Chapter Sixteen

“We aren’t going to get busted for trespassing are we?” Virginia asked.

She stood to the back of his parked truck, high on a rolling hill overlooking a huge lake and acres and acres of farmland, holding the six-pack of soda he’d picked up at a little country store on the way. He was rummaging around in the back for a blanket, and she took the opportunity to check out the beautiful scenery.

From this point she could see two houses in the distance: one an old farmhouse with a huge porch and white siding; the other brand new but built in a style that perfectly blended the old-fashioned with modern. The farmhouse was flanked by a huge barn and a smaller building with a large deck that sat right on the edge of the lake. The entirety was surrounded by the rise of the Blue Ridge Mountains. It was breathtaking.

“Don’t worry about it.” Beckett emerged from the truck with a large blanket folded over his arm. He slammed the truck door and walked over to a place where the ground was level, snapped out the fabric, and laid it down. He plopped down and motioned for her to come over, patting his hand on the coverlet. “Welcome to Promised Land Farm. Sit and enjoy the view.”

She followed his cue, sitting down next to him and offering up the soda. He opened the bottle with an opener on his keychain and handed it to her before taking one for himself. They both took the first drink, the simultaneous sounds of pleasure making them both smile. Virginia was relaxed here with him, the tension of Mills Street easing away from her muscles with the change of scenery.

“Are you ever going to clue me in on why we’re here?” She waved her hand around them. “This is gorgeous but I don’t—”

“You wanted to see what I was running toward…or should be.” He took another sip and smiled as he stretched his long legs out in front of him and reclined on his elbows. “This is mine. All fifty acres of it.”

“What?” She was confused, shocked. This wasn’t what she expected. “You want to be a farmer?”

“Hell no,” he answered with a skeptical laugh. “And that is what I told Sissy, Owen, Lucky, and Taylor when they gave it to me.” He pointed to the older home when he mentioned the older Landons and then the newer home at the naming of his best friend and his new wife. Beckett looked down to where his fingers were pulling the label off his bottle. “I rent my farming acreage back to Lucky and he takes care of it.”

“So, this was a gift. A really nice gift.” Beckett still wouldn’t look at her and she could not read his expression, couldn’t get a gauge on where his head was. “Is it a good gift? Because I’ve got to tell you that I think this is a kickass present, really.”

“It is…”

“But what?”

“It was supposed to be David’s…” When she shook her head he placed his soda to the side in the grass and flopped onto his back, staring up at the sky. “David was Lucky’s older brother, and he was killed in a car accident just before Sandy was sent up to prison and I came to live here with them. Lucky bought the farm from his folks a few months ago and they gave me David’s portion.”

Okay. She got it. That was a pretty heavy gift to lay on somebody, but she had a feeling that it wasn’t what was on the deed that bothered him but what it meant. Virginia wedged her bottle in the grass at the edge of the blanket and lowered herself to the ground beside him, taking in the view of the sky.

“You didn’t want it?” she asked.

“The point is that it shouldn’t be mine.”

“They love you, and they wanted you to have it. It’s clearly a family farm and they wanted to keep it in the family.”

“I’m not family.”

“They obviously think differently.”

His hands were on his abdomen, the fists clenched tight in spite of his relaxed position. She waited him out, not wanting to guess wrong on what was giving him fits.

“It’s too much,” he said. “I feel like shit that they have to accept me as a poor substitute for their son.”

“You’re a good man. You induce heart attacks on a daily basis with your crazy crap, but you’ve come so far. Changed so much.” She paused wanting to tell him what she knew to be true but not wanting to belittle the memory of David. “If David was as kind as the rest of the family, then I bet he’d be happy you’re sitting on his portion.”

“That’s what Sissy said.”

“Well she’s the one who would know.” They sat in silence for a few minutes, watching dark clouds pass overhead in the blue sky. The weather resembled the battle going on inside of the man beside her, his demons fighting for the light.

“Thank you for that,” he said so low she almost missed it.

“For what?”

He shrugged, turning his head to look at her and dragging her won attention to his face. Beckett was somber, his eyes churning with all the emotion of this day and a little more that she chalked up to her own confusion and foolish yearning.

“Thanks for saying I’ve changed. That I’m a good man. You can’t…” he stumbled over his words, a quick bashful smile twitching his lips. “After what I did, for you to say that…it means a lot.”

She swallowed hard, pressing her lips together in a tight seal until the urge to say more, to say something that would dredge up their conversation from the other night. Virginia didn’t want to go there because she wasn’t sure she could stick by her decision for them to be over.

“What are you going to do with all this land?” she asked, relieved when he looked away and she was free to do the same. It was a little easier to breathe without his gaze burning her up.

He laughed. It was sharp and filled with more than a little bit of disbelief. At her question or the abrupt change from where this conversation was so clearly going, she wasn’t sure. “I have no idea. Build a house?”

“Do you want to build a house?”

“I…I think so.” He took a breath and she felt him nodding next to her. “Yeah. I do.” And then he turned his head to look at her and she mirrored his movement, realizing just how close they were. Close enough for her to count the mass of dark eyelashes framing his topaz eyes, for their shoulders to brush lightly. Her heart seized up for the briefest second, and she consciously had to concentrate to get it to even out. “I have no idea where to start.”

“Buy a door,” she answered, not really sure why she said it.

His eyebrows shot up in surprise and he chuckled, his breath warm against her temple, ruffling her hair. “Why a door?”

“Why not a door? You’ve got to start somewhere.”

“Okay. I’ll run with that since I don’t have a better idea,” he said, his eyes roaming over her face. She could see the questions forming in his mind, her belly tightening with dreadful anticipation. Today already felt like a season finale with enough mind-blowing reveals to rock her world. She wasn’t sure how many more corkscrew turns she could take.

But he didn’t ask her anything. Instead Beckett just stared, his eyes roaming over her face, gaze eating her up. She stared back, allowing the hunger in her own belly to show. She wanted him.

The sound of a plane overhead distracted him, and he turned his gaze to the sky. Virginia soaked in his profile for a few seconds the dark stubble on his jaw, the unruly waves and curls of his hair. She followed his lead, seeing the plane emerge from the bank of darker clouds gathering along the ridgeline.

“They’re low, aren’t they?” she asked, her eyes following the craft as it appeared to circle overhead.

“Not for a skydiver,” Beckett said, his voice full of envy. “They must be trying to beat the weather.”

“That sounds dangerous.”

“No. It’s fine.” He turned toward her, the hint of a grin on his face contradicting his words. He settled in even closer, leaning up on his right arm to look down at her, their bodies touching from shoulder to hip, his heat warding off the chill that was sweeping in with the coming storm. “You should go with me sometime.”

“No way.” Her breath catching a little, but not because of his suggestion.

“What scares you?”

That was easy. “Stepping out of a perfectly good airplane.”

“I get that part. It is always scary, but what specifically freaks you out?”

Virginia stared at him, realizing that he was really asking. Not looking for flippant jokes and tired cliché responses. He wanted to know and she wanted to tell him.

“The free fall. Nothing below me. No safety net.”

“You’ve got a parachute,” he countered softly, raising his left hand to stroke the skin of her arm where it rested on her stomach. “You’re defying gravity. It’s the most alive you will ever feel.”

“What if the parachute fails?”

“You’ve always got a buddy, a wingman. He’s got your back. He won’t let you get hurt.” His fingers curved around her arm, moving it to the side, returning to begin the methodical push of each of her shirt buttons through the corresponding hole. If she was going to stop this, now was the time but she knew she wouldn’t. She didn’t want to. Beckett leaned over even farther, stopping when his mouth hovered over her own. “Watch them.”

She complied, shifting her gaze to the sky as he kissed her. A slow, soft seductive kiss that had her moaning and opening to the gentle sweep of his tongue but was over almost before it began. He shifted his mouth lower, along her jaw, down the column of her, ending in a sensual lick along her collarbone.

She watched as the first of the passengers stepped out of the plane, gasping when Beckett pulled her bra to the side and closed his mouth over her nipple. Virginia arched into his warmth, the sweet tension as he sucked and licked coiling in her belly in a taut spring. The pressure built, spiraling higher and higher as the person free-falling above them plummeted to the earth.

“Please, Beckett,” she weaved a hand in his tousled hair, tugging not-so-gently as she writhed on the blanket. His mouth was wicked, scrapes of his teeth electrifying as he moved from her one nipple to the other.

His body was heavy where it draped across hers, the weight a welcome pressure as her climax sparked, trying to catch fire and set her off but she couldn’t get there with just the rasp of his tongue on her tits. Virginia lifted her other hand and moved down her belly, shaking fingers struggling to undo the button on her jeans. She cursed, frustration spiking her need as a second jumper left the plane overhead. They were tandem objects, buffeted by the wind as it picked up with the approach of the coming storm. She tried again, getting nowhere with releasing the fastening on her pants.

“Damn it,” she said.

Beckett leaned up again to hover over her mouth, his tongue swiping lazily along her bottom lip. He grinned, a lazy slow flash of teeth that made her want to howl. He knew he had her on the edge and was enjoying her torment. She leaned up and nipped at his lip, warning him that he couldn’t keep playing with her.

“You want to come, Ginger?”

“Yes,” she gasped as he lightly pinched one of her nipples, immediately stroking it with a sensual slide to ease the sting. “Please, Beckett. I need to come.”

“The magic word works every time,” he drawled on a low laugh as his hand slid alongside her own, nudging it away as he opened her jeans with the practiced ease of a man who knew his way around a woman’s pants. Right now she couldn’t resent his experience since he was seconds away from giving her the orgasm she needed so desperately. “Keep looking up at the sky, Ginger. I’ll take care of you.”

She lifted her eyes, noticing that one of the jumpers had pulled his chute, the bright orange and red patterns unmistakable against the growing gray of the sky. Beckett’s fingers slipped under the edge of her panties and found her clit. No games. No denial. He was as good as his word to bring her pleasure.

Beckett’s mouth teased her owna kiss and not quite a kissthe whisper of his tongue against her lips, dipping in to taste her, to take her moan inside him. His fingers weren’t so subtle, the caress firm and the pressure calculated to get her off. Her own were clenched in the folds of the blanket underneath her, twisting around the digits as she braced herself for the coming storm inside and outside.

The second chute opened just as her orgasm hit, and she closed her eyes against the bright shards of light sparking behind her eyelids as the aching, blissful, mind-blowing pleasure uncoiled and spread like lava through her body.

“Oh, yeah,” Beckett murmured. “So gorgeous. So hot and wet.”

Ginger clenched the folds of fabric harder as the aftershocks rattled her body.

“Damn, Beckett,” she shivered with the remnants of pleasure and the brisk wind racing over the hill carrying with it the rich smell of the earth and mountain. Ginger needed a connection with him, wanted to continue the intimacy. “Come here.”

She wove her fingers through his hair and tugged him close enough to kiss, invading him with her tongue, teeth scraping lightly along the sensitive inner part of his lower lip. He moaned and she lifted, pushing him onto his back as she straddled his waist. He was hard where his body pressed against her sex, and she started a slow grind, shuddering with the sharp spikes of exquisite bliss making her skin tingle. Beckett broke off the kiss.

“I need to fuck you, Ginger. Dying to be inside you.”

“Yes,” she panted as she angled up to get her jeans off. His hands were rough, now awkward and fumbling with his desire. The wind whipped her hair across her face and it was hard to see what she was doing. Beckett tucked the hair behind an ear and they both laughed as she peeled her jeans down her legs.

There had always been lots of laughter in bed with Beckett, and she’d missed it.

“Fuck,” his chuckle turning to a growl when his hand skimmed over her ass cheek, dipping a finger in to trace the slick folds of her sex. “Do you know how hard it has been? Acting like I wasn’t inside of you a few days ago? Agony.”

“Well then, let’s put you out of your misery,” she grinned down at him. “I’ve never seen you so off your game.”

He sobered, leaning up to press a kiss to her mouth just before he murmured, “I’ve got no game when it comes to you. Never did.”

Ginger had to kiss him then, if only to keep herself from saying the words that leapt into her mouth, just on the edge of her tongue and ready to make her own confessions. She needed to keep perspective no matter how much this behind-the-scenes look at the real Beckett made her heart squeeze tight in her chest.

She dove into him, squirming against the sensual caress of his fingers along her sex. They took their time. He was attentive, spiraling her pleasure up and up until she knew the only way down was to take that step out into the vast sky and let herself free fall and give in to the pleasure.

The fat, wet drop of rain caused her to gasp and pull out of the kiss. Not a gentle rain or a drizzle, one minute there was only a threat of weather and the next, Mother Nature decided to deliver her own version of a cold shower.

“Come on!” Beckett said as he scrambled out from under her and pulled her toward the truck. She slid a little on the wet grass in her bare feet but he had a tight grip on her and hauled her close as he wrenched the back door open and pushed her inside.

The rain hammered on the roof and the glowering clouds made the interior of the truck dim and gloomy. Water was dripping off her hair and shirt, running in rivulets over her skin. Beckett hadn’t fared much better, his T-shirt was plastered against his hard chest, jeans now a dark indigo, and his hair was wet and clinging to his throat.

He looked delicious.

Suddenly the inside of the truck was intimate, not gloomy at all.

Virginia shifted across the seat and climbed on top of him, resuming her position from outside and settled against the heavy bulge in his jeans. She ran her fingers over his shoulders, across his chest, and began her descent to the part of him she wanted inside her.

“Where were we?” Beckett asked, his slow grin a flash of white teeth in the semi-darkness. He shuddered as she scraped a nail across the barbell piercing and then squirmed as she trailed her hands lower. He watched her face, never once looking down as she unfastened his belt, the zipper, and reached inside his jeans. Commando. Score.

He groaned, lifting his hips and thrusting into her grip, the noise loud and deep in the confines of the cabin.

“I think we were at the place where you were going to fuck me.”

…

She was going to kill him.

It would be an amazing fucking ride but he was going down and he knew it. He’d taken bigger leaps with nothing more than a few yards of nylon between him and sure deaththis would be a much better way to go. He lifted his hips again, thumbs wedged under his waistband as he nudged his wet jeans down his thighs, just far enough for their bare skin to touch. Hers silky and smooth, his rougher but both highly sensitized.

“It’s been too long,” he said, cupping the weight of her beautiful breasts, flicking the hard nipples with his fingers before leaning down to lick off the water. She arched into his mouth, offering up her tits to him, one hand tight around his dick in a hot clasp, the other digging into his hair to keep him sucking and pulling and dragging out little pants and gasps with every one. He released her flesh, trailing his lips over the upper swell and higher on her neck. “Let me. I need to fuck you.”

“It’s only been a day.”

“Like I said, too long.” He palmed her ass with both hands, groaning with the eye-crossing pleasure that shot through his dick when she rocked against him. “I can’t wait to be inside you.”

“Then do it.”

Like that first night, he didn’t need a second invitation, especially when Ginger pushed aside her panties to give him access. He wrestled for a few agonizing seconds to get the condom out of his pocket, open the wrapper, and slide it onto his erection. She lowered herself onto him, eyes focused on his own and with a few heart-stoppingly good shimmies and slides and he was covered in a white-hot pleasure that would never, ever get fucking old.

“This. I want this so bad.” She pressed her lips to his, the slick velvet of her tongue sneaking into his mouth. She moaned and ground down on his cock, taking him all the way inside her tight heat. “I’m so close to coming.”

“Oh, fuck.” Beck claimed her mouth as he squeezed her ass, urging her to raise herself up and down at her own pace. She wanted control, and he was happy to give it when the result was feeling like this. He was flying. He was grounded. He was home. And the last thought didn’t scare him like he thought it would.

This wasn’t going to last long. Ginger felt too good, too perfect in her slow slide up and down his dick. Her breasts, lush and hard tipped, brushed against his chest, raising goosebumps on his skin.

“Beckett,” she murmured against his mouth, her fingers burrowing into his hair and gripping the strands. The slight pain only heightened his pleasure, the spike in his endorphins quickening his breath into a rapid pant. “Please. I can’t.”

“I’ve got you,” he said, raising two fingers to her mouth, stroking her lips with slow passes. “Get them good and wet.”

Her eyes shot wide, pupils dilating even more as she realized his intent. Without breaking eye contact, with him still buried deep inside her, she opened her mouth and sucked his fingers inside. Her tongue swirled and twisted over his digits, soaking them, her sex clenching with each pull and suckle. He was not immune to the erotic moment, his own dick swelling with the sight of her mouth wrapped around him, the sound of her moans.

With a shaking hand, he withdrew from her mouth, without hesitation coasting along her back, along her ass cheek and then delving between until he found the other entrance to her body. Virginia held her breath, her body still as he inserted a finger inside, stretching her gently and then sliding in and out as she opened to him. She let out a shuddering breath, her head lolling back on her shoulder in ecstasy.

“Fuck yourself on me, Gin,” he urged, bucking his hips up into her depth. “You know how good it’s going to be. How good we are together. I need it.” He shivered when she did as he asked. “I need you. So much. Tell me you need me, too.”

“I do.” She looked back down at him, her hair falling down around them as she rested her forehead against his. There was a sheen of moisture in her eyes, a thickness of emotion in her voice. “I can’t help it. I need you. too.”

His heart squeezed at her words, the emotion welling up inside him both overwhelmingly terrifying and fulfilling at the same time. Emotions he had not allowed himself to feel since their time together so many years ago were now back as if they’d never been gone.

“I’m coming, Beckett.” Her words were half whisper, half moan but he heard her and every ounce of what she was experiencing. “Catch me.”

“I will.” There was no way he was lasting past the first clench of her sex around him. When she bore down on him and started to come, he followed her lead and gave himself over to the sensation of surrender.

Time was without real measure in their little cocoon, their heavy breaths the only thing competing with the heavy patter of the rain on the roof. Beckett held her tight against his chest, his heart stuttering with his reaction to this day, this moment. It was a turning point for something, a sea change from the path they’d been on and he desperately needed assurance that all they’d revealed today would not be lost or unexplored.

They just needed time. He pulled her closer, pressing his lips against the sweet fall of her hair, asking for the only thing he could at that moment.

“Just give us time.”