Six Months Later…
“Work Song” Hozier
I pull the velvet box out of my pocket one more time and flip the lid. I can’t help but whistle low at the ring nestled in there. I spent so much time crafting the thin bands of metal into a delicate braided ring. The local jeweler put the tiniest diamonds in the crosshairs just as I’d envisioned. Cam hadn’t wanted stones but my girl, my Lamb, is getting diamonds.
My penguin is getting a damn rock.
Crosby darts across the console and plows into my hand, not nearly as concerned with Cam’s engagement ring as I am. He whines as the truck rumbles in the heat of the July night.
“I should have left you at home,” I say as I snap the box shut and pet the pup beside me. “You’re lucky I’d never be forgiven if she didn’t see you when she got off the plane.” I ruffle his ears and his eyes go a little crossed as his tiny head flattens on my thigh.
The first few passengers push through the small front door of the airport and we both perk up. Crosby even scrambles to perch his tiny paws on the dash. The tiny click-clack of nails fill the cab as he scrambles every bit as gracelessly as Camilla usually is.
Just thinking about her trips and falls makes me want to catch her. Over and over again.
She’s turned me into such a fucking sap and I just don’t care. Sap is as natural a part of wood working as she is of me.
I look up just in time to see her stumble off the curb while she adjusts the shoulder strap of her bag. I shove out of the cab as quickly as possible, Crosby’s little yap on my heels until I shut the door in his face.
“Hi there, hot stuff.” I’m a little breathless as I smile down at my girl when I reach her and shoulder her bag.
“Hi.” She sighs as she folds into my chest, wrapping her arms around me and squeezing.
“How was Seattle?” I bend in and kiss the crown of her head where it fits perfect beneath my chin.
“I missed you.” Her voice is muffled by my chest but it’s still sweet and melodic.
“I missed you, too.” I notch my finger under her chin and lift her face toward mine. “Always do,” I murmur just before my lips seek out hers.
Fireworks rocket behind my eyelids as our lips touch, now closer to the fevered excitement of Fourth of July rather than the soft and hopeful shimmer of New Years. And damn am I excited as my hands rove across the curves I know so well, the curves I still love learning more about. Taking advantage of them suddenly seems so tempting, more enticing than properly proposing to her.
My dick agrees.
Cam purrs into my open mouth as she presses her body to mine. It’s the only time she feels sturdy, as if she could hold me up and keep me there against my stumbles in this world.
I’m definitely going to have to wait to propose. I’d so much rather be buried in her, to remember that she chose me and feel our forever in our bed. In that intimate language I understand so very well. And unless she takes me by her timid hand and pulls me into the bushes like the very first night…
My lips freeze against hers as the lightbulb goes off. I know a way to make both things happen.
“Come with me,” I whisper against her lips.
She sways on her feet as I pull back the slightest bit.
“Home? Okay?” Her voice is thick with that quiet, lustful purr of hers and damn do I almost cave.
“One stop,” I choke out as I pull her into my side then to the car.
She blows out an exasperated laugh but the hint of musical laughter beneath is the only confirmation I need. Tonight’s the night I make it real. We’ve been hitched together for so long on some deep level, but she hasn’t set a date. It isn’t completely real.
I want to say those vows. I want my last name on the line behind hers.
Cam’s busy squealing over Crosby and covering her face in dog licks while I haul her bags into the back of the truck. She doesn’t notice my too fast breath, tense shoulders or nervous flips of the box in my pocket. I catch a glimpse of her brilliant smile through the curtain of her dark raven hair—the warm, shy one that always tugs at my heart—and impatience builds inside me.
It’s one hell of a combination with the nerves.
I blow out a deep breath and slide into the truck. Camilla leans across the console, her head resting on my shoulder as vanilla, cherry and smoke wafts into the cab and swirls around me. The smell of home. True home. The smell of her.
The engine rumbles alive beneath us and I pull out of the airport parking lot. Instead of turning right to head home, I head left toward where it all began. Toward the thirteenth green. After a few minutes and familiar turns, we hit the dirt road that will take us around back so we don’t have to sneak through neiborhood yards.
“What are you up to, Jay?”
“Give me a minute in the moonlight?” I ask without giving anything away as I put the car in park and shut the headlights off.
“The bridge…” The hint of jitters underlies her unspoken question and I already know she’s thinking of balancing on the old beam that will let us cross the stream.
“Ditch the heels.” I jerk my chin and let my smile spread. “You know I’ve got you.”
She rolls her eyes but she’s already sliding off those red bottoms and leaving them on the floor of the truck. I get out and round the hood to pull open her door.
“Climb on.” I turn and hold my arms out to the side so she can slither onto my back.
Her plump chest presses against me, her long legs weave around me. She is the smoke tattooed on my body, every bit as permanent as the ink on hers.
“What’s in your pocket, Jay?” She rubs the crook of her knee on the ring box where it’s caught.
“None of your business,” I answer quickly.
“AJ Jenkins, don’t you dare keep secrets from me.” Her scold is playful. “I’m going to be your wife.”
God, does that word sound good on her lips, but I can’t resist the urge to tease.
“You keep saying that but you won’t set a date.” I hold her tight as I step onto the beam bridge.
“Jay…” She wiggles against me as if in protest. “I told you I want to get everything settled between here and Seattle. I need to make sure both branches are thriving. It’s only been six months.”
“Thirteen years, six months, actually.”
“I’m yours.” She scrambles a little more, this time enough to almost send me off balance.
“Cam,” I warn.
“I always have been, AJ. Nothing is going to change that.”
Whether she wants to flail those cute little hands in punctuation to her sentences or stomp her foot in frustration, I’m not sure, but she’s a wildcat on my back.
“Cam!” The tension in my voice snaps at the same time she bails from my body and onto the beam.
One foot down is all it takes before her bare foot is sliding against the moss. The whole bridge wobbles wildly and I can feel the swoosh of her make wind as her arms spin wildly, searching for a grip. I spin to grab her but it makes the beam bend and sway all the more haphazardly. She’s going down unless I do first.
Without a second thought, I bound into the waist-deep water of the creek, my shoes sinking into the silt of the riverbed. My arms are out, reaching, and ready to catch her. She falls into the basket as if it was the only place she truly belongs.
“You couldn’t wait until the other side?” I cock my eyebrow up and make a show of looking from one side of the eight foot creek to the other.
“To tell you how important you are? How much I want to marry you?” She sighs and nestles into my chest, her bare toes dragging in the water. “I waited thirteen years too long,” she finishes almost in a whisper.
I set her on the beam, the hem of her jersey dress floats in the slightest ripples where it hangs beneath her in the current of the creek. The current that pushes me toward her and between her thighs. She slinks down in on herself, almost hiding between her shoulders. My Lamb should know she can’t hide from me. That I don’t want her to.
“You wanted to know what was in my pocket?” I ask as I reach down and sigh with relief that my swim hasn’t dislodged anything.
I pull out the velvet box and notice that the fine fuzz has been swirled with the eddies of the river. I pull it in front of me, framed by the thin tone of her thighs, and the world’s smallest gasp from the shiest, sweetest lips escapes.
“I want a date, Cam.” I blow out a deep breath. “And not because I think this won’t last or I’m worried you’ll disappear again, but because I love you.” I pop the lid and it’s anticlimactic in the dark of night even though I know she catches the glimmer off the precious stones. “I need you,” I say, “and I want to say those words, and so many others, in front of our family and friends.”
“Jay…” She breathes my name as she straightens her spine on the makeshift bridge.
“I know you didn’t want a real diamond but, Camilla, this…” I pull the ring out of the box and use it to gesture between us, “…us…”
“It’s a rock,” she says with no small amount of reverence.
“Forged in fire, just like you asked.” I pulled the braided ring from the soft slit. “But showing you how damned much you mean to me takes more than just iron melded by my hand. It takes stones, and lots of them.” I grab her hand as my words replace my breath in my chest. “Amazing faceted stones that are still barely fit for my Penguin.”
“You know I’m going to set a date,” she whispered as she watched me slide the gorgeous ring onto her delicate left ring finger.
“I know, but I’m not going to wait. Not anymore.” The ring fits perfectly around her long finger, her manicured nails the beautiful cap of my beloved’s hand. “I asked you before, but I want a specific answer. I want to marry you, Camilla Collins.”
She sucks in a deep breath and I don’t know if it’s because I said her full name or because I’m proposing—again. Or even if I’m demanding an answer, a finite answer, to the infinite question I’m asking.
“I want to marry you too.” She is still breathless, still staring at the ring. “It’s beautiful, Jay.”
“We’re beautiful, Lamb.” I didn’t mind that the water split at my hips and swirled around my body, or that it was a frigid glacial cold even in July. “And it took me a while to get this right,” I trace my thumb over the ring where it looks so damn gorgeous on her finger. “It took me a while to get us right.”
Cam’s arms slide around my neck and a moment later, her body slides down into the water to wrap fully around me.
“Ooooooo, shit,” she swears as the cold water christens her long legs but her smile flourishes.
“Lamb,” I whisper as my hand presses up into her hair. “Tell me yes,” I breathe against her lips, mine poised to press against hers. “Tell me when.”
She kisses me in answer. And that ring that slid so perfectly on her finger, rubs against my scalp as she shoves her hands into my hair and pulls me close.
This.
Forever this.
Her body slides against mine and despite the cold, I react. Her lips are coaxing all the kisses of content from me, her body every wanton desire. Her tongue traces the seam of my mouth and begs to find mine, her hands press every button beneath my flesh responsible for revving my engine that snarls for her. Only for her.
I grumble as my hands lace underneath her backside and pull her up in the swirling float of the water. Her long legs automatically wrap back around my hips, this time no box in their path. I steady myself against the river rock and trudge across the small bed, only to splay Camilla out on the bank. The tips of her toes are back to making small ringlets in the calm of the creek’s bend.
Her soft cotton panties are peaking out from beneath her skirt. The color goes from light to dark between her thighs, a sure sign that she’s wet, though whether it’s from the creek or this proposal I’m not sure. The way she fidgets on land tells me it doesn’t matter.
I bend between her thighs and press my lips to the salt soaked cotton; I fold the fabric up around the sensitive parts of her clit. My tongue rolls against her, using the slight fur of the fabric to tickle and tease my wife-to-be. She bucks and moans on the bank, a force equal to the creek itself, carving out the world beneath. I grab her thighs and hold her open, pushing my tongue into her slit and darting back out, still battling the cotton.
She groans into the night sky and as always, it’s delicate, breathy and altogether unsteady just like the night, the memory, that brought me here.
I crawl out of the cold creek and onto the slick silt to carve my knees into the bank beside her. It’s too slick in the mud so I push her back a bit more, finding the manicured grass of the thirteenth green. She reaches for me and I relish the slight sensation of the steel in her ring against my skin where she holds me.
Once I’m steady on the bank, I grab her hand and kiss the insides of her palm, letting my lips brush her engagement band. Just as leisurely, I move down her arm then kiss across the thin fabric covering her collarbone. Her sounds are a sweet song on the summer wind.
My hand slides up her goose bumped thigh, rucking up her skirt then sliding beneath the soaked cotton of her thong. My fingers slide into her and begin their gentle strokes in and out. Her hips begin to roll with me, tuned to my motions. I press up into her G-spot and her whole body tenses then melts.
“Jay…” she moans my name like it’s the only word she remembers.
I swallow up her sounds with another wild kiss as I push her panties to the side. She bows to the breeze as it blows on her most sensitive skin and I can’t help myself when my hand roves up and over the curves of her body. I find her hands and pin them to the short-cut grass behind her.
My fully clothed but thoroughly soaked hips roll against her and my chest presses hard against her perfect tits. Our bodies mimic the ripple of the river, an intimate wave unending as we beat against each other.
Camilla shivers beneath me and her thighs squeeze on my hips. The wet fabric presses hard against my skin forces me to suck in a deep breath. If the cold is rough against mine, then the chill must be almost painful against the most sensitive bits of Cam; I don’t need more incentive to shed the barrier between us.
My hands leave hers and make quick work of the fabric separating us. I shove my shorts off then reach behind my neck to do the same with my shirt. Her fingertips stroke across the washboard of my abs, trickling like water droplets and pooling at the deep V of my hips. Her hand wraps around my hardness and strokes, once, twice…
I throw my head back and groan into the night.
This is where it all started, here on the thirteenth green under the summer moonlight, with me sliding into her. Cam Collins has always been mine. More than mine, she’s my home.
She cries out as I press in and settle in deep. Her nipples push hard against her dress and I bend down to tongue them over top of the fabric. Camilla shoves her hands into my hair and I purr against her skin as she scratches my scalp. It eggs me on, my hips moving harder against her.
My hands slip between us and find the bud of nerves between her thighs. As soon as I start circling on her, her hands fly to the bulk of my arms and squeeze. Her cries are closer to whimpers now, quiet, breathy and beautiful. She tilts her head back, her neck open to me and I graze my teeth along the graceful lines of her. I press one ardent kiss to the soft spot beneath her jaw.
She gasps but then goes rigid, her hands grip onto me, threatening to bruise. Her body arches off the grass behind her and her toes dig in. She starts quaking, the uncontrollable tremors my favorite sign of her orgasm. My fingers still stroke her tenderly as I slow to feel every little tremble inside and out.
Cam jerks once, wildly, then sucks in a deep breath again as her body releases back down onto the grass beneath her. She pries her fingers free and skates them up to my shoulders then drags her nails down my back. I shudder at the touch and snarl when she digs her fingers into my ass and pulls. Over and over. She drives me to my orgasm, her body mine to have, to use.
When I spill into her, my being quakes until I surrender and drop down onto her, fitting against the body that’s molded to mine.
I’m such a lucky fucking bastard. That I found her, that I found my way back to her, too. I know damn well I can’t want for anything in this world, and yet… A date. I still want a date.
Camilla starts humming beneath me, her dulcet notes as beautiful as the night itself. Beautiful but out of place as I realize she’s humming White Christmas. While the song shows off each of her beautiful notes, and it’s the tune that brought me back to her, it’s not right in the middle of July. That is of course until her song trails off and her big, beaming smile remains.
“AJ, you’re the greatest gift I’ve ever been given.” Her hands start moving again, this time up along the contours of my body then to my chest. To my heart.
But then she pulls her left hand off and studies the ring in the moonlight. I hadn’t thought it possible but her smile grows even more as she finally fucking answers me. Or rather, asks me, “AJ, will you marry me this Christmas?”
Cam and AJ will return next Christmas in Of Sage & Evergreen: A Christmas Wedding