Oh, there’ve been any number of times over the years when my fingers have eased the ache in the long nights alone, but that is so, so inadequate. Dreams and fantasies cannot begin to compare to the heat and strength of a man’s body against your flesh, of his mouth on yours, his chest hair tickling and scratching, his stubble scraping your upper lip and chin as you kiss and the way you can feel his muscles rippling and shifting as he begins his conquest to possess you.
When he arches his back and hovers over you, palm beside your ear, breath on your cheek, in that moment, all those sensations fade to background beauty, because the sole focus of your existence is the thick hard presence of his cock against your softest place, and you feel yourself wet and warm and ready for him, aching for him, needing him, needing to feel that perfect soul-swelling fullness, the completion of being joined.
A breath and the slightest shift of muscles are all that stand between us.
My hands are on his back, on his shoulders, caressing and smoothing in circles, pulling, sliding from shoulder blades to the broad expanse of his back. Balance shifts, and I fall backward to the grass, blades pricking my shoulders, and my hands find the hard swell of his taut ass. He’s above me, still kissing me, totally out of the water now, one knee between my thighs. One hand supports him, planted in the turf beside my face, the other sweeping up the curve of my waist to my breast, sagged to the side by gravity.
They were once high and firm, my tits. Pregnancy swelled them, milk stretched them, nursing changed them. There’s a moment of discomfort, embarrassment, self-consciousness. That moment is erased by his palm against the weighted side of my boob, lifting it, caressing it reverently.
His mouth leaves mine.
Descends. Lips touch my clavicle.
“You are…so beautiful.” His words float up to me, make me swallow hard against the sudden glut of emotions charging through me.
I haven’t felt beautiful or feminine in so, so long. Four words, a heartfelt compliment, the wonder rife in his tone making it clear he means it down to the depths of his desire. Four little words, and I’m wrecked.
The moment of rapturous forgetting is ruined.
Tears explode, sudden and furious. One moment I’m caught up in the sensuous slide of skin on skin, of Derek’s hands and mouth, and the next I’m sobbing uncontrollably.
“Shit, shit.” Derek rolls off me, lying on his back in the grass beside me, hands pressed to his face. “Shit, I’m such a selfish asshole. I’m sorry, Reagan. I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have let that happen.”
He starts to rise, but I, incapable of speaking, can only shake my head and roll toward him, stop him with a hand to his chest. “Don’t—don’t.” I choke the words out. Suck in a deep, steadying breath and try again. “You didn’t—it’s not—”
He sinks back to the grass, staring at me in confusion. I’m rubbing at my face, trying to breathe, trying to stop, but now that I’ve opened the floodgates, it’s all coming out, years and years’ worth of pent-up misery and sorrow and loneliness and weakness. All I can do is wriggle toward him, rest my cheek against his chest and cry. Horrible, ugly tears. Endless, endless. Derek doesn’t speak, doesn’t ask questions. He just cradles me in the sheltering warmth of his arms and strokes my hair away from my face. He doesn’t shush me, or tell me not to cry, or act awkward or uncomfortable. He just holds me, and that, truly, just makes it so much worse. Because it’s exactly what I need, and I can’t take it, can’t handle him being so sweet and understanding when he doesn’t even comprehend the depths of what I’m feeling.
Hell, I don’t even fully comprehend my own emotions, so how could he?
We’re both still nude, but that somehow fades. The warm air is thick and humid and smells strongly of impending rain. The sky is dark, stars blotted out by rolling clouds. His hands brush back from my forehead, down my cheek, tucking flyaway wisps of hair behind my ear, and his thumb touches my cheek, slides across my cheekbone. I sob again, because that, unbeknownst to Derek, was Tom’s favorite gesture of affection.
Which thought only serves to remind me of what nearly happened just now. That I nearly had unprotected sex on the bank of my pond with my dead husband’s best friend.
I manage to quiet the flood, wipe my eyes with the heel of my palms. I suck in slow, steadying breaths and tilt my face up so I can see Derek’s. “I’m sorry,” I say. “I just—”
“Needed to cry. It’s okay. I get it.”
“Yeah, but that’s not it. Not totally. I just haven’t felt…I don’t even know how to put it. I haven’t felt beautiful in a very long time. I haven’t felt like a woman in years. I’m a mom. I’m a farmer. I’m a widow. I’m a lot of other things. But since Tom shipped out, and even…even before then, through all his deployments, I haven’t felt like a woman with desires and needs. I haven’t felt wanted or beautiful in so long, and when you told me you thought I was beautiful, I just…I guess I kind of lost it, because it felt so strange, so foreign. And…so incredible. But then I started crying, and I’ve been holding so much in for so long, you know?”
He nods. “I know about holding shit in, at least. And I know it doesn’t work. You gotta get shit out. I’ve told you things about what happened over there that I haven’t told anyone else. The shrinks and doctors and everyone else wanted me to just open up and tell ’em everything, but I just couldn’t. It was too new, too fresh. And they didn’t really give a shit — they were just doing their job.” He holds onto my shoulders, arm across my back, and the sensation of being held is so deliriously heady that I have to close my eyes and breathe through the wave of overwhelmed neediness. “As far as the other stuff? Not feeling like a woman? I think I get that too. I wasn’t a man, you know? I was a prisoner. A victim. Name, rank, and serial number. I was reduced to the drive to survive. Then I felt guilty that I did survive. That’s still there, in fucking spades, but whatever. Now I’m still figuring out what I am, what I feel like. Who I am. And feeling like a man again? Like a real man? That someone wants around, that someone needs or feels desire for? That’s some powerful shit.”
I nod. “Yeah, it is.”
A long, warm breeze sends the willow fronds waving, and then a low distant growl of thunder rolls over us. Rain hisses, stray drops hitting our faces and bodies, rippling the surface of the pond in a million concentric spreading circles. Neither of us moves. The rain doesn’t really touch us, and the sound of it is peaceful, soothing.
Seconds of silence turn to minutes, each of us lost in our own thoughts and the rain falling in wind-blown waves across the water.
“Reagan?” His voice is low and deep. I turn into him, my body pressed against his. “You are beautiful. You should know that. You’re a hell of woman. You’re beautiful, and you are wanted. I know I’m not supposed to feel that way about you, but fuck it. I do. What just happened between us, it probably shouldn’t have. But it did, and I guess I’m asshole enough to not feel sorry for it. Guilty, yes. Confused, a little. But I’m not sorry. I felt more alive just now than I have in…in a long motherfucking time.”
I have to breathe and swallow and blink a few times before I can respond. God, I’m so emotional. “You’re not an asshole, Derek.” I lift up on an elbow. My boobs drape against his chest. I steady myself with a palm to his heartbeat. My eyes meet his, and I let him see the turmoil in my soul, let him see whatever he can see. “I didn’t just let that happen, okay? I’m not just…I don’t know…complicit? That feels like the right word. I wanted that to happen. I took everything you were giving and gave it right back. So quit hogging all the guilt, would you?”
He chuckles. “All right, I guess you can have some of it.” His hand slides down my bicep. Down my waist. Cups the extreme lower edge of my back, just above my butt, as if he’s contemplating caressing me there, but chickens out.
I want him to touch me, and I’m scared of what will happen if he does. I feel both in equal measure. “Derek?”
“Hmm?”
“What’s
happening? Here, between us.”
“Hell if I know.” His palm ascends to my shoulder blades, his thumb rolling over the back of my neck, and then his touch moves back downward again, and he gets closer to my ass this time. “Something wrong? Something right? I don’t even know.”
That’s not what I want to hear. “Derek…I need—I can’t handle the confusion. I can’t handle not knowing. I’ve been—I’ve been in charge for so long. I’ve been strong and decisive. Made the hard decisions, for myself and for Tommy. All alone, making this farm work.” I’m enjoying this far too much, and I simply cannot move away from his touch. No matter how much I know I should, especially considering what I’m saying at this very moment. “I can’t be in charge of this, too. I don’t know what I want. I don’t know what’s right or wrong, and I don’t even know how to decide.”
“You need me to be strong for you. You deserve that.” He pauses for a long moment. “You also deserve honesty, so I’ll tell you I’m just not sure I have that. I don’t know what’s right or wrong any more than you do. Less, maybe. You’ve got me tripping on my own hormones, desires, and needs, and I’m not sure I’ve got what it takes to…I don’t even know. Either give you what you need and deserve, or walk away. I don’t know what this is, and I don’t know what to do about it.”
“Derek—”
He keeps going. “And you deserve better than that.” Long sigh. “Better than a fucked-up mess like me.”
Women find confidence attractive. That’s a fact. And I’m no different. But there’s also something about vulnerability, and something about the kind of strength it takes to admit to vulnerability.
He sits up, and I’m forced out of the shelter of his arms. What does it say about me that I don’t want to leave this place, this moment? I don’t want to leave the rain and the pond and the man beside me.
“Where are you going?” I ask.
He draws his knees up, wraps his arms around them. My traitorous eyes follow the broad lines and curves of his shoulders; my fingers touch each of the hundred tiny cuts and scars that crisscross his back.
“One of the first things you learn in rifle school is that if you can’t pull the trigger, you have no business holding the weapon. When it comes to combat, that lesson is vital. And…somehow, right now, that lesson feels like it applies to what’s going on between us. Does that make any sense to you? I don’t know how to say it any better.”
I sit up, cross-legged, wrap my arms around my torso. “Yeah, it does, I think.”
“I’m not…how do I put it? I’m not pushing you away. I’m not making a decision. I think we each just need to figure out what we’re thinking and feeling and what we want and what this is.” He stands up, and my eyes follow the shifting of his buttocks, the ripple of his back muscles. He turns slightly, and my gaze is drawn to his dick, long and thick and dangling, swinging. He blows out a breath. “Fuck me, Reagan. How am I supposed to think straight when you look at me like that?”
I rip my gaze away. I stand up. “I’m sorry. I just—you’re beautiful, too, Derek. You are.”
He shakes his head, grins ruefully. “Put some clothes on. Go home and get some sleep.”
I cover my breasts with my palms, take one last long lingering look at Derek, at his body, at the obvious war in his eyes, and then make myself turn away. I ignore the prickling heat of his gaze following the sway of my butt. Pretend I’m not putting more lilt into my walk just for him. Face away from him as I stand on the dock, step into jeans and my T-shirt, gather up my bra, underwear, and shoes and socks.
Don’t look back. Don’t look back. I make myself walk away, heart hammering. My body wants me to drop the garments from my arms, race back, crush myself to Derek and take his tongue into my mouth, taste the salt on his jaw and feel the rasp of his stubble, demand his hands everywhere. My soul aches, swells. Confused, emotionally fraught, full of things I never thought I’d feel again: wonder, need, desire, passion, tenderness. Things I thought had died with Tom. Things my heart and mind keep telling me did die with Tom. And, as I cross through the grass and enter the kitchen through the back door, I recognize the conflict within myself. Those things truly did die with my husband. I buried them when I took the folded flag. Each cracking report of the twenty-one-gun salute buried them deeper and deeper. And my conscience tells me they should stay buried with him. Yet my body and heart and mind tell me other things, feed me conflicting reports. This is new, right? I’m not pretending like my love for Tom is the same thing as I’m feeling for Derek.
I’m allowed to move on, right?
Or is that a betrayal of my love for Tom, my husband, the father of my sweet, perfect son?
I vowed to love and remain faithful to Tom in sickness and in health, till death do us part.
Well, death parted us.
Now what?
CHAPTER 10
DEREK
I don’t sleep that night. Not a wink. Every time I close my eyes, I see Reagan, stripping. I feel her body sliding wet and soft and warm against mine. I taste the sweetness of her lips. Feel the silk of her breast in my hand. Even silk isn’t so soft, so delicate, so lush and lovely as her skin.
I close my eyes, and I hear her sobbing, broken and miserable and confused.
I close my eyes, and I feel her core throbbing against me, feel the dampness of her opening and the strength of her thighs as they wrap around my waist.
I close my eyes, and my heart thuds crazily. My body aches. My cock throbs, pulses, hurts.
Hours before dawn, I find myself stumbling out of the barn into the dew-damp cool, jeans pulled on but not zipped or buttoned. I’m gasping for breath, chest aching, heart pounding. Visions of Reagan in my head. My body is on fire. I round the back of the barn, plant my hands against the wood wall of the barn, head dangling between my shoulders. Trying to banish the thoughts of Reagan, the image of her trim waist and full tits, the warm heat of her mouth on mine, the sound of her breath.
I can’t.
The images coruscate in my mind, and I’m a raging ball of need, of pent-up desire.
I lick my lips and taste her skin. Close my eyes and see the need in her expression. I tug my dick free of my pants and clutch the painfully hard length in my fist. Stroke slowly, eyes closed, forehead to the barn. I picture Reagan standing on the dock, back arched, tits thrust out as she stretches. Picture her as she walked away, taut, round ass swinging. Feel again her legs around my waist, hands circling my back and fingernails scratching my ass.
Heat builds in my groin, urgency.
I’m a few short seconds from letting go when I hear a footstep behind me.
“Derek?” Her voice is timid, hesitant.
REAGAN
I can’t sleep. Guilt and need war within me. I ache. Derek’s body is all I can think of. His muscles. His firm skin. His mouth on my chest, his palm cupping my breast. His cock, so big, so thick and hard and pressing against me. I can’t sleep for thinking of him.
I pull on a pair of boxer shorts—Tom’s, claimed as comfy lounge wear years and years ago—and a T-shirt. I check on Tommy, who’s lying sideways across his bed and snoring, Buzz on the floor. Tiptoe outside, barefoot in the dew-damp grass, to the barn. I find Derek’s spot empty, blankets rumpled as if lain in and abandoned. Check the rest of the barn, but I don’t find him. Exit, circle around to the back, wondering where he could’ve gone. Rounding the back of the barn, I call his name quietly. I don’t know what I’m looking for, what I think I’ll say or do when I find him, I just know I’m driven by something deep inside me.
I stop dead in my tracks when I see him. He’s leaning against the barn, jeans open, cock in his hand. His posture is tortured, hunched, tense. His fist is moving on his length, and he’s growling under his breath. He halts when he hears my voice.
His eyes meet mine. Neither of us moves. My gaze travels, against my conscious will, down to the open “V” of his jeans, to his thick, straining cock. Fluid is beaded on the tip. He was about to come.
My body is somehow moving toward him. I don’t know what I’m doing. What’s happening. He straightens, hands reaching for the button of his pants.
“Reagan, I—”
What am I doing? What the hell am I doing?
I’m reaching for him, that’s what. Not taking my eyes off his, my fingers close around his cock. He gasps, his eyelids flutter. He groans.
“Jesus Christ, Reagan.” His words are pitched so low I can barely hear him.
I slide my fist down his length, and he shudders all over.
“I was thinking of you,” he admits. “I was jerking off, thinking of you. You’re so fucking beautiful, so fucking perfect, I can’t handle it. Can’t — oh Jesus, oh, fucking hell, that feels good — I can’t stop thinking about you. I haven’t slept at all, because I keep feeling you, thinking of you. Fuck…I keep wanting you.”
Slowly, I plunge my fist around him, lifting, twisting my palm around his tip, sliding back down. He pounds a fist against the barn with a dull thud.
He was thinking of me? He couldn’t stop thinking about me? He was masturbating…to me? Why the hell is that such a turn-on?
“Tell me….” I whisper, pausing, my fist clenched around the root of him. “Tell me what you were thinking.”
“Your legs, around my waist. Your tits. How you tasted. The way your lips felt when we kissed. How—how wet and hot your pussy felt against me.” He growls deep in his chest. He moves, and I’m pressed back against the wall of the barn. “Your ass. Your eyes. The way your hands felt when you touched my ass.”
“I was thinking of you, too.” I lean into him, eyes closed, press my lips to his cheek, whisper in his ear. I squeeze his cock. “Of this.” I place my other hand around his body and slip it under his jeans, raking his ass with my nails. “Of this.”
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