There’s one thing I can say about Ida Sue Lucas. Okay there’s lots of things, but right now all I can think is that she can kiss. She kisses better than a woman ought to have a right to. She’s ruined me for any other woman and that’s the damn truth. If I hadn’t already decided to marry her the kiss she just gave me would have definitely made my mind up for me.
We break apart, both of us breathing hard. I’ve unbuttoned the top of her dress and pushed my hand inside, palming her breast, and I don’t even know how that happened. I need to get control, but with my hand full of her breast, her ass pushing and grinding down against my hard cock and the taste of her kiss, I don’t know if that’s possible.
“I had plans, Lovey, but I have to have you,” I growl into her ear. I suck the lobe in my mouth, biting down on it and then soothing it with my tongue.
“Plans can wait. Let’s go upstairs,” she murmurs.
She barely has the words out before I have her in my arms and I’m carrying her back into the house. She’s unbuttoning my shirt, placing small kisses with each inch of skin that she reveals.
“Fuck, woman,” I growl when her sweet little tongue laps against my nipple.
“I love that you have hair on your chest, Jansen. I love the way it feels when I rub my face against it. I like it almost as much as when I make you say fuck…”
“Make me say it?” I grin, turning the corner to get to the stairs.
“You come off as very straight and narrow, Jansen. You could pass for a country preacher,” she says. And I stop in my tracks, pulling back to look at her.
“The fuck you say?”
“There you go again. When you say fuck it’s like the devil himself sets my body on fire, angels weep and the only way the hunger inside of me can be quenched is if you cover me in your holy water.”
“Don’t think I have any holy water, Lovey,” I laugh, looking down at this woman that I love more than life and thinking she might be as pretty as she is crazy. I like both. She brings a lightness into my life that has never been there before.
“We’ll improvise. I think you might have something even better,” she says, her tongue moving along her bottom lip. I’m so hypnotized by watching that, I miss her hand moving down to massage the hard outline of my cock in my jeans. There can be no missing what she means.
“Fuck, woman. You grab hold of my fucking cock like that one more time, I’m going to fuck you so hard you won’t be able to walk for fucking days.”
I watch as her eyes dilate, her breathing harsher and realize she’s telling the truth. She loves it when I say the word fuck. That’s good information to have and I’ll make sure to use it to my advantage.
I just have to get her upstairs first.
“Jansen?” I stop on the first stair.
“Yeah, baby?”
“What is that?” she asks, her voice so soft and quiet that I almost don’t hear it. That’s when I notice she’s staring in the direction of the kitchen… specifically the table.
I slowly let her slide down my body so she’s standing beside me, sudden nerves overtaking my hunger for her body. I think she’ll like the table. I’m praying she does. Still, there’s a chance she won’t. There’s a larger chance that she won’t understand the message I’m trying to give her.
There’s also the fact that my entire future is hinging on what happens here tonight.
“I…” I clear my throat. “…Made you something for Valentine’s Day.”
“A table.” She walks toward it, her voice so quiet that it’s hard to hear and I can’t read the emotion in it to know what she’s thinking.
“Lovey—”
“You made me a table, Jansen.”
Now, I’m really starting to worry. Maybe her boy was right. I rub the back of my neck. “I got you some flowers too,” I tell her, clumsily moving the vase of lilies and daisies up from the center of the table.
“It’s huge,” she continues to murmur.
“You have a big family, Ida Sue.”
She puts her hand on the top of it and carefully slides it around. Her head is down, so I can’t really see what’s going on in her head. “You made me a table.” Her voice is still soft and I think there’s a touch of wonder in it.
Maybe she does like it.
She sits down on the bench and I start to relax a little. She wouldn’t have done that if she didn’t like it… Right?
“You made me a table.”
“Ida Sue…”
She finally turns to the side and looks at me. There are tears in her eyes and the sight of them hits me wrong—a million times wrong.
“Ida Sue, Lovey, you don’t have to keep the table. I just was trying to—”
“In my whole life, Jansen, no one has ever bothered to do anything like this for me.”
“Ida Sue—”
“You used oak.”
“You admired the wood for being strong, thought it felt like protection over your family and land. I couldn’t use anything else after hearing you talk about that old oak tree.”
“You made me a table and you listened to me,” she says.
“Lovey, you’re going to have to let me in that brain of yours,” I finally tell her. I kneel down on the floor in front of her, using my thumb to brush away the tears on her face. She shifts a little on the bench and her hand moves over the letter I that is engraved deep in the wood.
“You put my initial on it.”
“You’re the foundation of the family, Ida Sue. Your children adore you. You’d give the world to see them happy.”
“You know me,” she whispers.
“Ida Sue—”
“I want your initial under mine, Jansen.”
“Ida Sue. This table was for you and your kids, I’m just—”
“If I’m the foundation of this family, like you say then, you are my foundation, Jansen. I want your initial there.”
Now, it’s my turn to be speechless. I look in her face and I let my hands cup the side of her face, pushing them under her hair.
“I’ll put it on there.”
“I love you, Jansen Reed.”
Something clicks into place with those words. Something I’ve been missing since the day I was born.
“I love you, Ida Sue Lucas.” I kiss her then. A slow kiss, full of all of the emotion inside of me, a kiss that promises her that I’ll be with her forever.
A kiss to tell her that I’m not going anywhere.
A kiss that says I’m finally home.