Chapter Twelve
Dallas
I don’t know how we’ve managed it, but it’s been nearly a week since we arrived here at Levi’s cabin. I’m starting to feel like a homesteader’s wife, mashing cooked carrots and potatoes into baby food after using up all the jarred stuff. Levi tells me he has made a few acquaintances with other rural residents who grow vegetables and raise animals. It seems that summer’s harvest is overflowing and the local gardeners are more than happy to give away extra bounty. I’m certainly thankful for it; we’ve made not just decent, but downright delectable dinners in the last several days. Commercial, imported grocery items just can’t hold a candle to domestically grown fare. The flavors and textures are simply amazing.
I chuckle inwardly. Who’d have thought it would only take a matter of days for me to “go native” and actually consider the idea of living off the grid like this…possibly permanently? Just days ago, I had sworn to Levi that I wanted to return to the city, pick up my career again. Now the idea seems almost trivial. This mountain air has an almost drug-like effect. It’s exhilarating. Not to mention daily lovemaking, whenever and wherever we feel like it. And we’ve been feeling like it a lot. I feel a blush rise to my cheeks at recalling the way Levi took me just yesterday, behind the cabin on a bed of leaves, no less. I’m finding that sex out-of-doors is both liberating and intoxicating. I might never want to do it in a conventional bed again.
However, I worry that I’ve not contacted my parents since the night of the kidnapping. As far as they know, I’m staying in a motel somewhere in the area, and they’re likely sitting on pins and needles waiting to hear from me. Whatever ideas I may have about my future, I will have to return to Forks eventually. I’m nearly out of diapers, for one thing. Surely it’s safe now?
I glance over at my son, who is on his blanket on the floor. He’s become a voracious crawler since we’ve been here, and I have to watch him constantly. For the moment he’s lying on his back, playing with a rattle I keep in the diaper bag for his amusement.
Next to him is the roughly-oval-shaped basket Levi made for him as a kind of bassinet. I still shake my head in wonder over how this man, who had previously only mastered the art of martini-ordering and luxury car driving, has taught himself carpentry and basket making skills. It was actually fun walking through the woods, collecting the denuded willow branches of exactly the right thickness and length to make the item. Watching Levi shape the frame and weave the branches in and out was even more entertaining. While not perfect, the basket had the priceless quality of being handmade with love, and I loved him for making it.
Outside I hear the sound of an axe falling and the hollow clunk of dried wood as the split pieces knock against each other. My self-made mountain man is hard at work. I cross to the window to have a look. He’s worked up a sweat, and his flannel shirt lies discarded on the edge of the woodpile. I lean against the window frame and admire his tanned, muscled torso as he works, his shaven jaw conspicuously pale against the browned skin of the rest of his face. But it’s the face I remember.
His lean, six-pack abs flex and twist as he places the next piece of wood on the chopping stump. His biceps bulge as he lifts the axe and brings it down in a powerful swing, exploding the log in two. He pauses to wipe the moisture from his brow. As much as I like the view, he should put his shirt back on to avoid catching a chill. The last thing we need is him getting sick, too.
I’m still not a hundred percent, a lingering tightness in my chest still giving me occasional coughing fits. Mason seems fine, with no sign of any symptoms Dr. Halpert cautioned against. However, the antibiotics are finished, and I know the doc wanted us to see him again in a few weeks. One more reason a trip to town will be unavoidable. I turn away from the window, Levi’s labors reminding me to stoke the old wood stove full to make sure the cabin stays warm. He’s probably worked up a mighty thirst, so I fill a sport cup from Levi’s camping gear with water, then dress both Mason and myself for going outdoors.
I’m clad in a sweater, jacket, and a long wrap skirt that my mother inexplicably included in the bundle she brought to the police station. Somehow it fits the environment, and I feel rather “earth-mother” while wearing it. Mason wears a knitted cap and is snuggled inside a furry bunting bag. I place him in the homemade bassinet that even has handles for carrying. How clever is this man of mine?
I walk out onto the porch, its ancient boards creaking beneath my feet. The noise causes Levi to look over, setting aside his axe. He looks absolutely primal, shirtless and with a glistening sheen of perspiration along his collarbone, his sculpted pectorals covered in a curly field of dark hair. The ends of his long locks are sticking about his sweaty neck, and his jeans have slipped low on his hips, advertising the ridged V of his abdominals that lead tantalizingly below the waistband. My breath catches, and my pussy clenches at the sight.
“Hey,” he calls.
I step off the porch and walk toward him. “Hey. Thirsty?”
“Always,” he says, his newly-exposed upper lip curving into a sexy smile. I set the bassinet down and offer him the water. He gulps it down, his now-visible Adam’s apple bobbing up and down with each swallow. “Thanks. You two going for a walk?” He glances between me and the basket.
“No, just thought you could use a drink, and us a spot of fresh air.”
“The sight of you is all the drink and fresh air I need,” he says with a wink, resting one hand on his nude hip and reaching out to stroke my shoulder with the other. “I’ll be done in a bit. Then we can both go inside and…”
“Haven’t you had enough for today?” I laugh, crossing my arms in front of my chest, knowing what he has in mind.
He shakes his head. “Never. But I want to get as much wood stockpiled before winter as possible.”
I smile but still have my reservations. “You think we’ll really be here all winter?”
“We can be. If you want to.”
“You know we have to go into Forks soon. My folks will be worried, and Mason should see the doctor.”
He nods. “Of course. We can go into town anytime, but…I guess I was hoping you’d change your mind about staying up here longer.”
“I haven’t decided yet, Levi. For now, I think the danger has passed, don’t you?”
“Maybe.” He picks up his axe again. “There’s a tree back there I think I should cut down,” he says, changing the subject. He gestures behind me with his chin. “Looks like it might fall on the truck, or even the cabin if we get a lot of snow. If I cut it now, it should dry and provide enough wood to last us.”
“Which tree?”
“I’ll show you.” He jerks his chin toward the cabin and gestures for me to follow. We walk around to the back of the structure where he approaches a distinctly leaning pine tree and applies a couple of firm swats to its rough trunk. “This one.”
I look up at the spiny canopy of needles along its upper branches. Cutting it down sounds like a difficult task, but I’m learning that Levi Strongbow can, and will, do pretty much anything he sets his mind to. “Are you sure? It provides a lot of shade for the cabin. And hides the truck,” I point out as I step closer and lay a hand on its peeling bark.
“That’s a good point,” he says, dropping the axe to wrap his arms around my waist, his sweaty body pressing close at my back. “But I’d rather be safe than sorry.” He nuzzles my neck and plants a kiss behind my ear. “Maybe we can give it a good send-off before I take my axe to it.” His hands find the material of my skirt and begin to hike it slowly upward. The hem brushes my legs as it rises. His groin presses tightly against my rear, forcing me closer to the tree.
I reach out to brace both hands against it. “Really? A tree ceremony?” I giggle. This is going to be a first. He pulls my skirt up past my hips and wedges his knees between my legs, forcing them farther apart until I’m practically straddling the rough tree trunk. A strange thrill snakes up my spine, and my pussy floods with moisture.
Levi unfastens his jeans with one hand, while clutching my skirt at my hip with the other. “Why not? I worship the outdoors. They’re the ultimate adventure, wouldn’t you say?”
“You’re my adventure,” I say, my breath coming fast and hard as he slips my panties down toward my knees. “Fuck me hard, mountain man.” I look up the long length of the tree, little bursts of sunlight randomly appearing and disappearing through its undulating boughs. Levi’s lips are at my ear, his breath hot and sexy.
“I could do this forever,” he murmurs, his erect cock fitting between my cheeks and nestling against my eager entrance. “I love you, Dallas.” As the words leave his lips, he slides forcefully inside me, his girth stretching my slick inner walls to their limit.
“I love you, Levi,” I gasp, my palms rubbing against the prickly bark as his member spears me, lifting me up on my tiptoes with each stroke. I feel crazy, wild, and completely free in these moments, relishing his punishing yet loving thrusts. I lean into the tree, sticking my ass out a little more to give him better access. “Oh yes,” I shout. “Yes!”
We grind against the tree, our feral, pleasured grunts and the slapping of skin on skin the only sounds echoing in the dense forest all around us. It’s thrilling and forbidden, and the tingling, electric current of orgasm builds in my core, crawling up my inner thighs and cresting in my pussy. “Oh, fuck,” I scream, losing myself in the sensation. There’s no one to hear.
Levi thrusts twice more, each one more intense than the last, before his body freezes and stills, his cock pulsing inside me, releasing its hot warmth. Our sex is as raw and natural as it could ever possibly be, and I love it; protection be damned. We were one with nature, just as it should be.
“Fuck,” Levi groans, his spent cock still pinning me to the tree. “You were incredible. I’ve never heard you scream like that; you never want to wake the baby.”
The baby! My mind snaps out of my orgasm-induced fog. We’ve left Mason in his basket by the woodpile! “Mason,” I snarl like a mother cougar. “Oh my God, Mason!” I shake free of Levi’s hold and hitch my panties and skirt back into place, already on the run for the front side of the cabin. Please God, don’t let some wild animal be hovering over his basket, poking their claws or beaks into his soft flesh. What in hell was I thinking, leaving him alone?
I race for the woodpile, my chest tightening and threatening to explode in another salvo of coughing. Levi’s footfalls thunder up behind me, both of us coming to a shuddering halt next to the pile of split logs. A scream echoes through the air, and it’s coming from my own tortured throat.
The basket is gone. And Mason with it.