeding the community fresh, whole food.
When I was a kid, we had a couple cows and chickens. It’s been a long time since we had that kind of traditional farm on this land. But it feels right. We can rotate crops and have a bit of a pumpkin patch that families can come to. Since I graduated with an ag science degree and my wife is currently going to school for marketing, we’ve been brainstorming how to bring people to us. When they’re here, drinking fresh cider and picking fresh pumpkins, we can interest them in contributing to the farm via a CSA program. We’d get their investment money before planting season, and they’d get fresh produce boxes every week during harvest.
It feels good to start this now. A way to mend my ties with the community. A new project for my wife and I to work on together.
But my brain is not on brainstorming. It’s on getting her naked.
“Let’s call it a night.”
She inhales. “I’m suddenly nervous. Like I was our wedding night. Sometimes, I wonder if I dreamed it.”
I think about the fact that she might already have my child growing in her, and my dick grows two sizes. “Not a dream. I’ll prove it to you.”
I take her hand and bring her to the room she’s been staying in upstairs. It has a bigger bed, and I want room to play. Once I close the door behind us, I can’t stop. I grab her, maybe too roughly, and drag her to the bed. My hand slides under the hem of her T-shirt. Her skin is warm and soft. A small mew escapes her throat, and I pull her to me more tightly. God, to hold her, it is more than enough and not enough at the same time. She burrows into my neck, and I soothe her with even strokes of my hand on her back while I inhale the scent of her hair as if it were air. Her body snug against my own.
Pressing my forehead to hers, I let out a slow breath.
I am going to show her everything I’m afraid to say tonight.
I take her mouth, crushing her to my body and kissing her fiercely. She whimpers and clutches my forearms while I take the words of surprise from her lips and replace them with a different need. My need for her that bites and twists, soothes and loves.
I bruise her with my mouth while I plunder her sweet lips, searching for what only she can give me. She emits a female sound of pleasure that goes from my ear straight to my cock. My hand on her belly moves up, cupping her bare breast while I deepen the kiss, groaning. Nothing should feel so good.
Her nipple tightens under my palm. It’s perfect and I can’t believe I deprived myself of her for a week.
She sucks on my tongue and I go cross-eyed with lust. I pull back so I can sit her up and get the damn shirt off her. I need to see those perfect tits. Need her skin with nothing between us.
“You’re amazing,” I tell her once she is bared to me. “Fucking amazing.” Her breasts fill my hands, the rosy tips better than any dream. I bend to lick one and she arches, giving me all of her. Trusting me completely. So I draw the peak into my mouth, sucking while she gasps my name.
My fingers trace the skin of her stomach, circling her navel. She is lush—her skin and curves driving me mad with the silky heat. I kiss her there, right below her belly button where her skin is the softest. She doesn’t try to get me away from her stomach this time. Hopefully it’s because she finally believes me that I love it. I love the soft shape of her. That she’s a cushion for the hard man I’ve become.
I can smell her, the light musk reaching into the most primitive parts of me. Mine. She’s all I want.
I sit up and pull my own shirt off, proud when I see a feminine glint of appreciation light her eyes. “See something you like, sunshine?”
“Are you teasing me?” She pushes up onto her knees.
“I want to please you, baby. I need...”
She places a palm on my chest. “What do you need?” Both her hands wander over my chest and shoulders now. Her greedy hands stroke over me like she is afraid I am going to stop her. As if I don’t like the sparks her fingertips leave in their wake. As if I’m not taut, every muscle tense, every nerve ending wishing for her touch.
Maybe I do need to stop her. I’m already too close, too on the edge. When she adds her hot mouth to her exploration, I groan and reach for her wrists. She continues using her mouth, stopping on a nipple, flicking it with her tongue. The answering pull inside me is like a powerful ocean tide on my control.
I have to push her back. I don’t want to. But I don’t want to end the show before I’ve even gotten my pants off. “Madeline.”
“You didn’t answer me.” I bring her wrists behind her, so she leans forward, caressing me with just her breasts. “Tell me, Boone. Tell me what you need. Can I use my mouth? Will you show me how?”
Her words inflame me beyond all reason. The last hold I have on my control snaps as I use one hand to keep her wrists still and the other to snake into her yoga pants, grabbing her ass and pulling it to
me. I squeeze the globe, the satisfying weight of it gives me even more ideas about what I want to do to her.
I want her bouncing on my cock, riding me. I want to taste her, make her writhe on my tongue. I want her beneath me, on top of me, on her knees, against a wall. I want her to swallow me, milk me dry with her mouth. I want to come in her ass while fingering her slick clit. I want to slide my dick between her lush breasts. Every dirty fantasy I’ve ever had—I want all at once.
As I squeeze her ass, I kiss her, trying to tell her with my body what I need because there are no words. I push her into my cock that’s straining against my jeans, while my mouth devours hers.
I need everything. Everything she has. Everything she was. Everything she will be. I need her to need me as desperately as I crave her now. To be mindless and primitive. To forget who we were. The convict and the crazy man’s daughter.
She strains against my rough hold. I have just enough control left in me to pull back, to see if she is in distress. I look into her eyes, afraid of what I might find there. Instead, the fire in her gaze amps up my desire even more.
Madeline
HE DOESN’T SAY A WORD. But he growls as he throws me down, yanking my yoga pants off my legs. Getting off the bed and making short work of his own pants.
He is a work of art, thick with muscles and heat. His cock is...well, now I know I didn’t remember that incorrectly. He’s really too big for a mere mortal. The wicked glint in his eyes tells me he knows he’s big. Knows he’s intimidating. Knows I can take it. That he’s remembering how I took it so well before.
He palms himself in front of me, all male pride and wonderful lust. Oh God. He is thick. And beautiful.
I work up some courage. “If you need a hand, I’m happy to assist.”
He shakes his head. “If you touch me right now, I’ll embarrass us both.” Something about his long, slow strokes down his cock makes my pussy quiver.
I’m questioning my no baby-making rule.