[True North 01.0] Bittersweet

by Sarina Bowen

  Stubborn, this man. And now my slow pace was just torturing the both of us.

  Capitulating, I opened wide and swallowed him down the best I could. My lonely lifestyle hadn’t provided any practice in a long time, but I gave a good, hard suck and was rewarded with a bellowed groan. I cupped his heavy balls in my hand and bobbed my head until he put a big paw under my chin and tugged me upright.

  I leaned against the wall, beckoning to him, hoping to move things along. If I was going to have an ill-advised quickie with my former hookup, I wanted it to happen right away, before I came to my senses.

  But I was unprepared for the intense look in his eyes when he backed me up to the wooden ledge on the stone wall. As if he could see all the way through me. The chatter of self-criticism running through my head silenced itself under the weight of his stare. He lifted a hand to my cheek and just held it there, as if to ground me. Focus, his serious eyes suggested. Or you’ll miss it.

  My heart gave a nervous little jump. I put my hands on his massive chest and closed my eyes. His heart beat out a steady rhythm under my hand, and I took a deep breath, readying myself for whatever came next.

  The crinkle of a wrapper punctured the silence. I looked down to watch him roll on a condom he’d produced from his wallet. The sight of his hand wrapped around a thick erection made my mouth water.

  He kicked off his jeans and shoes. “Come here, baby,” he whispered, grasping my bare ass and lifting me a few inches until I was perched on the ledge attached to the wall. It wasn’t very deep, so I had to rest my hands on his shoulders to keep from sliding off. Our heads lined up as we both looked down to watch as his cock pointed thick and strong right at its target. He eased my knees further apart, opening me up, and I could hear myself panting from anticipation. “Aw, yeah,” he said, closing the distance.

  I leaned forward, my arms draping around his neck as his fat cockhead stopped right at my entrance. He circled there for a moment, and I held my breath as he teased my clit. When he repeated this motion, I gasped out a command. “Do it already.”

  With an eager grunt he pushed all the way inside. I was suddenly full of Griff Shipley, and he was a lot to handle. My body gave a happy spasm around his thick length.

  “Christ. You missed me that much, princess?”

  I buried my face in his neck to try to get my bearings. If he looked at my face right now, he’d see how badly I needed this. And I didn’t want to give him the satisfaction.

  With a groan, Griff began to work his hips. His hands skimmed down my back and came to rest between the wall and my ass. I had a faint notion that he was trying to prevent my skin from scraping against the stone wall, but all my thoughts popped like fragile bubbles when he gave me a good, hard thrust.

  I was being fucked by Griff Shipley under the Vermont stars. And it was overwhelming.

  Kissing my way down his chin, his beard tickling my skin, I sucked on the cord of muscle between his neck and shoulder.

  “Fuck, baby. Give me your mouth. I want it.”

  Ignoring the request, I nibbled on his skin. The massiveness of his body was such a turn-on. He was an unyielding wall of a man. I just wanted to stay right here—literally pressed between a rock and a hard place. Forever. I rolled my hips forward to meet him, and the extra contact made me see stars in front of my slammed-shut eyes.

  “Ungh. So good,” he muttered, slowing down to grind against me. A big paw of a hand scooped my chin off his shoulder and angled my mouth up to his. He slipped that hand behind my head and then forced his tongue into my mouth at the same time he thrust hard.

  The double assault had me whimpering into his mouth. I capitulated completely, wrapping my legs around him. I stopped fighting the thought that this was a bad idea. For many lovely minutes, with Griff pounding into me, this was the only idea. Our kisses were bottomless. His, eager, rhythmic grunts echoed through my chest.

  Someone was moaning, and I think it was me.

  His desperate groan rumbled through my mouth and down into my soul. That’s when every muscle in my body tightened around him. Griff slowed down then, as if trying to put off the inevitable. “Mmm,” he groaned just before sucking on my tongue.

  Then it was all over but the cryin’. With a gasp I let myself be carried away on the fleeting bliss of this man’s handiwork. Pleasure erupted in my core, zinging everywhere at once. Griff gave an answering shout and went rigid, the muscles in his neck standing out like mountain ridges. He yanked my body close one more time. Our hearts pounded against each other.

  For a few moments we just panted together, spent. I held his sweaty body tightly, certain in the knowledge that many acres of awkwardness would stretch between us now.

  I heard the squeak of the faucet, and then warm water began to rain down on us. Griff disengaged our bodies, lowering me carefully to the wooden slatted floor. I grabbed my hair to keep it out of the spray, and, as he tucked me against the wall, we took a sixty-second shower. After wrapping a towel around me a moment later—a dry one—he picked up our shoes and clothes off the bench and steered me out into the night.

  The stars were brilliant overhead. We were so far away from any cities that it was the best view of the night sky I’d ever had. “There’s the milky way!” I whispered suddenly. I’d never seen it so clearly before—that hazy arc overhead the way it looked in textbooks.

  Griff’s eyebrows lifted in the dark. “Yep. It’s there every night.”

  He thinks I’m an imbecile.

  Putting a hand at my lower back, he guided me into the bunkhouse. Just inside, he pushed open a door on the right. My duffel bag had been set on the double bed. A bedside lamp made a pool of yellow light in the corner, illuminating an antique quilt on the wall and a deep cottage window showing a square of blackness.

  “I’ll show you the bathroom,” he said quietly.

  “Okay,” I whispered, darting to the bag for my toothbrush and then following him into the room across the hall.

  He left me alone to take care of business. When I came out again, we traded places wordlessly. Griff disappeared into the bathroom and shut the door.

  That was it, then. But what do you say to the man who you just banged unexpectedly in his outdoor shower? Thanks? Nice knowing you? (Biblically. Again.) I tiptoed into his bedroom. It was awfully spare. The only sign of personality was a paperback thriller on the nightstand and a pair of reading glasses.

  Aw. Somehow it softened Griff’s image to know he wore glasses when he read in bed.

  Leaving the door ajar—just in case he planned to visit—I lifted his quilt and slipped between the sheets. I was pretty sure that Griff’s mom had snuck in here and put fresh sheets on the bed. But it still smelled piney and Griff-like. I rolled my face into his pillow and took a deep, surreptitious breath.

  Hearing a noise in the hallway, I lifted my chin to listen. A moment later Griff appeared, still wearing his towel. With one quick yank he cast it aside. Then I watched in surprise as he lifted the quilt and nudged me. “Move over, baby.”

  I made room, and he stretched his wide frame across the bed. Then he reached over to my side of the bed, lifting me as if I weighed no more than one of his goose-down pillows. I landed halfway on his body, my head tucked onto his shoulder, my bare ass in one of his big hands.

  Holy cannoli. I was cuddling the world’s grumpiest farmer.

  His body relaxed even further as he got comfortable. His thumb stroked my skin, leaving shivers in its wake. I risked a sweep of my hand across his ribs, and he twitched. “Sorry,” I said immediately.

  The low, unfamiliar rumble I heard next turned out to be a chuckle. “S’okay,” he whispered. “Just ticklish.”

  That was charming and unexpected. So of course I had to do it again. I never did have any impulse control. My fingertips traced lightly down his chest until he twitched again and then grabbed my hand. “Enough of that, princess.” He kissed my palm and then placed it firmly in the middle of his chest.

  I stretched
to kiss his cheek, my face skimming through the surprisingly soft beard on the way to finding his smooth skin. He made a soft grunt of surprise and then sighed. His arms tightened around me. The moment was unexpectedly tender. Nothing like the awkward dismount from a drunken college hookup.

  He was so warm and solid beneath me. I could touch him all night long and never get bored. “Goodnight, Griff,” I whispered into the dark.

  “Goodnight, baby,” he rasped. “Sleep now.”

  And I did.

  Chapter Nine

  Griffin

  Dawn came before I was ready. It’s always hard to get up at five-thirty. But that morning was especially brutal, seeing as I awoke with a naked angel draped over me and a rock-hard dick.

  My body wanted more. So it was a blessing that Audrey stayed asleep as I eased out from underneath her. When I left the bed, she let out a sleepy sigh and curled her sweet body around my pillow. I stared down at her a moment longer, daring myself to recall last night’s hijinks in the shower. Just…damn. She and I were a dangerous combination. We needed cautionary signs like the ones hanging in the tractor shed over the cans of diesel fuel. WARNING: COMBUSTIBLE.

  The sound of the bunkhouse door closing behind Zach or Jude got me moving. I got dressed and spent thirty seconds in the bathroom, trying to make myself presentable. Then I hustled out across the meadow to the dairy barn where my two employees had begun the day’s work without me.

  “Morning,” Zach said, handing Jude the shovel. “Shall I start the cow parade?”

  “Sure. Send ’em in.”

  Zach turned around. “Okay…what the hell?” He pointed, aiming at my neck.

  Fuck. I clapped my hand over my skin like the guilty man I was. Should have looked a little closer in the mirror this morning.

  Jude bent over a pile of cow shit and began to shovel, but I could hear his snicker.

  Zach frowned at me, looking confused. And then I saw the moment he understood what he was looking at, because a flush crept onto his cheekbones. He bit his lip and turned away, embarrassed.

  Zach wasn’t the kind of guy to judge me for hooking up with Audrey. But he was—at twenty-one—the oldest virgin I knew. Whenever sex came up in a movie or in conversation he always got a little red-faced. “Let the milkers in,” I prompted.

  “Sure,” he said quickly, sprinting toward the door to admit the first two lucky heifers.

  We began the milking in silence. Eventually Zachariah put some music on our beat-up old radio because he swore that the cows enjoyed classical guitar. I disinfected another Jersey’s bags and then hooked ’er up to the milking machine. This was a job I could do on autopilot. Some mornings I did my best thinking during the milking.

  Not today, though. My thoughts were not on the usual cider strategy or farm business. Instead, my mind kept wandering toward Audrey’s soft skin and eager hands. And why was I calculating the distance to Boston? It was about one hundred fifty miles, give or take.

  Right, I reminded myself. The two-and-a-half-hour drive was discouraging. My schedule didn’t accommodate a girlfriend even if she was two-and-a-half minutes away. My life couldn’t handle yet another person who would depend on me not to let her down.

  There were plenty of those already.

  But, hell, she was tempting. I’d be living off memories of last night for a good long time. I knew I’d lie in my bed and stroke myself thinking about the way she gripped me with her whole body and the sweet sounds she made when she came.

  “Griffin? Y’okay, there?”

  I looked up fast to see Jude standing over me. “What?” I’d missed what he’d said.

  “I just wanted to know what you want me to do with these bales of hay I’m pulling off the back of the truck. You seem a little tired, though.” He smirked at me. “I could ask you later.”

  Busted. I gave him a surly grunt and unhooked the cow from the milker. “Use the fork to fill the feed troughs in here. Careful not to hit any of the girls on the nose.”

  He gave me a smart-ass wink and turned away. I still didn’t know what to make of this kid. He seemed like a good worker. And if I didn’t know his history, I’d probably think he was a godsend.

  As I considered him, one thing gnawed at me. A day ago I’d sat across the table from Jude telling myself that it would never be me who got hooked on anything. And here I was feeling a serious addictive pull toward a certain hot little chef with a strong will and a wicked tongue.

  Yeah, no candidates for sainthood here. Except Zach, maybe.

  The milking went fast with three people. Then it was time for breakfast. “You two head in,” I told Jude and Zach. “I gotta grab something from my room.”

  “A little early in the season for turtlenecks, Han,” Zach said, his ears turning pink.

  “Shut it, Padawan,” I grumbled, and Jude laughed.

  Audrey was not in my room when I ducked in to grab a tattered button-down from my closet. The shirt covered most of the damage. Then I put on my game face and headed for the house, washing my hands while I listened to the chatter in the kitchen.

  “How do you do that?” May asked. “If I tried it, there’d be eggs all over the ceiling.”

  The husky laugh that followed made my blood run hot. Christ. Just the sound of her was like a drug. “The chef who taught us eggs was a real masochist. I don’t know if he was ever in the military, but he was such a drill sergeant that I wanted to brain him with my frying pan. But it worked. He made me fold so many omelets that now they come out perfectly every time.”

  I realized I was just standing there, the hand towel in my fist, eavesdropping like a creeper. So I manned up and went into the kitchen. “Morning, ladies,” I said, heading for the coffee pot.

  “Yo,” May returned. “We are having ham and cheddar omelets with garlic-scape sour cream and maple-glazed bacon.”

  “Damn.” My stomach growled. “I’m free for that.”

  “I’ll bet you are.” My sister shoved an empty plate at me. “They’re made to order, though. You’re in line behind Dylan.”

  That left me leaning against the kitchen counter and trying not to ogle Audrey’s ass in the little denim skirt she wore. Long, smooth legs stretched from beneath its hem, and it was a struggle not to think too hard about how they’d been wrapped around me while we…

  Christ.

  I was just a few feet away, and the urge to touch her was strong. I wanted to kiss the satiny skin just in front of her ear and run my hands down the silky ponytail she’d donned at some point between waking up in my bed and cooking in my kitchen.

  Hands off, I reminded myself. After helping myself to Audrey like a buffet last night, the least I could do was avoid embarrassing her in front of my family.

  Something about Audrey really turned my crank, though. It was there between us whether I liked it or not. Every hour she spent in Vermont served to remind me of exactly how hot for her I’d been in college, too. As I watched her flip a perfect yellow omelet onto Dylan’s plate and then give him a big smile, I felt an unfamiliar yearning in my gut. There was no woman in my life, and I wasn’t in the market for one. But someday I hoped to find someone. And maybe she’d glance at me over her shoulder the way that Audrey did now and then lick her perfect lips.

  After my little brother walked away, she asked, “What’ll it be, Farmer Griff?”

  You. “Uh, I like everything.”

  She quirked one perfect eyebrow as if to say, I noticed.

  “Um, ham and cheese,” I said. “Please.”

  “Coming right up.” She turned her back to me again. Apparently we were playing it this way—as if last night never happened. I watched as she tossed a handful of chopped onions into the pan, where they began to sizzle.

  “I didn’t say onions,” I said without thinking. They weren’t conducive to the goodbye kiss I’d need if I was going to let her get into that little rental car later and drive away.

  “Too bad,” she sang. “They’re good for you.” She added a
handful of chopped green peppers, too.

  That was fine, because I really did like everything. But her willful disregard for my order brought on a familiar prickle of energy. This girl pushed my buttons on purpose. All my buttons. “Why’d you ask me what I wanted, then?”

  “Just to make you feel empowered,” she said, cracking two eggs at a time over the side of the bowl. If I tried that, there’d be egg on the counter and my body and probably the floor. But her eggs plopped neatly into the bowl and she tossed the shells into the compost bucket in a perfect arc. Then she picked up a third egg.

  “Two is fine,” I said quickly.

  She cracked it anyway. “You need to keep up your strength,” she said in a low voice, and just the implication made blood rush to my groin. “It takes energy to call every farm within fifty miles and warn them away from me.”

  I groaned inwardly. “I sure am sorry about that.” It had been a rash thing to do. Even if I believed that BPG Group was the Evil Empire, it hadn’t been necessary to make her job more difficult.

  She used a whisk to quickly scramble the eggs. Then she poured a dollop of cream into the bowl and stirred again. “As soon as I can get a tire, I’m out of your hair.”

  Hair made me think of wrapping my hand around hers.

  Audrey poured the eggs over the sizzling vegetables. Then she picked up the pan and swirled the mixture in a perfect circle so that it resembled a photo shoot for a culinary magazine. She watched the pan on the fire for some hidden sign. (Or maybe she was simply avoiding my gaze.) But then, when I was about to ask a rude question just to get a rise out of her, she grasped the handle and flipped the yellow disk into the air, catching it again like a Jedi flipping his lightsaber.

  “I still don’t know how she does that!” my mother crowed, entering the room behind me. “Griff, it’s a little hot for flannel, no?” She squeezed my elbow on her way to the coffee pot.

  “It was, uh, cold in the barn this morning,” I lied.

  Only then did Audrey break character. She snuck a look at my neck and then looked sheepish.