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Flemming
Moving back home was both just as bad and nothing like what Flemming expected. For one, she didn’t stay with her mother for long. After her road trip with Seth, she learned something very important about herself.
She didn’t want to put down roots—not with him or with anyone else. If she did put down any roots, she wanted them to be in a planter on wheels or something. She didn’t like living in one place for too long, as it inevitably became stagnant, so she remodeled a small SUV into a camper and began life on the road.
It suited her in a way she didn’t expect, and she got back into her other interests as well. Her mother might not approve of her choices, but she called her once in a while. It wasn’t a silver bullet—the years of hurt feelings and misunderstandings didn’t vanish overnight—but it was improvement, which was more than Flemming knew to ask for before.
In regard to Seth, they did date. Each time, he worked so hard to make their dates and nights of lovemaking an experience for her. Like their first time, with the candles and tea and dim lights, she came to find him a very sensual lover. He enjoyed the little things as much as she did.
Which was why she’d sent him the plane tickets and very little explanation.
The driver texted that he’d picked up Seth at the airport and they would arrive soon, so Flemming did a final check of the setup to ensure it met her plan. Elegant chocolate truffles sat on a slab of grey slate, while another similar slab held an assortment of cheese, crackers and some dried cranberries. A bottle of mead waited next to twin glasses for her to pour. They’d go on a husky experience the next day, but in that moment, she spotted the headlights heading down the long, winding driveway to their private cabin.
He exited the vehicle with a gust of visible condensation as he exhaled, his breath freezing in the cold night air. “This is an unusual date night,” he admitted, grabbing his overnight bag.
Tugging his hand, she brought him to the hot tub, where she turned on the lights and bubbles. “Less talking, more stripping,” she ordered.
He glanced up toward the sky, hanging like an overturned navy blue bowl over them. A sizzle of neon kissed the horizon, and he whispered in surprise, “Is that?”
“Aurora borealis?” she asked, twining her arms around his waist from behind. “Yeah, you said you’ve always wanted to see it.”
The kiss he gave her tasted like forever. He didn’t have to tell her he appreciated her gesture—his mouth told her everything she needed to know. Both his gratitude and his passion ignited her through his kiss, and for long moments, he so enchanted her, that she didn’t even realize he’d stripped them both until he began to lead her into the water.
Hot, bubbling froth kissed her ankles as she stepped into the glowing blue hot tub. The slide of their bodies against each other left her deliciously drunk on sensations. They didn’t make love—no, they saved it like a treat, instead just touching one another and staring at the natural display in the sky above.
Eventually, clouds rolled in, occluding the view, but dropping the most lovely, powdery white snowflakes to dance around them. They kissed her overheated skin with refreshing coolness.
In the shower, he tried to take control again, to wrest back the power in their dynamic, but she didn’t feel like sharing, not that night. No, he’d given and given to her since their first meeting, and it was her turn to cherish him.
She cleaned his body with soap that smelled like birch, spending a deliciously long time scraping her nails over the bumps and canyons of the smooth skin across his back. By the time they tumbled into the bed next to the crackling fire, his gaze looked drugged. “I want you,” he admitted, reaching for her.
“On your back,” she commanded, a little drunk on passion and power herself.
Rising above him, she placed his hands on her breasts as she rode her way to satisfaction. His fingers dug into her hips, pulled at her nipples, but she relentlessly continued moving until he cried out beneath her, shaking from the enormity of his release.
Afterward, she lay in his arms. Idly, she stroked her fingertips back and forth across his chest. She tried to remember a single time in her life when she’d ever felt so complete and comfortable, her needs all met, sated, and satisfied.
“When I was a little boy, I was terrified of the dark,” he said, his touch a soothing circle on her spine. “I know it is silly, and mostly due to too many horror novels and movies, but I always felt as if something watched from the shadows. Hundreds of unseen eyes—I woke up screaming more than once, honestly.”
She gave him a little squeeze. “I’m sorry.”
“Thanks, but the thing that made me less scared was that I realized we’re never really alone. There’s always something or someone watching; whether it is just the unseeing eyes of a camera or the uncaring eyes of strangers. If someone is always watching, imagining invisible watchers seemed silly. Instead, I decided to worry about the ones watching that I could see.” He shifted, rolling her on top of him again so he could weave his fingers into her hair. “My mom seemed to see the sudden stop to my night terrors as me growing up—that is right around when she first started in on how much happier I would be with you.”
“My mom did it, too,” she admitted.
“I know,” he said simply. “I never wanted that. Just hooking up with some stranger because fate decided? Screw that. I decide my future.”
His eyes drifted closed, so she let her own drift shut. Her breathing evened, the warmth of his body teasing hers into rest. When he spoke again, the rumble of his voice through his chest awakened her gently. “See, marrying someone that fate picked felt a lot like the eyes in the darkness. Just accepting something without being able to see it doesn’t make sense.”
She didn’t know where he was going with it, so she simply kissed his chest and waited.
After a while, he continued, saying, “I can see you. I care about you. I see what you did with this date, and I appreciate you. I want to spend my life with you, Flemming Fletch.”
Without a word, she stood and moved away from him. The icy chill of the night, chased away by the fire and hot tub soak, finally found its way to her. She shrugged into a robe and headed to the kitchen.
She wasn’t surprised when he followed her moments later. “I said something wrong,” he began.
“You promised not to propose,” she reminded him.
“I wasn’t—”
“But I never made a promise like that to you,” she continued.
His mouth snapped closed, and his head tilted. He said nothing.
“I want to spend my life with you,” she admitted. “I want to wake up next to you and fall asleep in your arms each night. I want to tend your symptoms for you when you’re sick and laugh with you on all of your best days. I want all of that despite dedicating most of my life to my vow not to be with you, no matter what else I did.”
“So where do we go from there?” he asked.
She shrugged. “I guess we go here.”
Reaching into her bag, she pulled out the ornate carved wooden box she commissioned for exactly that moment. Inside the box, instead of a ring, a leather wrist wrap waited. Beads of precious stones decorated the leather braiding—all chosen with intent on her part. Black tourmaline for protection, selenite for enhanced intuition and elevating his spirit, tourmalinated quartz to soak up negative thoughts and energies, and shungite for health. Each stone, as well as the moon-charged leather, would bring him a bit of magic.
As he looked at the long braid of leather, she met his asking glance. “Instead of getting married, I thought I’d offer you forever with this as a tangible mark of our connection. You know, like instead of a ring. If you don’t like it—”
She moved to close the box, but he caught it from her hands, snatching it away. “I like it,” he said. “Will you put it on me?”
She laughed, but the moment felt heavy, charged with promise. She took the leather cord and wound it around his forearm. “With this charm, I take you as my own. In exchange, I give you myself. I will love you and cherish you for the rest of our days, so mote it be.”
“So mote it be,” he agreed, kissing her head. “I had a little something made for you, as well.”
“You did?” she asked, both surprised and charmed. He hadn’t known about her grand gesture, just that she wanted him to come away with her for the weekend for a surprise.
He pulled what looked like a keyring out of the pocket of his winter coat. “We aren’t doing rings, but you’ve been carrying these around since we found them.”
On a piece of leather, he’d suspended the two stones they’d held on the road by the bear reserve during one of their first conversations. She’d pocketed them at the time, assuming he didn’t notice, and she’d carried them ever since.
They felt important somehow.
“I liked them,” she explained simply, clacking them together on their new leather cords. With the keyring, it would make them easier to carry.
“Because that’s when you started to fall for me?”
She gaped at him for a few seconds before shrugging. “Yeah.”
Pouring the mead, he offered her a glass. “To forever?”
“Sounds perfect,” she agreed, clicking her glass against his.
***
HE AWOKE HER IN THE night with hot kisses dragged across her collarbone. “You never have to be afraid of the dark again,” she whispered, half awake. After another soul-drugging kiss, she hitched herself up with one leg, grinding her hips against his. “Bring it,” she whispered.
She got too lost in the feel of his hands streaking across her flesh and his lips nibbling their way down her neck to say more. Half awake, he drugged her with his touch, with the sound of his racing breath, with the feel of his skin rubbing against hers.
When he sucked one of her nipples into the dark, wet haven of his mouth, she arched into his body. So much heat and silky skin, contradicted by the rough callousness of his hands, burned into her flesh like a brand. She rubbed against him, shameless in her need, and his body answered her every question in a way the man never had verbally. It seemed his lips were everywhere, nipping and kissing trails of sexual tension across her exposed flesh. Then his hand cupped her sex and she growled, desire snapping tight and transforming to frustration.
She wanted more and fast and he seemed intent on driving the tension higher. His finger traced slowly along the waistband of her panties, but when she moved to shred the garment away from her body, he pinned her hands above her head.
“Uh uh, pretty girl. Not so fast.” Instead of satisfying her, he went back to toying with her breasts with his free hand and his mouth. Wriggling, she managed to ride against his leg, but the contact wasn’t enough. It only served to leave her mewling in frustration.
His smile against her belly made her clutch her hands into fists of hunger. “Are you enjoying this, my sexy lady?”
“I’d enjoy it more if you freed my hands so I could touch you. I want to make you feel like this—need like this.” Her voice sounded husky, but he rewarded her answer with a single fingertip slid between her panties and body.
“Flemming, I need more than I can say. If you touched me now, this would be over far too fast and I’m too greedy to let that happen.”
His words didn’t make sense—if he was greedy, wouldn’t he want her to give him as much pleasure as he gave her?
But the question died on her lips as his mouth closed over her clit. Sucking the bud of nerves between his teeth, he rocked his tongue fast and hard against the needy flesh. She screamed as the fuse he’d lit inside her ignited, spiraling her over the edge like a spent firework.
Instead of letting her crash, though, he immediately began rebuilding the tension he’d lost, his mouth absolutely sinful as he devoured the skin between her legs. Her hips bucked, more from instinct than artifice, as she lost the ability to speak in the blinding arousal.
“This...” he groaned against her pulsing pussy. “I want you just like this. Wild for me. I love you.”
When she orgasmed again, she felt his lips curve in a smile as her body went molten.
Shaking so hard her teeth chattered, she realized she’d lost her panties at some point in his play because his cock felt hot and hard against her still twitching pussy. He rubbed against the sensitive flesh, and she was shocked to realize she wanted more.
Mindless in her desire, she rubbed against him, legs open wide to accept him. He hitched one of her legs over his arm before he slowly entered her. Biting down on her lip, she tried to shove her desire down as it raked sharp claws down her soul. She wanted to surrender to him. To dominate him. To bend over for him and offer her ass to him. She wanted to claim him and be claimed by him, but his hold on her wrists kept her from doing more than growling.
“Claw me, if you will, lover. Take all that I can offer you.” Seth’s voice came out strained, but she sensed he held back, even in the tempest of his passion. She refused to let him hold back, wanted more than he offered, so when he released her, she bucked upward to tug his face down to her. Kissing him, she tried to say everything her body felt even as he began to move inside her. As the speed increased, her nails bit into his shoulder to give her a better grip as she drove upward to meet him. Unable to resist entirely, she bit down on his lip until she tasted blood.
He went wild at the taste of blood, his growl all animal and no man. Suddenly, his movements were so fast, but she could keep up. They spun faster and faster toward some invisible finish line until their bodies were slicked with sweat and her breath came out in violent pants. She was so close, this tension deep inside so powerful she thought she’d shatter into a million pieces when they finally crested the wave of building need.
And then his teeth closed on her ear, and she screamed.
The orgasm hit her like a freight train of sensation, washing her away and cleansing her soul until there was nothing but the taste, smell and feel of Seth panting against her.
She lay in his arms. “That was unexpected,” she admitted.
He rolled over at her, grinning down at her as if he’d earned a prize. “I promised you hard and fast, quick and dirty,” he explained. “I couldn’t remember if I kept my word or not.”
She nodded. “Fair enough. I’d say you delivered.”
“Want to get back in the hot tub?” he asked.
Grinning at him, she took his hand and walked into forever.