Micah

Why did I come back to the farm?

I knew better than to accept his invitation. Knew better than to hope for anything but heartbreak. Knew that returning to his home, his arms, his life would only end in tears.

My bags were packed. The new apartment waited for me to sign the lease, and the U-Haul was stuffed to the rafters and ready to go.

But I didn’t make it out of Butterpond.

I had to see the farm one last time.

And apparently…so did the rest of the town.

I hadn’t intended to walk the half-mile driveway again, but at least the mud had dried into narrow welts and bumps. No easier to walk in heels, but at least I didn’t ruin my new dress.

The first time I’d needed to buy a bigger size in years.

Cars lined the driveway, the road, the grass outside of the country farm house. The whole of Butterpond had descended on the farm this evening. Tiki torches, lanterns, and LED white Christmas lights illuminated the party as twilight faded. Three grills fired up outside the house, each manned by a different Payne brother, flipping burgers, hot dogs, and sausage. A dozen coolers lined up along the house, and Cassi chased two little girls away from the ones containing beer. She traded the Iron City for an apple juice and herded the little girls into the arms of their uncle.

The church ladies dressed picnic tables with checkerboard cloths, cramming casseroles and pies, fried chicken and potato salads over every available inch of the tables. Kids played tag and hide-and-go seek in all the fun nooks and crannies of the property. The all-too-nauseating scent of roasting meats drifted over the yard, and a dozen people danced around a wireless speaker.

Great. The Paynes threw one party, and more people showed up to their shindig than bothered to check out the fair. The township would have fired me even if I hadn’t thrown my job away on Julian.

For Julian.

To help him. To prove how I felt to him.

To have my efforts ripped up and tossed in my face because I was too much of a coward to admit how I felt.

I thought the hardest thing—the most terrifying thing—I’d ever do was destroying my career and intentionally sabotaging my future for a man.

I was wrong.

Nothing prepared me for seeing him again.

Julian said nothing. His wide, confident strides parted his guests and forged a path directly to me. I didn’t move. Didn’t turn from him. Didn’t know what to say or think or feel when he took my hand.

I’d denied everything I’d felt for this man for so long.

Why?

I’d forced him away and refused every kindness and compassion and promise.

Why?

I’d gotten pregnant, shared a new life with him, and still feared the most frightening realization of all.

Why?

Was my happiness so unimportant that I’d destroy any chance I had with this man to protect a future without him? An empty, meaningless future that isolated my heart from the love I deserved.

What sort of life did I want?

And how could I make one with him?

Julian led me by hand through the crowd, around the back of the house and over an overgrown path far from the party and lights. Fireflies dotted the fields, and the grass kissed our legs, rustling in the soft breeze of a hot night. The sky was clear, a nearly full moon illuminated a trail Julian seemed to know from memories of long ago. Secret hideaways and cozy little fields that would shelter us from everything but our feelings.

He’d spread a soft blanket under a solid oak tree that had to be older than Butterpond itself. Gnarled branches swept through the sky, and the thick leaves created a delicate haven that shielded us from the world.

Julian didn’t need to speak.

I had nothing to say.

Nothing to fight. Nothing to yell. Nothing to hate.

My heart ached for this man, and nothing would ever ease it except for the moment when he’d make me his again.

Our relationship wasn’t healthy. We’d fought and fucked and fought some more, never telling each other the truth, never revealing what it was that drove us again and again into each other’s arms.

So why would this moment be any different?

Julian seized me, rocking me into his arms and capturing a kiss I willingly gave. The heat of the evening and the searing warmth of his chest wrapped me in a dizzying completeness. I’d longed for this. His kiss nibbling mine. His tongue flicking a tease against me. The crush of his hands as the taste of my surrender hardened every part of him.

“Don’t go.” His wasn’t a request but a demand. Harsh kisses and rough hands bound me to him, to this moment, to this thrill of lust.

And I wanted so badly to say yes.

And I feared so much what would happen when I did.

Julian lowered me to the blanket. I should have fought him. I needed to clear my head and talk through everything that had complicated the simplest, most honest feelings that clutched my heart.

But I ached too much and needed even more. The blanket protected me from the grass and dirt, and the strength of Julian’s body shielded me from everything else. His touch roamed over me, tickling my thighs as he shifted my dress over my hips and exposed the simple black panties I’d thought would protect me from his intentions. They were gone in an instant, replaced by the heat of his mouth, the caress of his tongue, and the delight of his nibbling, wandering lips.

The shivered thrill rolled through me, inside me, over me. I arched, but Julian knew me better than he knew his fields. He didn’t stop, simply quickened his pace, flattening his licks to the most sensitive part of me and groaning as my legs fell open and my hips offered more and more.

“Don’t go.” Julian pulled away for only a moment. “Stay, and I swear, I’ll never stop.”

A promise that would render me his forever. A threat that would destroy the only future I’d ever planned for my life.

“You’ve ruined everything, cowboy.” The pleasure stole my voice. I whispered instead, trembling against his lips. “My life. My future. My plans.”

“You did worse to me, princess.”

His teasing kisses tore at my mind and slickened me with desire. I couldn’t think. Couldn’t breathe. I offered more of my body for him, but I still protected my heart.

“You are nothing that I’ve ever wanted.” I gripped the blanket with shaking fingers. “Nothing that I’d ever planned for. Never even had a contingency for someone like you.”

“And what am I?”

“A complication.”

He nibbled my folds and watched me flinch. “We’re beyond complications now.”

He was right. “You’re a distraction. A problem. A pain in my ass.”

“You’re not so easy to get along with either.”

And yet there he was, torturing me with his tongue. “I never imagined anyone like you in my life, Julian Payne.”

“You never imagined a real life.”

My breathing wavered—his attentions and my tears stealing it away. “And I didn’t realize it until now.”

“What?”

The pleasure built, but I pushed him away before I dared to crest over that infinite, beautiful forever that I never wanted to experience without him again.

“You are nothing I’ve never wanted.” I brushed my fingers over his jaw. “But you are the only thing I’ve ever needed.”

His kiss was raw, desperate, and the answer to the only prayer I whispered in my heart. I reached for him, fighting with the denim and the buttons until I’d released him in to my hands and stroked that hard, aching part of him that belonged to me.

If I’d let him in.

If I’d give myself to him.

If I’d just admit what I felt for him.

I pushed him onto the blanket this time, easing over his chest, palms flat on his muscles, hips grinding on his straining thickness. A deep breath, and he filled me. Full. Stuffed.

Complete.

Julian let me set my own pace, adjusting to his size and taking more than I needed to satisfy my own greed and desperation. He watched me, jaw tight, eyes a twilight green of darkness and sincerity.

The brush of his hands guided me along his length. Up and down. More and less. Hard and gentle.

And when he spoke, every word trembled me harder. He held me, hand drifting to the almost imperceptible bump just barely swelling my tummy.

“In a week, you’ll move in with me,” he said.

I smirked, slowing my strides. “Is that so?”

“In a month, we’ll get the application approved for the…animal sanctuary.”

My heart thudded harder. “And then what?”

“In two months we’ll begin construction on the barn and the nursery.”

He pushed harder against my tummy. Protective. Possessive.

Did he know he’d slept holding me just like this? His massive hand covering my flat tummy? Holding me tight? Caressing the baby?

“In six months, we’ll have our baby.” His hips arched up. I fell over him, arms behind his neck, head nestled against him. Our bodies ground against each other. His arms held me tight. “And a month after that, I’m planting the first hydroponic crops in a greenhouse.”

“Jules…”

“When the frost melts, I’ll transplant some, get the fields ready for others.”

I kissed him. “What are you doing?”

“In a year, we’re getting married.”

A delicious shiver rolled over me.

“In sixteen months, our baby will take his first steps.” He held me tighter, his hips arching up to thrust deeper, harder. “In eighteen months, he’ll say his first words.”

I grinned. “You’ve thought this through.”

Julian’s arms tightened over me. He rolled, pushing me to my back and easing between my legs. His cock buried inside me once again, but, this time, his thrusts didn’t slow. Faster. More deliberate. He took me with a newfound resilience, eager to hear the rasp of my breath and the whimpers which followed.

“In two-and-a-half years, we make another baby,” he growled.

“Another…another baby?”

“In three years we expand the farm. Improve some of the systems. Clear the other fields.”

“Julian…what…”

He leaned over me, buried to the hilt. It wasn’t enough. He held me in his arms until I was certain he’d squeeze the air out of me. I clutched him just as hard.

“You want to plan your life?” His whisper rasped hard, delirious with pleasure and shadowed with challenge. “Then you plan me in it. Us. Together. Our lives. Our farm. Our baby.”

Tears blurred my vision, but I didn’t need to see. I blinked them away, burying my head in his shoulder, offering my body, my soul, everything for his fierce strokes.

“Someone once told me you couldn’t plan for those things,” I said as the pleasure knotted inside me. “That life had to be lived.”

“Then live it with me.” His kiss burned me alive. “And plan for only one thing, princess.”

“What’s that?”

“I’m going to love you for the rest of my life.”

A raging, shocking boom thundered over the field. I flinched, but Julian held me tight, his grin the cocky arrogance of a man cock-deep in a woman who was bound to fall for him again and again.

The sky exploded with shimmering, dazzling rivulets of light and sparkles. Reds and blues shocked the horizon. Streamers of white and green shattered the stillness of the night. In the distance, the party cheered each and every firework that erupted over the farm.

“Never got your show…” He whispered. “All you wanted was your fireworks. They’re yours now, princess.”

His pace increased, shattering me with a rage of masculine conquest and a lover’s delicate touch. I arched, amazed, overwhelmed, and blinded by pleasure and the flashes of a sky filled with fireworks.

All I’d wanted was fireworks?

That wasn’t true.

Maybe once. Maybe before I understood what had barged his way into my office and life and heart.

But now?

I clung to Julian and groaned with him as the pleasure crept tighter and tighter, stealing my breath, my thoughts, and the last fears and hesitations that crippled me with indecision.

Tonight was an excellent night to fall in love.

And so I did.

We crested together, locked in a sweaty, desperate, perfect embrace. I kissed him as the shock of desire stole my strength and rendered me soft and vulnerable and so very nearly lost had he not been there to hold me, soothe me, protect me, and promise me everything.

His heat consumed me, and his own pleasure broke through the arrogance and fear. Again and again he jetted within me, my own trembles and pleasure combining with his. We held each other, hearts beating in time, voices hoarse with rasped breaths and the words we had yet to say.

Julian’s promise was made with a smile. “You know I can give you everything you’ve never wanted.”

I smirked, staring at the most amazing man I was never meant to have. For the first time, I didn’t need to plan a single thing. I knew what would be in my life from this moment on and through the end of forever.

“I’m not going anywhere, cowboy.” I leaned upwards, capturing his kiss, his heart, and his future in mine. “I love you, Julian Payne. But…we are going to have to revise that little plan of yours.”

“Why?”

I pulled him back over me, arching to take him yet again as the fireworks shattered over the skies.

“Because I’m not waiting a year to marry you.”

The End