But I felt animalistic in my desire—almost bloodthirsty. She gasped for air against my hand, her eyes wide and wild. But I felt her tongue stroke my fingers, and when I slipped my thumb into her mouth, she sucked it, licked it, bit it. Every muscle in my body was tight and tingling, and I knew I couldn’t hold out long. I put both hands beneath her again and concentrated with all my might on being less selfish, holding her tight to my body and flexing my hips to give her the best angle, rubbing the base of my cock against her clit. I’d missed this too—making a woman come, feeling that surge of power and pleasure.
“Yes! Just like that,” she cried, her eyes closed. “Don’t stop, please don’t stop…” She dropped her head to my shoulder and sank her teeth into my flesh, one hand fisted in my hair, the other clutching my bicep. Her legs tensed up, her entire body going still, and I pulled her even closer, using my hands to move her in little circles on my cock. Her pussy pulsed rhythmically around me, and I lost control.
I rasped and growled through clenched teeth, my orgasm tearing through me with brutal force. I fucked her barbarically, passionately, like I hated her, like I loved her, like a man completely driven by instinct and not reason or emotion. And when I came, exploding inside her with violent bliss, her face buried in my neck, everything went silent and black.
Stumbling backward, depleted and dizzy, I sank to my knees taking Margot with me. She yelped and clung to my neck like a child, sending me tumbling onto my back in the dirt.
And I laughed.
Sixteen
Margot
I ended up straddling him, my knees in the dirt, my arms around his neck.
He was laughing.
Laughing.
I had to smile. So that’s what it takes? An orgasm?
And speaking of orgasms, my whole body was still humming from the one he’d just given me. I’d never felt anything like it—so deep and intense I couldn’t even move while it happened. And it had happened so fast! I usually had to concentrate pretty hard to come during sex, and certain conditions had to be met for me to relax enough to let it happen. (Total darkness, soft sheets, complete privacy. Also, I didn’t love being on top because it forced me to see a man’s O face, and they were never dignified. It also made me feel sort of like being on display during a vigorous treadmill workout.)
But with Jack, it had struck me like lightning.
The reality of what had just happened started to sink in. I’d just been fucked against a tree. By a farmer. Without a condom.
Oh, God.
My sandals were missing. He’d seriously fucked me right out of my Jack Rogers. And tree bark had probably torn up the back of my Lilly Pulitzer shift.
But damn, that was good. Rough. Messy. Frantic.
Totally un-Margot, yet I’d loved every second.
I sat up, laying my hands on his chest and peering down at him. He looked so different. It was dark, but I could see the way his facial muscles had relaxed—no furrow in his brow, no tension in his jaw. His full mouth looked even more sensual, one side of it hooking up in a wry grin.
“That the fight you were looking for?” he asked.
I smiled ruefully. “Not exactly.”
“You were pretty mad.”
“I’m still mad.”
He laughed again, and my toes tingled. I loved the sound of it—deep and warm and gratifying.
“But embarrassed too,” I admitted.
“Why are you embarrassed? I started it.” Some of the tension returned to his face. “Are you OK?”
“I’m fine.”
“We didn’t use anything…”
I pressed my lips into a line. “No, we didn’t. But we’re OK.” I was on the pill, although I’d never had sex without a condom before.
Don’t think about that.
Or with a client.
Don’t think about that either.
“OK.” He took a breath, his chest moving under my palms. His hands were still on my hips. “God, Margot, I’m sorry. I don’t know what came over me.”
“Don’t be sorry.” I started to get up, feeling like things were about to get awkward. “Really. It just…happened.”
He helped me to my feet, located my shoes, and while I tugged my panties back into place (they were still looped around one ankle), he did up his jeans. “I guess I just…” He ran a hand through his thick dark hair. “Lost control. It’s been so long.”
“How long?” I asked before I could stop myself. “I’m sorry—you don’t have to tell me that.”
“Since Steph.”
My jaw dropped. “That long? Three years? Wow, I thought I had you beat. But it’s only been just over a year for me.” Not that sex had ever been anything like what we’d just done. I hadn’t even missed it, to be honest.
“That’s a long time, too.”
I lifted my shoulders. “Guess that explains it. We just needed to get something out of our systems.”
He nodded, sticking his hands in his pockets. “Yeah.”
We stood there for a moment as the crickets chirped around us. My heart was beating a little too fast for comfort as I looked at him in the dark, knowing I was the first woman he’d been with since his wife. It was messing with me… I wish I’d known. I might have tried to make it nicer or something, maybe not screamed so loud. Or bit him.
I mean…the first woman since his wife.
That meant something to me.
But I had no idea what to do with it.
“So,” I said briskly, as if we were wrapping up a business meeting, “I think the best thing would be to pretend this never happened.”
He nodded again. “I think so too.”
“We’ll just agree it was a moment of insanity, fueled by pent-up frustration,” I suggested, needing to file this in my brain somewhere, and not in my heart.
“Right.”
I put on a smile, but I didn’t feel happy at all. “And now that the moment of insanity has passed, I’d better get going.”
“Please let me drive you.” His voice was quiet and serious. “I won’t sleep tonight if I don’t, not that I sleep very well anyway.”
“You don’t sleep well?”
“No.”
It was something small but personal, and I was grateful for the admission. Still, I hesitated, glancing toward Pete and Georgia’s house. “Won’t someone see us and wonder what we’re doing?”
“No. It’s late. Pete goes to bed early, and Georgia is working tonight.”
I nodded. “OK, then.”
“I just have to get the keys. Come with me?”
“Sure.” We walked toward the cabin in silence, Jack’s hands still in his pockets and my arms crossed over my chest. I thought about asking to use his bathroom to clean up a little, but something about it didn’t feel right. Instead I waited for him on the porch, and then we retraced our steps back through the trees toward Pete and Georgia’s.
In the driveway, Jack opened the passenger door of his pickup for me and I climbed in. He got in the driver’s side just as I was pulling the bottom of my dress down as far as I could. I thought about asking Jack if he had a handkerchief, but he didn’t look like the type.
“What are you doing?” He gave me a funny look.
“Trying not to get the seat sticky,” I said, feeling heat in my cheeks. So much about sex was embarrassing.
He chuckled and started the truck. “Don’t worry about it. Really. Tell me where you’re staying?”
I gave him directions, and we were silent again on the two-minute ride. Thank God, I thought. Because the more he talked to me in that sweet, serious voice or smiled or laughed or showed me there was a gentleman inside that rough exterior, the more I liked him.
I didn’t want to like him.
When he pulled up next to the cottage, I opened the door. “Thanks for the ride.”
“Margot, wait.” He put a hand on my leg. “Don’t go yet.”
It’s better if you don’t touch me, Jack.
“
Yes?”
“It’s not personal, my objection to your ideas for the farm. I can tell you’re good at what you do.”
“Thanks.”
He took his hand off my leg and rubbed his jaw. “I just don’t want things to change.”
“Even if the changes make sense? If they’ll bring in more money eventually? If they’ll make people happy?”
He didn’t answer, but I saw the stubborn set of his jaw return.
Sighing, I pushed the door all the way open and got out. “Goodnight, Jack. Thanks for the ride.” I shut the door and walked to the door, and he waited until I was safely inside before pulling away.
Another display of courtesy.
Damn him.
Later, I lay in bed, listening to the waves through the screens and struggling to process tonight’s surprises. The way Jack had apologized. The way he’d agreed he’d been mean and unfair. The unexpected—and vehement—insistence that he drive me home. The shock of that first kiss, when he’d grabbed me by both arms, his frustration giving way to passion all at once.
You’re going to take it.
My stomach hollowed as I recalled the way he’d driven deep inside me, so deep it had hurt. Never in my life had I experienced anything like the way that sharp twinge had started to feel good. How could pain accompany pleasure like that? How had two opposite sensations merged inside my body, so seamlessly that I couldn’t tell where the pain stopped and where the pleasure began? Which was which?
And I’d screamed and panted and gasped and clawed at him like an animal. He’d drawn something out of me, a part of myself I didn’t even know was there, a part that existed only to want so ferociously, I could think of nothing else—not our crude surroundings, our nonexistent relationship status, not even our privacy. I never once worried about how loud I was or felt ashamed of my desire or stopped to fret that well-bred ladies should not appear to enjoy sex so unabashedly. (Bet I was the first Thurber woman to fuck a farmer in a forest.)
I’d loved every minute of it. Even his O face.
Was sex with Jack always like that? I wondered if the mad desperation of it was due to the fact that it had been so long for both of us or if he was always so rough and aggressive.
You’ll never know. Understand?
Out of nowhere, Old Margot made an unwelcome appearance.
You both agreed it was a one-time thing. Leave it alone.
I frowned, waiting for New Margot to speak up and defend my right to another mind-blowing orgasm, but that scone cold bitch said nothing.
See? Even she agrees. There is no universe in which you and Jack Valentini make any sense whatsoever. Fine, he’s not the jerk you thought he was this afternoon, but the reasons you need to forget about him still exist, not to mention that he’s made no secret of the fact he’ll be glad to be rid of you when you’re gone. Finish up your work here and get back where you belong.
Sighing, I rolled over onto my stomach and closed my eyes. Old Margot was right. In ten days, I’d be back in my world, and this would just be that craziest-thing-I’ve-ever-done story I looked back on and laughed about.
Or cried about. One of the two.
Seventeen
Jack
I lay in bed that night, waiting for the guilt to assault me. For my conscience to prick me. For my ghosts to haunt me. For regret, for tears, for a bitter taste in my mouth. All the familiar things that usually accompanied a sleepless night.
But it didn’t happen. Even Bridget Jones lay beside me, content and purring. Didn’t she know what a horrible person I was?
Come on, I thought angrily. Someone needs to scream at me for this. Make me feel bad. Demand to know how I could do such a thing. Make me answer for this, God. I shouldn’t come away unscathed.
But God was silent tonight.
Instead the voice in my head was Margot’s. I don’t even know why I want this so badly, but I do.
It was a mystery to me, too, this explosive chemistry between a beautiful, sophisticated city girl and a rough-around-the-edges country guy like me. Where did it come from? And why did it have such a grip on me? It drove me insane the way I couldn’t stop thinking about her. All I could do was pray that giving in to that desire would get her out from under my skin.
I was likely out from under hers, anyway. She’d been pretty quick to decide we should just pretend it never happened. Not that I disagreed—I didn’t need anyone in my family to know about it, and I certainly didn’t want to pursue any kind of relationship with her. I wasn’t free to do that.
My heart would always, always belong to someone else. I’d made a promise to Steph, and I intended to keep it. Not only that, I wanted to be the kind of man she’d be proud of. I wanted to honor her memory. I wanted to honor her.
Thinking about how to do that kept me up long into the night.
In the morning, after checking on the animals, I went up to Pete and Georgia’s for coffee. I could have made it at the cabin, but I owed them both an apology and wanted to get a few things off my chest.
I knocked twice on the back door before letting myself in. “Morning.”
Georgia looked over her shoulder at me from where she sat at the kitchen table helping Cooper with his breakfast. “Morning.” Neither her tone nor her face was particularly welcoming.
I’d expected that. “Pete around?”
“He’s out front.”
“OK to have some coffee?”
“Help yourself.”
I poured a cup, ruffled Cooper’s hair, and went out to the driveway, where Pete was changing the oil on an ATV. “Hey,” I said.
He glanced at me. Barely. “Hey.”
“Almost done?”
“Not really.”
“Can you take a break?”
“For what?”
“I have something to say, and I want to say it to you and Georgia at the same time.”
My brother laughed, but it wasn’t a happy sound. “I think you said enough yesterday.”
I took a deep, slow breath, fighting my instincts to get angry and snap back. “I was wrong yesterday, and I’d like to apologize.”
“You should apologize to Margot.”
“I did.”
He looked up at me in surprise, shielding his eyes from the sun. “You did?”
“Yes.”
Turning his attention back to the oil filter, he was silent for a few seconds. “I’ll meet you inside in five minutes.”
“Thank you.” I went back into the kitchen and sat across from Cooper, making goofy faces at him so he’d giggle. His little laugh was my favorite sound in the world.
“Jack, I’m trying to get him to eat,” Georgia complained, but she was smiling too. “You’re making it difficult.”
“I’ll do it. Go get some more coffee.” I went around the table and nudged her out of her chair, then sat. “Cooper’s gonna eat for me, aren’t you buddy?”
“Bunny!” he said happily.
“I said buddy. Now open the barn door, because here comes the horsie!” I did my best at the horse, motorcycle, and airplane tricks to get him to open his mouth and managed to shovel in the rest of his blueberry pancakes by the time Pete came in.
“Good enough,” Georgia said, taking away the little plastic plate and wiping his mouth and hands with a washcloth. “Thanks.”
“Anytime. I can take him to the park later, if you want.”
“That would be great.” She set him down on his feet and I laughed when he took off running at full speed, face planted in the hall, then got right back up again. Kids were so resilient.
“You guys have a few minutes for me?”
Georgia nodded and sat down across from me, and Pete took the chair next to her. “So what’s up?” he asked, bringing his coffee cup to his lips.
“I need to apologize for yesterday. I had a bad attitude right from the start and I was rude to a guest in your house. I’m sorry.”
“And you apologized to her already?” Pete still sounded like
he didn’t believe me.
I nodded. “I did. Last night.”
They exchanged a glance. “Last night? Where?” Georgia asked.
Be careful. “The cabin. She came over to talk about the meeting, and I told her I was sorry for being such a dick about things. I tried to explain myself better.” Then I fucked her right out of her shoes.
“What reason did you give her?” Pete asked.
“I told her I can tell that she’s good at what she does, but that I’m reluctant to make any changes on the farm that weren’t part of my original vision.”
“But Jack, her ideas can be in addition to your vision,” he said. “No one wants to take the farm from you or stop you from doing what you love and what you’re good at. This place is your dream. We know that.”
Pressing my lips together, I forced myself to say what I’d come here to say. “You two deserve the same shot at your dream. So I won’t stand in your way.”
They were stunned silent for a moment. Then Pete said, “Are you serious?”
“Yes.” I took a breath. “I did a lot of thinking last night. And if the situation were different, and it was Steph sitting here, not me, I know she’d tell you to go for it.”
Georgia smiled, her eyes getting misty. “That’s so true. She would have.”
“And the best way to honor her is to do what she would do.”
Pete cleared his throat. “That’s great, Jack.”
“I’m not promising to go along with just anything,” I said quickly, “and I don’t want anything to interfere with what I’m doing, but I’d be willing to discuss the possibilities of a restaurant, maybe look into buying the Oliver place. If that’s impossible, I’d consider finding space on our property to put up a tent or barn for weddings or whatever. But you guys will have to do the legwork. Convince me it won’t be horrible.”
Georgia squealed and jumped up, coming around the table to throw her arms around my neck. She kissed my cheek and squeezed so hard I nearly choked, but inside I felt good. Deep down, I didn’t think there was any way we could afford the Oliver place, and I still hated the idea of strangers trampling around my beloved farm, but something Margot had asked me last night stuck with me. Even if the changes make sense? If they’ll make people happy?
After We Fall Page 10
